Ask Amy: Should she weigh in about sister’s obesity?

[cereta]

Dear Amy: I believe you give radiant advice that I try to emulate!

My youngest sister has gradually become clinically obese.

This seems to have accelerated after her hysterectomy several years ago.

Additionally, it is clear that her sugar fixation is a super-contributor.

She used to be weight-appropriate, and we have no family history of overweight individuals let alone morbid obesity.

Recently, I saw her for our father's 90th drive-by birthday celebration.

I am genuinely concerned for her health. I admit I am mortified by her appearance.

We have a family dynamic that avoids acknowledgment of the obvious, yet this obese sister is quick to point out her two sisters' faults.

She lives several states away from me yet stays involved with her family, and is kind, generous and smart.

How do I go about addressing my concern with her?

Should I reach out to her "slim" husband first? I'm the eldest. I'm the "fixer" in the family. I'm a "type A" big sister.

I want to help her!

— Concerned

Concerned: I’m not sure how “radiant” you will find my reaction to your question, because, as things currently stand, I don’t think you are capable of positively influencing or helping your sister to stop mortifying you with her obesity.

People who self-identify as “type A” are usually “type A-plus,” and someone exuding your extreme and judgmental “fix-it” energy will likely send a loved-one hurtling straight into her pathology. (Reading your question made me want to dive into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.)

No, do NOT contact your sister’s “slim” husband to discuss your sister’s weight with him. That is extremely disrespectful.

Obese people know they’re obese.

And although you have diagnosed your sister’s sugar fixation as being the problem — beyond food choices, obesity often also has an emotional component that will not respond to dieting advice, especially from someone who has never struggled with eating and weight issues.

You live a long distance away from your sister. The very best way for you to behave toward her is to be loving, nonjudgmental and emotionally supportive — without telling her what to do.

All of your energy should lean toward patience and compassion (this is going to be a very heavy lift for you).

You can ask her about her health. You can ask her about her stress. But then you must listen to what she says without leaping in with solutions. If she brings up her weight you can ask, “Has your doctor suggested seeing a nutritionist?” And that’s it.

Comments

[cereta]

I posted this largely to show that advice columnists, too, can grow and change. A decade ago, Amy would have directed that scorn at the sister and advised all kinds of condescending crap. Maybe there's hope for Abby!

Also, the letter hints at one of my frustrations with my mother. She sees me like 3-5 times a year for about a couple of days. Often, those occasions are specifically based around food (Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner). There are a couple of restaurants that I love that I don't have where I live. Also, she keeps a lot of junk food in her house, something I avoid precisely because I'm bad at resisting them. And yet, she judges my eating habits entirely by those few days, no matter how many times I tell her that I don't eat like that when I'm at home. It drives me nuts.

[melannen]

You know, I can't say I've always (or ever) been perfect on questions of weight and size, but I don't think I have ever had a conundrum where I felt like it was my duty to inform a fat person they were fat, just in case they didn't notice? They know. Obviously they now. How. How is that hard for people to figure out???

Like it's easy to say that people who do this aren't really concerned that you need to know, they're just faking concern so they can body-police, but I've seen enough of these letters that I think sometimes they actually think you don't know???

I am trying to think of a context where someone might actually need to be informed they were fat, and the only thing I can think of is if they were so stoned they also needed to be informed they had fingers.

[watersword]

I mean, I do regularly inform my cat that she has FEETS and EARS, and I do think it's important to check at least weekly that she knows she is the softest kitty. This is extremely important information.

[melannen]

okay, admittedly I have also known both cats and babies-in-arms who I remind on a regular basis that they are the plumpest and the roundest and that is an excellent amount of plumpness and roundness, and also that they are in fact a kitty/baby. But I feel like if you have that kind of relationship with someone you don't need to be writing into advice columns. :D

[cimorene]

I share these exact thought processes.

I have one suggestion: maybe they think the people know what size they are, but don't know that it counts as TOO fat, or TOO big, or TOO obese: in other words, they imagine that fat people think it's okay to be fat and need to be told so they will know that society hates them for it, which will obviously instantly motivate them to realize they need to use their willpower to magically stop being fat anymore.

Possibly at a subconscious level, these particularly grotesque concern trolls are just tortured by the idea that a fat person who doesn't seem sufficiently apologetic for existing hasn't been punished enough and needs to be further berated until they never display anything less than a fully humble and cringing attitude that instantly conveys to people like LW that they are properly ashamed every time someone has to observe them.

[cereta]

To paraphrase an old post of mine, some people really do seem to believe that if fat people are not reminding that they are disgusting sub-humans unworthy of love, they might stay fat. It's one of the most twisted, sick "cruel to be kind" things that is still somehow socially acceptable.

[melannen]

I mean I suspect it's often as simple as the inverse of the "my kitty has BEANS!" thing watersword mentioned above: they want you to know that they know you're fat, and you aren't getting away with it. After all, they have policed their own appearance so hard for their entire life that they have lost all their joy, so you definitely can't be allowed get away with being fat, or all that was for nothing!

[shirou]

There's a difference between knowing oneself to be fat and acknowledging it as a problem that needs fixing. To the degree these interventions aren't just—as you say—body-policing, I think they're aimed at achieving the latter more than the former.

An alcoholic knows he drinks. When people stage interventions, it's to get him to acknowledge that his drinking has become problematic and he needs to seek help. (To be clear, I am comparing the goals of interventions; I am not comparing obesity to alcoholism.)

[cereta]

Yeah, that's pretty much bullshit that people need to be disabused of. No obese person who has gone to a doctor for so much as a sniffle hasn't been told it's a "problem that needs fixing." That doesn't even get into whether it actually is, because I'm tired and in pain and have already been told twice this week that both are because I'm fat.

[melannen]

I mean, even given the (provably false) premise that fatness is a medical condition that can and should be corrected, it's also very annoying to tell someone, "hey, I see that you have your leg in a cast, have you been to see a doctor about that?"

[shirou]

Yeah, no argument here. I am not at all in favor of interventions except in extreme cases, and especially not for obesity. I am just diagnosing the thought process of would-be interventionists who believe there is something they can say that will get a friend or family member to acknowledge a problem and seek help.

I have never felt compelled to talk to anyone about their weight, but I have had to bite my tongue around a good friend who smokes. It's disgusting, I hate it, and I hate what it's doing to her. She knows she smokes—of course; she knows it's bad for her—again, of course; and she does it anyway. Drives me mad. I realized I had nothing to say she didn't already know or that could change her behavior, and that her decisions were hers to make. But that realization came hard. I wanted to believe I could say something to make a difference. (Same disclaimer as before: I am comparing the thought process of would-be interventionists; I am not comparing smoking to obesity.)

[melannen]

Yeah, I had to train myself out of that with smokers, because I was raised to be annoying about it as part of my family's (futile) campaign to get my grandfather to quit. But even then we didn't say to him, "Hey, I just wanted to make sure you were aware that you smoke."

And these days the majority of people who smoke *started* smoking in the full knowledge that it was very bad for them. And it's less likely to kill them than being in a car on a highway, and I don't bug people about that, as long as they aren't doing it in a way that hurts other people, which I remind myself when I'm tempted.

[shirou]

That temptation to bug people about their smoking makes me believe that people do approach their loved ones about obesity out of genuine concern. Like you, I've had to train myself out of intervening with smokers. It seems entirely plausible that others would have the impulse to comment—inappropriately, unproductively, and often harmfully, but with good intentions—on other issues that concern them.

[gingicat]

My biggest problem with smoking is that, being oversensitive to cigarette smoke (and perfume, and body odor, and unbrushed teeth in enclosed spaces, and...) is that I can't be around people who do it.

[minoanmiss]

makes me believe that people do approach their loved ones about obesity out of genuine concern.

Mrmn.

Maybe, some people, but in my experience it's used as a way for one family member to rip at another's confidence and cause them distress, and ultimately make them beaten down and easier to control. "You're so fat it's no wonder no one wants to date you," "Eating [anything with any lipids in it] is why you're going to die of a heart attack," and so on. It is amazing the things people will do to their supposed loved ones.

[resonant]

The only thing I can think of - and I think it's giving these people too much credit - but mmmmmaybe in their heads it's like if your friend had a mole on her arm, and it was really big and changing size, and she could obviously see it but she didn't seem to be aware that it could be a symptom of something dangerous? Because it's not impossible that a person could make it to adulthood without knowing the signs of possible melanoma, and you just wanted to be sure?

In reality I think it's a power trip, and lining up allies to support them (e.g. writing to advice columnists) is part of the overall pleasurable process of Making Sure Everyone Knows I'm Superior To Fatty Over There.

[melannen]

Yeah, I can think of two situations where I might actually think informing someone they're fat was appropriate:

1. If a close friend has invited me along on a medical journey where small amounts of weight/loss gain might be relevant, I might say, "hey, it looks like you've put on/lost a few pounds, have you checked in with the doctor about that yet?" But you do that at the point where you've noticed them subconsciously fiddling with their waistband a lot, not when they have already bought a whole new wardrobe.

2. If someone is very fat and fat-shaming other people. I have an aunt who's been extremely heavy the whole time I've know her who constantly criticizes her granddaughters and granddaughter-in-laws' weight and as designated skinny cousin I may have felt the need to go full passive-aggressive and say something like, "well, I don't know if you've noticed, but you're much bigger than her and seem to be doing fine," a few times. I could see both LW and her sister being that person, tbh, but if that's what was going on this isn't the letter you'd be writing.

[lavendertook]

I still don’t think those are appropriate or helpful. In number 2, call the aunt out on the fat shaming and the harm she is engaging in. Fat shaming her is just reinforcing the power of fat shaming and an excuse to act like a shit, too.

[melannen]

Fair enough! I mean it's absolutely being a passive-aggressive little shit but sometimes you just want to force a subject change after ten minutes of trying to politely point out that they are being horrible and wrong does nothing.

[ambyr]

I mean, I have known several people who gained significant amounts of weight without any awareness of it while in the depth of mental illness or grief (I know they weren’t aware at the time because they told me so later). But they still didn’t need anyone to tell them they were gaining weight; they needed people to support them and help them through their actual trauma.

[conuly]

I believe you give radiant advice that I try to emulate!

Uh....

I'm the eldest. I'm the "fixer" in the family. I'm a "type A" big sister.

LW might want to go seek therapy about this, because it's not healthy.

[lavendertook]

Though overall really good advice, it would have been nice if she added that there may be physical, genetic, or medical reasons her sister is fat, rather than just emotional. The science on weight is still sketchyto awful and not getting less sketchy any time soon. We do not know if genetic reasons actually may prevent some people from losing weight unless on starvation diets that will hurt their health, and sister may have inherited those genes of the fat members of their family that LW hasn’t. Sister has had a hysterectomy that can do all kinds of who knows what with your hormone balances and metabolism that again, may not have a healthy way to change. And added to the emotional reasons, that sister may be on antidepressants or other meds that counter any ability to lose weight. And we do not know if it really is unhealthy for some bodies to be overweight or even obese. Perhaps what we consider fat is just a normal and healthy form for some bodies to come in and the problems are our cultural beauty standards that make millions for diet, drug, and fashion industries. And most people who aren’t hacks agree that the BMI scale is bullshit.

So has LW thought about working on changing her aesthetic values that make her dislike fat bodies and see them as shame worthy? It is very hard work that is always in progress in our fat hating culture, but it can be improved and she could look into it. Because sister is in all likelihood already well aware of how mortifying LW finds her appearance and has been anxiously stealing herself against the day that fix-it-all-up Type A sister is going to take her on as her pet project to hound and pound into the ground and the scripts have been running in her head for like forever and it would be nice if one day you could pleasantly surprise her with compliments on how she appears or how her presence has a positive impact or feels good to be around, honest ones from the heart--she’ll know the difference. It could be very healing for her--it might even help lift a big weight, so to speak, she has been carrying around for probably ages now to learn you can really see her that way.

[firecat]

Good as far as it goes, but ugh, I could really do without her claim that sounds an awful lot like "people are often fat because they have emotional issues." I know that contributes sometimes, but in a fat-hating society, the causal chain between having complicated feelings about food and body and being fat is really hard to establish. Most fat people don't have eating disorders, and "just fix your neuroses and you'll get thin" is a message that needs to go away. (Amy didn't say that, but it's only one step away from "obesity also has an emotional component that will not respond to dieting advice.")

Edited to add: And don't ask her about her health. She'll know what you really mean.