It is a lot easier to neglect large people than to admit that they exist! How did I reach this realization you ask? Well, it is very easy; all you have to do is look around you and you will figure it out for yourself.

To clear any confusions in your minds; yes, I am talking about fat people, whether we use terms like large, overweight, obese, big … etc. this does not change the fact that we mean fat. So, let’s call a spade a spade and hit the nail right on the head.

Let’s look around us and see how fat people are treated in our society. More often than not, fat people are considered with no feelings or insensitive, because let’s face it; if they had feelings at all, they wouldn’t be fat to begin with, they would do their best to fit their bodies to fit in the community.

Let’s go shopping; almost all stores in Amman don’t have large or extra large sizes from their merchandize that is displayed. When you find a store once every blue moon that has such sizes; they are tailored for older ages and they are all in dark colors, therefore; fat people are left with three options:

1-      Accept whatever the stores throw at you and be grateful that you ever found anything at all; it is true that you will appear a lot older than you real age to which the weight added a few years already, but who is looking? You are not normal so you might as well admit it and move on.

2-      Don’t accept to wear clothes that are good for your mother or grandmother and go tailor your own wardrobe. If you go downtown, you will find lots of stores that sell nice fabrics; you can choose your favorite colors and pay the stewardess a visit and make your own clothes.

3-      Don’t accept that you are different and keep looking for clothes in the stores. You want stylish clothes and you don’t want to surrender to the idea that these models do not fit your body type, so you settle for clothes one or two sizes smaller and you will look uglier than ever because you did not flatter your body by doing such actions.

Being fat in our part of the world means hearing remarks as you are walking down the street, being ogled at when you are eating, getting uncalled for advice from people and being fat deprives you from your rights of leading a normal life; you will not have the chance to love and be loved because who wants to be seen next to a fat person?

Let’s take a look at relationships of fat people; almost always; fat people are the clowns of the group; they are the ones who always make fun of themselves, they are the first to laugh if someone dropped a joke about them and they never show that they got upset if someone offended them; after all; fat people are not supposed to have feelings, right?

Fat people are always judged by their size and shape; the majority of people do not pay attention to their personalities; if they had a personality to begin with; they wouldn’t have been fat, right? This attitude is passed from one generation to another and we see that our kids are doing the exact same things we do; they treat their overweight counterparts as insensitive and objects for mockery and sarcasm!

Fat people are prejudiced all over the world, however; when we look at the west and how they deal with the issue, it is completely different than what we see in our part of the world. Not only they are treated as human at least formally, but obesity is now officially a disease and is covered by insurance. It is the No. 1 reason of deaths in USA and medical researchers are working on obesity causes and treatments exactly like they are working on any other fatal disease.

In our part of the world, obesity is considered a choice and that is why fat people are treated so badly. The majority of the people have convictions that fat people should be more decisive and determine to lose the weight and thin people almost always throw unwanted advice to them by saying: don’t eat too much and you will lose weight.

Fat people hurt from the inside and do their best not to show so that they won’t get more advice from those around them. At a certain point; they might even lose all control over their urges and their binging which will make things even worse.

Obesity and overweight have so many types and are caused by a different number of reasons. It is true that the most commonly known type is the one resulting from overeating or choosing the starch and fat rich foods as preferences, however; there are some clinical reasons that cause obesity and this one is the hardest and the most painful. A slight imbalance in the body hormones can cause obesity; certain medications have overweight as one of their most common side effects and emotional disturbance plays a major role in gaining or losing weight.

So, to all people out there reading these lines; cut fat people some slack; it does not make you a better person just because you weigh a lot less and it does not make them bad because they are fat. Also, don’t ever forget that regardless of their sizes; fat people are still human and have feelings that are more fragile than yours and they are easily hurt; their lack of self confidence makes them compensate for it with sharing people’s jokes and laughs about them or even starting the joke themselves. They are self conscious and try to make up to their shortcomings by showing the world that they could care less.

Trust me when I tell you these things because I experienced them first hand and I know how it feels and how it hurts to be judged and prejudiced because of your size; it is really ironic how people consciously or subconsciously subtract the weight and size of your brain and experience from your overall size and weight!

To read old comments on this post; please click here

They say: if you don’t want to feel disappointed, don’t raise your hopes or don’t even hope at all! Don’t expect much from others and you will not be subjected to one of the worst feelings ever existed; the feeling of being let down and deep disappointment.

No matter how hard we train ourselves to expect the worst for everything and everyone around us; we cannot but build a few hopes here and there. Unfortunately; people have made it an art to not meet others’ expectations or fulfill their hopes.

Human psychology is so complicated and this shows in ways that are never predicted. Sometimes; you would believe that you are a good judge of character and that you can see through people to the extent that they can never deceive you, however; some people get to surprise you after all precautions and preparations.

We tend to think highly of people we like and we tend not to believe that they would ever let us down intentionally, but the fact forces itself on us once and again that these we care about so much might not feel the same about us and to them we are just another person passing their lives for one reason or another. Therefore; when they act with no consideration whatsoever to your feelings and/or reaction, you cannot help but feel the bitterness of disappointment.

What amazes me often that many people actually weigh and evaluate things from their own point of view only, without considering other factors; they only see what’s in it for them and never think of consequences.

In this modern age where the machine is taking over many a role of people, we seem to have automated our own way of thinking; we seldom consider the human factor as human, and as the machine has calculated output whenever we give certain input, so should people. So if I was to give a machine the input of A and B, according to the calculations, predictions and equations, the machine must give an output of C and D, no tolerance for mistakes here because this is the way it is supposed to work, hence no disappointment from the outcome.

When dealing with people, it is juvenile to think that if I give a person the input of A and B, the outcome must be C and D, why? Because a human being is a bundle of feelings and emotions that are run by the most complicated machine; the brain; no two people are expected to give the same result and that is why some exceed our expectations and some actually disappoint us immensely.

How many times did we convince ourselves that X would never do this to me because he is my friend only to be surprised later that X was responsible for many of our own heartaches and setbacks? How many times did we give out of love only to be received with rejection and denial from those we care the most about?

These are everyday incidents and we have all suffered from such things at any point of our lives. Some of us have even vowed to themselves never to trust anyone again and to be very careful when dealing with others, but one of our most important features as humans is that we forget, sometimes it is a blessing to forget soar things but sometimes it is not wise to forget what stings like a bee; we should always remember how much it hurt when we let our guard down so that we will not be in the same position again.

From my own experience; no matter how nice others may seem, they are nice as long as you are of benefit to them, once this benefit is over; they really don’t have a reason to be nice to you and so they won’t be.

I learned that when people want something from you, they will suck up to you and show you their best; once they get what they want; adios baby!

Disappointment is the thing that happens to newlyweds when they discover that the one they married is completely different from the one they fell in love with or were engaged to.

It is what happens to you when you have worked so hard on yourself to graduate and then once you achieve that, you don’t find practical life easy enough to live. It is what you feel when you cannot find a job and when you do and think that all your problems are over; they shock you with the bad treatment you will get and how they enslave you for the few bucks they give you.

Disappointment is a part of our lives and no matter how much it drags us down; we need to get up again and fight to live the kind of life we want. We cannot allow it to break us in half just because we are not strong enough or the shock was big enough. It is one of the many things that we as humans need to deal with and maybe the best way is precaution; always manage our expectations to take the good and the bad and never trust anyone too much because only those you trust are capable of hurting you so much.

To read old comments on this post; please click here