Awkward Aardvark
kiwifarms.net
I honestly think that there needs to be almost a BMI cutoff and everyone above that BMI would be automatically given the "overeating eating disorder" (or find a better term) diagnosis and treated accordingly both with medication as well as with psychological and dietary consultation. I'm thinking that a BMI of about 35 sounds right as a cut off point, because you can be a very muscular dude (like the rock) and still be technically obese, but you can't reach the BMI 35 level with pure muscle. At some point all the extra weight comes from excessive fat (with significant water accumulation in very rare occasions).
I totally hate the idea of actual government intervention, but at least they could remove all the farming subsidies that push down the price of food so much that it's plentifully available. Additionally it's rather clear that it's becoming necessary to ban the advertisements for candy/junk food, maybe only sell sugary products unseen behind the counter kind of like many countries do for cigarettes, and maybe even putting some restrictions on very obese people's ability to purchase these kind of products once they've reached some BMI level. The obesity problem truly is now so huge that it's breaking the caring capacity of most Western healthcare systems irrespectively of them being publicly or privately funded and managed. A possible easier option would be to make large sugary snack food companies pay similar settlement fines that the tobacco companies have been paying for decades. I don't know, didn't really intend this to go political - I'm sorry
.So I've known this lady since she was in her early 20s and we've talked about her early life in the past and I know that she's always been fat, or at least like that since she was around 8-10 years old. She claims she's been on a hundred different diets, many even per year in the past, and she's continuously been gaining weight year after year. She's never had a moment in her life when she was down more than a few % of her heaviest weight, which has always been her most or second most recent weighing. She has a massive problem of empty caloric consumption. She drinks, for example, more than 3 liters of sugary soda per day and when I've suggested her to switch it to diet soda of the same kind, she's always declined because she claims she doesn't like the taste. Once she described having her first glass of Coca-Cola right when she gets out of bed as a "kind of magic" - it's truly disturbing all around.
My friend has also told me that she's been seeing a psychologist almost constantly since she was about 15 years old and has at most been on a total of 4 different mental health medications simultaneously. I can't confirm the claim, but I know she's currently on at least one mental health medication. She's told me she went to the psychologist mainly because she's afraid of death. Not afraid that she would die herself, but that her parents, siblings, boyfriend, friends, pets etc. would die and she still can't accept the fact that things in life die. I've suggested she'd try to get into one of the organized forms of Christianity as they talk about eternal life etc., but she says she can't make herself believe in god and even if she could her firm belief that god must be a woman would expel her from any Christian church. Aside from the fear of death, she's suffering from some always present general anxiety and depression that comes and goes every few months/years. She says that when she was growing up her mother was very unsupportive and in some ways emotionally cruel, although her mother wasn't a narcissist or physically abusive, nor was she an alcoholic, a drug addict or anything similar.
I wish I would understand better why some people get stuck in their thought patterns like that. I, as an example, had very absent parents (both workaholics) when growing up, I was teased in school almost the entire time etc., but I overcame those difficulties and built myself a great life after my university graduation. Partially I feel like her lengthy spouts at a psychologist can't be helpful, because if I would go to someone every week for an hour to talk about my problems I think they would only become intensified over time if this behavior went on for months and years. Similarly, I'm wondering what impact multiple mental health pills can do for people who're on them for years. I can understand the need of them in acute etc. situations, but being on them for over a decade seems excessive to me. And no, I'm not a doctor, just pretending to be one on the Intrawebbs.
