Morbidly obese SIL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to some of the smug people on here, but my kids also eat mostly processed food, lots of pizza, love nuggets, pasta, avoid veggies. And they’re teens and they’re rail thin. This is not as simple as saying that “junk” = obese. This isn’t a black and white issue, much less a moral one.

Ha ha, I am chuckling at this post. Many teens can gorge themselves on junk food and not gain weight. They are growing. SIL is a middle aged woman. Big difference.

Agree. Growing teens are generally rail thin, even if they eat bacon fat. The problem is when they stop growing and yet continue to eat processed foods. I've watched rail thin teens become plump twenty-somethings with cheekbones and jawlines lost in a swelling of neck and face fat. My own ex-H was like that too, and he believed he could keep eating chips and junk food without ever exercising and without gaining weight because he was a skinny teen. In his 50s now he's been battling his growing gut for nearly 2 decades and on the cusp of diabetes.

Agree. And the issue here is not eating pizza, nuggets or pasta. It’s how this food is made. If it’s processed there are likely lots of additives and chemicals in them. That stuff rots you from the inside out. It leads to gut issues that lead to all types of other issues.

Pizza, nuggets, pasta that is actually made out of real, non gmo FOOD, not chemicals is great, but the FDA allows all types of straight up chemical crap in what we call “food” in America.

“Gut issues” is “alternative health” woo and the fact that you quoted “non-GMO” means you know nothing. Oops.

I’m not that poster but wow, you like to show off your ignorance, don’t you? Go educate yourself on the current studies on intestinal bacteria and obesity. You are wildly behind the times.

[Anonymous]

OP, how would this conversation go?

If she won’t adjust for her DH, she will for you? Doubtful.

I can’t see any benefit to you getting involved. Her DH needs to find a Dr, nutritionist, someone with professional skills to try and sort this out.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Some of you seem to have a low opinion of BIL too. In defense of him. He never minded when she was overweight etc. It was only when she developed all these health issues including diabetes and now neuropathy etc that he is starting to panic. Plus combined with his own health woes that could be vastly improved with diet.

Agreed it would not end well if we sat down with SIL. If I were carrying an extra 150 lbs I'd be sitting on the couch too. But something has got to give.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Some of you seem to have a low opinion of BIL too. In defense of him. He never minded when she was overweight etc. It was only when she developed all these health issues including diabetes and now neuropathy etc that he is starting to panic. Plus combined with his own health woes that could be vastly improved with diet.

Agreed it would not end well if we sat down with SIL. If I were carrying an extra 150 lbs I'd be sitting on the couch too. But something has got to give.

BIL can start exercising and cooking for himself. If he’s motivated he’ll figure it out with his work schedule. But he can’t expect someone who hates cooking to learn how to cook healthy meals for him. She’s his wife, not a service. Feel free to encourage him in this since he came to you for help, but stay far away from his marriage issues. It’s just not your place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Some of you seem to have a low opinion of BIL too. In defense of him. He never minded when she was overweight etc. It was only when she developed all these health issues including diabetes and now neuropathy etc that he is starting to panic. Plus combined with his own health woes that could be vastly improved with diet.

Agreed it would not end well if we sat down with SIL. If I were carrying an extra 150 lbs I'd be sitting on the couch too. But something has got to give.

My God you are a truly awful, awful person. I hope your poor SIL stays incredibly far away from you, as do her kids. You are not a safe person to be near.

Actually I now feel sorry for your entire family that has to be near you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Some of you seem to have a low opinion of BIL too. In defense of him. He never minded when she was overweight etc. It was only when she developed all these health issues including diabetes and now neuropathy etc that he is starting to panic. Plus combined with his own health woes that could be vastly improved with diet.

Agreed it would not end well if we sat down with SIL. If I were carrying an extra 150 lbs I'd be sitting on the couch too. But something has got to give.

BIL can start exercising and cooking for himself. If he’s motivated he’ll figure it out with his work schedule. But he can’t expect someone who hates cooking to learn how to cook healthy meals for him. She’s his wife, not a service. Feel free to encourage him in this since he came to you for help, but stay far away from his marriage issues. It’s just not your place.

The OP is a toxic narcissist and will not hear this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Some of you seem to have a low opinion of BIL too. In defense of him. He never minded when she was overweight etc. It was only when she developed all these health issues including diabetes and now neuropathy etc that he is starting to panic. Plus combined with his own health woes that could be vastly improved with diet.

Agreed it would not end well if we sat down with SIL. If I were carrying an extra 150 lbs I'd be sitting on the couch too. But something has got to give.

And therein lies the problem. He didn’t care for YEARS that his wife has a diet of five things and sat on the couch all the time. Really, there is a much bigger issue here and your failure to see this is really obtuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you could buy them a six-month subscription to Blue Apron or similar?

This is a good idea. Make it about the DH trying to get healthy. Make the subscription something as easy as possible to eat so SIL will start eating it. DH should refuse to get her junk food on the way home.

OP, I certainly do not think you are being meddlesome. I concur with the approach above. I think supporting the husband in his efforts including ordering prepared healthy foods is the way to go at first. The husband should include his daughter in this and hope that the wife will try new foods. Sometimes people will hear from others what they will not hear from their own spouse. That could be why husband is coming to you. I definitely would not stage an intervention yet but if she has siblings she is close to suggest that husband reach out to them for help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe you could buy them a six-month subscription to Blue Apron or similar?

This is a good idea. Make it about the DH trying to get healthy. Make the subscription something as easy as possible to eat so SIL will start eating it. DH should refuse to get her junk food on the way home.

OP, I certainly do not think you are being meddlesome. I concur with the approach above. I think supporting the husband in his efforts including ordering prepared healthy foods is the way to go at first. The husband should include his daughter in this and hope that the wife will try new foods. Sometimes people will hear from others what they will not hear from their own spouse. That could be why husband is coming to you. I definitely would not stage an intervention yet but if she has siblings she is close to suggest that husband reach out to them for help.

Forgot to add that with her health issues, her doctors have no doubt told her to lose weight multiple times. So the issue isn’t that she is unaware, probably depression or laziness and lack of motivation at play, but I also think something else is going on.The fact that she doesn’t like restaurant food and only eats hot dogs etc is telling. That was my preferred diet at 10 years old. Something else is probably going on here. This is not about cooking. If it was, she would eat restaurant baked chicken and broccoli. There is some other reason that her palate is limited to baseball game fare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hate to break it to some of the smug people on here, but my kids also eat mostly processed food, lots of pizza, love nuggets, pasta, avoid veggies. And they’re teens and they’re rail thin. This is not as simple as saying that “junk” = obese. This isn’t a black and white issue, much less a moral one.

Ha ha, I am chuckling at this post. Many teens can gorge themselves on junk food and not gain weight. They are growing. SIL is a middle aged woman. Big difference.

Agree. Growing teens are generally rail thin, even if they eat bacon fat. The problem is when they stop growing and yet continue to eat processed foods. I've watched rail thin teens become plump twenty-somethings with cheekbones and jawlines lost in a swelling of neck and face fat. My own ex-H was like that too, and he believed he could keep eating chips and junk food without ever exercising and without gaining weight because he was a skinny teen. In his 50s now he's been battling his growing gut for nearly 2 decades and on the cusp of diabetes.

Agree. And the issue here is not eating pizza, nuggets or pasta. It’s how this food is made. If it’s processed there are likely lots of additives and chemicals in them. That stuff rots you from the inside out. It leads to gut issues that lead to all types of other issues.

Pizza, nuggets, pasta that is actually made out of real, non gmo FOOD, not chemicals is great, but the FDA allows all types of straight up chemical crap in what we call “food” in America.

“Gut issues” is “alternative health” woo and the fact that you quoted “non-GMO” means you know nothing. Oops.

I gained a lot of weight after getting H1N1 ten (?) years ago.



https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-strengthens-link-be/

New study results bolster the controversial hypothesis that certain cases of obesity are contagious. Over the last 20 years, some research has suggested that certain strains of human and avian adenoviruses--responsible for ailments ranging from the chest colds to pink eye--actually make individuals build up more fat cells. Having antibodies to one strain in particular, so-called Ad-36, proved to correlate with the heaviest obese people, and in one study, pairs of twins differed in heft depending on exposure to that virus.


https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17420782/

Conclusion: More work is however required to elucidate the mechanisms of weight gain after viral infection. In the mean time, discounting viruses as a contributing factor to obesity would deprive us of a potential new avenue of investigating and treating the ever increasing epidemic of obesity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Some of you seem to have a low opinion of BIL too. In defense of him. He never minded when she was overweight etc. It was only when she developed all these health issues including diabetes and now neuropathy etc that he is starting to panic. Plus combined with his own health woes that could be vastly improved with diet.

Agreed it would not end well if we sat down with SIL. If I were carrying an extra 150 lbs I'd be sitting on the couch too. But something has got to give.

My God you are a truly awful, awful person. I hope your poor SIL stays incredibly far away from you, as do her kids. You are not a safe person to be near.

Actually I now feel sorry for your entire family that has to be near you.

You have a psychological problem. The word "fat" equals "shaming" to you. They are not one and the same. My father died of alcoholism and heavy smoking. (I also have obese family members.) I was very young. I resented him for years for choosing cigarettes and alcohol over being in his children's lives. I'm over that now because it's been so long. I wish I had had the insight to tell him that when he was still alive. SIL is killing herself. She will not live to see her grandchildren. Someone should speak up. The word "fat" is not the word "disgusting" any more than "alcoholism" or "lung cancer" are.

[Anonymous]

The more I think about this, all you can do is support your BIL. But if he makes plenty of money, it isn’t clear to me what you would actually do other than encourage him. It doesn’t sound like he needs you to pay for healthy meals, etc.

I do think you need to take a step back and realize there is a lot more toxicity here than you probably even realize. Your SIL likely has sensory and mental health issues. And your BIL sounds like he totally enabled her sitting around doing nothing. And he didn’t care enough to even try to model health behavior for his kid.

So tell your BIL that you are proud of him for making changes. But realize the likelihood of him making any sort of meaningful change is about 1%. I would not get too invested in this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about this, all you can do is support your BIL. But if he makes plenty of money, it isn’t clear to me what you would actually do other than encourage him. It doesn’t sound like he needs you to pay for healthy meals, etc.

I do think you need to take a step back and realize there is a lot more toxicity here than you probably even realize. Your SIL likely has sensory and mental health issues. And your BIL sounds like he totally enabled her sitting around doing nothing. And he didn’t care enough to even try to model health behavior for his kid.

So tell your BIL that you are proud of him for making changes. But realize the likelihood of him making any sort of meaningful change is about 1%. I would not get too invested in this.

One other thought. Your BIL should talk to his doctor about weight loss drugs like Saxenda and Wegovy. He will still need to make lifestyle changes, but that could help him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Some of you seem to have a low opinion of BIL too. In defense of him. He never minded when she was overweight etc. It was only when she developed all these health issues including diabetes and now neuropathy etc that he is starting to panic. Plus combined with his own health woes that could be vastly improved with diet.

Agreed it would not end well if we sat down with SIL. If I were carrying an extra 150 lbs I'd be sitting on the couch too. But something has got to give.

My God you are a truly awful, awful person. I hope your poor SIL stays incredibly far away from you, as do her kids. You are not a safe person to be near.

Actually I now feel sorry for your entire family that has to be near you.

You have a psychological problem. The word "fat" equals "shaming" to you. They are not one and the same. My father died of alcoholism and heavy smoking. (I also have obese family members.) I was very young. I resented him for years for choosing cigarettes and alcohol over being in his children's lives. I'm over that now because it's been so long. I wish I had had the insight to tell him that when he was still alive. SIL is killing herself. She will not live to see her grandchildren. Someone should speak up. The word "fat" is not the word "disgusting" any more than "alcoholism" or "lung cancer" are.

+1. My grandmother died of smoking and alcoholism. Stating a fact that people die from obesity because of their choices isn't shame, it's a fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Her DH asked us to sit down with her. But we are reluctant to. Don't know why I'm getting all this hate here. It is very sad to see her dealing with diabetes hypertension etc now.

If he wants to “sit down with her,” let him, but stay out of it.

Yep. It's not your place op and it was wrong of him to put it on you. He is capable of finding healthy options for himself people even people who work 60 hrs a week are capable of doing that
Ultimately his health is his responsibility and the same for dil her health is her responsibility.

You could suggest he tak to her again this time taking the approach he wants them to live together well into their 90s and the news from their doctors had h scared. Maybe we can try something like Hello Fresh together for a few months.Or planet eats or another service that provides healthy meals. Take walk together when he's not working Do it that way. If she won't she won't.

You and her brother getting involved won't help.