Why Are Minorities In the WLS .. Errr, Minority?

I then got to thinking how even fewer of the Ms that have had WLS that I know of are of minority ethnicity .. I can probably count on two hands the number of African American males I know of that have had WLS (from being an OH member for over 2 years now) and probably on one hand the number of Hispanic males .. (actually, right now I can only think of our Uniteddude and Ramon - BigDawg - w. OH, off the top of my head).

What is up with this?

Anyone have any thoughts on this disparity?
Frank talk about the DS / "All I ever wanted to be was thin, like that Rolling Stones dude ... "
HW/461 LW/251 GW/189 CW/274 (yep, a DS semi-failure - it happens :-( )
My .02 is that it is a cultural thing that encourages heavy eating and eating high fat foods in excessive quantities. Food to eat = economic stability. That translates across ALL socioeconomic lines. Sometimes when GF and are out to eat and people see us splitting a meal at first appearance they could draw the conclusion that we are doing it for economic reasons but little do they know!
Never, and I mean NEVER, trust a fart!!
I agree with Losttxn. I do think it's a cultural thing and it's tied with financial success/stability or at least it use to be. My ex-brother in law lives in Atlanta and he is African-American. He's a Big Boy...and I mean BIG!!!! His entire family is that way and they would not do anything to change it. They like their size. My sister in law told him about me and my wife having WLS and he looked at her like we were crazy.
Look at the Samoans, they strive to be big so it's not just African-Americans or Latinos. In old Europe size equaled wealth. The peasants were skinny because they had poor nutrition. The noblemen were large because they had wealth and better nutrition.
I remember when I was a child my parents and I would go back to their hometown in Virginia in the Applacian Mountains. My Grandmother would always say "look at you, you're so big and fat". I always took that as a bad thing. I would think, you get to see me maybe once a year and wow I just came through the door and you're putting me down. I learned that she was not putting me down but instead she was saying how healthy I was.
That's just my thoughts on the subject but what do I know........I'm as white as a saltine cracker.
Duane

I then got to thinking how even fewer of the Ms that have had WLS that I know of are of minority ethnicity .. I can probably count on two hands the number of African American males I know of that have had WLS (from being an OH member for over 2 years now) and probably on one hand the number of Hispanic males .. (actually, right now I can only think of our Uniteddude and Ramon - BigDawg - w. OH, off the top of my head).

What is up with this?

Anyone have any thoughts on this disparity?
It's more acceptable for men to be overweight, I don't know why, but that's the truth. People have literally told me to just be happy and myself and not worry about weight. That's wrong advice in so many ways. I've been big all my life. My mom is big, my sister was big (she had wls), my father and extended family are big----eating is a big part of our culture---very tasty food that's very bad for you. It comes with the family.
Also, seeing a doctor in general in the black male community is a lot less common than it should be. Many of the men in my family rarely see a doctor, as did i before I started this journey a couple of years ago. I don't know why that is, or what the phobia is, but it's the mentality of "i'm fine, I don't need to see a doc". Then we wonder why silent killers like heart disease, diabetes, etc take out men way before their time.
The mentality has to change! Not saying that everyone overweight needs to have WLS, but we need to be more conscience of our health and the risks.