Obesity Surgery WP Blog

I went to a club outing this weekend and saw a number of people I
hadn’t seen in several months. Everyone was complimentary about my
weight loss, which always feels good. The event included a picnic
lunch; each couple brought their own lunch and some brought appetizers
or desserts to share. My contribution was a can of peanuts. As I
helped myself to a few, one of the fellows there shook his finger at
me and went “unh unh.” I said “these are healthy, I can eat a few.”
At the end of the event another woman and I were cleaning up; she had
put together a plate of leftover desserts for the host, but she
expressed hesitation at bringing them into the kitchen for fear of
tempting the hostess. The hostess had RNY several years ago with
moderate success; she’s still overweight, but much less so than
before, and she has other health problems which are much improved, but
still there: diabetes, sleep apnea, bad arthritis (she’s had knee
replacement surgery). I got a bit irritated at this “protective”

attitude, but initially gave the concerned woman the benefit of the
doubt because 1) she’s a nurse and 2) the hostess has recently had
surgery for a brain aneurism and, although she’s remarkably improved,
she still has some problems with things like memory and, at least
earlier, things like impulse control. However, I’m not sure the nurse
knew that, and when I also commented that the hostess’s adult daughter
was there, the nurse gave a skeptical frown and made noises indicating
that wasn’t a solution because (my interpretation here) the adult
daughter is also obese. I got really impatient at that point and said
“they’re adults!”.
I don’t want to offend anyone–these people are friends and I know
they care about us and are concerned–but sheesh! I really think this
kind of “food police” behavior is out of line and disrespectful. Any
suggestions for how to tactfully prevent this sort of thing in the
future?
Celia

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 at 3:35 pm and is filed under research on obesity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.