I've been thinking more and more about the comments I read on the HuffPo article that I blogged about a few hours ago. It wasn't a surprise to see an abundance of people making comments like, "Just put down the fork", "Just eat fewer calories than you burn", "I hate seeing people eat excessively" and "nobody made you eat, so it's all your fault that you're fat." Although it's exactly what you see every time there's an article about obesity, it still bothered me a lot. There's so much that I wanted to tell these asshats.
My partner's grandmother died of lung cancer. She never smoked. Her husband did, though. He survived much longer than she did and he never got cancer. Sometimes, outside factors are to blame. Sure, it's much easier to tell people to solve it all on their own. That way you don't have to take responsibility for your role in why there is an obesity problem in this country. See, you don't want to admit that your apathy and lack of compassion towards others might affect their lives.
I'm underweight. I struggle to stay at what is seen as a healthy weight. If simply adjusting how much one eats was the key to controlling a person's weight, then almost no one would be obese. No matter how much I eat, I will likely remain underweight. Why? I have an autoimmune condition that makes my GI-tract so FUBAR that I constantly deal with gastric dumping syndrome so bad that my food often goes straight through my body in less than a couple of hours. Eating more doesn't change that. Exercising less doesn't change it.
You know what does change it? Being able to afford to buy and eat just the foods that don't aggravate my problem and having good health care. When I can get to the doctor regularly and get the meds that I need, I can sporadically experience two or three months at a time where my GI-tract works okay. Then, my lupus flares-up again and I drop all of the weight that I may have been able to gain during the good times.
See, that's why your silly little assumptions should be disregarded. We are not all clones of each other. What works for some people will not work for others. Since you're not their doctor, you don't know what will work for them. You're just guessing. If you don't like to see people be excessive, then why don't you keep your excessive unqualified medical advice to yourself? The world doesn't need it.