Fat Acceptance Movement

This guy voices my opinion on this with a lot more eloquence than I would:

How many obese people to you know or yourself if you are or where obese that set a goal to be obese?

In my case as the arthritis grew worse I felt worse so I ate more carbs for a 'boost'. I then got more fat and needed more carbs for more energy. Somehow I went from about 180 to 238 without an alarm going off. I had to hit 250 three times and lose most of my mobility before I stopped abusing carbs.

It was not a lack of medical knowledge. It took me looking death in the face to change in my case. I did not want our teenage kids watch me eating myself to death.

Fat acceptance has many meanings. It was when I accepted Fat was good to eat and in my case Carbs were not good to eat and I replaced carbs with fats in my macro that my body fat just started to melt away without real effort because my driving cravings were gone. My brain started controlling my eating again. For the last year I have been eating 2500+ calories daily and maintained at 200 for a year now.

Now when I see obese people I understand they may not grasp the importance of their WOE just like I did not for so many years. When we are sick to the core weight loss is not going to happen based on my experience.

Accepting being fat as being OK sounds like a sure way to stay fat until death occurs. I no longer was OK with being Obese when I decided to find a WOE that would fix my pain.

There are times when I am NO OK with my piled up desk, shop, etc and I act.

I became very NOT OK dying prematurely due to my old way of eating. I am OK with being 12% overweight but not more at the age of 65.

I'm just over the word "shaming." Its over used and I don't think shame is an external emotion. No one can "make you" feel shame. Shame comes within.

If you were truly happy with yourself you wouldn't feel shame regardless of someone else's actions. The whole thing is kinda stupid.

No, we shouldn't discriminate against people based on size. I know fat jerks and I know skinny jerks.

GaleHawkins wrote: »

How many obese people to you know or yourself if you are or were obese that set a goal to be obese?

Explicitly set a goal - none. Couldn't care - quite a few. Made decisions that lead to them becoming obese over time - many.

Decisions are not always free choices - families can overfeed children or other family members, depression and the like can lead to inappropriate decisions, food environments can lead you to the wrong place, education may be lacking and so on.

justrollme wrote: »

This guy voices my opinion on this with a lot more eloquence than I would:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoTQ3aOEz54

Love this video. Love it!

Mind your own business and treat others with kindness, that is my regard. I have a family member who is morbidly obese and they love their body. They were tank tops, and short shorts, and loves the skin she is in. I'm so fascinated by her because even at my lowest weight of 150 I felt insecure doing either of those things. It was my problem not hers. As long as her doctor says she is ok, and she is not asking me for weight-loss advice I will continue to be happy for her self confidence.

I don't agree with shaming someone into trying to lose weight but I also don't accept that being overweight should be seen as acceptable. I don't think I have ever seen so many unhealthy fat kids in my life. Today's society of cable TV, video games and Political Correctness have helped our country become overweight. I'm sure the older members here remember never being sedentary as kids. Out riding bikes all day, playing some sort of sports or just being out, running around being "kids" in general. Unfortunately, I think the problem will only get worst. I really think some people have totally given up trying to make themselves more healthy. The term "Thick" comes to mind. I'm not fat, I'm "thick". No, your fat, but in a political correct world, that's not the proper thing to say, so saying "thick" is more acceptable and expected. That only exacerbates the problem. Having said that, let me grab my box of twinkies and go plug into FB for eight hours and then Playstation! LOL Enjoy your weekend everyone.

I agree everyone should love themselves at any weight....BUT I think this is terrible. It is making it "okay" to be obese and overweight. Obesity costs us almost 100 billion a year in easily preventable disorders and as a medical student, it is the biggest problem. When you have these overweight people on magazines and the push that "overweight is beautiful too", it makes people think they shouldn't or don't have to change. (most likely they have an unhealthy lifestyle in order to get that way)

It is just propagating the obesity epidemic and in the long run is making obesity acceptable and normal.

I had to accept myself and stop beating up on myself and allow myself to LIVE before I could get anywhere close to taking proper care of my body. I didn't know how. I'm not saying I didn't have the knowledge. I did have the knowledge. I'm saying that the idea of caring for myself was alien to me. Some days it still is.

No one taught me about caring for myself. I only learned that my body needed to be "whipped into shape," that certain foods were "bad" or "off-limits" or "just so fattening!" I only learned that my body is not lean enough, fast enough, hard enough. On and on and on. Did I allow myself to become really, really fat? Yes. Was this my fault? Yes.

But it was also the fault of my bad luck genes, my awful-luck fast food grease-drenched sugar-coated food environment, and the "work out," "burn fat," feel the burn," "no pain no gain," air-brushed unrealistic punishing exercise culture as well.

The common belief, perpetuated by the drive-by "health" industry, that obese persons cannot be healthy has not been proven and there is increasing evidence that the obese can be healthy. And what is becoming clear is that people of all sizes--thin, toned, perfect included--can be sick from the food they eat and their choices of whether to move or to stay still. The morbidly obese take the rap because people are bothered by their appearance. People are bothered by FAT. We have been conditioned to think it’s gross, unsightly, disgusting.

It’s no longer okay to make fun of the physically impaired. It’s not acceptable to make fun of a person’s race. It’s becoming questionable to poke fun at homosexuals or people based on their gender, though lord knows we’ve a long way to go on that one. But it is still okay to make fun of the fat, either outright, like Bill Maher on Chris Cristie, or in more subtle ways—it’s okay to love Melissa McCarthy because she’s FUNNY. And fat has always been funny. But if she’d come on the scene talking about how much she loved her body as she is, or had had the audacity to wear low-cut, body-hugging gowns? Well, you can imagine. And look at Lena Dunham. The FAT girl! Or Kathy Bates, who did have the audacity to appear naked, in a hot tub, in a movie. How dare she?

I understand the Fat Acceptance movement. I don't agree with much of it, but I understand the desperation that makes it alluring to many fat people. The shame culture around FAT is very real. Even in this thread, this demonstrated. The irony is that we, the fat, shame our own bodies because our culture taught us to do it and many of us don't even realize it. This is why I won’t post before and after pictures. If losing weight is about how we look, aren’t we still buying into the sick culture of body image in this culture?

The greatest lesson I’ve learned so far is to be kind, to myself and to others. This includes the fat. The thin. This includes everybody. But it’s especially hard to be kind to my BODY. I very much know what it feels like to be desperate and ashamed.