I bumped into this on Reddit today:



Duffman, can you tell me what effect you expect fat shaming to have on this particular person? If you had the chance to fat shame him, would you do it?

the effect would be that he might get up his fat ass and head into the woods, where he will have to poo behind a tree and use leaves to wipe it. I'll fat shame him by laughing at his poo, cause he can't flush it

This post was edited by the_rest on Sep 1 2016 02:50am

How pathetic. The guy would rather be a fat useless piece of shit looking for sympathy on the internet than actually put any effort into improving himself.

Here's the thing about people like this. You can say that the best thing to do would be to try to help him instead of shaming him. That's true, in theory. But have you ever actually tried to help a person like this?

You can give them diet plans, you can teach them about nutrition, you can go to the gym with them and show them a routine. You can literally take all the knowledge it took you years of research and trial and error to learn and give it to them for free while also guiding them through every step of the way. You know what they'll do? The minute you aren't there to hold their hand, they'll go right back to ordering 2 XXL pizzas and scarfing them down while watching TV. They'll stop going to the gym, or, if they do go, they'll do some bullshit workout which takes 0 exertion and doesn't accomplish anything.

I had a fat friend I tried to help once. He was so overweight that I didn't want to overwhelm him with a brand new diet and hard exercise program right off the bat. When he asked me for help, the ONLY thing I told him to do was to stop drinking soda and drink only water. That's all. He could still eat greasy junk food and candy while doing 0 exercise. All he had to do was avoid soda. Came by his place and threw out all the soda he had. Told him this was the first step and if he stuck to it he'd be well on his way to losing weight. He thanked me and I thought the guy would actually pull through. I mean, it's not like I was asking for much.

Come back by his place a couple week later. No soda in the fridge, it's looking good. He tells me he's been sticking to it and is feeling better already. Have some hope for the guy and decide it's time to teach him some basic nutrition. Then, while he's in the bathroom, find a half-empty 24-pack of coke under his bed. The guy had probably been drinking more of that shit than ever and just flat out lied about it. That's when I realized something:

These people don't WANT help. They don't WANT to actually improve. All they want to do is give the IMPRESSION that they're trying and that it's not their fault, it's genetics, blah blah. Bullshit. These are disgusting, fat, lazy slobs with 0 self discipline. They just look for sympathy and justifications to their ridiculous lifestyle. And honestly, I should have known better. Anyone that weighs 300+ lbs KNOWS what they're doing is shit. Nobody is that ignorant to not understand stuffing your face with 2,500 calories of junk food then ingesting 1,000 more empty calories of soda a day is going to make you fat. They don't need help or advice. They need to be fucking shamed into changing. If you stop giving these people sympathy and justifying their lifestyle, that's the only way you get them to change. And if they don't change, then let them die of a heart attack at 30. At least that way they hopefully won't have children to force their fatass lifestyle on.

This post was edited by EA7 on Sep 1 2016 04:53am

I've been helping someone similar to this, and she's lost 15kg so far. The premise of everything I say is "You are pretty the way you are, but you seriously need to work on your health". I guess that answers your question even if it was a rhetorical one.

It's nice when you find someone whose actually willing to put in effort. Those cases are few and far between in my experience though. Maybe 1 in 1000 times you'll get someone who legitimately changes and doesn't relapse.

The thing is, I understand exactly what you mean. The number of people who relapse the moment they're not being motivated is incredibly high. But I don't agree with your opinion that this is for a lack of wanting to lose weight. Rather, it's because the cravings (often caused by some form of depression or lack of self esteem) they experience are irrational, and therefore not subject to reason. They know they shouldn't be eating, but they know they'll feel better/happier if they eat anyway. The short-term cravings have a stronger influence than the long-term goal, which is a very common thing is various aspects of human psychology.

Sadly, that's the way it goes with some people. Their willpower is simply not strong enough and this isn't changed with any amount of shaming. The only way to make sure these people stay motivated is by, well, actively motivating them.

They relapse because they change their lifestyle drastically in the short term but cannot maintain it in the long term. The ones that succeed are the ones that seamlessly incorporate the new routine into their lifestyle.

absolutely, observe the effects

http://metro.co.uk/2015/01/28/chef-lost-21-stone-after-friend-text-him-fat-f-every-day-for-six-weeks-5040205/

Now that this thread has reached silly proportions, does anyone need more proof that fat shaming isn't effective than the horrible success rates of the Biggest Loser show?

All they do is fat shame those people and half of them gain the weight back immediately, another 25% gain it back slowly.

haven't watched the show but it sounds like they lost weight while they were being shamed for being fat and gained it all back after they left the show

it's proof fat shaming works and obesity thrives in the absence of fat shaming