weight talk
#tw: sexual abuse/trauma, weight, eating disorders
venting about 600lb life
i really shouldn't be watching 600lb life in the throes of an eating disorder relapse but here we are
i have like, a love hate relationship with the show?
i love to see that the show seemingly goes out of its way to portray fat people in a way that seems to humanize them (at first at least.) they make it very clear from the beginning of the show how much their weight affects their ability to live a normal life and that it's primarily caused by trauma. almost everyone on the show has been traumatized at least once, most of them multiple times, many of them sexually abused
HOWEVER, dr now seems to do like, nothing with this information? the people on the show are always in need of some heavy therapy for their PTSD. but he just throws a pamphlet that says LOW CARB, HIGH PROTEIN, 1200 CALORIES A DAY at them and lists fruits and vegetables and to only eat three times a day and expects them to just... bootstraps themselves out of their eating disorder??? thanks it was useless. i would say 80% of people know why they're fat and a VLCD print out isn't going to help that much.
then he gets pissed off at them and blames them for not "wanting it enough" when they inevitably fail because this diet is just a bandaid for the underlying eating disorder? like dude this is the equivalent of printing a big ass smiley face on a piece of paper that says "don't worry, be happy!" and then telling a depressed person to look at it when they are sad and shocked pikachu when they relapse or never make progress in the first place
like, it makes me mad that the first thing that happens isn't immediate therapy. he only makes the people go to therapy like half the time, and usually 6+ months into their weight loss attempt, IF they are in danger of regaining lost weight (god forbid). otherwise he's just like "there's nothing else we can do for you, you don't want this enough"
i get that he wants to put them on VLCD to fix the immediate negative physical ramifications their weight is having, but can't he do that at the same time as therapy? he also only requires (provides?) one session a month. that is not nearly enough for people with trauma this extreme. the show i watched last night, the woman was sexually abused over her entire childhood and early adulthood by multiple unrelated people and incidents. you can't bootstrap yourself out of that!!
and the drive to houston is super problematic and sometimes straight up dangerous. instead of having them make the drive and sometimes move all together, he should really consider having them do local therapy or teletherapy for X sessions first.
ALSO, sometimes he sends over nutritionists. this should 100% be part of onboarding for every single person on the show, or at least be introduced a few months down the line regardless of their progress. most people on the show scoff at it and ignore it, but i saw an episode the other day where that was a major turning point for the lady because she genuinely didn't realize the stuff that she was eating was high calorie. she was extremely receptive (albeit somewhat embarrassed) and switched out all her stuff to low fat (read: low calorie) and... surprise! she started losing weight.
like, i also don't even know if i like that the show airs out all their trauma on live Tv. i'm almost certain it's a requirement to be in the show(and get free weight loss help) but a lot of people are like "i've never trips anyone this before" and now the whole world knows!!!
i feel like the implication is also that you can't be fat unless you have some "reason" to be, like overeating due to trauma. when like, you can have an ED that is not linked to trauma, and you can also be a big eater without trauma, and naturally big.
kinda feels to me like the entire show is dehumanizing and a sideshow type thing where people point and laugh because this person doesn't look like us "healthy" people, under the guise of "health." dr. now can be incredibly cruel and rude to the point of some of the rude things he says becoming memes- "why you eat so much?" with his face is a top selling magnet on red bubble for example. it's the same rhetoric that a lot of online concern trolls pill "i don't care about them eating, i just care about their health!!!!"
as an aside, i heard they pay people to shower on camera so every single episode starts with them showering on camera which is yucky. not yucky because of them showering but yucky because it feels like they paid vulnerable poor people to depict themselves in a way that dehumanizes them, with somehow also having a voice over of them talking about their trauma? and they seem to have no moral quandary about this. the entire show seems predatory to be honest and the time spent talking about their trauma is like 3min at the beginning and then it's instantly buried in the other hour and a half unless it's a direct plot point
dats all. peace
venting about 600lb life
i really shouldn't be watching 600lb life in the throes of an eating disorder relapse but here we are
i have like, a love hate relationship with the show?
i love to see that the show seemingly goes out of its way to portray fat people in a way that seems to humanize them (at first at least.) they make it very clear from the beginning of the show how much their weight affects their ability to live a normal life and that it's primarily caused by trauma. almost everyone on the show has been traumatized at least once, most of them multiple times, many of them sexually abused
HOWEVER, dr now seems to do like, nothing with this information? the people on the show are always in need of some heavy therapy for their PTSD. but he just throws a pamphlet that says LOW CARB, HIGH PROTEIN, 1200 CALORIES A DAY at them and lists fruits and vegetables and to only eat three times a day and expects them to just... bootstraps themselves out of their eating disorder??? thanks it was useless. i would say 80% of people know why they're fat and a VLCD print out isn't going to help that much.
then he gets pissed off at them and blames them for not "wanting it enough" when they inevitably fail because this diet is just a bandaid for the underlying eating disorder? like dude this is the equivalent of printing a big ass smiley face on a piece of paper that says "don't worry, be happy!" and then telling a depressed person to look at it when they are sad and shocked pikachu when they relapse or never make progress in the first place
like, it makes me mad that the first thing that happens isn't immediate therapy. he only makes the people go to therapy like half the time, and usually 6+ months into their weight loss attempt, IF they are in danger of regaining lost weight (god forbid). otherwise he's just like "there's nothing else we can do for you, you don't want this enough"
i get that he wants to put them on VLCD to fix the immediate negative physical ramifications their weight is having, but can't he do that at the same time as therapy? he also only requires (provides?) one session a month. that is not nearly enough for people with trauma this extreme. the show i watched last night, the woman was sexually abused over her entire childhood and early adulthood by multiple unrelated people and incidents. you can't bootstrap yourself out of that!!
and the drive to houston is super problematic and sometimes straight up dangerous. instead of having them make the drive and sometimes move all together, he should really consider having them do local therapy or teletherapy for X sessions first.
ALSO, sometimes he sends over nutritionists. this should 100% be part of onboarding for every single person on the show, or at least be introduced a few months down the line regardless of their progress. most people on the show scoff at it and ignore it, but i saw an episode the other day where that was a major turning point for the lady because she genuinely didn't realize the stuff that she was eating was high calorie. she was extremely receptive (albeit somewhat embarrassed) and switched out all her stuff to low fat (read: low calorie) and... surprise! she started losing weight.
like, i also don't even know if i like that the show airs out all their trauma on live Tv. i'm almost certain it's a requirement to be in the show(and get free weight loss help) but a lot of people are like "i've never trips anyone this before" and now the whole world knows!!!
i feel like the implication is also that you can't be fat unless you have some "reason" to be, like overeating due to trauma. when like, you can have an ED that is not linked to trauma, and you can also be a big eater without trauma, and naturally big.
kinda feels to me like the entire show is dehumanizing and a sideshow type thing where people point and laugh because this person doesn't look like us "healthy" people, under the guise of "health." dr. now can be incredibly cruel and rude to the point of some of the rude things he says becoming memes- "why you eat so much?" with his face is a top selling magnet on red bubble for example. it's the same rhetoric that a lot of online concern trolls pill "i don't care about them eating, i just care about their health!!!!"
as an aside, i heard they pay people to shower on camera so every single episode starts with them showering on camera which is yucky. not yucky because of them showering but yucky because it feels like they paid vulnerable poor people to depict themselves in a way that dehumanizes them, with somehow also having a voice over of them talking about their trauma? and they seem to have no moral quandary about this. the entire show seems predatory to be honest and the time spent talking about their trauma is like 3min at the beginning and then it's instantly buried in the other hour and a half unless it's a direct plot point
dats all. peace