Thank you Claymores, all Best Wishes to you and yours too.

The dad will feel so guilty and mortified. The girls are blaming him for the start of their anorexia. Because he was having a conversation with their mum saying they have hips! Stupid girls. If they die, everyone will think it is their dad's fault. When it's only them to blame.

Anorexia is also a self loathing illness. If an anorexic dies they only have themselves to blame.

Pretty blunt view :/ It's not like they can help it.

:shocked: wow.

You've just illustrated my point beautifully. "nobody is going to stop the fatty having chocolate putting and enjoying themselves at the dinner table..."

Both these extremes need understanding as, like I said, they are both mental illnesses. To some people who are morbidly obese, eating is a guilty thing, done in secret, it's not all frivolity and fun round the dinner table. Life-threatening mental illness is life-threatening mental illness, no matter what the scales say. It's just that the skinny ones get more sympathy while the fat ones get more ridicule.

I wouldn't label people mentaly ill just because they're obese. I would say they're likely to be unhappy and turn to food as a comfort, but I think we should be careful not to compare anorexia with obesity and suggest that they are different ends of the same thing.

The National Centre for Eating Disorders disagrees. People who have a destructive relationship with food suffer in many ways. The fact that some of them look like little waifs garners them more sympathy.

I think this is true, both need to be treated with the same level of seriousness. I think it is wrong but true that underweight is more socially acceptable than overweight. The morbidly obese have just as many health risks as seriously underweight people, which if they are lucky they are helped with by supportive medical care to try and succesfully lose the weight but they are not often helped so much emotionally to find the cause of their eating habits in the first place. There is a stigma attatched to being overweight where society assume the person is just greedy or lazy, which just completely dismisses the issue, which is not the case with anorexics. You make a good point and it is a true but sad reflection of the 'thin' being more acceptable thah the 'fat'

That's not what I'm saying. I said we shouldn't slap a label of 'mental illness' on people who are obese, or suggest that people that turn to food as a comfort is the other side of the coin - and therefore the same - as anorexia.

Weight gain is often based on being unhappy and the use of food as a happiness-booster. Anorexia, as I understand it, is more of a control issue.

Obesity is food-led. Anorexia is body shape-led.

Most overweight people feel unhappy when they look in the mirror. Anorexics want to be thin. Obese people do not want to be fat.

You deliberately missed the end of that quote where I was implying that a person was being socially engaging. There are no rights or wrongs - I was suggesting that a young person with anorexia/bolemia might need more care than an oldie who has spent 40 years eating too much in enjoyment.

In my random explanation, I was talking of people not happy to sit at the dinner table or who have to exit to puke down the loo - seems their illness is more pressing and disturbing than the obose

A very intelligent point, one that I happen to agree with you on.

I can see why you are a Tory assistant playing with misquotes or half quotes - good luck with you on that Livs

I never thought of it like that before.

Not all anorexia is body shaped led. As I said in my previous post, the person I know who suffered from anorexia wanted to have control over something that was really important to her life - food. She couldn't bear to look in the mirror because she didn't want to face what she was doing to herself. She wasn't searching for a certain body shape - that didn't even come into it. I'm not saying this is always the case, because I'm sure in some cases the quest for the size zero does sometimes trigger off the illness. I'm sure that obese people also hate to look in the mirror, for the same reasons, they hate what they are doing to themselves. I think one displays an extreme lack of control and the other an extreme control to the point of deprivation. They are both obsessive but at opposite sides of the spectrum and both stem from emotional problems. I do agree that the obese is not viewed in as much a sympathetic way as the anorexic and yet they are both equally unhealthy and both deserve the same understanding

I don't think you can generalise about either obesity or anorexia. I'm sure both are caused by, often similar, deep rooted issues. They just manifest themselves differently.

I don't even see a need to compare them. I guess obesity is just more visible and common so incurrs more ridicule. Both are certainly a vicious circle that are extremely difficult to break out of. Food is so essential to our lives in so many ways. For many obese people its the only comfort they have in life.

Excellent post cub - explained in easy to understand language but essentially, in a way that really gives credence to why anorexia / anorexics are indeed taken more seriously with regards to the problem.

I've read some utter absurb and posts full of complete drivel on here - I regret to say Beastie: your post here beats every single one of them hands down on the 'what a lot of complete nonsense' front.

I suppose an anorexic appears a lot more vulnerable than an obese person, I've certainly never considered obese people on the same level as an anorexic. In a way it makes sense but I do still think it's hard to feel sympathy for someone who is hugely overweight when there are millions of people dying of starvation, or havent got enough to eat

Actually many obese people do have body dysmorphia. A lot of fat people are in denial about how fat they are, because it usually happens slowly, gaining weight i mean, so they still see themselves as thin, even though they are over weight. Plus there are so many media sources saying "women are supposed to be curvy" justifying being over weight.

I'm not buying this....... an obese person can still see themselves as thin?

Many obese people are in complete denial about the amount of food that they eat, but they still are more than aware that they are obsese - they will argue blind about how little they eat, and the type of foods that they eat. Many more than admit to it being 'a comfort, makes them feel good/better' - they are aware they are obsese.

have you ever been obese?

I don't have to be obese to have a viewpoint.

I didn't ask you to agree. But the way you spoke, you sounded very authoritative about the issue, so i was wondering if you had personal experience. just wondering.

Fair comment - I'll take the few words back.

One doesn't have to have had a personal experience. That's akin to saying a doctor for example, could not possibly have any indepth knowledge or understanding in how anorexics suffer/view themselves/use their illness as a form of control, if said doctor hadn't had their own personal experience.

As for me sounding very authoritative - I'm straght to the point most times, to the point of being blunt. I also have happen to find these things interesting - what makes the mind and the human psyche tick etc.

(Contrary to popular belief by some (not you), I honestly don't spend all my time faffing about on Tibbs - I sort of view this as the 'dead zone' - rest time for my own brain!!). :hugesmile:

My mom was always struggling with her weight, and she was the most hard working person i've ever known. My brother is the skinniest person i've ever known, and he's one of the laziest people i've ever seen.

I don't think being over weight has anything to do with gluttony or laziness. That's just my own personal experience though.

Absolutely correct. Everycase is different. However, given the extremes between anorexia and obesity - I don't think being 'overweight or really skinny' can be compared to the extremes.