It's usually pretty obvious when someone is muscular compared to obese.

What you need is a health check making sure your cholesterol, liver function tests, diabetes screen. blood pressure etc are in a 'healthy' range. If not be guided by your medical professionals. Like Karen I am slim. I weigh 62 kilos. I have high cholesterol, probably genetic as diet change has done nothing. BP is fine, all over health checks are fine. The BMI may be flawed but it gives a number and people like numbers.

Cindy

The BMI can be a general guide. You know whether you have lots of muscle or none at all or somewhere in-between. For more precise measurements you could find out your body fat percentage and that should give you a better idea of whether you need to lose weight and how much. Also, like someone said, getting your health checked is key for everyone, especially if you know you have excess fat.

So, to an extent I say some of these actions/views regarding obese folks are justified, because it does go hand-in-hand with less mobility, more health risks, etc. And to a VERY big extent it has nothing to do with genetics - genetics can give you "an edge" one way or another (i.e. make it easier/harder for you to gain/lose weight), but genetics do not mean you HAVE to be 200lbs overweight or something. The biggest factors are your diet and physical activity level.

Quote from: Nikolai_S on June 06, 2011, 10:41:27 PM

That being said, I'm from the PA/WV border area and notice the average weight in the general population is fairly well reflected in employees, and in WV I think the obesity rate is well above the national average, so I'm kind of surprised that OP is running into any more problems than he might elsewhere in the country. Although I think at the level of morbid obesity employment anywhere might have some prejudices to deal with, and I don't know where you fall. Are there any studies that have been done on employment discrimination in the area as opposed to nationally?

Well I'm born & raised in this area, and everywhere I go, all I see are very petite women with jobs. The size 2 or less types. Very thin, tiny women. My biceps are bigger than their waists. WVU stopped pre-employment testing because of me, because I doubled the required speed on their typing test for a data entry job and they panicked, they hung up on me numerous times and then when I reapplied, guess what, there was no such thing as pre-employment testing. My aunt had a friend who worked at Teletech, which claims you don't need any experience to work there. So her friend begged, begged and pleased with the HR person there to hire me and that person said they can't have "people like me" work for them. Everyone else who works there is stick thin. It's a freaking call center! Yet back when Wal Mart was at the old mall and they had that cell phone dealer in it, the guy who worked for that cell phone company had to weigh over 600 lbs. It's ok for a man to be huge here, but how dare a woman be over a size 2. 

Tekla, IMO that should still count as employment discrimination. Weight has no correlation to intelligence and doesn't always correlate to health. For one, I have a gifted range IQ, and secondly, my blood tests showed everything was perfect, and I have perfect blood pressure. They shouldn't be allowed to discriminate based on negative, prejudiced assumptions. Btw, I have a good friend who's 500 lbs, has multiple degrees and is multilingual. Weight doesn't affect intelligence. How many perfectly thin people are as dumb as rocks??

Quote from: Thrall on June 07, 2011, 04:08:19 AM


EDIT: this might be slightly offtopic, but i just wanted to say, start the daily contrast (hot-cold-hot-cold) showers right now. it's the only way to prevent having a loose skin after the weight loss.

Where did you get this information? I take those kinds of showers, but haven't heard of this.

Quote from: Forum Admin on June 07, 2011, 05:23:19 PM
Where did you get this information? I take those kinds of showers, but haven't heard of this.

doctors at the eating disorders' center told me that. so did my friend who's getting m.d. degree herself.

Losing weight can take many years, I would start looking for other areas I could improve to make myself more marketable. 

I don't know what your computer degree is in, but my father, who lives in PA used to be in charge of hiring for software engineers and other "computer" positions.

Appearance does play a role. I have friend that I've known since elementary school who is very big. They have a hard time finding clothes big enough. Often they have to get clothes made. How you dress plays a big part in first impressions. You want to dress a level above what you would wear if you were hired. Make sure you are well groomed. Definitely do not wear any sort of body spray, perfume, cologne.

Where your degree is from is also important. If it's a from a for profit school, it's pretty much worthless. Having a degree from a reputable school is a must.

Experience is another big factor. It shows you can apply the  knowledge that your degree says you have. There's a difference between knowing how to do something and having acquired the necessary skills. You need to prove that you have the ability work, learn, and function as part of the team. Your personality and being able to mesh with the team is very important.

You need to have a strong resume. If it's weak or you are elusive or vague when you are called in and are going over details, you aren't going to get the job.



You said you've never had a job. Do you just mean in your chosen field? Or do you have absolutely no work experience?

Nope. No work experience. Been rejected all my life. It's nothing but a beauty contest for women.

Quote from: Thrall on June 07, 2011, 04:08:19 AM
this might be slightly offtopic, but i just wanted to say, start the daily contrast (hot-cold-hot-cold) showers right now. it's the only way to prevent having a loose skin after the weight loss.

What do you mean by contrast showers?  Google isn't helping me for once.

Quote from: Lee on June 07, 2011, 07:30:21 PM
What do you mean by contrast showers?  Google isn't helping me for once.

http://www.vsnaturopathy.com/Shower.html

Quote from: sascraps on June 07, 2011, 07:02:41 PM
Nope. No work experience. Been rejected all my life. It's nothing but a beauty contest for women.

You don't think it's possible that there are other factors why you aren't getting hired?

If what you are saying is true then there are thousands of women in the WV/PA/MD/OH area who can't get a job. I personally know a few very obese women who are employed in this area. I currently work and live in PA. I've gotten hired as a fat and unattractive woman.

The only other factors I could think of would be that I don't come from money and can't get designer name clothes or show up in a Mercedes or a Lexus or something, ya know? Or it could just be me, because in this area, I've been known since kindergarten as the town joke. I've always been considered the ugliest person in the world. People around here think I'm outrageously, unbelievably, so far beyond hideous like nothing they've ever seen before. People really have extreme reactions to my face here. 

sascraps, you must be a tough guy to put up with all of this. but still... what stops you from moving out?

EDIT: grammar

Honey, the best way to deal with people like that is to prove them wrong.

You say you want to be a mechanic but there's nowhere locally to learn... have you thought about an online course? I trawled around the interweb a little and found this, maybe it's something you could look into?

http://www.homestudycourses.net/auto-mechanics-home-study.html

You can be anything you want to be, all you need is the determination. *hug* Don't let others stop you pursuing your dreams.

If I didn't have any pets to worry about, I'd have been gone years ago. But with pets, and without money, there's no way out.

Quote from: Casey Leon on June 06, 2011, 09:07:36 PM
Female bodies, by virtue of naturally having less muscle, burn less calories than a male body. So if you input male, they'll tell you to eat more calories, which could stunt your weight loss quite significantly, and also it would overestimate your exercise needs, telling you that you burned more than you actually did.

For example, I'm female-bodied, not on T, so this is how it would affect someone of my size:

Female: 5'4", age 22, 180 lbs, sedentary lifestyle: I burn 1870 a day just by living.

Male: 5'4", age 22, 180 lbs, sedentary lifestyle: i burn 2070 a day just by living.

So there's about half a pound a week difference right there. Just basic; that doesn't include exercise differences either. I'd type that in too but my pet is on the keyboard trying to eat my fingers.

^
This

Whenever I calculate for exercises and medications and ext. I always input female. It's hard to do sometimes, but necessary. For instance, I have a body fat percentage of 25 or so, normal for a 20 yr old 5' 2" woman. I want to be lower, closer to a male level. However, the only way to do that is to lose weight as per what is normal for a woman. It can be confusing at first, but you figure it out.

IMO that should still count as employment discrimination... They shouldn't be allowed to discriminate based on negative, prejudiced assumptions.

Discrimination, at least on a legal basis, is a matter of class and not individuals.  You have to have a situation where an entire groups of people are discriminated against as a matter of policy.  And any - and every - employer these days has a huge amount of people to choose from which makes it hard for anyone to prove discrimination.  It way too easy to find someone/anyone, who 'would be a better fit for our company'.

And long, long before anyone really had a chance to see you to discriminate on the basis of your looks - and don't kid yourself, image is important, and in many jobs critical - the fact that you have zero work history would be a resume killer all by itself.  I myself would not read past that point as I don't need to try to supervise people who not even aware of what it is to be an 'employee' in this day and age.  Nor would it be fair to the people who trust me to make those decisions, who expect me to choose people based on what would be best for the company.

Strictly speaking, just for myself, as a working supervisor, I really don't have the time to supervise, I'd rather be getting my real work done.  So I bring on people who don't need any supervision at all.  People who know what the work requires and have proven their ability to meet those demands over a rather long period of time.  When I'm on the deck with my crew (usually 4 others) we have over 150 years of combined experience doing rock concerts.  And that means that I don't have to worry about them.  They are proven commodity.

I actually have experience doing concerts. But that's another story. So what am I supposed to do? I'm going to be homeless for the rest of my life because no one ever gave me a chance? Do I not deserve to be a part of this world? You know, I wish I could just delete this thread entirely because I'm sick of always hearing how worthless everyone thinks I am and how I'm just not good enough for this world or good for anything!!

Quote from: sascraps on June 08, 2011, 05:04:15 PM
I actually have experience doing concerts. But that's another story. So what am I supposed to do? I'm going to be homeless for the rest of my life because no one ever gave me a chance? Do I not deserve to be a part of this world? You know, I wish I could just delete this thread entirely because I'm sick of always hearing how worthless everyone thinks I am and how I'm just not good enough for this world or good for anything!!

No one is saying your worthless or that you can't be good enough. If you want your life to change you have to make the change happen. Wanting a job isn't going to get you one. You have to make yourself someone an employer wants to hire. Until you accept any short comings you have, we all have them, and work to improve yourself, you are going to be at a standstill. You got to help yourself before anyone else will.

That's what I'm trying to do, but I guess some people think it's hopeless since I didn't start out in life thin, good looking and appearing to be from an upper class family. I'm doing the best I can. So they don't hire fat people for anything. I'm trying to lose weight. And being male will take off the HUGE burden of having to be beautiful to get a job.