The Nightmare of Being Fat

Gina Kolata recounts some true horror stories in her book, "Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss - and the Myths and Realities of Dieting."

"The stories fat people tell are legion.

"Tina Hedberg of Conover, Wisconsin, saw a doctor in the summer of 2005, when a diet she was on was no longer eliciting dramatic weekly weight loss. The doctor, she says, told her she had a mental problem because she weighed 400 pounds. She was trying to commit suicide by getting so fat, the doctor informed her. Then the doctor told Hedberg that she had two choices. She could be admitted to a mental institution or, the doctor said, "I could wire your jaws shut so tight that you can't move your jaws to talk, and if you can't talk you can't eat."

" Hedberg said that every time she sees a doctor, she is told that anything that is wrong with her is because she is so fat. One time she went to a doctor because her knee was swollen after a fall. 'The doctor told me the reason I fell was because I was fat,' she says. 'He told me there was nothing he could do for me unless I lose some weight.'

"Miriam Berg, president of the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, says the same thing happens to her. "Every condition I know of, I have been told the reason for it is that I am fat and need to lose weight to fix it. Including a sore throat. The doctor said I had too much fat around my neck."

No one wants to be fat. In fact, in the book Gina cites a study by Colleen Rand, an obesity researcher in Florida.

"...asked forty-seven formerly fat men and women whether they would rather be obese again or have some other disability. Every one of them said they would rather be deaf or have dyslexia, diabetes, bad acne, or heart disease than be obese again. Ninety-one persent said they would rather have a leg amputated. Eighty-nine percent would rather be blind. One said, 'When you're blind, people want to help you. No one wants to help you when you're fat."

"...77 percent said that their children had asked them not to attend school functions."

"I was told by upper management that I would never be promoted until I lost weight, and the union took management's side."

"The respondents told of humiliation. Ninety percent of the fat men and women said that friends or relatives had ridiculed them or made nasty comments to them about their weight, and three-quarters of them said they had been laughed at or derided by fellow employees. One of the survey participants wrote, 'While attending a lecture in college, a professor stopped speaking in the middle of a sentence and said, 'When are you going to lose weight? You are really fat.' There were over 100 people in the class.'"

I'll never forget the first time it happened to me. After a meeting I was a little slow to stand up and the child next to me said, "hurry up, Fatty".