Nobody Wants to be Obese

In yesterdays word association game there was one word that seem to get the most negative associations to it. The word was OBESE.

This guy looks happy to me!

It seems that you definitely don’t have a positive view of that word and whatever that word means to you.

Words like ‘sad’ and ‘horrific’ came out for this one. None of the other words seem to invoke quite this level of response.

For almost any other word there were at least some responses that fell on both the positive or negative side of the spectrum ie: sugar was called sweet and poison.

But the word “obese” got negative words associated with it across the board.

So in light of my previous post from a few weeks about excess body fat being repulsive I’m trying to get to the bottom of each persons response to this particular word.

Can you elaborate on your responses to the word ‘obese’. Why did you respond the way you did, can you think about it for a minute and write me a description (if you don’t mind sparing the time).

John

Posted by johnbarban in Weight Loss
Tags: obesity, Weight Loss |13 Comments

13 Responses to “Nobody Wants to be Obese”

  1. Phyllis Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 10:51 am

    To me, Obese simply means “fat”…i.e. “too fat”.
    I don’t care for either word (obese or fat),
    and I especially didn’t like it when it described my body.

  2. Dave F Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 11:39 am

    I guess Obesity is just plain ugly – just like you mentioned in your previous post. In my mind, it also relates to a person not caring enough (and being lazy) about their personal health and well being (diseases, mobility etc.). Caring enough for one’s self is an attractive in of itself.

    I understand people getting a little fat – we all slip – but doesn’t there come a time when we say, “Hey, I’m slipping and I need to do something about it.”

    Anyway, I thought this was an interesting news article pertaining to bigger sized meals: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62M35U20100323

  3. Jordan Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 12:04 pm

    I put “undisciplined,” and that’s just a reflection of how I’ve been thinking about myself and my situation. I was simply undisciplined, out of control, and not fully committed to low-cal for weight loss. I don’t have as much of an emotional reaction as some others might. I guess I’m too sensitive to automatically think “disgusting” or “horrible.” Especially at this point in my life, I’m primarily thinking about the behaviors, choices, and mistakes that lead to obesity… in particular, *my* obesity! :-)

    I also noticed a lot of negative reactions to the word, “skinny,” including painful, unhealthy, lazy (twice,) weak (three times!) anorexic, bony, wimpy, frail (twice,) fragile, ugly, and insecure. There were some positive words like lucky and nice, too. I guess that word has an inherently negative connotation, more so than “thin.” I’m curious if there would be different reactions to those two words. And there are undoubtedly some guys here who are working on putting on muscle to improve their AI, as well as some guys who just want to be “huge” because they’re, you know, guys. lol. Personally, for skinny I put “goal,” and for muscle I put “attractive,” so I guess I want a bit of both. :-)

  4. michelle Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 12:16 pm

    (oops.. sorry john I posted this on yesterdays thread)

    Ahem.. -

    “Obese – Disease”

    I suppose that was one of many words that came to mind. But as you’ve stated in previous posts, obesity is correlated with death. One of the first words that resulted on thesaurus.com, was “corpulent”, which I associate with “corpse”. There’s nothing positive about being obese. It’s a sickness and it scares the shit out of me quite frankly .

  5. JoshB Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    You never hear obesity being talked about in a positive way; it’s always put in a negative light. I suppose that’s because there aren’t any upsides to being obese. Physically, mentally or emotionally. I used ‘appalling’ to describe it, mainly because that’s how I would feel toward myself if I let my body get to that point.

  6. Ali. Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 5:16 pm

    To me, obesity signals impending death as a result from the visible abnormality. It is recognizable as not what a human should embody; the reaction to which is to distance oneself from, to avoid, to be afraid of, to exclude. All the things that contribute to a reaction of utter disgust. Thus, my response is just NO. Not for me, not around me, not influencing me. No.

  7. Girlwithnoname (Jackie) Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    I said “shameful”… because I really believe that in most cases its entirely preventable and the only person truly able to prevent it is the person who let it happen, the person that is obese. Suck it up and do what’s right for yourself, stop whining, stop making excuses. Just freaking DO it. Get a grip and get healthy. Or suffer the consequences.

    yah, I’m a tough-ass. So be it.

  8. Jonathan Says:
    March 23rd, 2010 at 8:05 pm

    I put “dangerous” next to obesity because of the many negative health consequences associated with it. Obesity can cause high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks…on and on. Additionally, there is the constant joint pain that comes with being extremely overweight due to the stresses put on one’s body. I’m convinced that medical bills for our entire country would decrease if so many people were not obese. People would live longer and more fulfilling lives. Obesity is dangerous; it’s not a disease, it’s a lack of self-control and discipline.

  9. joey Says:
    March 24th, 2010 at 5:08 am

    ” Obese – No ”

    No.

    I went from 25% body fat to 8%.

    It took me 15 months.

    Most people were supportive and encouraging (“man you look great, wow”) etc.

    The most inspiring comments came from ripped people and athletes ( no surprise there, they have done this at least once before so they know the amount of effort it takes to do it).

    The only category of people in my social circle who only had negative things to say were obese and overweight people.

    Things like “man you look skinny, did you give up on eating?”, “Are you crash dieting?Cause if you do, it’s gonna heart you you know”, “The skinny look is not the right look for you”.

    So I say no to obese people*, if they can’t help themselves, they can hardly do any good to me.

    I said that to a friend of mine and she said that I am a racist.

    “No”, I said, ” I’m not.I don’t hate these people because of what they are.I hate these people because of what they have done to their selves”.

    95% of obese people are lazy bastards.

    I don’t like lazy bastards.I say no to them.

    No.

    *With a couple of bright exceptions of course.

  10. Joe Says:
    March 24th, 2010 at 8:19 am

    Well at least no SANE person wants to be obese anyhow,check this out…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsBj3MzYlrg

  11. Dave Says:
    March 24th, 2010 at 8:20 am

    Hi John,

    not sure if you and your readers can see this tv show on YouTube if you are outside of the UK ( it is made by channel 4 in UK ), but I think you will find it interesting. It called Supersize vs Superskinny, and shows the 2 extremes of eating http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmTzdKHC-vM&feature=hp_SLN

  12. Dan Rose Says:
    March 25th, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    Anyone who is obese is pretty much in a living hell. It is one of the worst things I could imagine happening to anyone.

    First of all, obese people have health problems all the time and very little energy. This sucks by itself, but because of their low energy and bad appearance they also have a severe handicap in making money and enjoying career success. They have an even greater handicap in attracting women.

    To top it all off, it is extremely difficult to escape this trap because there are psychological and physical blocks to obese people losing weight. It is extremely difficult for an obese person to start exercising, and even more difficult for them to change their diet because their social circle usually reinforces their bad food choices.

    Being obese is like falling in quicksand — the farther you fall into the trap, the more unlikely it is that you’ll ever get out. Much better to stay far away, and never get close to obese…an ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure here.

  13. Challenger Says:
    March 12th, 2012 at 2:56 pm

    I agree with Dan Rose here. Most obese people have a hard time living their life.

    They just need that click in their head to understand that working out is essential for so many things. Self esteem, health, endurance, physical appearance,…

    But a lot of them just can’t flip their life around to get to the point where they want to be.

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