From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   When I was writing on the Internet about undesirability of obesity, people   
   were accusing me of thinking with my penis and they were accusing me of being   
   a sham.   
      
   There are however greater problems with obesity than its unsightliness.   
   Probably the biggest one is that it is overconsumption of resources.   
   Overconsumption to the point that it is no longer even good for the person   
   doing it.    
      
   It’s like driving a Hummer or having a giant house. In all cases, resources   
   are being overconsumed. And that is a much greater problem than obesity being   
   unpleasant to behold.   
      
   Now there are some people who appear to be genetically predisposed to obesity.   
   I don’t hate such people; I feel sorry for them.  Having been hormonally   
   delayed as a teen, I know what it’s like to be unattractive at critical age.   
   These people are    
   right to confront mistreatment against them. However I don’t think that even   
   they actually want to be obese. They don’t want to be mistreated for being   
   obese, but I don’t think that obesity is actually their ideal. Most of them   
   would be happy to    
   lose the weight if it was done in a way that they can handle.   
      
   I’ve been with women who were overweight, and I didn’t count it against   
   them. One of my favorite memories is having sex outside a Catholic convent   
   with a woman who was heavy and wheelchair-bound. I didn’t count her being   
   overweight against her. She    
   had an excuse. She was wheelchair-bound. And yes, she was quite good.   
      
   The bigger problem is that there are now many people who are obese who   
   haven’t been obese before. Right now obesity is no longer limited to people   
   who are genetically predisposed to it. There are all sorts of people who have   
   been healthy before who are    
   not healthy now. That is a bad demographic trend. So that while it is right to   
   confront abuse against such people, it is also important to look at it from   
   societal perspective and see what is good for the world and what is not.   
      
   Once again, the biggest problem here is not aesthetic, it is ethical. We are   
   dealing with overconsumption of resources. Now the people who are obese are   
   not generally the same people as ones who drive Hummers and have huge houses;   
   but both are guilty of    
   the same wrong. They are overconsuming resources. And it is done in such a way   
   that it is no longer even good for them.   
      
   The overweight have the right to defend themselves from people who would   
   discriminate against them. However I don’t think that these people actually   
   want to be overweight. They will be interested in slimming down if they found   
   the right way to do it.   
      
   I had a conversation about this with a psychologist, where I asked if the   
   solution to this problem was accepting that the person is fat or encouraging   
   the person to get healthy. He said that there was a need for both. Don’t   
   mistreat the person but    
   guide them correctly. Offer them acceptance as people. And from that situation   
   influence the person correctly to result in the person doing the right thing.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)