No. It's hard to roll a proper joint with fat fingers. It tends to burn unevenly and the fire creeps down one side. 
Posted on 08/07/2004 10:23:23 PM PDT by familyop
The woman in the yellow shirt stood up and told of her life-long struggle against being fat, a fight that she had clearly lost. She was enormous.
'Every time I dieted I ended up larger,' she said as she broke into tears, 'If I were anorexic or bulimic, I would get sympathy. It is so frustrating.' She was applauded by 100 other very fat men and women.
'Here, you are in an island of sanity,' said Professor Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth and speaker at this annual meeting of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (Naafa) - activists spurring the backlash against America's obsession with weight.
Campos is their hero. His book has turned convention on its head, arguing that there is no obesity epidemic and fat does not have to mean unhealthy. His book has been a huge boost for association members who want an end to the obsession with weight and dieting and the marginalisation of fat people.
And fat people are finally starting to win a few battles: Campos's book is rising in the lists and generating a media buzz; the Atkins diet is waning in popularity after its founder's premature death; and former Cheers star Kirstie Alley, whose weight is a tabloid obsession, has landed her own reality TV show, Fat Actress, which sees her weight as a positive choice, not a reason for horror.
But Naafa is leading the charge. 'There are few more revolutionary groups in America today and revolution in this area is warranted,' said Campos.
Founded in 1969, it has several thousand members worldwide. At its annual conference in Newark last week some members had travelled from Canada and Europe. Delegates sported name tags emblazoned with the message: Dream Big.
Naafa hopes to provide a haven for very fat people away from the stresses of living in a thin society. At the conference were talks on how to lobby for fat rights, yoga classes, a pool party, a fashion show, a speed dating session, classes of beauty tips and fitness exercises. In short, they did most of the things that thinner people take for granted.
Marilyn Wann, a co-director of the association, symbolises its attitude of be healthy and happy with the body you have. Her T-shirt asks loudly: 'Fat!So?'. She says figures blaming obesity for hundreds of thousands of premature deaths in America are wrong: 'Where are all the fat dead bodies?'
She is appalled by the growing practice among the very obese to have part of their stomach removed in a bid to lose weight: 'That sort of surgery is simply stomach theft. Why would any human being need to have a healthy organ cut out?'
Naafa encourages members to organise to lobby for legislation to fight discrimination against fat people. Carole Cullum, a Naafa director and lawyer said: 'It is up to us to fight. We are in a struggle.'
Wann is more blunt: 'We are in the middle of a witch hunt and we are the witches.' She says that, like most Naafa members, she eats healthily and exercises regularly - yet is still fat. 'I mean, seriously, why would anyone choose to be this size in a society that hates them every hour of every day?'
Doctors and healthcare professionals believe obesity has become a global epidemic - and America is at the heart of it. They point to evidence such as the rise in obesity-related diseases, like diabetes. Some studies have shown that 135 million Americans are overweight and the numbers classified as obese have risen 50 per cent over the past 10 years.
The result has been panic. Makeover shows advocating plastic surgery are the latest television hit and bookshelves groan with the latest best-selling diets. In the Eighties, newspaper articles on obesity ran at about 60 a year; last year there were more than 7,000.
Campos believes America, Britain and much of the developed world is in the grip of anti-fat hysteria. He blames much of this on how obesity is measured, claiming that the standards are unrealistic.
He also claims dieting is responsible for making people fat by triggering a 'starvation response' in the body which, when dieting stops, starts storing 'emergency' fat in increasing amounts, a pattern repeated after each failed diet. That was the experience of Mary Ray Worley, 48, who as a chubby child started dieting at the age of eight - but each one only ended with her putting on more weight. Since discovering the association three years ago, she has changed her attitude to her weight: 'I don't hate my body any more. I honour it.'
Sorry for the double post.
And sorry to hear of you losing loved ones at such an early age. To me it sounds more genetic than overeating. I have two friends that died young of heart attacks..one being 51. He didn't smoke but was overweight. The other was only 40 when he died. He wasn't overweight and was physically in excellent condition but died of a heart attack anyway. Surely his was genetic.
I'm fat. I'm healthy. I'm Happy.
Don't like being fat, don't excercise enough.
I am not attractive, but not in a position to worry about it.
I was ugley when I was 100lbs too.
But happy yeppers. Glad for everyday I am alive.
Took two plus years but all is good with blood work. Still haven't lost weight.
But I am happy. I know skinny people who are full of drama and woes, I am happier.
Happy is a state of mental health.
Being fat does not make one unhappy.
Not me any way. Sure I would love to be thinner but it wouldn't make me happier.
Actually, it is my goal to live to 100. Old secret to long life, choose your parents well. I am fortunate, eat what I want, when I want, and wear the same 30/31 size I did in high school 35 years ago. God forbid we target the obese like we did smokers, but don't ask me to support these Moby Dicks in drydock on account of their "disability", let alone some "carb addiction". (What wingnut invented that addiction?)
I can eat like a horse and stay slim because I work my arse off. Even if one gets away with being a "TV addict" and a couch potato, it cannot end up on one's butt if one does not first shovel it in the pie hole. Simple physics, conservation of matter with utter lack of energy.
Insurance is socialism? Big difference, non-governmental insurance is totally optional. Don't like it, don't pay the premiums, and in short order you will no longer be a "socialist".
My grampa was 300 plus pounds when he died at 98.. my adorable 185 pound gramma is 85... My skinny ex boyfriend died in his sleep of a heart attack at 32 because heart problems ran in the family.... it's all in the DNA, does that mean I recommend that people don't eat right and excercise? No.. it just means that you can't generalize.. and it shouldn't be acceptable to make fun of people because of how they look. We are ALL sinners, cute or ugly, fat or thin, and God loves us all.
oops almost forgot... 2 years ago my husband was hit by a 3/4 ton pickup while he was on his motorcycle, sent him flying into the pavement.... his doctor told him that if he had been a skinny guy he would be dead.
Your husband is lucky.
BTW, the one time I was thankful to have a huge behind was sliding on my scooter in the snow :o)
Thanks for the not generalizing post.
My birth mother whom I took after to a T is very intelligent, very eccentric/manic, short and fat but healthy physically.
I don't have a thyroid gland lost that whole thing at 29. Up untill then I barely tipped the scales at 100lbs.
To lose wieght I would have to spend hours a day working out and I have other priorities.
Being hyper I can run cirlces around most people and get three times the work done.
You are right it is in the Genes and ones disposition to perservere.
Here we go again. Someone can't make up their mind to do the right thing so they turn their vice into a virtue.
Had an employee who was in the PNW Ocean after falling over board crabbing and lasted 6hrs with no hypothermia but no loss of limbs or organ failure.
However all the attention made his head swell and after some major mistakes on the job had to let him go. I say he has salt on the brain syndrome.
But the Drs. said his being 350 lbs and only in his underwear with floats in them is what kept him alive in 57 degree water.
no hypothremia should have been no severe hypothermia
Good call, you're absolutely on the mark. Mid-thirties metabolism and a desk job caught up with me a couple of years ago, and I was in denial, plus I'm very tall and heavily built, so I kinda hide it well (at least from myself). I had a physical and when the doc told me what I weighed I about fell off the chair, so I joined a gym and took off 75 lbs, and I immediately began to feel like a new person. This lady doesn't realize just how fun it is popping out of bed in the morning when you're really healthy. Sad that she'll never know with that attitude.
like RAndy Neumans song says,"fat people go no reason to live".
Jiggling celulite? Ooohhh baby.
That's no way to live.
I now walk at least 10,000 steps a day (five miles) and usually more than that. I stopped eating junk and try to eat only whole foods (the way people ate for thousands of years). I dropped over 100 pounds and I am now close to my average weight.
I am full of energy now. At the age of 41, I have more energy then when I was 25. I bound up several flights of stairs without effort, go on 10+ mile hikes each weekend and rise at 5AM each morning (which is when I "find time" to do my daily walks).
It's far better living this way then the way I was. Nearly two decades of my life was wasted being fat and unhealthy. Lack of exercise and eating the wrong kinds of foods kept me "imprisoned" in my fat body. So I say to the obese people out there: Change your lifestyle and stop making excuses.
Considering, among everything else, the recent research about obesity and the increased risk of breast cancer in obese women, I would beg to disagree.
I prefer "blessed".. don't believe in luck.
I think survival has less to do with earthly matters (whether we're big or small), and more to do with how long God chooses to let us hang around. If it's not your time, a little fat, a truck, or a cold ocean isn't gonna kill ya.
I'm genuinely sympathetic with anyone having this struggle, and can imagine the usualy superior, haughty derision filling the posts preceding mine.
But, having dropped about 100 pounds, I do have a viewpoint.
Frequent serious headaches, falling asleep at the job or while driving, tachycardia, sleep apnea, acid reflux, inability to play with my children, old-man aches and pains all over, waddling gait, having to buy my clothes at special places for higher prices, hating every glimpse of myself in a mirror, feeling legitimately guilty all the time....
All gone, and none fitting my definition of "fabulous." Closer to my definition of "in-denial."
Dan
No. It's hard to roll a proper joint with fat fingers. It tends to burn unevenly and the fire creeps down one side.
It falls upon those who have been obese themselves to take the lead in these sort of crusades. Only those who have fought the battle themselves can really know what it is like.
When I was fat, I made all sorts of excuses. I "didn't have time" to exercise. Obesity was in my genetic makeup. I'm actually healthy despite my weight. Blah, blah, blah.
Fact is, I too couldn't stand seeing myself in pictures and there were very few pictures of me during the past 20 years because I would avoid cameras. Wouldn't even get in pictures with my own kids if I could help it. I waddled like a duck and had to buy my clothes in fat man's shops. Due to my gut, my shirt was always getting untucked because my gut was always pushing my pants down. As a result, I looked like Chris Farley (from SNL), constantly pulling up my pants and redoing my belt.
I sat around all day and was too tired to do anything strenous. I felt like an old man. Aches, pains, dizziness - just a general feeling of fatigue all day long. Had trouble sleeping at night too and I'd often stay up until 2AM, often with beer and bags of pretzels or chips by my side.
I can go on and on.
With the 100 pounds off and daily exercise regimen in place, I feel 20 years younger. I feel that I have recaptured my youth (at the age of 41). I now bound up and down stairs, climb rocks, run around with the kids - all that stuff with hardly any effort at all. This was the first summer that I didn't feel hot and sweaty all the time. And I can now buy clothes anywhere because my size is in all the stores. And once I put on my pants in the morning, I don't have to retuck my shirt or adjust my belt the entire day.
As a side note, my career at work has taken off too. I'm getting promotions that were never offered to me before. Like it or not, employers do discriminate against obese people. Although I must say that other factors have come into play such as having much more energy and enthusiasm in the workplace. All of those improvements however are attributed to taking off this weight.
I can go on and on but pictures speak louder than words so I'll post a before and after picture of myself below...if you are obese, it is definitely worth making a change. 
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