Yes but someone who cuts themselves doesnt usually complain that they are mistreated by others because they cut themselves. I think that everyone in their lives gets made fun of for something and has to deal with it, now if your fat most of the time you can change your body type by doing phsyical activity and having a healthy diet, being lazy and eating fatty foods is not similar to cutting yourself although it is destructive, alot of people with weight problems eat because they are depressed about their weight and feel they cant change it, you dont see a cutter cutting because they are depressed with the fact that they cut themselves, its usually a underlying mental problem, while most people who are over weight and complain can fix it by taking an active role in their physical health so that they can improve their overall mental health as well.
What's the skinny on being fat?
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Yes but someone who cuts themselves doesnt usually complain that they are mistreated by others because they cut themselves. I think that everyone in their lives gets made fun of for something and has to deal with it, now if your fat most of the time you can change your body type by doing phsyical activity and having a healthy diet, being lazy and eating fatty foods is not similar to cutting yourself although it is destructive, alot of people with weight problems eat because they are depressed about their weight and feel they cant change it, you dont see a cutter cutting because they are depressed with the fact that they cut themselves, its usually a underlying mental problem, while most people who are over weight and complain can fix it by taking an active role in their physical health so that they can improve their overall mental health as well.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
First, my understanding is that cutters do often later regret the cuts they have inflicted on themselves, when those cuts start interfering with their mobility and (especially) when the cuts start turning into permanent scars. (Yet they generally keep cutting anyway, despite the regrets about scarring.) They might not complain openly about it, but I don't see that the vocalization of the regret is the salient issue.
My point was that *both* are caused by underlying psychological problems and while the advice is easy to follow and solves the issue, there are compulsions involved and you cannot cure a compulsive behavior with a simple, "You shouldn't do that."
You might as well tell a junkie, "Just stop using heroine! Then you won't have a heroine problem!
" Or telling a smoker "Put the cigarette out! Yay!" It's certainly true, but that one in a million person who's able to put the needle/ciggie/blade/Big Mac down because of that simplistic argument isn't likely to have developed a serious "problem" in the first place. The people you see with the full-blown problems are the ones who's psychology (or perhaps physiology in some cases) makes them unable to fight the compulsion. We all have some capacity to become compulsive in some way or another. My brother, who's otherwise well adjusted, if no doubt going to sacrifice sleep over the next several days to play as much Halo 3 as he possibly can, and that's compulsive too. On Saturday, he'll be in some conflict between his compulsive need to play halo and his need to watch and root for Notre Dame (poor bastard), and he'll complain to me that he hates being a ND fan (if that helps you) because they suck so much. ("Hey, Andrew, stop being a Notre Dame fan" would not be very effective advice.) He's lucky that he'll be able, eventually, to walk away from halo and his post-football depression and resume his life before there's any permanent harm, but the wiring of the human mind is a complicated thing.
I said most overweight people have the ability to lose weight. Im not sure about this but i dont think that the effects of not eating for a compulsive eater or an overweight person even come close to comparing to the effects suffered by a heroin addict or even a smoker when they quit their addictions.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Again, I am not sure that was the salient point of the analogy. All analogies by their very nature compare different things, and because they are different things, there will be differences between them. (Unless you like your analogy in the tautological form of "A is like A")
The point of my analogy was that the compulsion to use drugs, or of someone with OCD to wash their hands over and over again, or to overeat are similar, not that the withdrawal symptoms are. The decision to quit or keep using heroine, from what I've read is not a rational decision based on the costs of withdrawal. It's more like alcoholism. If an alcoholic has not had a drink in years (and hence is over any withdrawal symptoms), it's still dangerous for him or her to have a drink. One drink won't really hurt them, in isolation, but once you allow one past your lips, it's easier to order a second and a third and so on. Despite knowing how hard it was to stop drinking the first time, the compulsion lingers in alcoholics and always threatens to reassert itself. If the decision to drink or not were purely rational, then they should be able have a drink, because the drinks in moderation would not be an issue and would not lead to a new round of withdrawal and it would be easy for them to stop drinking when they approached a level that might pose a risk.
I think habitual overeaters are a bit like alcoholics in that regard, save that they don't have the option of going cold turkey.
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Enmos
Valued Senior Member
I agree with this. Genetics/severe disability aside, it's the exact opposite of anorexia/bulemia...known as "bigorexia".
Since we're on this subject, take a look at FantasyFeeder. It's a site and forum that advocates obesity and encourages it's members to gain weight.
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