An Encounter with a Morbidly Obese Man Strains Compassion
May 9, 2007 by Liz Lewis
Filed under Food and Drink, Politics, Your Mind
Photo: Bob Milsom
The way morbidly obese people are treated in our society is an interesting can of worms, indeed. They seem to be the last bastion of socially acceptable contempt for a human, based solely on their appearance. I’m certainly guilty of making a whispered comment or two about a fat person I’ve seen. Someone I know nothing about, except the fact that they’re very overweight. (Full disclosure: I could stand to lose 20 lbs, myself.)
Seeing someone who is dangerously overweight and mocking them is a hateful thing to do. You don’t know anything about their condition. It could be genetic, medication or disease-related. And you’re making a judgment call based solely on the way they look. This is behavior that is not tolerated when it comes to other physical attributes. So why weight?
Ah! With an overweight person it could just be poor self-control. And it’s that chance that we bank on when making fun of someone else’s physicality with no regard to their feelings. This is a phenomena that seems to be changing in both directions. On one hand, we are becoming more and more tolerant of all types of humans and how they choose to live their lives. On the other, sky rocketing health care costs, combined with a more informed food consumer base, leads to further contempt of the seriously overweight, even as we bear down harder and harder on the scale, as a nation.
No matter which camp you’re in, this account of a close encounter with the morbidly obese is a fascinating look into the psyche of a man desperately trying to be tolerant.
When we got to our seats they were occupied. Not by a couple of people. One big morbidly obese man occupied them. He was stuffed in one seat but his girth spread a quarter of the way across the two seats next to him and he used one of the seats to hold his pile of concessions.
“Excuse me, I think we have 16 and 17.” I expected him to balk at this despite being confident he was in our seats. Since he had settled in and we hadn’t been there for the first period, he could have argued abandonment and used the power of his size to call our bluff and send us to find a different pair of abandoned seats. He looked up and I know he contemplated staying put, but without saying a word he started shifting his stuff around.It took him about two minutes to move, which is a lifetime when you are standing up in the aisle. Play resumed before he could finish the chore so my wife and I had to squat down to stay out of the line of sight. When the man had finally completed the move to his assigned seat, I took the bullet and sat next to him, giving my wife the aisle seat that didn’t come with fifty lbs of triceps fat. I contorted my body in my seat so that the man and I wouldn’t make body contact. My position wasn’t too bad, except for the armrest being in my ribs instead of under my arm and it was hard to sip casually on my beer. Big boy had it worse though. From my peripheral vision I could see he was laboring to maintain his personal space. He had his hands tucked up under his chin holding his nachos on his chest with one and his beer with the other. Each time he brought a cheese laden chip to his mouth he risked losing everything. He was under tremendous stress. While I commend him for his efforts to respect my seat, he failed miserably. His lower half was completely out of his control and seemed to wander around on its own. I’m not sure what’s worse, an 80 lb kid wiggling around in the aisle or a 200 lb leg.
Get the full story over at Thisisby.us
My second wife was not morbidly obese, as you have described here, but certainly overweight to the point that she had difficulty fitting into an airline seat for example & would stretch the airline seat belt to its absolute limit. And roller coasters were just out of the question.
She was big enough to elicit the occasional comment & second look, which both of us just ignored anyway. But she was the damn woman I ever had , by a very long shot! Just goes to show, you can never tell just by the looks.
My boyfriend is the type who is very goodlooking, social and charming. He is known for dating petite and small women. He has never dated a woman my size ever. I am a size 18 however, i wear it well. I have flawless tanned skin, great perky chest and beautiful legs. Turns out that i am the most amazing woman he has ever met and his best shag ever.
I am one of those very obese men who is currently at 670 and love being my size. I started buying the second seat when I was 400 and at my current size just getting on the plane is a challenge along with having to ask for two belts. I stopped going to sporting events (unless the seats are bleacher seats) because I knew I was too large for the seats. I did not mind and while I love to show my size, I don’t want to have it impose on others.
I am one of the morbidly obese at 6′2″ 355 pounds and gaining with a 60 inch waist. I recently flew and luckily with an empty seat in the row, I could raise both arm rests. I am getting rather wide and fitting in one seat is not that feasible so I appreciate having the empty seat.
I have found that people do look at me when I walk by or am sitting and can tell they are looking at how fat I am. Sometimes there are comments but they don’t bother me. I am the size I am because I want to be this fat and even fatter. I have put on 50 pounds over the last siz months and am looking to gain more weight. I love to eat and lately have been eating more and more – full breakfasts, all you can eat lunches and snacking.
Some of us like being very fat and we know how society accepts us. Face it, we make the choice to be our size and we are not going to hide our size. I enjoy how fat I am and don’t plan to change.
hi, i am another person who don’t mind being fat, because i love food, not veg or light food, but pizza and junk food, but it takes time for me to be fat, i’m 5′2 and weigh 70kgs but no one calls me fat, i don’t look fat in my openion… and think many say i have a good full figure means that i carry my size well, what happened lately i developed a digestive disorder called ibs, in full means irritable bowel syndrome, in which you cannot overeat and you cannot eat gluten or fattening foods, otherwise you have unbearable cramping pains and gas so i really feel at a loss that i cannot eat, apart from small portions of food prepared in the morning (cerials) and dinner time. of course i have no pain but i miss food, so now that i set my mind on not caring for my weight there comes digestive issues…..which are chronic!!!! i love food but i hate being in pain!! i do think being very skinny is more of an issue than being overweight…some fat won’t hurt, i was growing to a size 18 before my digestive issues worsened. so if you’re happy with your weight, everyone must be happy, i don’t agree with the society must press peoople to loose weight as long as they are happy!! everyone has his own life..media should stop urging people to be thin or skinny, that’s not healthy !! because you’re starving the body because you care more about your looks (or put it better how to look in the eyes of the majority weight obsessed people)…people should not make fun of a person because he is fat, or has other flaws, after all we are humans we shoud love eachother for what we are!!
peace
My wife and I are two of those morbidly obese people everyone hates to be near. I’m about 680lbs and my wife is just around 615. We have been heavy all our lives and actually met at a weight loss encounter group 15 years ago when we were both considerably lighter. It was love at first sight and our combined love of food has gotten us to this enormous size. We have no intention of getting any smaller as diets do not work for us and we have both grown to the point that exercise is extremely difficult and sometimes dangerous. Furthermore our main enjoyment in life is food and eating and we aren’t going to change for anyone least of all a thin crazed society. We have two beautiful daughters, 11 and 14 and both are chubby and healthy as well.
As another poster has remarked, at this size just getting onto a plane is a challenge and when we fly, we generally purchase an entire row of three seats and squeeze in, belt extenders are a must and most times we will try to pre-board. Most fight attends will be sympathetic when the see the stress our weight puts us under and will allow us to pre-board. Others are not so kind and treat us with as little dignity as possible by forcing us to board with the normal passengers. In these cases I feel sorry for the rest of the passengers as my wife and I are extremely ponderous and slow moving. Negotiating the isle and fighting for overhead space is an exhausting and embarrassing experience. Some poor individual is almost always treated to my massive belly or my wife’s big beautiful behind pressed against them when we lean over to put bags in the overhead. I know we inconvenience others terribly as we desperately squeeze our bulk down the isle and we do our best to apologize. Surprisingly most people are very gracious about it and understand that planes are not built for people our size but then there are those that make cruel comments calling us fat slobs or whales or make rude jokes. Once seated, we are forced to endure further embarrassment by having our enormous bellies inspected by flight attendants checking the safety of our self provided seat extenders. Furthermore the ventilation on the plane is never adequate and we sweat profusely. I hope you can appreciate what we go through simply to enjoy a once a year vacation. It is embarrassing and horribly stressful on us.
I don’t understand why people think it is okay to make so much fun of us. We aren’t hurting anyone and our choices are our own. I see plenty of people who have physical flaws or bad habits and it isn’t right or acceptable for me to make fun of them so why should we be treated differently simply because we are bigger. One of the worst things I can think of is being stuck next to a heavy smoker. They reek of stale tobacco and it can be chokingly obnoxious at times and yet I have to grin and bear it while he is allowed to openly tell jokes about rolling my wife in flour. I don’t think this is right or fair and I’m one fat man that is fed up with it. People need to learn that us fat people are here to stay and we are part of society. We are your neighbors, relatives, colleagues and loved ones and it time you stopped all the juvenile comments and hate. The next time you see one of us red faced, sweating and struggling, instead of making nasty comments or laughing maybe it might be more beneficial to lend us a hand and move things along. You will probably find that we are very appreciative and you may even make a friend or two.