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Villager Senior
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Posts: 2,525
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: , ,
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imported post -
01-03-06, 05:33 PM
En Sabah Nur wrote:
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I disagree. I think we have done the "understanding" and indulgence thing for far too long. They need good old fashioned shaming and stigma. To know and appreciate that being fat is not to be tolerated... it is unsighltly, unhealthy and just horrid in general.
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Shaming and stigma won't help anybody to lose weight. Did teasing and isolating that fat kid in class ever make him lose weight? No. It just drove him more into a state of depression and insecurity. It's this shaming and stigma which causes these kids to skip gym class because they're afraid that everyone will stare and make fun of them when they can't run as fast or do all the other things that the skinny kids are able to do.
This is the same with older women. My best friend has been trying to lose weight her whole life. She has strict Indian parents who have done everything from trying to starve her, beating her, insulting her, you name it, they have done it. And you know what none of that ever helped.All it did was destroy her selfesteem and make her feel worthless.
After four months of talking to her and trying to build her self-esteem, she went out and got some boxing tapes on her own and now, without anyone nagging at her, she exercises three days a week. She's lost a lot of weight, she's happier and what more she did it because she finally learned to believe in herself. And this is something that 20 years of her parents harsh treatment of her could never do.
Contrary to popular believe fat people do get a lot of shaming and stigma, but never enough support.
By support, I'm not saying that we lie to them and tell them that they're fine just the way they are. To be support means that you have to be encouraging. It means that at first you praise them for doing little things like going out and buying a gym bag, then signing up for a gym membership or making a workout schedule. Then move on to encouraging them when they go to their first class. Then for when they manage to go two or three times a week. Then for when they can keep this up forlike a month. Then two months, pretty soon this will become a part of their daily routin and they won't need that support system any more. They'll do it because it makes them feel good.
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