One of the things that has always stunned me is how nasty people who are overweight can be to those who they perceive to be thinner than themselves. I’ve been an active Weight Watchers member for just over five years now, and I’ve seen it a lot. The person who, frankly, looks like they might actually benefit from gaining a few pounds coming into the meeting and getting “looks” from the more obviously overweight ones. It’s like, somehow, there’s the measuring stick that people expect you to hold yourself up to before you have the right to claim that you are “fat.”

I call bullshit.

Look, I’ve been diagnosed in the past as being morbidly obese. If I’m not mistaken, I still am (at least according to the guidelines set up by Weight Watchers). But my weight loss and self esteem issues are just as important to me as they are to the person who is trying to lose 10 pounds, and you know what? It can be just as hard, if not harder, for them to do so. I’ve seen people take 2 or 3 years to “only” drop 15 pounds. I mean, I had the support and encouragement of all my friends and family during my weight loss, and it was still hard. I can’t imagine how hard it would be for someone who was constantly hearing “You don’t NEED to lose weight. You look fine the way you are.”

As long as someone is being healhty about their weight loss, I have no problem sharing in their struggles. By healthy I mean, essentially, not trying to go beneath what some sort of medical professional would deem to be your weight range or trying to lose weight by using the feather-in-the-back-of-the-throat method. Weight Loss Surgery? I couldn’t do that to myself, but I’m not going to make a value call against someone who does. Low carb? Would make me miserable, but if that’s your thing more power to you. Sure, if you’re a woman I might think you’re totally hot and like a girl with curves, but if looking in the mirror makes you want to cry lose weight.

Christ.

I don’t understand why people have to be so damned mean to each other over this stuff. If someone thinks they are overweight, and calls themselves such, they aren’t making a value judgement on YOU. It has nothing to do with YOU. It’s about THEM. Self-perception is 10 times worse than how the rest of the world sees you.

We’re all in this together. We all want to be happy. We all want to be healthy. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has it harder or easier than anyone else. Nobody is more deserving. We all have our own demons to face and conquer, and I for one don’t begrudge anyone else the right to fight for what they want.