[WillowTheWhisp]

The reason why I personally have an issue with my weight is that being so much overweight as I am is a health problem just as being too much underweight is a health problem. Where the people in the TV program I watched have damaged their internal organs by dieting from naturally slim to unnaturally thin they have lost the weight intentionally. My problems are beginning to affect my health and I need to be able to find a solution to them or I have as much chance of dying from them as an annorexic has of starving herself to death, but I have not gained the weight intentionally, I have gained it as a by-product of trying to lose in order to fit better into bum hugging jeans. Trying to lose caused me to gain which then left other people (my doctor included) telling me I needed to lose weight for the sake of my health.

At one time I used to visit a gym 3 nights a week (before I had kids and had more time to myself) and although larger than all the other people there I was actually fitter than most and able to demonstrate to newcomers how to do some of the excercises, under the direction of the owner. The newbies were quite surprised that this podgy person was more agile and supple than they were but that was only because they hadn't had as much practice (or indeed any practice in some cases). At one point I trapped a nerve whilst at the gym - my own fault for not doing what I always told other people to make sure they did carefully - and I ended up having to see a chiropractor. He, like my doctor, told me I needed to lose weight and made the flippant remark that of course eating less would solve it because you didn't see any fat people coming out of Belsen. My response to that was that you didn't see any healthy people coming out of Belsen either.

Both you Tinkerbelle and Slinky have obviously, from what you've said, had nasty cutting remarks made about you which are totally unjustified and I can appreciate your anger at the people who directed those nasty remarks to you and made stupid suggestions that you need to eat when you already do eat. Be angry with those idiots by all means but why be angry with people who did not direct any insults to either of you? You are healthy and slim and not dieting due to some ill-conceived notion that you need to lose weight (as unfortunately many young girls do when they see these impossible role models); it's the people who tell you that you need to gain who are idiots who don't know what they are talking about. Their ignorance in saying the things they have said to you is pathetic and probably more to be pitied than anythng. You are obviously the right healthy weight for who you are and that isn't in dispute. I don't see where it ever has been.

However, when my weight is causing me health problems as well as causing me to be on the receiving end of names like 'fat pig' or 'fat cow' it is something which I would dearly love to solve. If the name calling hurts you when you are healthy can you imagine how much more it hurts someone who is unhealthy? Can you imagine what it is like to take your kids to McDonalds on holiday and have some ignorant yobbo shout "Oi missus are you trying to make them as fat as you?"

If I was just slightly plump with no health problems and past caring about trying to fit into a pair of jeans that wouldn't zip up unless I laid flat on the bed and pulled my tummy in then I'd probably shrug off the insults and get on with life but it isn't the words like "fat" and "obese" (which is the medically accurate term for someone my size) which worry me - althopugh I don't like being called a cow or a pig - it is the fact that my health is suffering and yes to be perfectly honest I do think that a slim person looks far more attractive than an obese one. I can't imagine anyone would really honestly argue the opposite. I have to undergo an operation in the not too distant future and size is a major factor in whether or not I wll survive it. No doubt if I pop my clogs some ignorant fool like the ones who've taunted you two will say it's my own fault for being so fat - but as I won't be around to hear it I don't suppose it will matter to me by then. It might just upset my girls though.

How I managed to take the fat cow comments personally was when I saw the reference to a large person having posted in the thread and I was the only large person to have done so. As I said before, Gary and I had talked about other things - I had told him that I had inadvertantly got the wrong side of Gayle in her funding thread (but susequently she understood where I'd got the impression it was for arts projects as she was the one who posted that it was for talented artists) and the wrong side of you two in the custodial sentences thread (which is how it looked at the time) and I said I had better just keep out of AccyWeb discussions because I was getting everyone annoyed - or words to that effect. I also told him that I understood what he and Gayle were referring to about the models. Maybe it's just because we were on the same wavelength about not approving of the image the model industry presents due to one of his friends having died of annorexia and my friend's daughter being in danger of going the same way as she is naturally slim but dieting to get thinner.