Some observations from a reluctant traveler

Remember muumuus? There's a lot to be said for comfortable coverage that won't nauseate passersby.

You can actually see the cellulite threw those stretchy pants!

Mary

Oh my word. All of you that dont work in the medical world have no idea. NO IDEA how much you should appreciate the tiny amount of stretchy material covering up that cellulite. @Kassaundra and @Jared77 know what i'm talking about here...

NwMtGardener, can you expand on that for those of us who live sheltered lives?

Mary

NwMtGardener said:

Oh my word. All of you that dont work in the medical world have no idea. NO IDEA how much you should appreciate the tiny amount of stretchy material covering up that cellulite. @Kassaundra and @Jared77 know what i'm talking about here...

Click to expand...

My eyes are burning and not just from the sight!

I'm probably gonna throw a little cold water on this conversation, but I have to interject this. My mom was a little overweight, but she had a very obese self image. I think this was chiefly due to Dad's unintentionally cruel remarks about her "not needing that extra helping of pie" or what ever over the nearly 70 years they were together.
Anyway, after being with her for many of those years, I started looking at the world around me through her eyes, in many ways. I don't understand why so many people are so obese these days but I think it has to do with what we are told is healthy, and what is affordable to eat.
But do you notice how the world is stacked against fat people? A bathroom stall at Wally world is barely large enough to turn around in if you are normal sized. If I weighed 300 lbs I couldn't even get in the door, which opens inward. Jeeze! We had club chairs in our waiting room at a mental health clinic that were so narrow, my butt barely fit. Most of our clients were obese. What kind of signal were we sending? I complained to the director, but got no response.
Folding lawn chairs, car back seats, turnstiles, dressing rooms, café booths, bar stools, airplane seats. Gahh! All made with the size 10 person in mind.
My hope is that we, as a nation, figure out what is causing the obesity problem and fix it, but if not, that manufacturers will recognize how out of date they are.
Now I will get off my podium. Carry on........

@so lucky there's lots of obese people around me. I truly believe a lot of it has to do with our diet. Industrial food in a box, loaded with artificial colors, flavors, empty calorie sweeteners, "spices" ?? and all sorts of preservatives so it can sit on the shelf for years. Soft drinks full of empty calories, it seems everything is high calorie, low food value. Couple that with low exercise and you get a nation of overweight people. People have traded convenience and "taste" for their health.

Go ahead and get on your podium, until people recognize they are eating crap and are willing to make changes to their lifestyle, you remain a voice crying out --- and nobody listening.

Do you ever get that glazed over look in the eyes, when extolling the virtues of gardening? Especially from people on food stamps, or people who would rather run home after work and dump something out of a box, they don't have time, they have a black thumb.......blah, blah, blah. Any excuse is better than taking action.

And what's worse, that industrial crap tastes good! I just don't buy it, but DH has a sweet tooth and will come in with bags of cookies, candy, chips, and I want to wring his neck! One evening he came home with a bunch of candy and garbage, so to justify himself, he brought me chocolate. He knows I just can't resist chocolate! It really irked me. I have thrown candy in the trash in the past, only for him to go get it out. So I unwrapped the chocolate and ran into the utility room where I was brooding a half dozen chicks, rubbed it in the poo in the bottom of the cage and THEN threw it in the trash!

I didn't intend for this to be targeted at overweight people.

My mom was overweight too and wanted to be thin for as long as I can remember. It wasn't until she was so sick that she finally shed all the extra weight, and then some. She told me near the end that she would rather be fat and healthy than skinny and sick.

I know how tough it can be, and have a soft spot for people like my mom. It's not always from having a poor diet.

I've been thinking some more about this, and have this to further muddle the issue...my mil was always rail thin, I mean complete with jutting hip bones. She ate like a field hand and never gained an ounce. She also had a real attitude about overweight folks, and sneered and joked and said cruel things about them.

I had my mom...and it bothered me a lot to hear my mil speak like that. She had met my mom, but it didn't seem to occur to her that I might be offended by her jokes.

Now as to diet, my mil was and is a pretty good cook, but has no qualms whatsoever about processed foods and uses them a lot.
She was never a gardener, veg, or otherwise.

Fast forward to the present, she is now living in the ranks of the overweight, and has to buy extra large clothes starting about a decade ago. This bothers her a great deal, but I don't know if it has caused her to look more compassionately on others.

My mom did garden. We rarely had processed foods. So....?

Thistle, this is a complicated issue. I think genetics also plays a part. Some people, even children, have a propensity towards obesity and they have to watch every calorie. Regardless of our shapes or weight, I think we have to look at people with compassion.

Mary