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Would you send this link? (Read 744 times)

    I have a severely overweight brother and his wife is obese as well. His wife had a heart valve replacement a year ago. I love them dearly and I would really like to see them around for a while longer but I'm worried about the effects of a sedentary lifestyle and over-eating. Do you think it would be rude to send something like this? 

     

    Would you send this link?

     

    http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/11/patients-heart-disease-learn-cancer-patients.html

     

    Thanks

    Ruth

    Suffering Benefiting from mature onset exercise addiction and low aerobic endorphin release threshold. Hoping there is no cure.


    an amazing likeness

      If you really believe that they do not understand the risks of their current approach to their health, then more information and 'education' sources will help.  But it's hard to imagine in this day and age that someone would not be aware of the potential impact of obesity on their quality of life.

       

      Ultimately, they need to decide for themselves to make changes. They probably know what those changes need to be. They see it in the media, they've heard it from their doctors, they know it from common sense and the years of your mother telling your brother to eat his damn veggies.  You adding your voice to the cacophony will probably not motivate change.

       

      My opinion Ruth...is for you to sit down with your brother, face to face and say that you want to help him improve his health because you want to have your brother around for a long, quality life.  Let him know you care, and you're there and you will do whatever would help him on a new path.  Ask him what you can do.  If he wants to be left alone....do that.  If he needs someone to come over every day and go for walk, help him find a way to make that happen. Let him set the course for what you can do to help.

       

      Sending links to "you're gonna die" articles doesn't seem like something that will motivate him to find the desire to change.

      Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.

        I would.  But then, I needed to be told I was obese (January of this year--29% body fat for a 27 year old...ugh) to get my butt in gear on getting healthy again.  I was always "active" (hiker, backpacker, rock climber), but I wasn't doing enough.

         

        Staring at the health effects of of obesity did a lot to push me.  I've lost almost sixty pounds and counting...and I attribute the desire to understanding the need for a lifestyle change initially.  Running addiction, of course, is making it sustainable Smile.

         

        That said, it will be rude.  It will be hurtful, to some extent, but if your brother is like I was (stubborn), it might be needed. Your mileage may vary!

        "When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." 
        Emil Zatopek


        Menace to Sobriety

           

          My opinion Ruth...is for you to sit down with your brother, face to face and say that you want to help him improve his health because you want to have your brother around for a long, quality life.  Let him know you care, and you're there and you will do whatever would help him on a new path.  Ask him what you can do.  If he wants to be left alone....do that.  If he needs someone to come over every day and go for walk, help him find a way to make that happen. Let him set the course for what you can do to help.

           

          Sending links to "you're gonna die" articles doesn't seem like something that will motivate him to find the desire to change.

           I agree with this 100%.

          Janie, today I quit my job. And then I told my boss to go f*** himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost sixty thousand dollars. Pass the asparagus.

          TeaOlive


          old woman w/hobby

            What MilkTruck said.

            steph  

             

             

            zoom-zoom


            rectumdamnnearkilledem

              Or your brother may be, like my dad, not able to change until something very drastic and potentially deadly hits him.  It took an Easter Sunday stroke while staying at my sister's house, surrounded by his grandsons, before he quit smoking.  The guy's a college graduate and well-read.  He knew smoking was killing him...but addiction to anything is tough to break.  I wager that food issue are especially difficult, since we can't exactly "quit cold turkey."

               

              As far as exercise goes, that's tough too.  I am always greatly impressed by those who are morbidly obese who start exercising prior to losing significant weight.  It's never easy when one's at a healthy weight.  It has to be daunting to even the most motivated obese person, especially if they feel at all self-conscious.

               

              My sister started working out and eating better this Spring.  In March she turned 30.  I don't think that's at all coincidental.  She said she got tired of being the fat sister.

               

              I think that's really the only way it can happen.  Your brother and SIL need to take these steps of their own accord.

              Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to

              remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.    

                   ~ Sarah Kay

                If you really believe that they do not understand the risks of their current approach to their health, then more information and 'education' sources will help.  But it's hard to imagine in this day and age that someone would not be aware of the potential impact of obesity on their quality of life.

                 

                Ultimately, they need to decide for themselves to make changes. They probably know what those changes need to be. They see it in the media, they've heard it from their doctors, they know it from common sense and the years of your mother telling your brother to eat his damn veggies.  You adding your voice to the cacophony will probably not motivate change.

                 

                My opinion Ruth...is for you to sit down with your brother, face to face and say that you want to help him improve his health because you want to have your brother around for a long, quality life.  Let him know you care, and you're there and you will do whatever would help him on a new path.  Ask him what you can do.  If he wants to be left alone....do that.  If he needs someone to come over every day and go for walk, help him find a way to make that happen. Let him set the course for what you can do to help.

                 

                Sending links to "you're gonna die" articles doesn't seem like something that will motivate him to find the desire to change.

                +1.

                 

                One of my dear friend is quite a bit overweight.  Every time I get together with her, she's getting bigger and bigger and it worries me.  A couple of years ago, I visited her and pretty much "confronted" her and told her, in her face, that she's getting fatter and she's not doing her any favor.  She's a smart girl and I just don't understand why she doesn't see that it's not good for her.  I told her that I can even give her a beginner's program to start run/walk.  Well, nothing has changed and I'm sort of thinking about getting together with her again and say it in her face one more time.  I reckon I do this not to be mean but because I care for her and she's close enough of a friend that I can say it in her face.  It hurts and it ain't pleasant.  But if her husband doesn't (well, he might already have), someone's got to!!

                 

                Every time I see people smoking, I wonder, with all the commercials and advertisement, saying how terrible it is to smoke and how it's going to kill you, they still smoke.  I guess, in a way, it's easy for us a healthy nerd who likes to "run", to say; get out and exercise!!  Once hooked, it may be so much easier to just sit back, watch TV and munch on potato chips...

                rlemert


                  Don't forget that there may be deeper issues behind the weight than you might think. I know a woman, for example, who was abused and fondled as a child and who is significantly over-weight now (she needs new knees but can't afford to surgery, and would need to lose weight before they would do it anyway). I haven't talked to her about it, but I'm sure that her weight is actually a coping/protective mechanism for her. If she's over-weight she's going to be less attractive, and if she's less attractive then men are less likely to accost her.

                   

                  Telling someone like her to "just get out there and exercise and lose that weight" isn't going to help at all because it doesn't address the reason for the weight in the first place.

                  zoom-zoom


                  rectumdamnnearkilledem

                    Every time I see people smoking, I wonder, with all the commercials and advertisement, saying how terrible it is to smoke and how it's going to kill you, they still smoke.

                     

                    Because they're addicts.  A close friend of mine has battled cigarettes for years.  She lost her mom to lung cancer and was diagnosed with breast cancer, herself, when she was 35--she chose to have double mastectomy so that she'd increase her odds of never again dealing with that cancer.  She's tried taking prescription drugs to help wean her off nicotine, but those have nasty side effects, as well.  I've often read that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances and from what I've seen from people close to me who have tried to quit, I'd believe it.

                    Getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to

                    remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.    

                         ~ Sarah Kay

                       

                       

                      Every time I see people smoking, I wonder, with all the commercials and advertisement, saying how terrible it is to smoke and how it's going to kill you, they still smoke.  I guess, in a way, it's easy for us a healthy nerd who likes to "run", to say; get out and exercise!!  Once hooked, it may be so much easier to just sit back, watch TV and munch on potato chips...

                       

                      As I was standing in the finishing area at my marathon a couple weeks ago, I saw a woman who apparently had just finished the 1/2M.  She was talking on her mobile phone, smoking. I wish I had a camera. 

                      TeaOlive


                      old woman w/hobby

                        Because they're addicts.  A close friend of mine has battled cigarettes for years.  She lost her mom to lung cancer and was diagnosed with breast cancer, herself, when she was 35--she chose to have double mastectomy so that she'd increase her odds of never again dealing with that cancer.  She's tried taking prescription drugs to help wean her off nicotine, but those have nasty side effects, as well.  I've often read that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances and from what I've seen from people close to me who have tried to quit, I'd believe it.

                         Yes, very much so.  Even when I understood the damage being done.  

                         Quitting  smoking is the hardest thing that I have ever done!

                        steph  

                         

                         

                          I was in a half-marathon training group with a guy that smoked. He beat every one of us on race day, changed then had a couple of cigarettes waiting for the rest of us to cross the finish line! 

                           

                          Thanks for the advice. The frustration for me is they often ask questions of me like how did I learn to run,  or they will tell me that they've turned over a new leaf and finally "get it" and are going to take care of themselves and I see them trying, but it doesn't last. The last time I had an injury my brother said that he thought I should try a new "hobby". :-)

                           

                          In any event, I think I'll continue to go the "lead by example" route and leave it at that.

                          Suffering Benefiting from mature onset exercise addiction and low aerobic endorphin release threshold. Hoping there is no cure.

                            As I was standing in the finishing area at my marathon a couple weeks ago, I saw a woman who apparently had just finished the 1/2M.  She was talking on her mobile phone, smoking. I wish I had a camera. 

                             

                            I know, right? Who races a half with their phone?

                             

                            I "celebrated" my first two marathons by buying a pack of cigarettes and pretty much chain smoking them until the pack was empty. Then back to being a non-smoking runner again the next day. The looks on some people's faces were pretty amusing.

                             

                            I quit running marathons, so I would quit buying cigarettes. I've made it about 20 months so far. Sometimes I still miss them - the cigarettes, I mean - but not very often.

                            When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?