Originally Posted by TheSquealer

It's not different than addiction. xxxjay will be who and what he is until he dies or until he hits rock bottom and decides he needs to quit everything and get his life back on track.

What helps him to do that? Kissing his ass with all the "wow bro, thats a gtreat story, congrats..." bs? Or by an industry saying "look fuckwit, you're a junkie and it shows and your whole life has crumbled... why not take a pause, get help and get your shit together?"

The difference is one approach enables the behavior.
The other forces them to look at it and does the exact opposite of enabling.

My body fat is at about 23% right now. You know what happens when i get it down to 15%? I decide that I want to and that its more important than eating all the shitty food i love to eat that makes me feel good. Shitty food feels good to all of us to eat. You don't need to be morbidly obese to understand that simple fact. However, at the end of the day, people do what they WANT to do... and the choice to stop is still a choice. I'm not saying that choice can't carrying varying degrees of difficulty for people, but its still a personal choice. Every bite is a choice.

What underpins the addiction is not relevant to the fact that at some point, you have to recognize the need to change and want to change. THAT IS WHEN you can start to think about the "why's" as you struggle with making the change. Telling a morbidly obese person "you're perfect the way you are" is not doing them any favors. In fact, it's hurting them. It's pushing them further and further away from change and into a life of debilitating health problems and a shorter life.

Also to your point, i'd say this. Addiction treatment, counseling/therapy etc no matter whether its treating drug addiction, eating issues, phobias etc has no higher success rate and is no more successful than those who just wake up and say "i'm done and i'm going to change". It's always a personal choice at the end of the day.