No truer words

"When you're heavy, Stein says, you never know when the next insult's coming --
or who's going to hurl it."

That quote is from an article in today's Plain Dealer. "Stein" is Dr. Sara Stein who is an psychiatrist with Kaiser Permanente in Cleveland. She is also obese and the author of "Obese from the Heart," a book that helps people trying to loose weight by treating obesity as a brain disease. (She's on Twitter too as @sarasteinmd)

This early article, from the paper's year-long series on obesity, gets the heart of what it feels like to be obese - and the comments on the website prove the article's point.

A few comments on the story:

• I am one of those people who have a hard time understanding why obese people cannot lose the weight if they eat healthy and exercise. I think some obese people even think they are eating healthy when they order a Cobb salad or reduced fat cake. Obesity is too common to say that so many people have some genetic anomaly that makes their bodies story fat more than any of the rest of us.
• If you consume more calories than you burn you gain weight. If you burn more calories than you consume you lose weight. This is a simple equation and getting on the right side of it is 100% within a person's control.

Both of these commenters went on to say that there is no reason to be mean or nasty about weight. Hmmm...pot, meet kettle.

Sometimes the meanest things are the ones that are meant to be helpful - a simple comment about dessert or second helpings - can cut like a knife. And, unlike other brain diseases - alcoholism comes to mind - obesity is one you can't hide. It is a problem, character flaw, challenge, disease, disorder, bodily malfunction, what ever you want to call it, that you wear for all to see.

For those of us who've been heavy all or most of our lives, it seems like losing battle. And it often is - studies show that less than 5% of people can lose up to 20% of their excess weight—and keep it off for five years—with diet and exercise alone. With those grim statics, its hard to actually go out and make the change.

Dr. Stein extols the value of small changes. Add just a little bit of exercise, or healthy eating every day. These small steps hopefully add up to big changes - they have for her, she's lost 90 pounds.

We have to remember that this is about so much than changing our bodies. It's about changing our lives and focusing on health.