QuakerInfo.com Forum

bradleyp · Posted: Mon May 31, 2010 9:18 pm Post subject:

The example I gave of the fictional Mrs Roberts is made up, however based very loosely on someone I heard about in my extended family. They had lost quite a bit of weight, but some people held the opinion that they weren’t going about in a healthy manner. They believed rightly or wrongly that my relative should have gone by good eating habits and exercise, or at least activity instead of “starving themself” which was another relative’s words.

My personal interest here is to try and get an outside opinion of what people call the weight issue, and see what I can learn from your views. As a person with a little extra weight, I just wanted to see what other people thought.

Again, please don’t think I’m trying to criticize someone because of their body. I’m not, I totally see where people who weigh more than “average” (what is that now anyway, this is a rhetorical question) are coming from. I’m in a shape, I’m just not in the shape some ads would like.
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Bradley P.
“The great thing about the next day is that it mostly gives us a chance to wake up and live better and be better people than we may have been the day before based on the lessons of previous days.” - me in my own head.

Anthony · Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 1239

Dan · Joined: 03 Dec 2003 Posts: 210 Location: midwest

Sad the American world has become so obsessed with weight, looks, hair, teeth, etc..

Our body is but the shell that houses our souls. I don't believe we should abuse it, nor should we as Friends critisize others for their "shell".

Historically, there have been overweight Friends. My own great great great grandmother was a missionary to the Osage. She weighed over 200 pounds.

I would disagree with the notion that overweight is caused because of laziness or making a hog of one's self. I am a little overweight, the reason being I have a bad knee and can no longer walk as much as I could or would like to. I don't have insurance nor the money to have my knee replaced, so I am suffering from "laziness?"

Thy Friend,
Dan

Shay · Joined: 01 Jun 2005 Posts: 704

kevin roberts · Posted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 2:47 pm Post subject:

i'm about five feet eleven inches, and i weigh around 195. i would prefer to lose some fat, because what i weigh has consequences for me. i walk on the tops of loaded trailers, and i jump off and climb back onto them all the time. climbing up is more or less weight-independent. i used to just step off the trailer beds flat-foot from four feet up and hit the ground with bent knees. but now that my knees are getting pretty worn, any extra weight makes me hit the ground harder.

so i could either lose some weight, or find an easier way to get off the trailer beds. i'm too lazy to unhook my ladder, so i concentrate on eating less and trying never to get over 200 pounds. exercising doesn't help, because i lose fat but not weight, and weight from muscle is as bad on my knees as weight from fat.

alternatively, i could put my hard hat on and dive off the truck head first. that would save my knees, but i also have a worn-out cervical vertebra that i don't want to antagonize. besides, the customers stare at me when i do that.

JohnOR3 · Joined: 19 Jun 2007 Posts: 60 Location: Yardley, Pa

As a "Big" Quaker and considered morbidly obese. I would like to ask, isn't there a bigger issue here of acceptance? The Friends who consider themselves to have extra weight replied giving testimony as to why they were overweight as if they need to justify being overweight and seek acceptance. You know what, I am fat. I am a big man. I am overweight and I deviate from what health professionals say is healthy. I am very large and yet some reduce me and make me smaller as a person by stereotype. I do not eat like a pig. Someone suggested that fat people are lazy and should eat less. That thinking has led most overweight people down a bad road of starvation diets and actually leads to putting on more weight when they fail. Why does anyone care or become offended at my size? I believe a very wise and spiritual man once said, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." Quakerism's central ideology is "That of God in everyone" Have we not learned to look beyond the surface?
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Love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more.

JohnOR3 · Joined: 19 Jun 2007 Posts: 60 Location: Yardley, Pa

Judge me not by the fatness of my form, but by the content of my heart.

james · Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 991 Location: Minneapolis

JohnOR3 · Joined: 19 Jun 2007 Posts: 60 Location: Yardley, Pa

I agree with you James. I did forget one other important point. Pulpculture also said that fat people are suffering from low self esteem and some kind of mental illness. I think Pulpculture is very wrong is assuming that of all overweight people. Thin people are just as likely to suffer from low self esteem and mental illness.