Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Can't Stop Eating I come today with two tales of woe, from myself and my lovely husband. First, me: 1.) I co-worker of mine returned today after being out for a month after having a heart attack. She is an older fat (although she's weirdly shaped - upper body is relatively normal and her bottom half is super chunky, so she's weirdly shaped). She is noticeably slightly smaller than when she went out, but not by much. She and I get to talking and she admits that her doctors are pushing her to lose weight to prevent any more cardiac events and she really wants to try - so I offer that if she wants, she and I can go to the grocery store after work a block away and maybe pick out some healthy meals. I'm an eternal optimist and certainly would prefer for her to realize the issue and get back to humanity. Later that day, I hear her talking to our receptionist, who is, charitably, a WALL-E extra. And I hear the receptionist say "Girl, you don't want to be a skinny minnie, you're thick and juicy!" And she just goes on and on and on about loving oneself "as is" and all that BS. And she's well aware of the heart attack. She's literally encouraging another to continue eating herself to death. We did go to the store and it shocked me exactly how little she seemed to know about food. She did buy a bunch of decent things, so we shall see where this leads. But this receptionist is clearly dead-set on sabotage, so I don't know if any meaningful change is possible. 2.) My husband is an MD who generally works with people with kidney disease. That means he sees a lot of Type II Diabetes patients, since eventually, their kidneys start to go. He had a female come in, Type II Diabetes, 45 years old, 385 pounds. She tells him that her meds changed - she now takes laxatives to treat constipation. She is constipated due to her opioid prescription, which she needs due to "constant diabetic nerve pain." So she eats herself into Diabetes, develops nerve pain due to the diabetes, demands painkillers for the pain and now demands laxatives to treat the constipation caused by the painkillers. My husband asks "have you considered weight loss?" She claims she has tried. He mentions that Type II Diabetes is totally reversible and she kind of perks up, but when he states that the best treatment is a low-calorie, whole foods, plant-based diet, she says "that is too expensive." He says "I am telling you that you can reverse all your conditions - constipation, nerve pain, diabetes, all of it - with things you can buy in a grocery store. No medications, no surgeries - you just need to eat better." She says she does eat well (even if this is true, she eats too much, obviously). She says she cannot eat plant-based because her body cannot process "fiber." She says that eating that way is a lot of work. Excuse, excuse, excuse. My husband complains to me about her - "I am telling her she is curable. She can be free of all these things. She can get off all these pills. And she makes excuses to remain sick, Outside of mental illness, what kind of person does this?" My husband used to like his job when most of the patients were either people with genetic issues or even alcoholics (because at least the drunks didn't make excuses). Alcoholics were easier to deal with, he claims, because at least they didn't try to excuse their behavior. A drunk knows he's a drunk. He's kind of at the point of disliking his job, all because of the fats. It's discouraging.