How I believe WE sometimes perpetuate negative opinions of obesity

 I think that is a GREAT way to handle it!  You are keeping it private without misleading anyone or needlessly adding to their own guilt/shame issues.

Lora

I really do understand the reasons you didn't want to tell people and I think saying "I'm keeping it private for now" is a great answer.  It's not misleading anyone to think that you've discovered some magic diet and if they just ate what you ate they'd have the results you have, but it's not sharing any info you don't wanna share.  I think it's just fine if someone doesn't wanna share, but I think it's misleading when someone tells people they are just eating less.

I am of two minds on all of this. I am in no way ashamed of my surgery, but the reality is, it DOES make it easier to make the healthy choices and to stick with it.

It's like the same advice that is given to those that regain - get back to basics with healthy eating, WLS is just a tool, etc etc.

People CAN and DO lose and keep off their weight by eating less then they expend. that is how WE do it to. It's a simple process.

Simple does not mean easy, and I have no shame in having an outside tool help me with that. I don't think people are lazy for having it, but i DO know a lot of people who assume it does all the work for them. at the end of the day it's still the quality and quantity of food we eat that matters. that's all it's ever about.

eta: I forgot to mention, that I know I might be in the minority here, but I do not personally consider obesity a disease like cancer.   It was still my choices that led me to where i was.  I think it is unfair to compare that to a disease that happens with no choice or control on the part of the individual.  

I absolutely respect your opinion. I do feel compelled to point out that if a smoker gets lung cancer or someone who lives a sedentary lifestyle gets heart disease, we still call those diseases, even though those folks made choices that contributed to their diseases.

 That is a valid point - but it's also possible to get lung cancer without ever smoking or being in a high risk situation (rare but happens, happened to my great grandfather).  so cancer is not always a causation from bad habits

but even still - i feel obesity and cancer are just not even on the same page.  I have strong (and i know minority) opinions on how america in specific, lifestyle choices across the board cause serious health issues.  

i do not believe i had a disease of obesity.  I believe i had other issues that led to over eating and as a cause i became obese.

 I would agree with you that for SOME people obesity is a disease of behaviors. However, some people (raises hand) were predisposed to it. I was born big (over 9 lbs. at birth) was a normal eating child but was very overweight at all stages, even though I was pretty active. I did have the behavioral aspect come in there but I highly doubt I would have been a small person even if I'd never developed those habits. So...what would we call me?

And no, I don't think it is like a disease you can't help getting but that doesn't make it any less a disease. That's why there are classifications and different treatment. But getting treatment for a disease is always a CHOICE (sayeth the girl who watched as a child as her grandma chose to stop fighting breast cancer). So even if obesity is a different KIND of disease, I don't think it holds much consequence to the argument that WLS is one treatment for the disease of obesity. There are plenty of diseases that are caused by factors which humans have control over. 

 I do understand what you are saying.  I guess I see it as....hmmm....let me try to ramble and explain, lol

I deal with a LOT of people in real life who view 'labels' like diseases as excuses, as a way to not take responsibility for their life.   They toss around all sorts of things that have happened "TO" them, and then believe that they aren't to blame for anything that happens as a result. That is the reason i am so resistant to that label.  I am not a victim of anything, period.  

My kids were big kids (both almost 12 pounds each), but my son is now in the 15% percentile for weight.  My moms side of the family is ALL Morbidly obese, so i do understand and agree with pre dispositions.  I just know that there ARE ways to overcome those, but it is just HARDER and takes MUCH more dilegence.  Which I was not raised with in the least.

I don't want my daughter to see weight issues as an inevitable disease that she may need treatment for later.   I want her to be empowered by her LIFE and her ability to make chioces that will allow her to thrive, even if it's a bit harder then for other people.

maybe I am reading too much into the word 'disease', that's a real possibility too.  

 I think that's where we differ in opinion. You see disease as an inevitability and can be used as an excuse. I don't see it quite the same.

By genetic standards I am at HIGH risk of breast cancer. I'm not sure what killed my mother but her mother and her aunt died of breast cancer as well as other women in my blood line. Chances are I will probably come up against it. To me, that makes me more aware. I don't go around in fear of it or accept that I will have it at some point in my life. I know the risk factors and I get myself the proper care.

I look at obesity similarly. I think if we think of it as a disease, we are more likely to work with a medical team to treat it. My daughter is obese. We control it through her eating, exercise and with training about decision making. But she's 10. What could she possibly have DONE to make herself obese (she doesn't get that much money so she isn't out buying junk). She is predisposed to obesity because I was obese and her father has been too at points in his life.

But I don't want to advertise it to her as it having anything to do with her personality. The kid eats healthier than most skinny kids I know and she's pretty active. 

There are a whole sloth of implications if we started treating obesity as a disease. One of which would probably be that doctors/researchers would try to come up with REAL solutions rather than Band-Aids (which is how I see most diet pills and the like). If it were treated as a disease with a mental component, holistic health programs would be more prevalent that try to treat it from all sides, etc.

So I think you and I have similar thoughts, ,just based on different assumptions long story short (or long).

 i see your point.

i think my aversion to the word has to do with the people that i know who use it in such a negative fashion.  

I agree we dohavesimilar thoughts on the topic!

I think this is a very interesting series of thoughts here. Thank you so much for sharing. I think that it was important for me to REALIZE it was a disease, to REALIZE that the odds were stacked against me before I could even begin to ACCEPT that having surgery to help me overcome the disease was not a moral failing on my own part. That perhaps teh ONLY cure I might have for obesity might be a surgical one.

Perhaps if people could have surgery to cure them of alcoholism or addiction to narcotics, or to cure them of an addiction to gambling, and it worked more often than not, people might begin to realize that there are actual genetic impulses we can't control behind our actions that we can. My mother and sister and mother's mother were all addicts of one kind or another, all smoked, and drank (sis still does). Whereas my father, and father's mother were the exact opposite. They could enjoy substances but when they were ready to be done with it, they were done with it. It was just a choice for them. They didn't have problems with addiction. I take after my father's mother more than my mom or her mom. Does that make me a BETTER person than my sister who smokes and drinks? Or is she as much constrained by her genetics towards drinking and smoking, as I was by mine towards obesity? Is she morally a better person? Am I? Will her surgical solution to eventual lung cancer or other byproduct of addiction be scorned as a moral failing nearly as much as my surgical solution to my own disease?