Fat by Choice

Here’s a question that was posed to me on Quora:

Do you believe most fat people are fat by choice or is it something not everyone can control?

The short answer: Yes.

There are, of course, significant causes of obesity, such as those with mental health issues who use food to self-medicate much in the way one might use alcohol, drugs, or other unhealthy soothers. But, this is a small population as compared to those who are not in this group.

All day, every day, all of us (fat people, skinny people and those in between) are making thousands of decisions. We choose those decisions. We choose every action we take — or don’t take.

Any day we wish, we can choose to start a new activity.

We can choose to start the process of change.

We can choose to do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year.

We can also choose to do nothing, to remain as we are.

The choices are ours to make.

We’re all human, and all humans make bad choices of one kind or another at some point or another. Does a bad choice (or two or more) create a full picture of a person? Of course not. But, we do have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices.