But the other quotes are there too - many terminally ill or very handicapped people are happy. It depends on your attitude.

Extremes:

I am definitely happy when I see having lost 2 lb. My husband, a thin Buddhist, smiles as he has seen my happiness or unhappiness change with a few lbs - when overall, there is fluctuation within 10 lbs for years. I know it is not healthy to make my happiness or unhappiness depend on the scale. Stupid really

My daughter recently gained a lot of weight and seems fine with it and happy. She criticizes my attitude, saying: how much energy and time have you wasted on diets and on fretting over your weight? She also criticizes my not taking dessert because of my diet. She is right and wrong - right in that my mood shouldn't depend on a few pounds lost or gained, and spending too much time on diet and weight thoughts is unhealthy. Wrong in that I overall am happier with my size and my mood does improve when I eat healthily, which for me is low carb. I think overall, I am happier now than when I was overweight - I never was obese.

It is healthy to be happy with every progress one has made. There are many obese people on this forum who have lost a lot - lets say from 400 to 300 lbs, and they are very happy with where there are. I think it is healthy to be happy on the way, with the progress, even if one is still obese.

I think it is also healthy for a person, maybe that was your boy friend, to decide: this is not my time to deal with my obesity. I had a relative like that - everyone was criticizing her for being super obese, but she seemed happy and was participating in things and active. This was during adolescence, and although it is a tough time to be obese, it may be good to say: I am in this phase of life, I want to finish school or college or... THEN deal with my obesity. It may not be physically good, but psychologically, it may be a healthy attitude to wait until one is ready.

But long term, I doubt a morbidly obese person is happy with his/her life. To hear from everyone, doctors, relatives, TV, newspaper, friends, every day how bad it is to be overweight, and I can't imagine its easily happily accepted.

One reason to be overweight is drugs given to people with Bipolar disorder that often lead to 50-100 lb weight gain. These drugs help with excessively elevated mood (mania) and (less) low mood/depression. I wonder how this balance is really evaluated? I would love to find out if the bottom line is really of benefit - but the psychiatrists claims that the net balance is positive...