Big is Dangerous

We all see the appeal of fast food; it’s fast, yummy and cheap. But what we don’t want (hopefully) is to get fat. Or so you’d think! Maybe I’m a little bias because I’ve never been overweight, but how can you let yourself get past the 300-pound mark without thinking, damn!? For most, being fat is a conscious decision, whether desired or not, and it’s usually their own fault, but for a lot it’s not, and there are a lot of cases where it is the parent over-feeding their child, who has no choice or say in the matter at all.

Apart from being teased because of your size, being fat has a lot more negatives that go with it. There’s the burden of being in constant pain because your body isn’t supposed to be lugging that much weight around all the time. You’re much more uncomfortable more often than others, and you begin to realize that you’re even getting too big to fit into the world around you. Now they have obese people who have to pay for two plane seats, because they can’t fit in one, and some airlines won’t let you fly at all if you’re too big. I have family members who are big enough to be considered obese, all the way to morbidly obese, so I know it’s much harder to get out of it than to get into it, but I really have a problem with people who defend being fat, and the way that people feel about addressing it.
Why is it that it’s far more acceptable to go up to a smoker and tell them smoking is bad for them and they should quit, but it’s not okay to go up to a fat person and say it’s bad for them, they should lose weight? I know it’s embarrassing to be called out on your size, sometimes downright hurtful, but in most cases you can’t deny that your concerned peers may have a point. The new Harry Potter theme park has a ride with a weight limit of just over 320 pounds, and they were getting complaints from people for not considering how this could hinder certain people’s experience. I’m sorry but, if you’re anything other than a sumo wrestler, you should NOT be over 320 pounds! Better yet, you shouldn’t be at theme parks going on rides if you’re fat enough to break it and put everyone else in danger. If you were that size, would you not be embarrassed? What the hell are they thinking, saying they should make things more morbidly obese friendly? Um, HELLO! It’s a lot less money and hardship for every normal sized person if you just lost weight. I mean, even a person considered fat would think being over 320 pounds is really pushing the limits of your health. Now, being overweight is the leading cause of deaths in North America, beating out smoking related deaths, and a scientific study concluded that being dangerously fat has the same health implications of smoking a pack a day.
I don’t have anything against fat people other than a disagreement with their choice of lifestyle, but I also know that a lot of fat people don’t want to be fat. What I can’t stand are the people that they allow to go on television saying, ‘big is beautiful.’ They wouldn’t allow people to go on talk shows saying smoking is cool in this day and age, so why can you promote being fat? And why aren’t these parents who are making their children fat getting in trouble? If you saw a mother buying her adolescent child a pack of cigarettes, would you not say something, or at least be utterly appalled? I truly believe it’s a form of child abuse and should be punishable by the law, however mild the penalty. Like, when you commit a crime due to anger and they make you go to anger management classes, you should have to go to an exercise and nutrition education class if you’re caught with an obese child. If I had the power to make it a law, I would have it so that children have to exercise at school enough for the fat kids to lose weight, and if the teacher notices that the child isn’t losing the weight they should be after a certain amount of time, they should be able to report the parents to the police. I mean, it’s the #1 killer in the continent! You are seriously killing your child, however slowly, but you are; there’s no other way to say it. You might as well blow a whole packs worth of cigarette smoke into the child’s room while they sleep. What is the point of having children if you’re going to negatively predetermine the rest of their lives? Shouldn’t you do everything in your power to make sure your child is happy, healthy and successful? Even employers don’t want to hire fat people because they assume they’re lazy. Is that fair to your child? I find it disgusting. You set them up so they have bad eating habits, and then they’re very distressed through their adulthood because they have to lose weight, and a lot of them can’t! Trust me, I’ve seen it, and it’s not fair. So, I think they should really address the dangers of being overweight a lot more, and if it takes making theme parks with weight limits to motivate people, than so be. Caving in and making things “fat-friendly” is just promoting the idea that it’s okay to be fat when it really isn’t.