General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Fat-shaming may curb obesity, bioethicist says [View all]nachosgrande
(66 posts)My family members told me I was fat and flat out mocked me when I showed up obese to a family vacation in 2007 (I had been battling depression and weight issues for the prior three years). It was definitely a tipping point for me. I was pissed as hell and felt ashamed and disgusted, so when I got back home I started jogging (all you need is a pair of sneakers) and completely revamped my diet - cut out the fast foods, fried foods, refined sugars, and started cooking all of my meals from scratch. No crash diet. Just limited my calorie intake to 2000/day. Once I reached 2000, no more food for the day. I ended up losing sixty pounds in just a few months. The best part was that my mental health ills basically went away with the weight and bad diet. Since then, I've kept the weight off and gotten myself into the fittest shape of my life - even ran my first marathon a few months back (and beat Paul Ryan).
Having said all that, a public shaming campaign could obviously do more harm than good, and I am in no way an advocate of such an approach. In my opinion, we need to keep increasing our education efforts to highlight the negative effects obesity has both financially and to quality of life.