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I recently (and by recently, I mean two weeks ago) started water fasting, and to displace the constant feelings of food cravings I started watching food-related videos, most notably: TLC's 600lb Life. It is extraordinarily trashy TV, but illuminating.
Before I describe the negative observations, here's the positive ones: A) All of the successful patients had a good attitude to begin with (they wanted to lose the weight, and were willing to commit) B) They followed the doctor's instructions (important.) C) They had friends and family who were supportive and were generally affable individuals to begin with (likeable!)
As a representative slice of the people who get really, really fat, they're about 5% of the population. The rest that follows is the generalizations of everyone else.
Now. For the hot takes:
THE OBESE ARE IGNORANT
Do you remember the much-maligned food pyramid from your health classes, the one that put way too many grain carbs at the bottom? At the very least, it puts vegetables on the second tier, and fast food at the very tippy top. And these people don't even know that. The very concept of CICO they stubbornly defy. They don't seem to know anything about basic nutrition that even a kid would know. And it's not like they're getting fat off good cuisine, either. (A fat gourmand with a diverse palette would be, at the very least, a good friend to have to ask for recommendations.) They're just eating fast-food slop paid by their welfare checks. And speaking of...
THE OBESE ARE ENTITLED
There is a certain childlike narcissism that accompanies each and every one of these patients, that demands the world bend around them: that they should be fed, bathed, and cared after without giving anything back in return. They frequently manipulate their family members and spouses to look after them, hand and foot, even their children. They're rude and throw tantrums, and their ignorance only strengthens their stubbornness. (They even disagree with their own doctor, a man they're self-selected to seek out!) They continue their bad eating habits - even in the hospital itself! - and have food snuck in for them to eat. This inevitably leads to...
THE OBESE ARE STUPID
In wrestling, where the tiers are segmented by weight class, in order to hit the weight limits, athletes often go to extraordinarily lengths to temporarily lose 5-10 pounds before weigh-in to get as much of an advantage as they can. In the show, in order to qualify for bariatric surgery, patients need to lose a certain amount of weight so that it is safe for them to go into surgery. Now, admittedly, going to 1200 calorie diet when you're used to 10k+ is pretty hard, but even going to 5,000 - twice the amount of a healthy adult - would guarantee weight loss without significant dietary changes, other than portions.
Do they do this? Of course not.
In fact, I'm pretty sure they don't even weigh themselves beforehand. It's always a surprise and a shock when - surprise of surprises - that eating the same amount as you did before would maintain it. (In fact, some of them even gained weight.) The tantrums, the lies, the threats - all are laid bare before the uncaring measure of the livestock scale.
Of course they don't get the surgery. And they're always left wondering why, the poor buggers.
So, in conclusion, I have come into belief that you should judge people for being obese. Not to say that all fat people are ignorant, entitled, and stupid. But they definitely have at least one of these traits, and should be avoided at all costs.
I think a lot of what you’re seeing— at least the parts that aren’t exaggerated for TV — are evidence of food addiction. Sugar, simple carbs, fat, and salt trigger the reward centers of your brain. And if you do so often enough, you’ll become at least mildly addicted. And the stuff they’re doing absolutely looks like any other addiction— lying, denial, manipulation. This can happen with things like screens, obviously drugs, alcohol. They don’t think they’re doing it too much, they’re in control, and they want other people to help them.
This is something I think needs to be addressed in general. I’m not convinced people are aware just how psychologically addicted you can get to food. And like any other addiction, if you’re not dealing both with the addiction and the psychological symptoms that got you addicted in the first place, it’s almost impossible to sustain the diet and lifestyle changes that you are making. You don’t get to 600 lbs and a cattle scale by having a normal relationship with food. I’d be surprised if there’s no underlying trauma that they’re treating with the dopamine rush that their food is providing.
Food addiction is very real.
I've gone cold turkey on things before. Alcohol, sex, masturbation, porn, internet, reddit, video games, etc. Of all of them going cold turkey on sugar was the absolute hardest thing I've ever done. And unlike quitting most of those things it remains difficult to continue.
I found with most addictions there there is a one to two week hump where your brain is resetting and still craving the thing you want. If you can make it through that one to two week hump you are usually fine. With sugar that hump was more like a month. Probably because my body can still produce it from other things I'm eating, so unless you are literally starving to death for two weeks you can't go full cold turkey on sugar.
The other unique difficulty I've had is what I call "food depression". Its usually when I start getting a little bit hungry, but not hungry enough to desire any of the foods I'm supposed to eat. Or it happens when I'm shopping and go down an isle with a bunch of forbidden foods. I get overcome with an extreme sense of sadness and loss. I've been on the verge of tears.
I always have to just wait it out. Its either real hunger, and I'll be hungry enough in an hour to eat the healthy thing. Or its just a craving and it will go away and I won't be hungry in an hour.
One oddly helpful thing is having young children. I can usually see in real-time how much hunger and food impacts their moods, and its made me far more aware of my own hunger and mood connections. Especially when that connection is negative and harmful.
The obvious difference between food and other addictions is that you cannot go cold turkey on all food. At least not without dying. The common recommendation for recovered addicts to never engage with the thing they got addicted to again, even in moderation, cannot apply to food.
It can’t apply to food if you’re talking about all food, but I think it can sort of apply to the kind of highly processed foods and high glycemic index foods that seem to be the worst. Maybe you can’t cut all carbs. Okay cool. But you can do something like Paleo or Keto or something similar. Like instead of a McDonald’s double cheeseburger, make the same thing at home using as close to natural ingredients as possible. Use lean beef, good quality cheese, a whole grain bun, etc. and really, I think that burger would probably taste better anyway. Substitute fries for baked potatoes. And on it would go.
God. It would probably be delicious, but it would take forever, and probably cost more. I’d be a lot healthier if I developed better habits around cooking and meal prep.
Cooking doesn’t take that long if you do it enough to be good at it.
Corollary, some people think it’s work and don’t like it. These people generally don’t do it enough to get good at it, so they don’t get fast at it.
Healthy cooking is usually cheaper than fast food with intelligent meal planning, however, so I don’t think that’s a true criticism.
I’ve always been fairly neurotic about cooking whenever there’s a time pressure. I hate seeing my kitchen devolve into even more of a mess. It’s why I don’t enjoy baking.
Agreed that cheapness is not difficult on its own.
This was something that started off difficult with my wife, too. She was biting off more than she could chew, was wanting to make three complex dishes in one afternoon (some of which might even be brand new), for example, and not even thinking about any cleanup. She would get real anxiety from all the crazy. To stem the bleeding early, I would come into the kitchen just to clean up everything while she was cooking. She has gotten better at figuring out how to clean as she cooks.
If you're not going nuts and making several complex dishes simultaneously, a dishwasher helps, a lot. If it's a big family with no dishwasher, there's definitely a much bigger time penalty in comparison to just eating takeout and throwing everything away.
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