We live in a world that would like to believe it's terribly altruistic. We like to think that if someone needed our help we would be able to offer it. Here comes a slight rant, though it is said with the deepest love for all of those who have ever tried to help me.
A secret known to therapists the world over; there is a right way and a wrong way of offering support.
I mentioned my best friend in my last post and just how much of a rock she was to me in 2008-2009 when I was on Weight Watchers properly the last time. This is a woman who has talked with me and listened to hours and hours of my feelings and opinions about being overweight and the weight losing process. As such, after years she now knows what does and, more importantly, does NOT work with me. She has confessed though that this did not come naturally to her as she didn't know how to feel when she met me at 21 stone.
When we go out to eat now she will never comment or criticise, whether I'm having healthy food or just want the chips at Nando's. What she will do is make me feel loved and supported, often without having to say a word. It's hard to say what it is that she does so very well to support the good decisions I make but for me, as a girl who hates being told what to do, often the best thing is (and I hate to quote Ronan Keating) saying nothing at all.
On the converse, I have had so many friends who will try to be 'supportive' by trying to dictate what I can and cannot eat. I have had, incredibly well meaning, friends tell me that since they are skinnier they know better of what is good to eat or not. Sadly, all that this method of support does is make you feel worse about yourself. As most regularly sized people will never have to embark on a long term program of losing weight they live strongly in the 'diet' method that simply will not work when you have over half of your weight to lose. I did some quick maths whilst looking at a Body Mass Index chart today. In order to be a 'healthy' weight I need to lose 13 stone or around 180 lbs. That is more than many healthy adult males weigh. This requires an entirely different mindset than a short term diet does. As such the diet's method of entirely cutting out items of food will simply not work when it's something you will effectively be continuing for the rest of your life. There is no rest when you were a fat person. Once you have the fat cells they're still there, they just shrink themselves down. Lurking in wait until the bad habits you used to have start to trickle back into your day to day life.
I watched Super Size Me for the first time last night. Within minutes the surgeon general of the US is referring to the toxic food environment that we now live in. When he said this it struck a chord with one of the first things that is now in the Weight Watchers material. Weight Watchers refers to this as an 'Overloaded Food Environment'. Our world is apparently being faced with an Obesity Epidemic and yet we are constantly flooded with TV advertising for fast food, stores strategically placing food so that they will buy products together and eating out is one of the key acts of socialising in our modern world. It astounds me, and I'm using this smoking example again purely because someone on Super Size Me used it, that cigarette adverts have been eradicated from TV and magazines and yet we are constantly having food adverts (usually unhealthy ones) shoved down our throats. Overweight people go to the doctor and are made to feel insignificant. It was only when I started crying in a doctor's office that my doctor realised just how devastatingly hard weight loss is. We are not made to feel supported, because only good people who've made good food decisions and are thin as a result deserve to be supported. I put to you, leaders of our world. Those of you who are trying to work out how to 'deal' with this Obesity epidemic, talk to an Obese person. Actually try to open your minds to what does and doesn't work to support the continued good decisions a person needs to make and stop making us feel like naughty children. Realise it is NOT as easy as eating less and moving more and have a little compassion and humility. You're not so much better yourself.
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