by Michelle Wilkinson

Created on: August 17, 2010

There may well be more overweight individuals in society than those who are a healthy weight, but this is not a situation most overweight people are comfortable with. Given the choice, the majority of overweight individuals would love to be slim, but just don’t have the willpower or commitment to make it happen. It’s not really surprising that so many overweight individuals are desperate to lose weight and will sometimes spend a small fortune on weight-loss products to help them achieve their objective because slim bodies are presented as the ideal way to be.

If you’re overweight you continually compare your body to the bodies of the slender models used in television and magazine advertisements and wish you were as slim. When you’re so overweight that you’re considered to be obese you can become extremely preoccupied with your size, as you’re constantly reminded of it whenever you go shopping for food or clothes. There will always be someone there to stop and stare at you, making you feel worse about yourself in the process.

You may even find yourself at the receiving end of some nasty comments which just make you more self-conscious about your size. You often feel like hiding away in your home with a big tub of ice cream, as ice cream never lets you down and always makes you feel better. It is hard to be positive about the way you look when everyone else seems to have such a problem with your size. This isn’t helped by the media’s obsession with the obesity ‘crisis’, as you’re left with the impression that all overweight and obese individuals are fat, unhealthy slobs who are going to keel over at any moment because of their size.

Clearly, this is not the truth, but it is what most people seem to think, which doesn’t help you when you actually are obese. You might exercise every day and eat healthily, yet this is not enough to satisfy society’s demands and so you’re left feeling rather unhappy with your size. It doesn’t help that you can’t always find clothes that fit and which flatter your figure, so that you may not even see the point in making an effort with your appearance. You compare your obese body to the slim, ‘perfect’ bodies that are everywhere in the media and it makes it almost impossible to be content with the way you look. That is one of the reasons why so many people go on diet after diet; because they are so desperate to be slim – to be normal.

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