Madam Jenny's blog: "Madam Jenny's"

Dis-a-bled (dis-ey-buhld)
-Adjective
Crippled; injured; incapacitated.

Maybe I have a different perspective as to what makes a person disabled. 

However, I was in chat the other day, over at Pogo getting my nifty lil weekly badges, and happen to pay some attention to the chat box.  The chatters were going on about how they were trying to lose weight or needed to get on a “diet.”  The way the convo was going most people were talking about needing to lose 50 or more pounds.  So, I told them that a diet is meant for people who need to lose about 20 pounds or less.  For those who need to lose more than about 20 pounds they need to reevaluate their eating habits or lifestyle of eating.  Everything was still going good at this point, no one was bashing me in or snapping at me, yet.  Someone then typed in that he does a lot all day but just keeps putting on weight.  So, I added that in order to lose weight a person needs to burn more calories per day than the number of calories they consume per day.  (Here it comes, what got me in trouble, pay attention now.)

Someone commented that “some people have metabolic problems.”  I agreed, I said well yes if someone is “fat” because they have a metabolic disorder they may need to get medical assistance in order to maintain a healthy weight.  (Did you see it, did you notice what made me get snapped at?)  Next thing I know, a few people start typing in the word “disabled”, I didn’t understand what they meant.  I said well if their problem is bad enough, it may be considered a disability.  They said, no, the word “fat” is rude, you should use the word “disabled”.  WHEN did the word “disabled” become a synonym for FAT?  I looked it up at http://thesaurus.reference.com and it was not listed.  Their list included:

beefy, big, blimp, bovine, brawny, broad, bulging, bulky, bull, burly, butterball, chunky, corpulent, distended, dumpy, elephantine, fleshy, gargantuan, gross, heavy, heavyset, hefty, husky, inflated, jelly-belly, lard, large, meaty, obese, oversize, overweight, paunchy, plump, plumpish, ponderous, porcine, portly, potbellied, pudgy, roly-poly, rotund, solid, stout, swollen, thickset, weighty, whalelike

Nope, I do not see “disabled” included in their list.  Isn’t that being disrespectful to people who truly are disabled?  I know of a few people who get a disability check from the US Government because they managed to put on enough weight that they cannot really do anything.  Personally, I would rather my tax money go to them receiving help to lose weight rather than get a free check in the mail that helps to keep them overweight.  Hell, I know of a few people who originally got a welfare check and used that free money to become chunky enough to now get a disability check.  So my tax money first went to plumping them up and then to keeping them that way.  Talk about using our government money wisely.  Ok, I can go on with this paragraph for a while, so I am going to move on.

If you are overweight, you either do not know how to eat properly or you are addicted to food.  (Not including anyone with true medical problems that may be causing the weight gain.)  Either way, you need to figure out the why and then figure out how to fix it.  Stop blaming someone or something else.  We seem to currently be in the “It is not my fault” generation.  Unless someone is pinning you down and force feeding you high calorie, fatty food, it is your fault.  We don’t look at a person and say it is not your fault you took drugs, you are disabled.  We do not look at person and say it is not your fault you get drunk all the time, you are disabled.  No we label them, drug addicts, alcoholics, etc. and expect them to get counseling or rehab.  If you are addicted to food, admit to it, you are a food addict, and no matter how much weight you lose, you will always be an addict.  You will have to work harder than others to maintain healthy eating habits for the rest of your life.  Just as an alcoholic has to work at maintaining sobriety for the rest of his/her life.  The main difference is, food addicts still have to eat food, so rather than staying away from their addiction completely they have to maintain control of the addiction. 

If you are overweight and truly happy with yourself, more power to you. 

But if you are not happy with your life, for whatever the reason: sit back, take a moment, figure out what it is that makes your life suck and then figure out how to fix it.  Don’t mope around blaming others for whatever problem you have or whining about how your life sucks.