General Board

You know....

Posted By: Kelley <moonvine@austin.rr.com> (192.62.105.84)
Date: Monday, 23 July 2001, at 9:26 p.m.

In Response To: Sue, we have a new policy here (Brian)

I think a lot of people are *so* brainwashed by society that they are literally not capable of making smart, adult decisions when it comes to weight.

Look at all the people who took phen/fen, some of whom are now dead, many others of whom are sick. There were women going to their doctors when it was legal to prescribe phen/fen who were not fat at all (maybe *five* pounds over the "ideal weight" charts, perhaps not even that) and begging for phen/fen. There were people after it was taken off the market because it was KILLING folks who were trying to get supplies of it from overseas and who said repeatedly they would rather die than be fat again. Even now there are weight loss products advertised as "herbal phen/fen" - when it was a very bad and dangerous drug wouldn't you think that would NOT be an effective advertisement strategy? But it did "work" - as far as weight loss was concerned, and I GUARANTEE you that if it were to become available again today, people would still take it. Would you think that would be a smart, adult decision? I wouldn't.

Now, I'm NOT comparing surgery to drugs, they are different animals. But the point I am trying to make is I believe that even otherwise very rational, sane people will take unnecessary risks to lose weight - don't just look at phen/fen, but optifast, nutrisystem, etc etc, often purely for cosmetic reasons.

I don't think that the majority of people will be able to MAKE smart, adult decisions regarding ANY SORT OF WEIGHT LOSS PRODUCT until society changes. As long as people would rather be dead than fat, you will see people dying trying to become thin. Even if WLS was proven to be a bad, dangerous thing and people had to go out of the country to have it done (which I am not suggesting is the case)

I don't know if you are watching Big Brother, but a girl who is 132 pounds (exactly- they had a weigh-in) was "the fat one" and wished there were some black men in the house who would appreciate her "thick" body. She was ridiculed at 132 pounds for being fat!!!!! WTF kind of society are we living in???

The answer, of course, is not for anyone to rail on message boards against WLS, but to change society such that all people can make some sort of sane decision about their health, and not based simply upon their fear of fat.

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