S03.E12: Never Say Never

[Scarlett45]

On 2/7/2022 at 2:43 AM, Mothra said:

I wonder about this, though.  I'm not sure that they stood out for their obesity.  There are swaths of obesity, especially throughout the South, where overweight is normal.  I wonder what their classmates looked like--I'd like to see some photos from their yearbooks.

Actually, I don't doubt that some of the family was bullied about their looks.  I think maybe Chris looked OK, especially if he played football.  And there's one sister, maybe two who are sort of pretty.  If they all had those Brahman bull lumps of fat on their foreheads, well, that's another story.  If they attended a school full of obese kids who all drank sweet tea morning till night, maybe they didn't stick out so much.  Maybe.

Yes obesity is more common in the south,  and was even 30yrs ago when Tammy was little (the 90s weren’t the 2020s) but Tammy was not “normal kid fat”. She wasn’t 200lbs in middle school- she was close to 400 (and she wasn’t 6ft tall). As someone who’s the same age as Tammy, I was an obese child (but Chicago not the south) and in the 90s there may have been a couple of fat kids in a class, but I never saw any kids as big as Tammy was. 

Also like with anything else there is a social hierarchy- if a young girl is over weight, but has a fun personality, gets good grades, is facially pretty and well off economically, people may make comments about her weight but that’s a very different thing than being poor, not academically gifted, having social anxiety/being shy as well as being obese. Also bullies know who to target- if you call a fat kid fat and they say “okay, that was original”- bullies will likely leave them alone, if you call a normal weight child fat and they cry, the bullies will torture them.

 

I can believe Tammy had a rough time growing up- doesn’t excuse her behavior NOW but I can believe childhood wasn’t easy for her.

 

[chenoa333]

13 minutes ago, Scarlett45 said:

I can believe Tammy had a rough time growing up- doesn’t excuse her behavior NOW but I can believe childhood wasn’t easy for her.

 

I agree. Children find various ways to cope with unpleasant home lives, not being accepted at school. For some kids it's drugs, some it's anorexia/bulimia and for Tammy it's food.

I'm not sure she's really serious about doing the work to lose the weight and going to therapy. I believe she just wants to get back to her life on SM, TLC, making videos. I hope I'm wrong. 

[Friday]

On 2/11/2022 at 8:12 AM, chenoa333 said:

For sure. Wait til Gage gets a little bit older and learns what his mom and aunt do for a "living". But it's also possible Gage will be obese too so maybe TLC will just add him to this pathetic show.

I can picture the ad: 

          1000 Pound Sisters:  The Next Generation.