I think, too, that (as I did) lots of people probably think they'd need to make huge and daunting lifestyle changes to make any difference to their fitness/body. So they believe they're stuck as they are, because they know they can't, realistically, make these huge changes. I don't think that's a choice, exactly, either.

I'm not claiming that this weightloss thing is easy to do, but it seriously never occurred to me before I started that small changes would be worth making. I thought it was all or nothing: I can never be an athlete so I'm stuck as a slug.

If I'd known that running for a few minutes would be enough to improve my fitness so I could run for a few more next time, and then a few more, I'd have started a lot earlier.

I am a person who has lived with obesity all of my life. Currently I am in a normal weight body, having lost about 130 pounds since January 9, 2006. HOWEVER - I have always identified myself as FAT - and so much of what PQ has outlined in this incredibly well crafted essay - echoes my life experiences.

When did YOU first consider yourself FAT. Were you? Or was it a projection of someone else onto you? How do you (and how will I) learn to be yourself when you are living in a lower weight body?

I was no less intelligent or empowered when I had a BMI of 45+ but I was a lot less comfortable, a lot less able, and frequently treated as if I had an IQ of 73.

I think there is a LOT to be learned by exploring the personal and social elements in the life of normal people who carry more weight than is healthy for them.

Not everyone is a nutritional expert.

So they may be making the choice to eat things that they think are better but aren't actually educated enough in caloric content to be able to discern that they've made these "good for you" foods bad.

The statistics about people keeping weight off is pretty depressing. I wonder how many people just don't even try to make even small changes because it seems futile. I know I felt that way at my highest weight (339#) because what's ten pounds when you have to lose well over 100?

I had a conversation with my mom who was griping about my dad; it's the same conversation I've heard since I was a child. It's very frustrating and yet, my mom doesn't see how to do anything different or react differently. It's not just fat.

I don't think anyone chooses to be fat; I do think that for some people (maybe me) need to consciously choose to be thin or behaviors to try and keep me on the thin side (such as it is). I have to decide to go to Bermuda.

This was really a great post. Thanks so much!

Hurray for Sally and trying to help people understand why some of us can become overweight! (sorry for such a long post!)

It's sort of a catch 22 because I truly believe that most overweight people have some sort of emotional or eating disorder that makes it harder for them to not overeat....but at the same time, we really do have that crossroads moment where we want something but don't have it or only have a little.

I think it is a matter of finding that balance and not listening to assjackets on blogs that have all of these fucktarded opinions about something that they know nothing about ;).

That's kind of like saying "poor is a choice," cause someone could always work 3 jobs, save every penny, never buy luxuries, etc. Obviously, it's not quite that simple in practice, just as losing weight isn't that easy.

Recent research indicates that there are bodies that are 'spenders' and bodies that are 'savers'.

A 'spender' body burns all of the calories it takes in, and, if the person in the 'spender' body is very careful about energy expenditure, s/he might be able to add a few pounds of cushion by eating vast amounts of added calories (preferably in fat and carbohydrates) and being absolutely sendentary.

A "saver' body begins to store calories ingested at the very time the food is taken in. A person in a 'saver' body can eat a 500 calorie meal, and within a an hour, a portion of those calories have been converted and stored as fat. This means that the person in the 'saver' body has access to fewer calories for short term energy expenditure - and as a result will be hungry sooner and have less energy to exercise. Individuals in 'saver' bodies have physiological and biochemical reasons for behavior that appears to be 'lazy' and/or 'gluttinous'

Some people are born in 'saver' bodies and struggle (or not) with the impacts all of their lives. Some people are born in 'spender' bodies and live with the consequences of that for all of their lives. And some people are 'spenders' for the early portion of their lives and then have an experience or series of experiences that trigger the transition from 'spender' to 'saver'. Common triggers are high levels of emotional stress; pregnancy and parenting, major illness or surgery, etc.

So far the researchers have not discovered a way to force the change from 'saver' to 'spender' . . . but that is where the drug companies are currently funneling their monies. Whomever corners THAT patent will be richer than Bill Gates.

For me, I've become aware that a significant part of what keeps me fat is a desire to be invisible. I find that when someone makes conversation with me, or a stranger makes a kind gesture, that they have "broken the rule" - it's my own private rule that no one is ever supposed to notice me because I'm fat. Sometimes I'll lose a few pounds, get asked out on a date, then immediately panic and put the weight back on. I have some issues too around eating too much or too little in response to emotions or stress, but for me I really think it is an unconscious need to be fat that is a bigger factor that the way that I "relate" to food.

I also know that in some ways, being fat helps me to avoid looking at other issues in my life. I can blame everything on being fat - the person who wouldn't go out with me, the job I didn't get....whatever. I've read about other fat people with similar feelings.

The skinny person who "knows" that they are choosing to be thin rather than choosing to eat the cake....well I think many, if not most, fat people would say that they would rather be thin, too. But there is something that drives us to eat it anyway. Even if we don't "know" the exact number of calories we're eating, it's because some part of us is choosing to ignore the facts. Even if we can't run the numbers, we know when we're fat, and we know how we got that way, and we know how to solve the problem. We DO make a choice. If it is not a conscious choice, then it is an unconscious choice, and I think that the solution lies in bringing our motivations into consciousness.

Genetic factors are real too - I mean I know people who eat well more than I do and can't get over 120 pounds, but I also know people who have to work their asses off and count every bite to stay thin. Not to mention age.....I used to be able to just "cut down" a little on my eating and knock off a couple of pounds - now I'm in my mid 30s and I have to practically eat nothing to lose anything at all....But I think it just changes how hard we have to work at it - maybe kind of like the alcoholic gene.

I used to drink every day - for years and years drink until I passed out....one day I stopped - no AA or anything.....it's been ten years, and although I no longer get smashed every night, I do bring home a couple of beers on occasion, or sometimes I even go out and tie one on. I can do it a couple of times a year, and I never want to do it again the next day. I think I just don't have that alcoholic gene....I am, however, afflicted with the twinkie and pizza gene....

*I was forgiven for breaking his chair, but we had to get married.

I understand that there is some misunderstanding of how food relates to being overweight, but how misunderstood is it really?

I think that habits play a huge role, that obesity is seen in cultures which have traditionally had labor-intensive jobs, and that food habits are particularly hard to break because there are sensory memories we are trying to evoke. Chocolate cake tastes good, undoubtedly, but I bet it tastes a lot better to someone who associates chocolate cake to birthdays, family, good times than it does to me. I seldom want more than two bites of chocolate cake. I'm lucky because my family instilled many sensory memories of healthy foods -beans, fruits, breads - along with the memories of nachos, chips, desserts.

I think that advertising plays a huge role, presenting junk food as linked to fun, togetherness. It's part of our culture as a whole, I'm affected by it even though I almost never watch TV any more. I have worked to expose myself more to healthy cookbooks and cooking websites, and to try to focus on really flavorful and healthy foods. But it's an effort to establish new neural pathways, to think "soup" instead of "nachos", or even "sleep" or "bubble bath". Unlearning bad habits, creating new ones, noticing subtle messages enticing me elsewhere. It's not easy, and it requires having the time and mental energy to do this, but is it not a choice?

However, in the long run, people do choose to trade an imperceptible amount of tire wear in exchange for the benefit of going to work, school, the mall or a friends house. Likewise, people trade an imperceptible amount of weight gain for the benefit of experiencing the physical/emotional pleasure that eating brings. Repeated over and over, we do choose to have bald tires and we do choose to be fat.

I'll buy the possibility that on any given day someone can have so little nutritional knowledge that they don't know they are gaining weight, like if someone didn't know car tires could ever go bald. However, over a week or a month or however long, when they see weight gain in the mirror or on the scale everyone knows that this is due to too much food/too little exercise. You don't have to know what a calorie or a carbohydrate is to know that too much weight comes from too much food. So, while on any given day, taken as a snap shot out of time, one may not be choosing to be fat, over a period of time everyone who is fat (medical conditions, etc., aside) chooses to be fat.

If someone notices they have gained weight over a period of time and then continues with the same eating and exercising habits during the next period of time, they have chosen to continue to gain weight, just as if someone notices their tire tread is starting to wear and keeps driving chooses to eventually have tires with worn out treads.

I'd just like to say great job to you! wow!

My comment is about the fat suit rather than the choice to be fat (although I agree with you). You have mentioned how much you hate when fat suits are used as comedic props in movies and tv, and I agree. But when reporters/models/actresses use them to "discover what it's like to be fat" is a close second. I would rather the "research" be conducted by having an actual fat person document their life than a skinny person in a fat suit. Everytime a skinny person talks about how devistating it is when people stare or make rude comments to fat people I want to bitch slap them. As long as they can slip out of the fat at the end of the day, they have no idea what it's like to be truly overweight or obese.