Weight, Weight... Don t Tell Me...

Staples in my stomach? I d rather not. The number of CHILDREN going under the knife in order to lose weight is astounding.

The media turns society against weight and any image that is not fabricated by them, and looking in on the situation from outside, it s not so pretty. The pre-fab image that s instilled in so many people s minds of the greatest body or most pleasant face is absolutely ridiculous and not a form of entertainment. Personally, I am not the pitying type, however, I do pity those children who feel like the only way to lose weight is through surgery.

No, I m not going to pin it on irresponsible parents, though it is part of the problem, I m pinning it on the controlled mass media that spoon-feeds the public one dort of altered images of the human body.
  More obese kids are turning to stomach-stapling surgeries and diet drugs. Are these trendy adult treatments the healthiest choice?

At age 15, Charlie Fabrikant opted for the knife. Gastric bypass surgery was about the only thing the suburban Chicago teen hadn t yet tried, to lose some of the 350 pounds that were literally making him sick.
Joint pain was a killer, says Fabrikant, who loves sports but found that every time I d try to play, I d really hurt.

Severe heartburn plagued his days, and at night, I d wake up gasping for breath because of sleep apnea.
The unrelenting physical effects of the weight pressing down on his bones, stomach, and lungs was compounded by the mounting depression of always being the fat outsider, an ache that had him returning to food for comfort. I ve been on diets since third grade, Fabrikant says, including hospital supervised diets, Weight Watchers, and diet drugs such as Meridia, the antidepressant Wellbutrin, and the epilepsy drug Topimax.

I d lose a few pounds each time, but then I d gain back more. --By , . Posted .

I say blame it all on the irresponsibility of the parents--it could be labeled as a disease!
A 15 year old who is 350 pounds is not only sickening, but very, very sad.

Sometimes they have just gotten so badly obese that they can no longer lose that initial weight by exercise.
Plus, I don't think they are getting their stomachs stapled and all that solely due to mass media spood-fed tabloids of skimpy clothed rich and famous..

.it, on the most part, has to do with pre-diabetes.

I fail to see how the mass media caused this.
Quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of people blaming the media for weight problems. It's ludicrous.

The media is not telling anyone what to look like or how big they should be. Peoples' low self-esteem, lack of self-image and self-worth does that.
That has nothing to do with the media.

And for this particular case, come on! The boy was 350 pounds, not exactly anorexic. Other diets including doctor monitored diets weren't working.

He was in physical pain. And you're going to try to blame the media for his choosing to undergo this surgery?
Please.

..
Did you read the story in it's entirety before pasting it up and writing your commentary?

the media's portrayal of the ideal beauty does not have an affect on society in some way? Read Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, if you haven't.

I beg to differ. Society CAN affect a person's self esteem and self worth, the very reasons you say are the cause for his problems.
I'm not saying that it's the ONLY reason, or even that it's the biggest factor, but to ignore the fact that it DOES impact us, whether a person is anorexic or overweight/obese, is ignorant.

People who want to blame the media will see it in the media.
But, as someone from the opposite end of the spectrum, who was severely underweight for most of her life, I found something very different coming from the media.

Men like women with a little meat on their bones is an example of just one of the things I saw in the media (movies, television). The shows I watched growing up, the omwen who made the money in these shows, or ran the household, or got the man of their dreams, they weren't anorexic models. They were healthy size 6-8 or larger (Suzanne Summers, Oprah, Roseanne, Shelley Long, The girl on Frasier, Julia Dreyfus).

A lot of singers were also of healthier size, and models were not anorexic then.
I watch today, and I see the same basic ratio of healthy weighing women on television.
Not to mention the fact that when someone in the limelight does suddenly reach an unhealthy weight, the media ridicules and tears them apart.

The Olsen Girl, Callista Flockheart, Tracey Gold, Nicole Richie...

People look because their parents said "oh the media is influencing them" and then they see it in the media regardless if it's there or not. If they want to blame the media, they will do so.

I hear you, but I got a bit more sleep than you, LOL. I got to wake up at 5:30..

. :)
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