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Fat Acceptance Movement
Replies
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GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »jseams1234 wrote: »@GottaBurnEmAll
You look fantastic, btw.
The shaming also goes for skinny men. I've always been very lean - from my years in the military all the way up to my 40's. I can't even count how many people day to day - even at work - would comment on how skinny I was... and not in a "wow, you look great!" way. The interesting thing is that I was about 185# and 6'1. Granted, a lot of the people who were commenting were very overweight. It's what prompted me to start lifting weights. I'm 225# now and I don't get those comments anymore.
I can't ever recall every hearing anybody tell a fat person at work they were fat to their face.
I'm sorry that's been your experience. It's *kitten*. I think people make those kind of comments honestly because they're jealous and/or socially inept. When I was younger and stupider I've caught myself saying things like that and I regret it. I try to hope people in situations like work are well meaning but eff if i know their intentions. And, yeah, it's not at work people are calling me fat. It's on the internet or yelled out of cars. Or occasionally at bars or comic-cons, things like that where people are just pissed I'm taking up space.
I admit that I have trouble reading your posts because I see so much of the FA narrative in how you are ascribing motives to people and describing experiences, and instead of coming off as something you genuinely have learned or feel, it just comes off as something you're clinging to in order to avoid facing something else.
What does it even mean to say that people are "pissed you are taking up space"? That is straight out of the Fat Acceptance Movement rhetoric playbook, and it's something you read that sounds good and you think resonates with you because nothing else sounds better.
It's an empty phrase.
Here's something for you - some people are just JERKS. It's not isolated to fat people.
I've been fat, and I've been thin, and I've come to a realization. People come in all types. Overwhelmingly, people don't give a rat's behind about the people around them and what they look like, but some people are just not nice people and get their jollies by giving other people a hard time. If it's not for being too fat, it's for being too thin, or for wearing glasses, or for being dressed a certain way, or for wearing their hair a certain way.
No one wins when you start playing the oppression Olympics and start looking for offenses as part of a class.
Apply Occam's razor. You'll be a lot more well adjusted and happier to go about life.
they're like mad I'm in their way. They want to get around me and call me fat. That's what I'm talking about them being mad I'm taking up space. That's literally what's going on. At places like bars or sdcc everyone's in your way but it's somehow more infuriating when a fat person does it. It was just a more succinct way to say that. I can be in a group of people where everyone's in everyone's way and I'm the one who gets yelled at and name called. That has literally happened to me dozens of times.
but good job trying to gaslight me about it? lol
No, I'm not trying to gaslight you.
You are ascribing motives to people you can't be sure exist because it suits your narrative.
But let's see, claiming I'm gaslighting you? FA tactic.
Claiming that people get extra mad at you because you're fat? FA tactic
This movement is toxic, and it makes me angry. And I say that as a person who grew up with a fat shaming mother and who has been subjected to fat shaming. I've also been subjected to thin shaming. I've also been subjected to be treated as lesser than because I'm a woman. I'm a great deal older than you, judging by how young you look in your profile picture. I'm old enough to have been one of only two fat children in her 8th grade graduating class. I was fat for most of my life during a time when a lot of people weren't fat and it was socially acceptable for the school nurse to tell me I had middle aged spread when I was in high school.
I'm not denying that fat shaming exists. I'm denying that people have the motives you're ascribing to them when it's not overt and in your face (they're mad you're taking up space or they add extra bonus mad points because you're fat - really, you need to do a reality check and look at how much you're projecting fear of being shamed there). I'll share a story. I used to be afraid to eat in public when I was fat. I lost weight, and walked down the boardwalk, stuffing my face with caramel corn. Some people looked at me, some didn't, the same as when I was fat. None of it mattered. I could ascribe motives to them if I'd like (who's that uncouth old lady stuffing fistfuls of caramel corn in her mouth? Can't she wait until she gets back to her hotel, what is she some kind of kid or something?), or maybe their gaze just passed my way.
Look, I believe you're a sweet young woman under all of this who went through a bad time in her life. I get that. Unfortunately, I think you've grasped onto the wrong way out of that for yourself.
Let go of perpetually feeling like a victim, it's never going to get you anywhere, and is one of the uglier sides of the FA movement.
are you not getting it? It was overt. It's people saying "move, fatass" or "oh man, it's a whale" or "look, i get to sit next to the behemoth over here." Stop telling me I'm reading too far into it. It's literally people calling me names and being rude to me literally bc I'm fat. And that's why FA needs to exist.1 -
or once, a woman just looking me in the eye and going "fatty!" when I was in her way, like... what? ok.1
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I'm not looking for your sympathy but don't tell me I'm playing a victim; I'm just describing my life. and FA is the idea that THEY are wrong, not me.1
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MJ2victory wrote: »I'm not looking for your sympathy but don't tell me I'm playing a victim; I'm just describing my life. and FA is the idea that THEY are wrong, not me.
Common decency is the idea that THEY are wrong. It doesn't take a movement to further define or defend that. Especially one with a slippery slope like the one that the FA movement comes with.
I too have been called fat, whale, fattie, and had pig noises snorted at me from cars throughout my life. I was the fattest person in my class from middle school to present day and I suffered for it. Guess what? The people doing that would find something else to ridicule about me if I were thin. Those people are just bad people. The people wanting you to move out of their way would have wanted you to move even if you were thin. Then they would have said "Move your *kitten*, twiggy." Or "b****" or what ever else they needed to say to shock you into moving. Our fat is the most obvious target but people like that, rude people, not "ultra obesity prejudiced people", will find any target and take aim. There's nothing about being fat that brings out some additional capacity for evil in those who see a fat person that they otherwise would not exhibit when seeing someone else they want to victimize.
This whole "fat people have it worse than absolutely everyone else because it's the last safe prejudice" BS needs to stop. We're all victimized for something in our lives as human beings. It's how we deal with it that differentiates us. I believe that FA proponents have chosen to let their obesity define them rather than allowing themselves to define their own world on their terms. It's another search for outside validation when the only person who should be validating your actions is yourself.23 -
MJ2victory wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »jseams1234 wrote: »@GottaBurnEmAll
You look fantastic, btw.
The shaming also goes for skinny men. I've always been very lean - from my years in the military all the way up to my 40's. I can't even count how many people day to day - even at work - would comment on how skinny I was... and not in a "wow, you look great!" way. The interesting thing is that I was about 185# and 6'1. Granted, a lot of the people who were commenting were very overweight. It's what prompted me to start lifting weights. I'm 225# now and I don't get those comments anymore.
I can't ever recall every hearing anybody tell a fat person at work they were fat to their face.
I'm sorry that's been your experience. It's *kitten*. I think people make those kind of comments honestly because they're jealous and/or socially inept. When I was younger and stupider I've caught myself saying things like that and I regret it. I try to hope people in situations like work are well meaning but eff if i know their intentions. And, yeah, it's not at work people are calling me fat. It's on the internet or yelled out of cars. Or occasionally at bars or comic-cons, things like that where people are just pissed I'm taking up space.
I admit that I have trouble reading your posts because I see so much of the FA narrative in how you are ascribing motives to people and describing experiences, and instead of coming off as something you genuinely have learned or feel, it just comes off as something you're clinging to in order to avoid facing something else.
What does it even mean to say that people are "pissed you are taking up space"? That is straight out of the Fat Acceptance Movement rhetoric playbook, and it's something you read that sounds good and you think resonates with you because nothing else sounds better.
It's an empty phrase.
Here's something for you - some people are just JERKS. It's not isolated to fat people.
I've been fat, and I've been thin, and I've come to a realization. People come in all types. Overwhelmingly, people don't give a rat's behind about the people around them and what they look like, but some people are just not nice people and get their jollies by giving other people a hard time. If it's not for being too fat, it's for being too thin, or for wearing glasses, or for being dressed a certain way, or for wearing their hair a certain way.
No one wins when you start playing the oppression Olympics and start looking for offenses as part of a class.
Apply Occam's razor. You'll be a lot more well adjusted and happier to go about life.
they're like mad I'm in their way. They want to get around me and call me fat. That's what I'm talking about them being mad I'm taking up space. That's literally what's going on. At places like bars or sdcc everyone's in your way but it's somehow more infuriating when a fat person does it. It was just a more succinct way to say that. I can be in a group of people where everyone's in everyone's way and I'm the one who gets yelled at and name called. That has literally happened to me dozens of times.
but good job trying to gaslight me about it? lol
No, I'm not trying to gaslight you.
You are ascribing motives to people you can't be sure exist because it suits your narrative.
But let's see, claiming I'm gaslighting you? FA tactic.
Claiming that people get extra mad at you because you're fat? FA tactic
This movement is toxic, and it makes me angry. And I say that as a person who grew up with a fat shaming mother and who has been subjected to fat shaming. I've also been subjected to thin shaming. I've also been subjected to be treated as lesser than because I'm a woman. I'm a great deal older than you, judging by how young you look in your profile picture. I'm old enough to have been one of only two fat children in her 8th grade graduating class. I was fat for most of my life during a time when a lot of people weren't fat and it was socially acceptable for the school nurse to tell me I had middle aged spread when I was in high school.
I'm not denying that fat shaming exists. I'm denying that people have the motives you're ascribing to them when it's not overt and in your face (they're mad you're taking up space or they add extra bonus mad points because you're fat - really, you need to do a reality check and look at how much you're projecting fear of being shamed there). I'll share a story. I used to be afraid to eat in public when I was fat. I lost weight, and walked down the boardwalk, stuffing my face with caramel corn. Some people looked at me, some didn't, the same as when I was fat. None of it mattered. I could ascribe motives to them if I'd like (who's that uncouth old lady stuffing fistfuls of caramel corn in her mouth? Can't she wait until she gets back to her hotel, what is she some kind of kid or something?), or maybe their gaze just passed my way.
Look, I believe you're a sweet young woman under all of this who went through a bad time in her life. I get that. Unfortunately, I think you've grasped onto the wrong way out of that for yourself.
Let go of perpetually feeling like a victim, it's never going to get you anywhere, and is one of the uglier sides of the FA movement.
are you not getting it? It was overt. It's people saying "move, fatass" or "oh man, it's a whale" or "look, i get to sit next to the behemoth over here." Stop telling me I'm reading too far into it. It's literally people calling me names and being rude to me literally bc I'm fat. And that's why FA needs to exist.
They could say to me "move, Granny". That does not mean that there is something special because I'm older. It just means that I was an older person who happened to be in their way. There's a difference.
They were calling you names because they're buttholes, annoyed, in a rush, and you were in their way. NOT because you're fat. There's a difference.
You're the one who's not getting it, MJ, because, as I said, it doesn't fit your narrative.
The fact that they used an epithet doesn't mean that you got extra scorn because you were fat, it just means that you got scorn.
FA doesn't need to exist in the way it does, perpetuating victimhood, co-opting legitimate language of abuse (gaslighting) and oppression and lying to the followers of the movement about the potentialities of weight loss.
I am all for self-love and body positivity. I am not for a movement that has given up on the idea of health (check out the tenets of health at every size, they've decided that pursuing health is an "ableist" goal and have backed off that as a platform) and pretty much just want fat people to resign themselves to their self-inflicted condition.10 -
MJ2victory wrote: »I'm not looking for your sympathy but don't tell me I'm playing a victim; I'm just describing my life. and FA is the idea that THEY are wrong, not me.
And that in a nutshell is one of the biggest problems with the organized FA movement.
Why us vs. them?
Think about it.9 -
Common decency is the idea that THEY are wrong. It doesn't take a movement to further define or defend that. Especially one with a slippery slope like the one that the FA movement comes with.
I too have been called fat, whale, fattie, and had pig noises snorted at me from cars throughout my life. I was the fattest person in my class from middle school to present day and I suffered for it. Guess what? The people doing that would find something else to ridicule about me if I were thin. Those people are just bad people. The people wanting you to move out of their way would have wanted you to move even if you were thin. Then they would have said "Move your *kitten*, twiggy." Or "b****" or what ever else they needed to say to shock you into moving. Our fat is the most obvious target but people like that, rude people, not "ultra obesity prejudiced people", will find any target and take aim. There's nothing about being fat that brings out some additional capacity for evil in those who see a fat person that they otherwise would not exhibit when seeing someone else they want to victimize.
This whole "fat people have it worse than absolutely everyone else because it's the last safe prejudice" BS needs to stop. We're all victimized for something in our lives as human beings. It's how we deal with it that differentiates us. I believe that FA proponents have chosen to let their obesity define them rather than allowing themselves to define their own world on their terms. It's another search for outside validation when the only person who should be validating your actions is yourself.
Yep. I've been overweight as far back as I can remember, but I got picked on for being uncoordinated and lousy at physical activity. And for having poor social skills, not being able to laugh off insults... People have all kinds of (bogus) reasons for being cruel. Sure, my being inactive probably contributed to my gaining weight, but I don't recall anyone picking on me for being fat. It was that I couldn't catch a ball that was tossed to me lightly from about 3' away. Or play hopscotch without stepping on the lines. There I was so excited that I could actually do three hops on one foot without toppling, and they were teasing me for stepping over a lousy line. It was that I burst into tears at the drop of a hat and lived in a working-class area when most of the other kids lived in more affluent neighborhoods. I'm sure at some point, someone probably did say something about my weight. I mean, why would that have been considered off-limits? But I really can't recall being singled out for it.
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Personally I think the fat acceptance movement is BS and just gives people excuses to be lazy and eat unhealthy and be unhealthy but that's just me. It's like the fat women want guys to love them for who they are and they should love their "curves" but when a guy who's not a chubby chaser says they're not his type, they start bitchin.6
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Move to the UK, people are too polite to say out loud they think someone is fat. Instead I just get cat called in some manner every time I leave my flat, no exaggeration. Today it was a man outside the post office leeringly saying hello as I went in, no question of it just being friendly. It's over the road, literally two minutes from home. Should I be part of some sort of beauty shaming movement? NO! (And for the record, I don't think I'm some incredibly beautiful human being, certainly not how I look today because the comments made aren't really about me any more than they're about you).
We all deal with these sorts of things at some point. For you, the easiest thing for people to pick on is your size because unfortunately that's what they see first.
And you can focus on that and be part of a movement that seems to largely be there to talk amongst themselves in a sort of echo chamber. Or change yourself. Or change your attitude to the people being dicks. because those people are always going to be dicks whether you're fat or thin. Because dicks are dicks.10 -
SiegfriedXXL wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »I'm not looking for your sympathy but don't tell me I'm playing a victim; I'm just describing my life. and FA is the idea that THEY are wrong, not me.
Common decency is the idea that THEY are wrong. It doesn't take a movement to further define or defend that. Especially one with a slippery slope like the one that the FA movement comes with.
I too have been called fat, whale, fattie, and had pig noises snorted at me from cars throughout my life. I was the fattest person in my class from middle school to present day and I suffered for it. Guess what? The people doing that would find something else to ridicule about me if I were thin. Those people are just bad people. The people wanting you to move out of their way would have wanted you to move even if you were thin. Then they would have said "Move your *kitten*, twiggy." Or "b****" or what ever else they needed to say to shock you into moving. Our fat is the most obvious target but people like that, rude people, not "ultra obesity prejudiced people", will find any target and take aim. There's nothing about being fat that brings out some additional capacity for evil in those who see a fat person that they otherwise would not exhibit when seeing someone else they want to victimize.
This whole "fat people have it worse than absolutely everyone else because it's the last safe prejudice" BS needs to stop. We're all victimized for something in our lives as human beings. It's how we deal with it that differentiates us. I believe that FA proponents have chosen to let their obesity define them rather than allowing themselves to define their own world on their terms. It's another search for outside validation when the only person who should be validating your actions is yourself.
Very well said, Siegfried!!
MJ - people who are dicks are going to be dicks about whatever they can find. Most of them have a particular talent for zeroing in on the thing that we're most sensitive about (which is often also the thing that makes us feel like we're different in a bad way).
I don't doubt for a second that you experienced the kind of comments that you describe; I do think that you should consider that it wasn't extra fat shaming.4 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »singingflutelady wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »CipherZero wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »ahhhh thanks friend.
tbh whatever. Hate fat ppl all you want but why tell them? Sadism?
No one - least of all me - has said to tell fat people a thing. I've said HAES and their ilk are impossible to please if they don't get their over-inflated egos stroked for being "fat and beautiful". Their victim complex is nauseating and utterly unhelpful to their own cause.
I think there are like a dozen ppl in the US who are that ridiculous. The idea of fat acceptance shouldn't be judged by that. And look at any single post of a happy, fat, confident woman and you will see comment after comment about how she's gross, unhealthy, promoting obesity, etc. I'm not talking specifically to anyone in this thread but to be, that's the opposite of fat acceptance. Just let ppl be fat and happy. Most fat people know the risks.
People voice their opinions on people and things that they find distasteful all of the time. Why should the obese get a pass?
People disproportionately voice their distaste for the obese.
I've seen so many pictures of thin women eating a mountain of food and people say it's awesome and she's "wife material" and things like that. No one says it's gross or glorifying unhealthy habits.
Furthermore, I would argue that people should do a lot less voicing their opinions of distaste although that's not what this thread is about. It's not hard to be decent. If you think something's ugly/stupid/whatever how hard is it to keep it to yourself and go live your own glorious life in the sun?
Nope on the thin pets. She'd get labelled bulimic by many people. Actually post a picture of an overly thin person and there would be many many comments on how gross she is but it's acceptable because she's thin.
I have looked at a lot of pics like that and never seen a comment like that tbh.
I posted this progress picture on reddit
And got so many skeevy emails telling me that I was so much "sexier" in my "before" picture and other ones saying it was sad that I'd lost so much of my curviness.
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you all are taking what like 12 bad eggs have said and making that what fat acceptance is all about.0
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DasItMan91 wrote: »It's like the fat women want guys to love them for who they are and they should love their "curves" but when a guy who's not a chubby chaser says they're not his type, they start bitchin.
Don't forget that the guy has to be tall and ripped, too. Fat guys are too gross to honour her curves! An acceptance movement that doesn't even extend to both sexes is no acceptance movement.5 -
DasItMan91 wrote: »It's like the fat women want guys to love them for who they are and they should love their "curves" but when a guy who's not a chubby chaser says they're not his type, they start bitchin.
Don't forget that the guy has to be tall and ripped, too. Fat guys are too gross to honour her curves! An acceptance movement that doesn't even extend to both sexes is no acceptance movement.
what are you even talking about??
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MJ2victory wrote: »you all are taking what like 12 bad eggs have said and making that what fat acceptance is all about.
The ASDAH website has abandonded health as an objective because it's moralistic. That's not a "bad egg" in the movement, HAES and ASDAH is a pivotal arm of the Fat Acceptance Movement.
Some choice quotes from this:Pursuing health is neither a moral imperative nor an individual obligation, and health status should never be used to judge, oppress, or determine the value of an individual.
Cagey language here to mask what's really being said. Of course you shouldn't judge someone on their health status. That's laudable.
However, read between the lines. That sentence also says that the pursuit of health as a goal isn't something someone needs to do.
That's backing off the original HAES principles which touted healthy behaviors at every size. Now they're not an obligation.
Okay, next:The framing for a Health At Every Size (HAES®) approach comes out of discussions among healthcare workers, consumers, and activists who reject both the use of weight, size, or BMI as proxies for health, and the myth that weight is a choice.
Sweet little lies. Weight is always a choice. It might not feel like one, but every morsel of food or drink that passes your lips is a choice.Health Enhancement: Support health policies that improve and equalize access to information and services, and personal practices that improve human well-being, including attention to individual physical, economic, social, spiritual, emotional, and other needs.
What does this mean? A lot of health related treatments are weight limited or weight-specific, and denying that fact, ignoring it, or insisting that it's fatphobia that say, joint replacements which have weight limits are being denied because patients don't meet the weight requirement isn't going to change facts.Eating for Well-being: Promote flexible, individualized eating based on hunger, satiety, nutritional needs, and pleasure, rather than any externally regulated eating plan focused on weight control.
Ignores the fact that overeating is disordered eating.
I could go on and on, especially in the question and answer part. Suffice to say, this group isn't some fringe organization.
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peckchris3267 wrote: »
they both are sexy to me but what do i know?0 -
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GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »MJ2victory wrote: »you all are taking what like 12 bad eggs have said and making that what fat acceptance is all about.
The ASDAH website has abandonded health as an objective because it's moralistic. That's not a "bad egg" in the movement, HAES and ASDAH is a pivotal arm of the Fat Acceptance Movement.
asdah and haes are literally specifically all about health... what are you even referring to?0 -
peckchris3267 wrote: »
who here is trying to say that's ok?1
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