Myth 2: Fat People don't have any Willpower

2)  We have every bit as much, if not more, "willpower" as slender people. When people who were thin were put on the same diets that fat people were expected to follow, they were no more able to succeed staying on these diets--even for short periods of time--than their fat counterparts!

Myth 3: Fat People have Psychological Problems

3)  Only 5% of those people who are considered fat have gotten that way due to excess "emotional baggage."  Most of the rest of us got this way by excessive dieting. (She's a good woman, but you can thank Oprah for having propagated this myth. She was one of the 5% who was fat due to childhood trauma.)

Myth 4: Being Fat is Unhealthy

4)  First, I strongly suggest that everyone read Rethinking Obesity by Dr. Paul Ernsberger, a leading--and by the way slender (i.e., considered objective by our fat-prejudiced society)-- biomedical researcher at Case Western University. Most of what follows is paraphrased from this book.

    It is dieting that is truly unhealthy--causing gallstones in cases of extreme weight loss, and heart problems, which are not caused by being fat, but primarily from the loss of lean muscle tissue (i.e., heart muscle), which is the first thing to go when one goes on a diet. The fat dissolves last.

    Further, statistics actually show (SEE Ernsberger again) that fat people actually live LONGER than their model-size counterparts. (The thinnest people die the soonest.) It has been proven healthiest to weigh approximately 25 to 35% more than the insurance charts say one should. Granted, I personally am larger than that,(500+ lbs.), but, again according to statistics, even being as heavy as I am will only shorten my lifespan by perhaps 6-9 MONTHS at the most (unless I'm foolish enough to go back to yo-yo dieting to destroy some more heart muscle!), and I'm still more likely to live longer than waif-like models.    

    It truly is healthier to remain at a high, stable weight than to fluctuate. It is possible to be fit AND fat. I was swimming 40-50 laps three times a day when I lived in South Africa (and am trying to get back to that level now here in Germany, though it's harder, since I no longer have a pool in the backyard)!

    Incidentally, there are NO diseases that only fat people get. We are far less likely, in fact, to get almost every form of cancer, with only one exception, and that is endometrial (and breast cancer, but only after the age of 50, below that, thin women are more likely to get it). There are dozens of other forms of cancer than we are LESS likely to get than slender people! We are also less likely than thin people to actually die from a heart attack, though we may have a slightly higher incidence of having them.

    Additionally, women whose weights are up where mine are, generally have low cholesterol levels! Mine is 190, and has been for years. There is just so much MIS-information out there about how bad it is to be fat and most of it was disseminated by the weight loss industry in order to increase their sales (though it all began with insurance companies trying to find a way to charge their customers more back in the 1920's).