Fat Acceptance Movement

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

DisruptedMatrix wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

The fat acceptance movement has coopted the language of body positivity for its own ends, though.

Body positivity was originally aimed at people with scars, acne, disfigurements and the like. Even just liking inheriting dad's nose.

It was never meant to be about accepting a medically dangerous condition because you decided to say you like your body instead of doing something about it.

In likewise fashion, fat acceptance has coopted the language of racism, homophobia, and feminism. They have tried to assert that fatness is an issue with ties to all of these.

They want people to believe that fatness is immutable.

There is nothing wrong with loving yourself. I think loving yourself enough to care is vital to making the change necessary to lose weight.

I don't think fatness is immutable like race, sexual orientation, or having an amputated leg.

NO. Body+ included body type. Love yourself at 200lbs. Love yourself at 150. Even if you aren't your ideal, love yourself.

Not way, way back when it first started with roots in feminist thought. It wasn't actually named yet. I'm not saying you can't love yourself.

There's a difference between loving who you are on the inside, and just accepting what you are on the oustide as unchangeable.

Body positivity was about accepting and loving that which you could not change.

Agree to disagree?

Christine_72 wrote: »

I've always been curious about what goes through peoples mind when they become 50-100-150-200lbs over weight. Dont they start to get worried, dont they care?

Once i hit a 30lb gain, the thing that spurred me on was the more i gain the longer it's going to take to lose, and the harder it'll be to get started.

Of course we do. I've tried to lose weight in the past. twice i lost 30lbs and then fell off the wagon. I had a lot of other mental things to deal with that got in the way, and food was my coping mechanism. It wasn't until I stopped living life for others and caring about what others think, that i finally KNEW that this time was going to be it. I'm different because I know what I want (in the past I wasn't sure I wanted to lose weight and get loose skin and not eat what I want rather than stay a sexy fatass). Also, this time around i know the most important factor is....always get back on the wagon. one bad day won't ruin a diet. Feeling so much guilt and shame that you avoid coming to MFP will.

Thanks for your replies guys xx

I could see a 100-200lb overweight person looking in the mirror and being totally overwhelmed at the thought of losing all that weight, and maybe thinking they have 2 or more loooong years of misery and suffering ahead of them to lose it all. They then justify their weight to themselves instead of having to deal with diet and restriction or they'd rather be fat and "happy" then thin and miserable.

PC nonsense? We should go around calling people derogatory names?

I believe in freedom of speech for sure but I also believe people have worth regardless of their outward appearance.

Christine_72 wrote: »

I've always been curious about what goes through peoples mind when they become 50-100-150-200lbs over weight. Dont they start to get worried, dont they care?

Once i hit a 30lb gain, the thing that spurred me on was the more i gain the longer it's going to take to lose, and the harder it'll be to get started.

For me I was going through stuff when I initially gained, and once I got to around 150 (30 lbs over where I like to be, about 10 lb overweight by BMI) I was upset enough about how I looked that I went into "I look bad anyway, doesn't matter" mode, wearing more stretchy things, avoiding close looks in the mirror, not weighing (well, I hadn't been doing that as much before), just shoving it out of my mind (which I'm ridiculously good at). I realized at times that I was getting even fatter, but wouldn't confront it directly, thinking, oh, I'll have to deal with that soon, and then time would pass.

This is why weighing myself is important to me for loss (better for me if I accept the number) and maintenance. I am way too good at not thinking about things.

I also would have said (and think) that my worth is not tied up in my looks (and that I was able to focus on health and not weight or looks when I started losing the first (and only other) time, when I didn't know what I was doing and lacked confidence that it would work, was a really positive thing for me, and why I think a true focus on health and not the number could be good for people (agree that doesn't seem to be HAES, from what I've seen).

Because of all this, getting to a point where I stopped hating myself and beating myself up for getting fat -- the shame, which back in the day kicked in at only a little overweight -- was actually important to getting to a point where I could deal with it, even though maybe being more appearance focused overall would have helped me not get there sooner or not be okay with some degree of gaining, initially. (In high school I figured one either was attractive or wasn't -- I was cute, looking back, but of course didn't think I was -- and never really developed an understanding that one has some degree of control over how one looks or any of the girly ways to make yourself look better, beyond the real basics, and related to that I had a negative idea that even caring was bad and shallow, which is something I'm mostly over now but lingers at the back of my mind sometimes. Wish I'd known about more positive ways to focus on body+strength in high school, like weight training as something girls could do too.)

Anyway, I get not understanding since I had a teacher in high school who was extremely obese (really uncommon then) and I recall thinking that I just wouldn't buy bigger clothes and lose if my clothes got tight. For for reason, that turned out not to work for me, although it still seems logical on the surface. Gaining was surprisingly easy to do without thinking about much (or as something other than one of those will get to things that get put off with everything more immediate to deal with, one more day won't matter).

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

If anyone here is laboring under the illusion that HAES still stands for healthy behaviors at any size, they have since dropped any pretense towards encouraging their followers to do that. I cannot find the link right now, but it was posted on Reddit.

They backed away from it after pressure saying that the rhetoric was "healthist" and "ableist".

The fat acceptance movement, when you scratch the surface and look at its leaders and what they do has gone beyond merely wanting people not to be fat shamed. Some of them actively hate thin people. They actively discourage weight loss. They use old science and twist science to back their agenda and actively seek out and recruit young, vulnerable people to join their numbers.

I find them to be loathsome and beneath contempt. The best of them are misguided. The worst of them are hateful charlatans out to make a buck.

I cannot abide fat shaming, but the fat acceptance movement isn't about that any more.

I can't recall her name, but I recently read about a plus size model who lost weight and received vile abuse from HAES and FA people. She was called a traitor and told to kill herself.

VeryKatie wrote: »

Just because my nature is to "problem solve (think math geek)" doesn't mean everyone is like that.

Yeah, I have this same tendency and have to remind myself that sometimes people just want to vent, but it's SO HARD to resist the "if it's a perceived problem, here are some ideas on how to solve it." (Of course some do want that.)

I worry about people's health. Shaming is never the answer. We put zero body fat and thin physique on too much of a pedestal though, very few people have frames like that.

There should not be fat shaming, but there sure should not be acceptance of a known heath issue.