white_feather

Ask her if she would like to go cycling sometime. Try and start a conversation to see if she does any exercise. Maybe she wants to ride but is embarrassed.

chipcom 

Good point - though perhaps one could say the same thing a little more tactfully.

Ha, I'm one to talk, I'm Mr. Diplomat hisself!

caloso

You were considerate to move your stuff so she could get by and you're providing a good example of healthy living. But it's not up to you if she doesn't follow it. So let it go.

rhm

I was on a transatlantic flight earlier this month... me at the window, another thin guy in the aisle seat, and between us a lady so fat she couldn't sit in either the window or the aisle. She was too wide to be in just one seat, so she took up part of my seat, and part of the aisle seat. After several hours I made her get up so I could go use the potty, but making her move was more ordeal than it was worth; after that I didn't drink anything. I don't usually suffer from claustrophobia, but for a couple hours there I just sat there, eyes closed, concentrating on not losing it entirely. What a miserable flight.


As far as I could tell, nobody ever told this woman she was too fat to sit in a 'coach' seat. Oh, and to top it all off, the woman's obese husband sat in the middle seat in row in front of us, spilling out onto the seats next to him.

genec

Amen to that... but it is the sad reality of many work places... And for folks not willing to work under those conditions... fine, no doubt that job can be off shored.

lil brown bat

...and, as others have pointed out, she may not have a ton of choice in the matter. Your mobility is a temporary gift: be grateful for it and maybe consider a little compassion towards those who aren't as fortunate as you.

JeffS

Or better yet... be thankful for the fatties, as they'll provide some good snakin' if our food supply starts to run low.

[edit] may not have a choice? You mean someone's force-feeding her as a part of a science fair project or something?

---

I seriously think some of you are taking this a little too personal. Seems no different than most of the other off-topic observational threads around here...

d2create

haha, too true.

I was being a bit sarcastic though. A silly attempt to make a point to the OP of this thread.
But I am glad I don't have to work in a cubicle!

Denny Koll

I work in the cubicle next to a very obese 40 year old woman. She makes crunching noises througout the day as she constantly snacks.

I could do without the noise but other than that, if she does her job her tremendous weight is not a problem. I wouldn't want her to accidentally sit on me or anything but other than that it's none of my business if she keeps the feed bag on all day.

CliftonGK1

Try going from long distance open water swimmer to spending 3 years in a wheelchair before proving wrong everyone who told you that you won't ever walk again. Couple that lack of mobility with massive head trauma resulting in hypothalmic damage and a severe sequencing disorder. You don't really have much of a choice in that situation.

jamesdenver

Once every couple years I f_ck up my lower back enough that it renders me almost immobile until I practically camp out at the chiropracters office until my appointment. It hurts to stand up straight, I sleep with a pillow between my legs, its only comfortable sprawled out on pillows on the floor. It pisses me off cuz I'm only 33. Its rare (one time skiing, and last month returning from vacation after a long flight and a long week of staying up late) and it only lasts a week but I can barely move -- and now I fear it like the plague.

Some people just do have chronic pain and health crap that consumes their life. I'm as chipper as they come about getting out there and grabbing life by the horns blah blah - but you have to be tactful enough not to be a complete dick about how great and healthy you are - cuz some people aren't as blessed -- and you don't know often who is fat because of laziness, versus legitimate health concerns too.

If someone came up to me last month while I was hobbling around telling me to be more active I think I would have hit them in the face. Or fell over trying.

Oh and I'm fine now.

samsmeg

She could have an eating disorder or as it is called nowadays, eating distress. You just don't know about these things do you?

lil brown bat

I was thinking more about lack of mobility -- after all, OP didn't say anything about her eating habits. Stuff happens, and it happens to more people than you think -- it happens to people that you probably look at on the street and think are perfectly able-bodied. Two other posters gave examples, now I'll give my own: I've got rheumatoid arthritis, which apparently cripples most people who have it. We're not talking a little sore here, we're talking life in a wheelchair. So far I'm doing okay. I have some things that a lot of people with RA don't have: a history of physical activity, a really high pain threshold, a great doctor who does something more than reach for a prescription pad when you come to him with a problem, a good friend who's a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine and who's hipped me to stuff that has made it possible to manage without any drugs, even OTC NSAIDs. I have been lucky. The fact that I'm doing better than most folks with RA owes a great deal to luck, and very little to virtue. I have standards of comparison: an RA flare-up hurts just slightly less than a fracture or a dislocated joint. When someone has flare-ups like that multiple times a week, when they can attack any joint without warning, when nothing fixes the problem, they don't want to jump on a bicycle. They just want to stop hurting.

JeffS

You guys are hilarious.

As if eating less weren't an option, and the only way to not be obese is to exercise all the time.

alpinist

Hey, lighten up!

...Get it? Lighten up?

chipcom 

badump badump

He's here all week folks!

Paul L.

And yet, you can usually do things about various disorders we have today thanks to the wonderful world of medicine rather than throw up your hands and- Go crazy and shoot people, get fat, sit in a dark house all day long out of fear, Turn the light switch off and on 100 times, rave like a... wait for it... lunatic, etc, etc etc.

It is not as if these people can't get help if they want it. Heck, we even ban smokers from most places even though they are quite likely addicted, let's call it smoking disorder. We make people wear seatbelts by law because they are too stupid to protect themselves from accidents. Why not show some concern about someone who is eating themselves to death? Hmmm, I guess it is a world full of grey areas. I'll sit down and shut up now.

Still, I don't think I would confront her or leave fatty pamphlets lying around but I would try and encourage any intention she showed to change. Personally, I keep all my crap either in the locker upstairs or in my desk drawer.

CliftonGK1

This is my last response in this thread, as I'm pretty close to losing my temper over the lack of understanding expressed by some of the people who've posted.

Sure, there are more options to losing weight than just exercise. Eating less is one of those options. If you're already living a sedentary lifestyle (wheelchair bound or severly mobility impaired) and have a sedentary job (you're not exactly going to be working high-steel in that condition), figure out what your BMR might drop to... Think of a number in the low to mid 1000 range. Now cut 500 calories a day from that amount to attempt dropping a mere 1 pound per week. Calculate what a small amount of food 750-1050 calories actually is. That's all you get.

It's great that you can find the hilarity in someone else's everyday suffering. I hope that anyone with the same attitude has a rapid change of heart if it's one of their loved ones dealing with the same issues.

mwrobe1

Well...I'll chalk this situation up as,"We all have our faults...some of them are just more visible than others."

alpinist

I'll just add, it's not just eating less, but eating more healthy that often makes the difference, and so many people are crying 'eating disorder' of 'it's not their fault', but I often find that hard to believe when 60% of Americans are overweight and 30% are obese.