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Originally Posted by kyrasdad
The thing you miss is that the opinions of others don't usually motivate people.
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Really? Ask any successful plastic surgeon or salesperson of luxury goods. I'll bet he/she would disagree.
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Originally Posted by kyrasdad
People who have been fat for a lifetime know it. They don't need to be told so. They (we) understand it intimately, and probably with no small amount of personal, daily horror.
External validation, motivation -- whatever you'd like to call it -- isn't usually very useful to an obese person.
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No kidding! That's one reason (among others) that obese people get that way.
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Originally Posted by kyrasdad
He has the facts. He understands the stakes. So yeah, the opinions of others shouldn't matter. They aren't really all that relevant.
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To paraphrase G. B. Shaw, the ways of our tribe (overweight/obese people) are NOT the laws of psychology. Just because you or I are not motivated by the opinions of others to lose weight, or not gain it in the first place, does not mean that other people are not.
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Originally Posted by kyrasdad
I don't know of anyone who has been motivated to lose or to make other decisions about self destructive behavior that way.
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Imagine yourself in a nice restaurant, filled with fashionably slim people wearing expensive clothes. If the waiter asks a customer if she'd like to order dessert, she's probably not going to say "I really want that Death By Chocolate, but I worry about the opinions of others," in a loud, clear voice. No, she's probably just going to say, "No, thank you." How would you know what her motivations were in that case?
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Originally Posted by kyrasdad
I've got a recovering alcoholic brother. He went to jail. He lost his driver's license. He hit pretty much rock bottom. I seriously doubt ridicule would have motivated him.
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I agree. And I'm not going to say that any alcoholic would be all right if he/she were motivated by the opinions of others. Alcoholics have many things going on.
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Originally Posted by kyrasdad
It seems that "motivation" and ridicule have gotten mixed up here somehow. Comments like "fat-assery" aren't going to motivate anyone to do anything.
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Don't look at me, take that up with
speakerguy. I know what I mean by motivation, and it usually doesn't have anything to do with comments like "fat-assery".