Would You Give Life -- or Limb -- Not to Be Fat?
If you had a choice, would you give up a year of your life if it meant you wouldn't be fat? Would you give up a limb or your eyesight? Researchers at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale asked 4,000 people, and the answers might surprise you.
According to the study, which was published in the journal Obesity, almost half the people would give up a year of life, rather than be fat. In the study, between 15% to 30% respondents also said they would rather walk away from their marriage, give up ever having children, be depressed, or become an alcoholic rather than be obese.
Five percent said they would rather lose a limb and four pecent would rather be blind than be overweight.
Marlene Schwartz, associate director of the Rudd Center and the study's lead author said: "We were surprised by the sheer number of people who reported they would be willing to make major sacrifices to avoid being obese. It drives home the message that weight bias is powerful and pervasive."
Many thyroid patients struggle with excess weight. But you don't have to give up life or limb to lose. Visit the Thyroid Diet and Weight Loss Information Center.
Source: Yale University Press Release re: study, Obesity, 14: 440-447 (March 2006)
Comments
I am willing to do anything, ANYTHING, including starve myself to be thin. I’d rather be thin and dead than fat and alive. My top weight was 165 pounds and I starved myself and exercised for 4-6 hours everyday for months to lose it. Right now I weigh 102 pounds and it isn’t thin enough. Having this thyroid problem (hypothyroid) made it so hard to lose weight that I will do whatever I have to in order to NEVER gain that weight back again. Before the hypothyroidism, I never had a weight problem. I weighed around 115 pounds and could eat whatever I wanted. Now everyday is a struggle and some days I just wish I could lose so much weight that I would disappear.