Can you be forced to lose weight?

Some people think that forced weight loss is an effective solution to America’s problem of obesity.

America doesn’t have a problem with obesity. 

I’m not saying there are not obese individuals in the US, although, for some reason the word “obese” is as offensive to me as many 4-letter words. I happen to prefer the F-word! Yes FAT!

Here I fit the medical classification for "obese," but I find it more motivating to lose weight if I just ignore that and call myself "too fat."

Here I fit the medical classification for “obese,” but I find it more motivating to lose weight if I just ignore that and call myself “too fat.”

By medical standards, I was obese, but applying that word to myself was damaging and didn’t help me lose weight. It discouraged me and gave me reason to quit trying when I thought I came up against insurmountable weight loss challenges. When I thought of myself as “fat,” that to me was a condition over which I had the power to change.

Enough about me…

There are, of course, many people, adults and children who are overweight, fat, or obese. You can use your favorite word here to describe the condition. Yes, lots of fat people, but that doesn’t make it “America’s problem.”

It’s the individual’s problem and I’m ready to hear the recitation of why that makes it America’s problem. I’ve heard it more times than I need to already! The important thing here is America has enough problems without solutions. Why should we burden our country with one more, when it’s not something “America” can “fix.”

Weight loss starts – progresses – and ends with the individual.

The individual may employ help, such as participating in Weight Watchers meetings, or the services of a bariatric surgeon but ultimately there is only one person who can get the job done.

Weight loss is completely private and up to the individual. Others may see numerous reason why you should lose weight, but when it comes to weight loss, the good reasons people have for you to lose weight don’t count and won’t matter. The only person who must be pleased with the outcome is you!

Forcing an individual to employ a weight loss method may help to get it started, but it won’t have any affect on its completion. Somewhere during the progress the individual must determine his or her own reasons for losing weight. If the reasons are to get something he or she wants, they’ll affect the outcome more positively than if the reasons are to avoid something he or she doesn’t want.

If, for example, losing weight means reduction of medications to treat weight-related disease, being able to wear a closet full of small smaller clothes again, reducing pain and increasing energy, or best of all, to get back one’s life the way one loves to live it, those are the most effective kinds of motivation.

Still at goal close to 30 years later and I maintain my goal because it's still important to me to be able to live my life the way I like to live it without fat getting in the way.

Still at goal close to 30 years later and I maintain my goal because it’s still important to me to be able to live my life the way I like to live it without fat getting in the way.

Humans are amazingly adaptive to negative events in their life. If not losing weight means poor health or higher insurance premiums or many of the other negative outcomes of remaining overweight none of those things may be worse than the perceived actions necessary to effectively weigh less. It’s easier to adapt to what you didn’t want than make broad, sweeping change to avoid it.

If you don’t want to lose weight, nobody and nothing can make you. If you do want to lose weight, it’s the want that will make it possible!

Jackie Conn

About Jackie Conn

Jackie Conn is married and has four grown daughters and four grandchildren. She is a Weight Watchers success story. She's a weight loss expert with 25 years of experience guiding women and men to their weight-related goals. Her articles on weight management have been published in health, family and women's magazines. She has been a regular guest on Channel 5 WABI news, FOX network morning program Good Day Maine and 207 on WCSH.