No more odd than an anorexic viewing themselves as fat

I disagree. The physicalities alone, not being able to walk up stairs without getting breathless, having to go out and purchase bigger sized - oversize clothing showing sizes like 22/24/26, not being able to do basic every day tasks due to their weight restricting them, not being able to fit into airplane seats, having to be assisted in washing, getting dressed etc in the more extreme cases... I'd personally think there were far more signs that the person was obese than just looking in a mirror and seeing a distored visoin to realising that they are fat/obese.

Maybe thin is the wrong word. I would think most dont know quite how big they look.

I have never been obese, but a few years back I put on quite a lot of weight. And I didnt even know about it, I still looked the same to myself in the mirror, until I saw a photo. So I would think thats not too uncommon :/


Plus, with what you say about physical problems too...that could also apply to anorexics. Surely they notice that the feel faint all the time, have no energy, have to buy childrens clothes if they want them to fit properly etc ;)

Perhaps, but I really honestly can't take on board seriously that when a person puts on weight, has to go out and start buying bigger sizes - that they don't realise they are putting on weight or didn't even know it. they might not realise quite how big they are - but they certainly know they are getting bigger.

it's not until the lose the weight that they are able to see HOW fat / how overweight they had become: but as I say: they (not getting at you, I mean generally) - there is no gettng away from the fact that having to buy clothes in bigger sizes - tell the person that they are getting fatter.

I don't think a lot of fat people realise how big they are until they see a picture or video of themselves. Looking in the mirror day to day you don't register the very gradual growth in weight. But you only look at a picture every once in a while so the growth is far more apparent.

Im always grateful Im not prone to piling on weight because I have a very sweet tooth.

It's such a sad thing, I've wanted to shake people and tell them they're not fat and look good. But sadly it doesn't work. A lot of people take a "pull your socks up" attitude which is not good. Think it still has massive stigma which hope can go away some day to a degree

I still say it's a cop out. If having to buy bigger clothing, seeing your clothes size go up and having to buy larger sizes isn't an obvious clue .... then I don't know what is.



That's the heartbreaker as far as anorexia is concerned. It more than 'give yourself a shake' ... it is so far mroe deeply rooted than that and it's an incredibly difficult illness to recover from (and maintain recovery from).

Bib to make it bit clearer my fault ,people who are obese most of them have a addiction to overeating .some might have bad parents who supposedly should give theyre children the advice on over eating but they dont so therefore bad habits evolve.In most cases you can see the child the same shape as parents therefore they are alike in eating habits.
Tbh I have terrible eating habits my self skipping meals and eating crap, but I do exercise and always give my children breakfast and dinner so they have a better routine so they wont have my bad habits.

Anorexia I would say is a control matter for some like they cannot control the
bad things that happen in life but they can control they're eating. Just my opnion.
So there fore the sufferer has control on their life the eating habits.

It's not really about food at all, with anorexia. One piece of advice I'd offer, for what it's worth, is to parents; never make an issue out of food with young children. Me and me old mum used to battle about it daily. From quite a young age food made me ill; the sight of it, the smell of it, the texture. I wanted nourishment in a pill or injection form. I hated 'eating'. We had running battles where I'd be left at the table until I ate and, when I invariably didn't, there'd be tears, recriminations and punishment. I'm nearly 5'8" and when I was 23 I weighed about six and a half stone. I could go for days without eating and would have just crackers or soup if I had to eat something to stay standing up. It had NOTHING to do with wanting to be thin. In fact, I used to get really irritated when people told me how thin I was. It's very much psychological. What happened with me was I settled into a profession and settled into a relationship and found some kind of contentment that took away my aversion to food and eating. It's been a while now and I've never gone back to being underweight - could stand to lose a half stone or so, but that's fine. I'm healthy. Obesity is entirely unrelated, IMO.

Not all Anorexics are mentally ill either,just look at some of the tv stars that only go Anorexic because the writers of these shows basically tell them they have to lose weight to get more roles.

I agree with Livia that Overweight people and Anorexics should be getting the same sympathy and should be treated as seriously.

It's not that they 'go anorexic'; they lose a lot of weight. Stupidly. I don't think you can compare this malarkey of starving yourself for a role with what is a serious medical condition. It's no less alarming, but it's a different phenomenon.

I think you raise a point there jf,in that when not celebrities generally most(not all) people are likely happy with how they are and look, once in the public eye,often reviews and promoters etc comments can cause someone to look at themselves.

I recall reading and watching the story of Karen Carpenter (The Carpenters duo) who it seemed was fine until stardom came, I forget the wording but after a live show a reviewer praised the duo but described Karen as Richards plump ( or some other word) Sister.
After reading that she became obsessed with her weight and getting it off, so much so that naturally her health suffered greatly. It is believed the reason she died so young too was from effects and complications of her anorexia.

So you make a valid point, in that once in the spotlight,what others say carelessly can end up with someone adopting a very unhealthy lifestyle and develop life threatening eating disorders.

I know very little about this person as fact but read a bit about her and also after being called 'tubby' a singer who was a child star, Lena Zavaroni, also went down the drastically losing weight anorexic path and also I believe died very young.

cetainy not ano
just had maccas and 6 choco croissants lo.

That level of scrutiny can probably trigger a predisposition, but the predisposition would have to be there in the first place. I think gaining/losing ridiculous amounts of weight for a role is different, though; that's just vanity and stupidity.

That is true,it still happens though.

Sadly, yes. The Bridget Jones thing always made me a bit sad. Here was this woman heralded as a champion of the 'normal' but still incredibly sexy women who, we all knew as we were watching the movie, went to shocking lengths to return to resembling a blonde lollipop in the weeks after shooting finished. Quite disturbing, really. OK, she could have done with being a little lighter than she was in Bridget Jones, but Renee Zellwegger appears to believe that 'emaciated' is the better look. Depressing stuff.

I am not a "Tory assistant", I am a political agent.

not all people who suffer from eating disorders are disgustingly skinny. I've never been fully diagnosed because my periods didn't stop and I stayed at a certain BMI.
But anyway, its not something that you can just 'recover from'. It still haunts me and it always will. When you've got so used to thinking in a certain way it's impossible to rewire your brain. I can't eat in front of people unless I really trust them

That's right. The vast majority of people with eating disorders are average or over weight. In the eating disorder community, it is only a small minority of people that are actually dangerously under weight.