I was blown away, and asked what she meant. She said it “portrayed fat people as ‘lesser than’ the others!” I told her that I very much dissagreed and that the characters in the movie literally could not walk around because their bones were deteriorating from their sedentary lifestyles.
It honestly makes me nervous for her and her relationship with food and weight. She’s about 5’2″ and works in an office but weighs the same as me – a 6′ male who works as a welder. And hell even I could stand to lose 20 pounds! I always try to gently push her towards healthier food options, I refuse to buy her fast food or snacks. I try to get her to come on walks with me, or go play something like Bocci Ball, or go to the gym with me. A few months before the Wall-E comment she said that she had “given up trying to lose weight” and didn’t have an actually solid answer for me when I asked why.
Despite saying that, she often complains about her weight and her appearance. More than once has she cried into my shoulder because she doesn’t like being overweight. She’s still gorgeous to me and I tell her that all the time, but I’m not sure how I can help out more…
Comments
As a Wall-E enthusiast who is obese, I’m devastated. Damn that childhood animated movie of mine saying I’m a lesser person. (Sarcasm, of course)
I can’t tell you the right course of action other than to keep showing her love. Maybe, hopefully, she’ll come around. Have you asked her to go see a therapist?
Excessive weight gain for both genders can be because of any number of reasons. What I can say as someone that never was super healthy myself is that mental health is a big part of it. When I’m stressed or anxious or feeling depressed it’s hard to make the right choices like diet and exercise. Sometimes it requires a change of environment like it did for me (moved away from toxic family and community). Sometimes it’s personal. Telling someone that they’ve given up on trying to lose weight to me sounds like a cry for help. Therapy could be a start. But everyone is different.
Lipedema is real. Idk if this applies to her. Look it up. It might help. But it is part of my struggle with weight loss. Oh, and genetics. đ
Probably not great advice, but if she can quit trying lose weight, she can quit complaining about her weight. Tell you won’t listen to it unless she’s actively doing something about it.
Hey, I can tell you care a lot about your wife and want to help, but pushing her toward weight loss or being really focused on food choices might actually make things harder. When we put too much emphasis on that stuff, it can create more stress and make her feel guilty about what she eats, which just makes it harder to build a healthy relationship with food and her body.
It might be better to focus on how she feels about herself and her health, not just her size. Supporting her to find activities she enjoys and building confidence thatâs not tied to weight can go a long way. Maybe have a chat about how she wants to approach her health in a way that works for her, not just based on outside pressure.
Also, with the Wall-E comment, she could be dealing with some deeper feelings about how society views weight, and that probably triggered some stuff. Creating a space where she feels comfortable talking about those emotions without judgment can really help her process them.
Itâs awesome you love her and want the best for her. Just making sure she feels accepted and supported no matter her size will help her feel better, both mentally and physically.
Wall-E is a literal cautionary tale. On a couple themes – but mostly humans destroying themselves & their environment. And robot love. Any perceived âfatphobiaâ is just a misinterpretation of the message.
why do you feel like it’s your responsibility to fix this for her?
Semaglutides my guy. Monjaro, ozempic, etc. It’s so popular now that programs are popping up for people who are only trying to lose weight to pay for doses each month. Talk to her doctor about it first and see if they’ll prescribe her some since she’s certainly on her way to developing diabetes. Then if that doesn’t work out, see if you can find a legitimate weight loss program that offers it. She will lose weight, if that’s what she wants
just let her be, you’re probably at least halt the reason she’s feeling badly about her weight.
Have you tried inviting her on a fun date? Like a festival or fair ? Lots of sunshine and walking around , good for endorphins.
You say you refuse to buy her unhealthy food and snacks and it really shouldnt be your job to get her to lose weight. But maybe instead of making weight loss a “negative” thing, you can both take up classes in making healthy food. It may strengthen your relationship, when you start making food together thats healthy. If you are willing to put in some extra effort, you can start cooking healthy food even if she doesn’t participate in the beginning. Perhaps she sees you enjoy it and starts joining.
There are so MANY different ways of exercise.
So many cool classes at the gym.
Bungee, surfing, those moon boot things. Iâve seen some neat and fun ways to get active. I used my VR headset. I donât have to go to the gym and I can work out in private. Theyâre fun games like beat Sabre and supernatural that are workouts. You move your body and smash targets.
She could do swimming, itâs easy on the joints, fun and you can hardly tell youâre getting a workout.
There are so so many easy ways to be active.
I think therapy should be next on the list.
Itâs called Ozempic bro
Sheâs just projecting.
She should see a doctor tbh. I lost 30LBS with the help of mine. I was diagnosed with PCOS & Hypothyroidism and had a hard time losing anything. I dieted FOR A YEAR before medication and would stay at 178/180, while my fiancĂŠ lost 15 lbs just from eating better.
Not saying necessarily that she should get on a weight loss medication but underlying medical issues could play a factor in weight gain.
You could make the idea of walks more enticing by framing them as an opportunity to connect as a couple, without any distractions. My daily walks with my wife have been great for our relationship and our health. She has a stressful job so I just listen to her talk through her work issues.
Overweight people know theyâre overweight and they know what they need to do to lose weight. Itâs not that simple though, because the process is a maze of necessary physical changes intertwined with big emotions and negative thoughts. Encouraging them, even with the best of intentions, can actually make them feel worse and less motivated to make lifestyle changes. This is her problem to solveâjust support her wherever sheâs at. If you donât want to listen to her complaints about being overweight, tell her that, but step aside and let her figure out what will work for her unless she specifically asks for advice. Signed, someone who lost 50 pounds in spite of my sweet husbandâs attempts to âhelp.â
Lawyer up and DIVORCE that fat POS
That movie made me cry as a kid with my crush next to me in theaters.
I was like âIâm not crying đ˘, my eyes are burning!â
Fat woman here! I feel compelled to chime in with my perspective, as I may be able to offer you some insight.
Not that it really matters, but I’m 5’0″ and I currently weigh about 225lbs. That is down from the 250 I was a couple years ago. Even before that, I was a chunky kid my entire life. Being a fat woman is basically unavoidable for me.
There’s this prevalent idea in our culture that fat = unhealthy or gluttonous or that being fat indicates a lack of self control. This idea, while common, just flat out isn’t true, if for no other reason than fat people receive worse medical care than our thin counterparts. Do you know how many times I’ve gone to a doctor for a concern, only to be told that I should lose weight when my weight wasn’t even the problem? I had to start telling doctors “Weight loss is not an option for me. What other treatments are available?” And standing firm on that. These days, I have doctors who are wonderful and don’t bring up my weight unless it’s relevant (spoiler: it hardly ever is) Women in general also receive lower quality medical care than men do. Combine these two things and you’re left feeling like there’s something wrong or shameful about you as a fat woman.
I have to imagine she’s projecting all of these feelings and frustrations onto the movie Wall-E. I’ll admit to being made uncomfortable by that aspect of the movie as well, but I’ve always felt that the movie makes it clear that the people’s condition is not their fault. At least, not on an individual level. They are victims of the system that they’ve been born into. The villain of the movie is literally a robot trying to maintain this harmful system and not the people suffering under it.
However, this isn’t about whether her interpretation is “correct” or not. It’s about how she’s feeling. The conversation isn’t about Wall-E, the movie is just a starting point. “Honey, you seem to be having a hard time after the movie. Maybe you’d feel better if we talked about it?” Give her the space to share her thoughts without argument or judgement. It’s okay for her to feel badly about her weight! We live in a word that’s constantly telling us that we should, how else are we supposed to feel? It’s easier said than done to ignore the harmful messages we’ve been raised with.
I mentioned having lost 25 pounds in a couple years. The thing about that is it happened after I stopped trying to. Starving yourself, spending all this energy hating yourself and your body, working out to the point of exhaustion? None of those things actually work for long term sustained health. The things that have helped me are accepting and loving my fat body the way it is (its the only one I’ve got, after all!), working on adding healthier food to my diet (taking away “unhealthy” food doesn’t work because it just makes you deny yourself out of guilt and shame), and taking walks on a regular basis (you don’t need to hard-core workout all the time in order to be healthy.) Remember, we’re focusing on health and wellbeing. Not a number on a scale or how our old jeans look.
Your role as her partner is to let her know how attractive and sexy you find her, encourage her to pursue hobbies she likes, and make some suggestions for “healthy” food you can add to food she already likes, rather than cutting out the “unhealthy” stuff. Let her have the cookies and ice cream, but also maybe try and find fruits and veggies and such that she likes.
I know this was long, but I hope this helps you understand your wife a little better and I hope someone reading this can take some of what I’ve said here to heart. You can’t lose weight if you hate yourself.
Maybe see if she would be willing to get checked out at her Dr. See if they will test for diabetes and thyroid performance (and maybe anything else the Dr can think of that might cause weight gain or make it hard to lose weight). It might be easiest to wait until she mentions being unhappy with her weight, then suggest she should rule out any medical issues.
ManâŚThis is tough and Iâm sorry youâre going through itâŚI actually divorced my first wife over pretty similar issue.
The problem isnât just the weight gain, but about an unhealthy lifestyle and a lack of motivation. Iâm not sure what changed after we got married but itâs like she just gave up.
I decided I didnât want to live the rest of my life trying to tug someone along behind me who didnât actually want to be living healthy.
Obviously not suggesting you should do the same over a Wall-e comment, but if you notice the pattern isnât changing and itâs not something you are comfortable with, you have to do whatâs best for you.
first, wall-e isnât fatphobic. if anything, it approaches a society of overweight individuals with empathy and humanity.
next, donât let your wife give up. she is strong. she needs to believe that she can change. bodies are adaptable, hence societyâs weight gain in wall-e. bodies are also resilient, hence the physical trauma that the characters had to go through learning to walk again. individual care is important because not all bodies operate the same. but, every single body is capable of change (for better or for worse).
idk you or your wife personally, so idk how to best handle the situation. my advice is to combat all of the negative energy (including the deep sadness, anger, and pain she has about her current situation) with positive energy. âyou are strongâ âyou are beautifulâ âyou can lose weightâ âi believe in youâ. if she responds to you with âdo you think im ugly?â or âyou must hate that im fatâ, tell her the honest truth, that no, you donât think sheâs ugly and you support her desire to lose weight. validation is separate from support. you may think you sound like a hypocrite, but you are not. both can be true at the same time. if she insists on not believing you, (if she insists that you can love her and think she should lose weight), that kind of thinking would qualify as disrespect, and youâre allowed to tell her that as well.
thatâs just my advice. you donât have to take it if you donât think it applies to your situation. good luck though. it sounds like itâs been a difficult time for you guys
The explanation your wife gave of why Wall-E is fatphobic is silly – all the people in that movie are fat, so there are no non-fat people for them to be âlesser thanâ in comparison.
But Wall-E is unquestionably fatphobic. The creators of it could have portrayed future space people as small but unable to move on their own. There are so many different ways they could have been portrayed. But they were portrayed as fat because of the visceral reaction an audience would have to seeing a society of all fat people.
As folks in the comments are pointing out, itâs meant to be a cautionary tale and the people of the future are meant to be shown as living a hedonistic lifestyle. True! But why make everyone fat to depict them this way? Itâs not because the science says lower bone density leads to becoming fat. Itâs because showing an entirely fat society would be scary to the audience.
Which is literally the definition of fatphobia.