Is it possible to be overweight and content?

I was looking at the thread where the young lady wants to tell all the obese people about her surgery. The responses got me thinking. Most folks responded something like, "I feel that way but I don't. When and if they are ready they have to do it for themselves."

Which is all fine and good. But am I the only one who doesn't think all obese people are miserable or that they all have the desire to lose weight? I know plenty of big, BEAUTIFUL women who take care of themselves and live full and happy lives, including love lives, and don't have any desire to lose weight. I know big, beautiful women who have always eaten healthier than I have (one of whom is does a raw food diet) and are content with themselves and truly seem to love their bodies.

I have never once thought to myself that they are in "denial" about their confidence. I take them at face value. I see peace in their eyes.

And yes I know there are the ones that don't LOOK happy to us. The ones that struggle to walk or who don't dress nicely. But is our solution their solution? And how do we know that at the end of the day part of their self esteem isn't somehow tied up to the life they live. Yes, it may be unhealthy but so are a bunch of things skinny people do. Big people are always being stigmatized by unhealthy behaviors simply on the basis that they are bigger than the rest of the world. If a skinny person eats a lot they have a heathly appetite. If we do it we have no will power. Etc., etc.

So I wonder...do we have a bias here in our community, do you think? Do we assume that fat = unhappy = needs to change? I don't believe that but now I'm wondering if that's a more popular opinion than I once thought.

I'd love to know your thoughts.

 Do you remember when Jennifer Hudson was curvy?  I always thought she looked good.  She said she loved her curves.  Now she has lost all of the excess and she said she did not relize what she was missing.  

Yes...I just wonder about that mentality.

I am 195 now and just as happy with my body as I was at 275. I loved myself. I got surgery when I had ballooned up to 325 and my body hurt to live in. But I guess I'm sort of different from many here in that I didn't despise (or pity, or many other negative emotions) that bigger self. I jsut felt like she needed to sever her dependence on food to learn what was really making her unhappy.

But as I stand before you, four years post-op and nearly 200 lbs...I'm not mad about that. So I think yes, I am in a very different mental place.

I used to think I was one of those people who was happy big.  But the longer I was big the more unhappy I got.  I look back in pictures now and realize I was being fake and kidding myself.
I have a bad desire to walk up to every obese person I see and tell them how wonderful surgery has been for me and maybe it could be for them.
Then I realize that I need to keep to myself because this surgery/lifestyle is not for everyone.
I save my surgery excitement for the pre-ops at my support group meetings.


Sarah

 Good question. I do think many of us have the assumption that fat=unhappy=wish to change.

For me, I was MO, but I walked up the stairs faster than most of the others at work, and went on hikes, and was active in all my daughter's events/clubs, etc. I also LOVED food!! A lot!

I was told by my doctor that I would have to start taking meds. for cholesterol, blood pressure, and that I was pre-diabetic, AND I found out through testing that I had really horrific sleep apnea. 

Those were my reasons for the surgery, not unhappiness, so......I try REALLY hard not to have those thoughts from the first sentence ever come to focus in my consciousness when I see another MO person these days. I know it just isn't always the case. 

Good food for thought from you as always! :D

I don't think all overweight people are unhappy or want to change.  It's easy to think that since we wanted to change, so would other people that look like we used to.  But I think that's a mistake.

I don't find myself wanting to tell every overweight person I see about WLS.  I used to do volunteer work with the juvenile court, though, and there was one case worker that I used to really wonder why she did not have WLS.  She had to weigh more than 400 pounds, probably closer to 500, and she had a very hard time walking.  She could not sit in the seats that the caseworkers normally sat in when she went to court because she did not fit.  I felt bad for her because I do think having trouble walking and not being able to fit into seats has to be difficult.  However, I realize there are many reasons that a person might not have WLS and just because it was right for me, doesn't mean it's right for everyone.

I most certainly do. I am sure that if i didnt do something about my weight, I would be a very content person, right up until my early death.

Every matriarch in my family was "fat and happy." They also lived very long lives. So it's also not a given I would have died early. If I took after them, I would have lived until at least my 80's (with the exception of my grandma and great aunt, both of whom died of breast cancer).

So what you say above...seems sort of like a non-sequitur in my situation. Not trying to be a smart ass but really. That's another assumption we make. Not all fat people die early either.

 I have always been overweight and happy. I enjoyed an active social life, always had a boyfriend (that is until I met my husband 18yrs ago) and really didn't give my weight any thought. I never looked at my weight as a problem. I was a fat "fly girl"

I don't think anything actually changed until I my age and weight started to catch up with me. After I had my twins 3yrs ago and my body started to feel the effects of being so big for so long. My knees started hurting really bad, had bladder leakage, borderline hypertension, shortness of breath, was slowly but steadily getting bigger and was afraid I wouldn't be able to be the mom my girls needed me to be.

With all of that being said there are times when I look at people and it is obvious that they're struggling to carry thier excess weight I do think to myself "why don't they have wls?" Of course, I would never say it out loud because it's not my place. Unless, thy have been living in a cave for the past 10yrs everyone knows atleast something about wls, so if they were interested in they would pursue it.

I'm sort of in the same frame of mind as you. I don't mean to imply I've never thought that way, but it's almost instantly replaced with, "Nikki this was YOUR way. It may not be theirs. Respect their right to do and live as they wish." And then I don't think about it anymore.

But I do think one essential part of fighting obesity is challenging our notions around it. As the mom of an obese child, I don't look at my baby and say "she can have WLS when she's ready..." She's active. She's healthy by the standards of her pediatrician (who keeps trying to hush up all my alarmist thoughts on the matter, lest I give her a "thing about her body" and instead wants me to focus on building up healthy behaviors and attitudes). Granted, that's my child so of course I'd feel differently but...I dunno. I guess I just know enough bigger women out here living it up that wouldn't change a thing about their lives that I just can't allow myself to think that big always equals unhappy.