Hello, 17, and welcome. As Mad4Mud said, your doctor may have suggested a diet-pill regimen out of concern for your health and well-being. If you are interested in losing weight but reluctant to take pills, there are certainly other ways to go about reducing excess weight. But you are absolutely right to feel that those people who walk up to you and give you diet tips, without asking if you're interested or without even introducing themselves, are way out of line. Speaking as a very overweight person myself – okay, an obese person – I can tell you that some of those "flamers" of the 3D world are as difficult to ignore as website flamers! So, I sympathize.

I'm concerned about your wife-and-mother statement. Having excess weight, in and of itself, does not automatically mean that you'll never be a wife!!! There are men out there who are interested in a woman's inner beauty (and c'mon now, would you really want to date any man that wasn't interested in you as a person, no matter how little you might weigh??). Bear in mind, though, that a lighter body can mean more freedom of movement, and thus more enhanced pleasure, in those *ahem* intimate moments with a partner(!), so losing weight has the potential to make you "feel better" in more ways than you might think!

As for "never" becoming a mother: I've never been pregnant, so I don't know firsthand how excess weight can affect mother and fetus during pregnancy; perhaps some others here can elaborate. There are also several articles at www.webmd.com on the subject. But even if you have a medical condition that makes it inadvisable for you to become pregnant (as I do – unrelated to my weight), don't forget that there are children out there waiting to be adopted into a loving home. So don't give up on motherhood too easily!

If it's your intent to lose weight, please do become aggressive in your search to find a plan that's right for you. Ask your doctor for options, ask other doctors for other options, find out if there's a medical cause for your present weight that a simple diet won't fix, search the internet for information. Then you can make an informed decision about your medical treatment and about swallowing that doctor's diet pill.

Also, please keep us posted about how you're doing! There are lots of people here, from around the world, who care. Life's good that way, even if it isn't fair.

Sharon