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Fat Acceptance Movement
Replies
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Fat acceptance == Normalization of a disease,
slippery slope in the current political climate of the US. Fat shaming can easily be equated to other forms of bigotry IMO.4 -
coreyreichle wrote: »Fat acceptance == Normalization of a disease, to where it's considered normal. And, encourages people to try and change the world, rather than take ownership of their body, and correct their health issues.
Note: You'll never see any FA person saying we should accept anorexics...
I think people underestimate the amount of people who are fat who have some form of mental illness, like anorexics. Just as you shouldn't tell an anorexic to eat a burger, telling someone who is fat to not eat a burger is not helpful.
Fat acceptance is not about "normalizing" a disease. It's about telling people they don't have to hate themselves because they're fat.28 -
My question to those who say people should take responsibility for themselves, is, "what business is it of yours?"
Why does it matter to you what someone else does or doesn't do? How does it concern you?
Like others have said above, "mind your own business".
Kind of ironic that this is a web site mostly about getting healthier. Try a little compassion for people that have not found this site, or can not make it work for them. Walk a mile in their shoes. Cuz I have been there, done that, lost a lot of weight and have kept it off for over 2 years, thanks to MFP, my fitbit, and a lot of compassionate, helpful people here.17 -
mommarnurse wrote: »Shaming someone for their body type or any choice they make about themselves should never be ok, and there is no need to make this specific about weight. Bullying is not ok, what you are bullied about is irrelevant.
How this translates to not being able to state facts, like that being fat increases health risks, I do not get it. It is like saying we should never mention smoking has health risks because it will make smokers feel uncomfortable.
That last sentence is perfect. Be the healthy you. That should be the message. Being fat is not okay because of the detrimental effects it has on one's lifespan, health and quality of life. The exact same can certainly be said about smoking.
See there is a big difference between discussing the health risks smoking or obesity, or theorizing about desk jobs and their contribution to weight gain, and whipping out the "unhealthy" stick and lecturing every person who does not meet your standard for healthy in one area or another.
Trust me, I've heard the "smoking kills" speech more times than I care to remember. It did not encourage me to quit. I did not continue smoking 1.5 packs a day out of ignorance, and I did not decide to quit because of the efforts of a some knight in shining armor who decided they were doing me a favor by "educating" me. Same with weight loss. The decision to handle both issues came about when I decided the pleasure I was getting from either was no longer worth the consequences (which, by the way, I knew more about than many nonsmokers or thin people).
It's not about tiptoeing around "feels". No one said discussing obesity is unacceptable due to political correctness. It's not a taboo topic. It does (and should) be discussed. What is unacceptable is thinking you have the right to walk around lecturing people about their choices and health conditions without an explicit invitation to do so, not because of "feels", but because it's not helpful and has no point.
Imagine someone lecturing you about skin cancer every time you go out in the sun without sunscreen as if you were this poor ignorant uneducated soul who needs to be educated about the horrors of excessive sun exposure.36 -
There is a fine line between ACCEPTANCE and PROMOTION. Accepting people for who they are as people rather than what they look like... agreed. 100%. But promoting an unhealthy lifestyle in any way (ie mega-thin models or obese models) I don't think is the right way to go about acceptance. I think every single person should practice self love and love of others without worrying about what the number on the scale is or the other persons size. But there comes a point where these unhealthy images of people (women in particular) on both the very large and very small end of the spectrum is sending the wrong idea to young girls. We should be promoting a healthy LIFESTYLE no matter what size the model is. Whether that's physical fitness, proper eating habits, playing outside etc. Yes I have been overweight, and at one point was one the verge of being obese, but these are my views.17
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In my case I had to grasp that I was on the road doing down a steep mountain gaining speed to my premature death due to the causes of me being obese before I took charge of my Way Of Eating.
Shaming a two year old who is not potty trained yet is the opposite of healthy. As I pointed out before I know of no one who set a goal to become obese. Like most I expect I first developed an eating disorder trying to do what the doctors told me to do.
When the bottle states Take With Food and Take Every 4 hours as Needed for Pain, that can lead to eating when one is not hungry. The more weight I gained the more I hurt but you may know at cycle. The high use of aspirin ripped my gut which made me even more sick.
Because we have an eating disorder does not mean we are mental cases in my view. When we start logging the kinds of foods we are eating and counting the calories the light may go off and lead to us modifying our WOE.
There are cases I am sure where outside intervention may be needed.
When I ditched my goal to lose weight was when I started losing weight and maintaining with success because my new goal was ONLY eat for better health.
Negative goals are negative for me. Positive goals are positive for me. Eating for better health wound up putting me on to the road of recovering health.2 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »mommarnurse wrote: »Shaming someone for their body type or any choice they make about themselves should never be ok, and there is no need to make this specific about weight. Bullying is not ok, what you are bullied about is irrelevant.
How this translates to not being able to state facts, like that being fat increases health risks, I do not get it. It is like saying we should never mention smoking has health risks because it will make smokers feel uncomfortable.
That last sentence is perfect. Be the healthy you. That should be the message. Being fat is not okay because of the detrimental effects it has on one's lifespan, health and quality of life. The exact same can certainly be said about smoking.
See there is a big difference between discussing the health risks smoking or obesity, or theorizing about desk jobs and their contribution to weight gain, and whipping out the "unhealthy" stick and lecturing every person who does not meet your standard for healthy in one area or another.
Trust me, I've heard the "smoking kills" speech more times than I care to remember. It did not encourage me to quit. I did not continue smoking 1.5 packs a day out of ignorance, and I did not decide to quit because of the efforts of a some knight in shining armor who decided they were doing me a favor by "educating" me. Same with weight loss. The decision to handle both issues came about when I decided the pleasure I was getting from either was no longer worth the consequences (which, by the way, I knew more about than many nonsmokers or thin people).
It's not about tiptoeing around "feels". No one said discussing obesity is unacceptable due to political correctness. It's not a taboo topic. It does (and should) be discussed. What is unacceptable is thinking you have the right to walk around lecturing people about their choices and health conditions without an explicit invitation to do so, not because of "feels", but because it's not helpful and has no point.
Imagine someone lecturing you about skin cancer every time you go out in the sun without sunscreen as if you were this poor ignorant uneducated soul who needs to be educated about the horrors of excessive sun exposure.
Yes, I agree with this, and think you explained it well.2 -
All these acceptance movements are the result of everyone gets a trophy. When did we become a society when nobody should ever feel bad? It's never okay to to be cruel or unkind, ever. But this getting ridiculous.30
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I find it ironic that the some of the same people preaching tolerance also will be prejudiced against people they deem "unhealthy".
I just skimmed. Did I miss my favorite "skinny people who eat junk are most unhealthy people"/"people shouldn't make and share health judgments about other people"?6 -
Fat-shaming isn't cool. But http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/bodyweight-and-cancer/how-being-overweight-causes-cancer0
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darrensurrey wrote: »
so does smoking, drinking to excess, red meat, and many other choices not fat people can make...10 -
I am obese, and I have mixed feelings about the any size movement. Being overweight does create health complications. But it does not make you ugly. People are beautiful in all shapes and sizes. I think it's ok to accept that. When I started believing I was beautiful, I started taking care of myself.
It does make me frustrated when people don't acknowledge the health risks. I have high blood pressure and degenerative joint disease. I am 41 years old and a size 18. It makes weight loss difficult and exercise risky. If I was even 20 lbs lighter today, I would hurt less. It's hard to get there, when walking is exhausting.
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I agree that shaming anyone for their physical appearance is just plain rude.
However, I was on Raegan Chastain's Facebook page for a little while out of curiosity and the amount of BS that woman spreads about HAES is mind boggling. I rage-quit her page because I couldn't stand it anymore.7 -
Heatheryou wrote: »I am obese, and I have mixed feelings about the any size movement. Being overweight does create health complications. But it does not make you ugly. People are beautiful in all shapes and sizes. I think it's ok to accept that. When I started believing I was beautiful, I started taking care of myself.
It does make me frustrated when people don't acknowledge the health risks. I have high blood pressure and degenerative joint disease. I am 41 years old and a size 18. It makes weight loss difficult and exercise risky. If I was even 20 lbs lighter today, I would hurt less. It's hard to get there, when walking is exhausting.
@Heatheryou you are so right about the difference of just 20 pounds. It was after I lost the first 20 pounds that I started to realize the price I had been paying for years for eating the way I had been eating up to the age of 63.
Best of success in finding the macro that works best for you. After changing my way of eating took away most of my joint and muscle pain in just 30 days (had it for 40 years) I got to where I could safely walk and not fall. The more I moved the more my health started recovery. Over the last 19 months I have become safely Rx med free. I checked my blood pressure at Kroger's last night and it was 119/73 after being active.
You are here on MFP learning more and more plus you are much younger than I am so I bet you figure out a better way of eating to get you on the road to recovering health. Best of success.4 -
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SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage wrote: »I agree that shaming anyone for their physical appearance is just plain rude.
However, I was on Raegan Chastain's Facebook page for a little while out of curiosity and the amount of BS that woman spreads about HAES is mind boggling. I rage-quit her page because I couldn't stand it anymore.
Yup. That's the corner of the movement that bothers me. That and people who construe a doctor pointing out a weight issue as a medical concern or Michelle Obama talking about childhood obesity as somehow bad and shaming. I do wonder how prominent it is culturally, though. I'd never heard of Chastain (or on the other extreme, Freelee) until discovering MFP.6 -
SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage wrote: »I agree that shaming anyone for their physical appearance is just plain rude.
However, I was on Raegan Chastain's Facebook page for a little while out of curiosity and the amount of BS that woman spreads about HAES is mind boggling. I rage-quit her page because I couldn't stand it anymore.
@SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage thanks for your post that finally lead to my understanding of HAES. While today is the first time I heard of it it is what I have been doing for nearly two years to walk backwards from death's door. After finding myself at 63 still being obese with fastly declining health I realized 40 years of yo yo diets had about killed so I swore I would never diet again. Instead I just started Eating For Better Health. I am down 50 points, lost most of my joint pain, can get out of cars unaided, 40 years of IBS resolved and a year later has not returned, etc. Thanks again for you post that make the subject click.
haescommunity.com/
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SarcasmIsMyLoveLanguage wrote: »I agree that shaming anyone for their physical appearance is just plain rude.
However, I was on Raegan Chastain's Facebook page for a little while out of curiosity and the amount of BS that woman spreads about HAES is mind boggling. I rage-quit her page because I couldn't stand it anymore.
I agree. I think Raegan and the mentality that she expresses does harm. She does the same thing in the opposite direction that she battles against. In her mind and those that agree with her...when I lost 60 lbs I was abusing my body and hating myself. Anything I say otherwise is just my societal conditioning and denial. I disagree and wish she didn't body shame people just as much as those she criticises.
I want to like the idea of HAES. I spent decades feeling shame and unloved because of my size and the societal impact. I think the assumptipns made about overweight and obese people are prejudiced and harmful and should be confronted. However the practice of HAES I have a lot of problems with.
Yes! Nailed it. I've lost around 60lbs as well and I still have self-confidence issues. I'm working on it, but it wasn't, for me, just losing weight and now I feel 100% awesome about myself always.5 -
While I think the principles behind FAM and HAES are good, and while they've helped a great many people out there embrace themselves positively (and often become healthier), the extreme voices in those movements have soured things for me. Too often I see things like shaming a fit woman with abs, despite how much hard work and dedication it took to achieve that body. Or people complaining that they let themselves go and now their -bleeping- partners aren't interested in them physically anymore - how dare their partners not want to have sex with a different body than they were originally attracted to? Or being indignant that they had to pay for an extra airplane seat.
If you love your fat body and want to keep it that way, go you. If you'd rather eat all the things you want to eat instead of making a lifestyle change, that's your prerogative. But own it, and understand that the choices you make regarding your body are not happening in a vacuum. Don't put someone down because they work harder at fitness than you, it shouldn't be invalidating or threatening you. And if you're one of the people who truly isn't healthy because you're overweight, understand that your loved ones are affected and hurt by your poor health. It comes down to taking responsibility... As does everything within our control.22 -
I was in line at the grocery store last night. Two people ahead of me, there was a noticeably over-weight man going through in a scooter provided by the store. After he left, the guy in front of me said to the clerk, "I wonder what his disability is?" in a sarcastic tone. After their conversation went on to clarify what I had figured (the second customer thought the first customer was too fat and shouldn't be using the scooter because obviously he isn't disabled... he is just fat), I had to speak up. I pointed out that, while I don't know the other person's situation, some disabled people become overweight after becoming disabled and not moving as much as they had before becoming disabled. He then argued that a lot of people just use those because they are fat (the way he said it implied that fat = lazy). This went on for a couple of minutes, and it really got to me.
Anyway, I understand the societal medical dangers in "fat acceptance," but fat shaming irritates me... especially in cases like that were someone really could be disabled.17 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »I was in line at the grocery store last night. Two people ahead of me, there was a noticeably over-weight man going through in a scooter provided by the store. After he left, the guy in front of me said to the clerk, "I wonder what his disability is?" in a sarcastic tone. After their conversation went on to clarify what I had figured (the second customer thought the first customer was too fat and shouldn't be using the scooter because obviously he isn't disabled... he is just fat), I had to speak up. I pointed out that, while I don't know the other person's situation, some disabled people become overweight after becoming disabled and not moving as much as they had before becoming disabled. He then argued that a lot of people just use those because they are fat (the way he said it implied that fat = lazy). This went on for a couple of minutes, and it really got to me.
Anyway, I understand the societal medical dangers in "fat acceptance," but fat shaming irritates me... especially in cases like that were someone really could be disabled.
Were the scooters intended for people with disabilities? Was this person able to walk? If yes, then I would consider this as shaming someone for laziness and abusing something meant for people have disabilities, not as fat shaming.
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Part of me admires the FA people because even at my best thin weight, I don't have the self confidence these people seem to have.3
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I abhor passing judgment on others. I'm human so I acknowledge I do it, but at least I have the decency to keep my opinions to myself. Commenting on someone's weight, size, or the choices they've made are just counter-productive and therefore, pointless.
Having said that, I do struggle internally with the societal health implications of obesity and what price society as a whole is paying. Ultimately, we are all paying NOW for the health implications of eating too much food and not exercising enough as a society, and those costs are going to explode - it's just that the most visible marker of that is the weight of individuals, so these people make the easiest targets.
On the flipside, it does gall me, in moments of weakness and if I'm honest, to think that all the effort I put into my weight loss and focusing so much on my own health, with no help from the medical profession or support in any shape or form, other than the wonderful MFP, will not excuse me from paying my share of the costs associated with those who haven't achieved what I have. But I'd never say that out loud.12 -
midwesterner85 wrote: »I was in line at the grocery store last night. Two people ahead of me, there was a noticeably over-weight man going through in a scooter provided by the store. After he left, the guy in front of me said to the clerk, "I wonder what his disability is?" in a sarcastic tone. After their conversation went on to clarify what I had figured (the second customer thought the first customer was too fat and shouldn't be using the scooter because obviously he isn't disabled... he is just fat), I had to speak up. I pointed out that, while I don't know the other person's situation, some disabled people become overweight after becoming disabled and not moving as much as they had before becoming disabled. He then argued that a lot of people just use those because they are fat (the way he said it implied that fat = lazy). This went on for a couple of minutes, and it really got to me.
Anyway, I understand the societal medical dangers in "fat acceptance," but fat shaming irritates me... especially in cases like that were someone really could be disabled.
Were the scooters intended for people with disabilities? Was this person able to walk? If yes, then I would consider this as shaming someone for laziness and abusing something meant for people have disabilities, not as fat shaming.
I didn't notice anything to indicate that scooters are limited to any particular customers. From what I can tell, they are for any customer who chooses to make use of them.
It wasn't clear at that time whether the person using the scooter could walk or not. At no time did I see him attempt to walk or stand. This was my point. The 2nd customer assumed that an overweight customer using the scooter is not truly disabled, but is just fat. I don't believe that is a fair assumption to make any more than if I see a customer using the scooter who is a healthy weight. The conclusion that overweight people cannot be disabled is baffling - something I bet some disabled people wish were true.14 -
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People need to mind their own business.midwesterner85 wrote: »I was in line at the grocery store last night. Two people ahead of me, there was a noticeably over-weight man going through in a scooter provided by the store. After he left, the guy in front of me said to the clerk, "I wonder what his disability is?" in a sarcastic tone. After their conversation went on to clarify what I had figured (the second customer thought the first customer was too fat and shouldn't be using the scooter because obviously he isn't disabled... he is just fat), I had to speak up. I pointed out that, while I don't know the other person's situation, some disabled people become overweight after becoming disabled and not moving as much as they had before becoming disabled. He then argued that a lot of people just use those because they are fat (the way he said it implied that fat = lazy). This went on for a couple of minutes, and it really got to me.
Anyway, I understand the societal medical dangers in "fat acceptance," but fat shaming irritates me... especially in cases like that were someone really could be disabled.
Were the scooters intended for people with disabilities? Was this person able to walk? If yes, then I would consider this as shaming someone for laziness and abusing something meant for people have disabilities, not as fat shaming.
^^This.
Doesn't matter if the customer using the cart was disabled or not. The other customer was an a** hole and had no business commenting. Kudos for Midwesterner85 speaking up.
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I am all about people having a positive body image, because I myself never had that and I still struggle with it.
No matter what shape or size you are, I think it's awesome to love yourself. When I see a big girl who is confident, I see the type of person I wish I could have been at her size.
What I don't like is when fat people complain about low self esteem and poor body image, but do nothing to change it. I have a friend who is often, you could say, "fat-shaming" herself and feeling sorry for herself, yet she will turn around the next day and talk about all the junk food she's inhaling. If you don't like it, do something about it. If you're happy with your size and your health, then more power to you!10 -
I liked what GaleHawkins had to say. I was riding my obesity acceptance right into being disabled (overloaded arthritic knees). No more.
My challenge will be not gaining the weight back.8 -
meganridenour wrote: »I am all about people having a positive body image, because I myself never had that and I still struggle with it.
No matter what shape or size you are, I think it's awesome to love yourself. When I see a big girl who is confident, I see the type of person I wish I could have been at her size.
What I don't like is when fat people complain about low self esteem and poor body image, but do nothing to change it. I have a friend who is often, you could say, "fat-shaming" herself and feeling sorry for herself, yet she will turn around the next day and talk about all the junk food she's inhaling. If you don't like it, do something about it. If you're happy with your size and your health, then more power to you!
I especially agree with your last paragraph, here. It annoys me to no end when people complain about anything, really, and refuse to do anything about it. I try not to let my reaction to this type of behavior color my judgments. I don't always succeed.1 -
I agree with what others have posted, first and foremost don't be jerk. Doesn't matter if you are fat, thin, fit, healthy, obese, etc. Also, everyone's body is different and reacts differently to diet and exercise. If you don't look like an athlete, that doesn't mean you aren't healthy. That's what we use measurements, blood work, blood pressure, etc. to determine. But as a person that lost 65 lbs and 10" from his waist - you can only carry so much extra body fat and it not have an effect on your health. All of my bad measurements, bad blood work, fatigue and malaise disappeared when I lost all that extra weight.4
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