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Congratulations for latching on to one of the last acceptable groups to be bigoted against. You should feel good about yourself.
People are shamed for smoking as they should be for its health effects on them and others. Obesity should be treated no differently. You don't get to 400lb because of a bad thyroid, you get to 400lbs because you are addicted to food and over consumption. It puts undue strain on our medical facilities, and impacts the obese indivuals ability to be a functioning member of society. There should be conversations about why it's bad. We shouldn't treat it like some innocent personal choice when it is not, it's shortening lifespans, the bad diet exacerbates mental health issues, can lead to diseases like type 2 diabetes. The problem is we don't also target the food industry as much as we should for them pushing all the sugar coated processed garbage in the first place. They should be equally as ostracized as tobacco companies are for their aid in a similar epidemic.
I didn’t quit smoking because people shamed me, I did it because the risks were clearly defined and didn’t like the negative effects on my health.
No qualified medical or public health policy professional is like “yo let’s villainize fat people”. It’s dumb idea just to make people feel better about being assholes to folks struggling.
Hilarious username clash
How do you factor in the overabundance of cheap, nutritionally fucked food, and how that may affect those living paycheck to paycheck? It feels odd to recognize it's a problem, but then also claim obesity is an absolute failing that should be universally shamed.
Side note, as a nurse I've seen patients who are obese because of circumstances and medical issues. Someone who has to work two jobs, has a kid, and newly discovered hypothyroidism is not obese because they don't care. They have a medical issue and no extra time/resources to compensate for it with a refined diet and exercise (especially considering one of the most common symptoms of hypothyroidism is fatigue). You're not even factoring in the undiagnosed, or those who don't have access to sufficient healthcare.
My overall point is if you're targeting obese people specifically, you're not on the right track.
How do you factor in the overabundance of cheap, nutritionally fucked food, and how that may affect those living paycheck to paycheck?
I eat constantly processed shit. I hate cooking, but it's still damn simple, don't get the biggest meal at McDonald's, get the low sodium/fat frozen pre cooked meals that only have a couple hundred calories per serving for under the cost of a meal from fast food. Then you just don't over eat, wait 20mins or so after and let your body naturally tell you it's full instead of eating until you want to puke. Bottled water is cheaper than cans or soda regardless of if you get them from a dollar store or not. It's literally cheaper to eat less food which is the main part of weight maintenance.
Side note, as a nurse I've seen patients who are obese because of circumstances and medical issues. Someone who has to work two jobs, has a kid, and newly discovered hypothyroidism is not obese because they don't care. They have a medical issue and no extra time/resources to compensate for it with a refined diet and exercise (especially considering one of the most common symptoms of hypothyroidism is fatigue). You're not even factoring in the undiagnosed, or those who don't have access to sufficient healthcare.
Hypothyroidism is like 5% of the population. Obesity is at 40%, let's not act like our obesity epidemic is because everyone with hypothyroidism is trying to move to the USA to boost our statistics.
My overall point is if you're targeting obese people specifically, you're not on the right track.
Na there is nuance between shaming someone for decisions made well within their control and understanding some are placed there beyond their control. I'm not advocating for those with hypothyroidism to be attacked, if anything calling out obesity would help bring awareness to those fronts as it would promote discussion about the issues instead of downplaying it so those with issues cant get the help needed like you descibed earlier in your post. Like trying to pass legislation that requires employers to give reasonable medical accommodations to those individuals so they have enough time to prep meals or even have subsidies that can give them more healthy choices at reasonable prices.
You're touching on a lot of factors with this, so I'm going to try and address the bulk without being too lengthy.
First off, I think we should put aside the fringe of individuals that genuinely argue being morbudly obese is fine or are straight up in denial of obesity as a concept. I'd argue the percentage of obese people purely by choice are heavily in the minority. I haven't really been convinced otherwise.
Hypothyroidism is not the only disease process that can cause obesity downstream. Quite a lot of disease can lead to this, either directly or indirectly. Beyond that, we haven't even touched on mental illness -- we view anorexia as a mental illness understand how that affects someone's body, it feels odd that we don't do the same with some mental illness and obesity -- and how depression commonly leads to a failure to even carry out activities of daily living. The number of people struggling with obesity due to an underlying medical or mental health issue is much larger than you're estimating.
As for your diet suggestions, they may work and be available to you, but we can't reasonably extend that to a nationa-wide group. Food availability differs, resources differ, what's good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander. There are too many variables to argue anyone can topple/avoid obesity with "these 5 easy tricks!".
Overall, I still come back to my original point. The obesity problem stems primarily from a struggling working class, overabundance of cheap processed food juxtaposed with more expensive healthier options, and poor healthcare availability (especially mental). Targeting the obese to pull themselves up by their bootstraps or be shamed is just reductive, and probably much more harmful than helpful. They know they're obese, and I'm pretty confident in saying vast majority aren't happy with it. Arguing to double down on the already significant social pressure with additional shaming feels like a cruel, ineffective solution to me.
Off topic, but I appreciate the username. I've been saying "Slow is smooth; smooth is fast" for ages and no one ever knows what the fuck I'm talking about.
I maintain my lean figure by consuming 1000 calories of Soylent for the morning/lunch time and and pigging out for dinner. There is cheap nutritionally good food, but junk food addicts don't care to seek it out.
There's also this issue of fat people and climate change, which no one really wants to address.
Like how many times are we going to see "the dairy industry is killing the planet" whilst simultaneously ignoring who the fuck supports that industry.
Spoilers, it's fat people.
I'm not fat, and I love me some cheese. I'm pretty sure that most of the fat people I know eat far less variety of foods than I do, so I'm not certain that we can blame fat people for that. I've personally had a theory, based entirely on anecdotal evidence, for some time that being a picky eater is more likely to lead to obesity than any other factor, barring medical reasons such as a dysfunctional thyroid.
And being a picky eater can be, but isn't always, linked to several other factors, like Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (which can be treated, usually with CBT)
The dairy industry is subsidized through the US government, it's literally a goal for the fda to promote dairy, and companies that use more diary or cheese in their products get subsidies from the government (think stuffed crust pizza and extra cheese). Putting that blame on the obese is not what I was getting at, at all. More that we have industries who do not care if they create obesity, but if we apply social pressure, it may help stop some from over consumption at a young age. If that can aid in promoting healthier life styles from a young age before major life stressors make it almost impossible to get out of that seems like some form of progress as our governments seem keen to do absolutely shit for the problem at hand. Then we can try and figure out more human solutions but allowing for this level of hyper consumption unabated just doesn't seem sustainable or progress inducing.
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Meh don't make fun of groups. Waste of time.
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If you are going to make fun of people, do so for things that are their choice, or are changeable.
As in:
You CAN make fun of people who use Facebook, because they can choose to not.
you CANT make fun of people of a certain ethnicity because they didn't choose it and can't change it.
Making fun of obese folks is a mess because at the root of it you are making fun of a mental health condition, or a socioeconomic condition. Indeed all humans, regardless of any other factor (such as medical condition or wealth) will lose weight day after day if you consume less calories than you burn. But the reality is people can't stick to that for a million reasons, and when you make fun of the obese you are making fun of THAT. Essentially "hah to are so fucked in the head that you are trapped in an uncomfortable and unhealthy body". Not so funny when put so bluntly.
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Have you considered eating less?