A Slightly OT Rant

Sooo...I just finished reading a story about how some of the companies that are major suppliers of scooters and motorized wheelchairs are in trouble for defrauding the government. Apparently there are large numbers of these devices that have been paid for by Medicare for folks *****ally didn't need them. That's not what angered me. What angered me were some of the reader comments below the article.

I know it is a stereotype to see the morbidly obese person in the scooter provided at Walmart, etc., but it makes me sick when people judge. I have been that person. I have been disabled my whole life. I was excluded from P.E. throughout my school years, and unable to participate in sports. Being young, it didn't affect my weight too badly until I lost my right leg at the age of 21. No longer able to even walk through the grocery store without a wheelchair, I quickly put on weight. I can walk, just not great distances. When I wear long pants, it's hard to tell I have a prosthetic - I just looked like another MO person using a scooter out of laziness.

OK, perhaps there are some folks who are unable to walk far simply due to their weight. These commenters acted like it was all that person's fault, and they don't deserve to be provided with accommodation. As if a person suddenly woke up one day and decided they would like to be obese!

I hate our society's attitude toward obesity - it makes me just want to cry. I didn't dare post a response on that article. I'm posting it here where I will at least be understood. Thanks for listening to my rant...

That's why I won't use a cart in Walmart. I have severe arthritis in both knees and there are times I can barely walk. But I know if I ride the scooter people are just gonna think its because in fat and lazy. I know I shouldn't give a crap what people think but I do and can't help that. People suck. :/

(((((((((((((Debbie))))))))))) I hate the judgmental and horrendous attitude humanity sometimes display towards those who may be a bit different ... it is just awful .... I can hear and feel you even as I have not been in the same position as you ... my husband has ... I almost went berserk in a store when a grown woman pointed at his disabled feet in its special shoes having lost his toes and three years ago having had a partial foot amputation necessitating a prosthesis .... he REFUSES to use the wheelchair as he should and twice already he has had to be hospitalized since for causing damage to the injured feet walking even minimal distances more than he should... 

I am so sad this happens and targets the obese too as well as other groups... I step in the gap and offer apologies to you and to others who have been hurt by such insensitivity....

I hear you. My wife has always been thin but because of very bad arthritis and other problems she had to have her knees replaced but before that she was having a very hard time walking especially in grocery stores. She would use one of those carts when the pain was so bad she could not stand it any longer. Because she was thin, I did not see many people looking at her with disgust. They probably figured that she was suffering some other kind of disease and could not walk. Now if an obese person is using one of those scooters I see and hear folks making rude comments and I want to scream at them but don’t.

A person who has never been morbidly obese has no idea what it is like to carry 100 or more pounds on their back all day and night long. The words fat, lazy, stupid and smelly kind of run together in some minds when in fact most obese people are none of those things.

How often I had my wife order something for me in a fast food place because I could just hear people in their minds saying “ no wonder that fat ass is so big look he is eating a hamburger”. Never mind it may have been the first hamburger I had in a year or so. People have ideas in their minds about people who have handicaps , I consider obesity a handicap. and no matter what we say, sometimes mean things are said or thought.

Wi**** was no so, but it is and I doubt we will ever get the recognition for our condition we should have. I sometimes think I would have rather had cancer or something like that because at least their would have been some sympathy by others, not scorn.

I do think though, we should try to walk even if it is hard on us as much as we can and not use devices like the scooters. If we stop trying our muscles will go to hell on us and then we will have no choice.

Thank God for WLS as I used to be one who never used a scooter but probably should have. Now I am outside getting my bike ready for a 15 mile ride and a year ago walking was a problem and I could not have walked or biked a mile.

I think that fat and gay bashing are the last acceptable forms of prejudice in America. It makes me sick and angry. The hope I have is that one day we will know and do better as a society.

I have end stage arthritis in both knees and I have used the scooters at Walmart.  Until I lost some weight from my RNY I was frequently using a walker because of walking difficulties.  I don't care what people think of me using the scooter.  They can all kiss my rapidly shrinking ass as I roll on by...