Almighty Dad | A stay at home dad blog

Obese parents are not by rule bad parents.  Yes, it’s unhealthy to be really fat, but it’s also unhealthy to be an alcoholic, chain smoker, lazy and a bunch of other stuff.  We are all human and we all do stuff that could be construed as making us unfit parents even if we really aren’t.  However, I am not talking about your every day, run of the mill stupid human behaviors.  What I’m talking about is Donna Simpson of New Jersey who currently weighs a bit over 600 lbs and is trying desperately to get to 1,000 lbs.  You heard me.  She isn’t trying to lose weight with Jillian Michaels or take pills to shed the weight.  She’s not going to staple her stomach or go seek help.  She, a mother of 2 kids aged 3 and 14, is trying to become the world’s heaviest woman.  You can read all about it here.    

Don’t be Fooled by Her Positive Message    

It seems that no matter how dumb the activity, there will always be someone trying to put a positive spin on it.  Donna is no different.  Her husband thinks her quest for fatness is an encouraging message to other fat people.  They both think that what they’re doing is conveying a positive message to other overweight people.  That being fat doesn’t have to mean living an unfulfilled, loveless life.  They hold themselves up as examples of just how happy (and sexy, according to her husband) extremely obese people can be.  She even wants to claim that she is “very healthy” because she goes to the doctor every 3 months.  Cancer patients go to the doctor every week, but that doesn’t make them healthy.  She has Type 2 diabetes and can’t perform basic daily tasks without assistance.  But, yup, she’s healthy and a great role model.    

Someone think of the Children!    

I wouldn’t be talking about this lady at all if it weren’t for the fact that she has two kids.  I wouldn’t care that she spends 750 dollars a week on groceries and is going to be dead in a few years or less.  I don’t have the time or energy to care about anybody who won’t lift a finger to save themselves.   This small rant will not make any difference at all if she happens to read it.  But, she’ll be dead in a few years and the kids aren’t going to have their mother (admittedly not a great loss).  Her kids would be better off with someone else anyway.  What legacy is she leaving to them?  What will they think of her when she’s gone, and what does she want them to think of her?  They can only think one of two things.  They’ll see her as a shining example of how great obesity is and buy into the positve message bullcrap that I mentioned before or they will see her as the self centered and self destructive person that we, everybody else, think she is.  The only scenario in which the kids come out okay is if they agree with us that their mother was an example of how not to live.  I don’t think Donna’s aim is to have kids who hate her because she was selfish.  I also don’t think it’s her goal to saddle her kids with the same problems she has.  Either way, someone loses.      

Donna’s actions do nothing to further the plight of obese people.  If it does anything it reinforces the image of fat people (right or wrong) as people who care more about food than their kids.  Society already has an unfavorable opinion of the obese.  When she is dead and gone, all people will say is “see, look at what a selfish bitch she was,” and that will reinforce the stereotype, and fat people will be no better off for it.  She isn’t a role model to fat people, she’s a pariah.  Other fat people should be shouting at her, “Don’t do this to us!”

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