I am not sure I understand. Did the scorn help you gain weight? Say all the other things were in place...and people weren't as mean as they are. You'd have gained less weight in that scenario? I consider it a neutral factor. It would have made life more tolerable, but would it have helped me stay thinner? Caused me to be fatter? I can't see it doing either. There we a lot of people who were nice to me during the years I was 350+. There were a few mean people as well, but the bulk weren't hateful.

I was uncomfortable all the time, whether people were good or awful to me. It was mental discomfort as well as physical. Maybe the mental discomfort came from knowing that people who were looking at me were thinking I was a slob, a fat-ass, a useless, lazy, pathetic fattie. Maybe the discomfort came from knowing that they saw my weakness and hated it. If that were removed, would I have been more or less likely to get as fat?

I believe that the strength to lose weight doesn't come from them, it comes from us. So if you follow that logic, why would they have caused me to be fatter?

I have a thought about this ugly aspect to humanity. We evolved to exist in bands of roving hunter/gatherers. Those with flaws were a danger to the group. This contempt they feel for us is an aspect of that survival mechanism. It's too common, too prevalant, to be some societal contrivance. It's got to be this buried need to make sure the tribe is strong by ostracizing what is percieved to be the "weak". I don't know how valid that is, but it is just so common and the hatred is so intense that there has to be something more than human meanness to it.

I understand to a degree the point you're making - that the disapproval of society drives people to strive for an appearance that isn't possible, and we might wreck our metabolisms or overreach. But in my case, my only serious attempt to ever lose weight was low carb, so I didn't face that issue.