The Fat Acceptance Movement… Thoughts??

Sorry if someone else has already said this but I'm too lazy to read through the entire thread lol.

I think the acceptance we should be embracing is that people have different body types. We (women AND men) should not be taught from a young age that we need to look like the photoshopped images in magazines. However, this does not mean that it should be okay for anyone to weigh 500 pounds. But instead of focusing our energy on belittling these people, we should look at how our society has pushed obesity on us. No one chooses to be fat. Some people are just more susceptible to falling into the traps that are set for all of us. That is NOT okay.

If you haven't watched it, take a look at the Weight of the Nation mini-series (again, sorry if that's been covered). It gives a lot of insight.

It is not society's fault that someone is trying to eat themselves into an early grave. When does personal responsibility kick in??

I think the biggest problem is the EXCUSES and viewing fat people as VICTIMS. As long as you can blame everyone but yourself you can reason with yourself that it's someone else's responsibility to fix or that it's not fixable.

I believe you should learn to love yourself no matter your size. But when you find that self love, you want to take care of your health and body. That doesn't mean struggling to be an unrealistic size or weight, but it does mean getting some exercise and eating healthy foods the majority of the time. When you do those things, you won't be obese. So... long story short, I believe in the "acceptance" movement...to accept yourself no matter what the circumstances; but I do not believe in the 'fat acceptance' movement specifically.

I'm not sure about it....I'm mostly worried about childhood obesity. And for that I would put the blame on the parents. Your too lazy to cook your kid a decent dinner than at least don't take them to a fast food chain. I herd on the news that the children today will be the first generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents....it is so sad

I think it has it's good side and it's bad side.

I suppose it could lead to acceptance of an issue that shouldn't be accepted. People who are obese need to lose some weight to be healthy and have a longer life. Being molified by fat acceptance propiganda could lead one to accept unhealthy weight or even cause someone to strive to be overweight in order to fit into that group of people.

That being said, I think the fat acceptance movement is more helpful than harmful. A LOT of people are horribly cruel to people of size, cruelty and discrimination right up there along with discrimination that has happened in this country to minorities, the disabled, women and gays. People of size are mocked, denied good job opportunitys, sometimes are physically hurt and are often treated as unintelligent, bad people. Beyond just being healthy or not being healthy, weight is also wrapped up in this countries current definition of the norm of beauty. This same beauty standard in the country has also caused huge amounts of girls with eating disorders, unneeded cosmetic surgeries, and people who will go to an extreme to be unhealthily underweight... and I don't hear people asking do you think those underweight or surgically altered people are justified in having a support movement.

I think there has to be some sort of movement for fat acceptance up to a point. not to encourage people to be fat, but to encourage people who are not fat to stop treating fat people like second class citizens. just the way there needed to be media movements to encourage unenlightened people not to be cruel to gays, not to bully children, not to discriminate against minorities or the disable in the workplace or for education opportunites or just straight up to not be cruel and abusive to people who are not exactly like them selves. It's also important to teach people of size, especially young people of size, that they are not second class citizens, not less worthy of financial or educational opportunity and definitely not deserving of cruelty and abuse just because they are not fitting into the size of the social norm.

Fat seems to be one of the last socially acceptable discriminations/hates left in this country and I, as well as lots of other people I know have, had to experience that first hand. so I guess people saying that the fat acceptance thing will just 'encourage the fat to stay fat' don't really know what they are talking about. That is an ignorant/uneducated/unempatheic point of view. People of size shouldn't have to feel like they are crap just because they are not thin, they are still intelligent and lovely people, regardless.

I support the movement 100%.
To everyone who is against Fat Acceptance, I recommend reading these links.

http://www.shakesville.com/2010/03/proposed.html
http://kateharding.net/faq/but-dont-you-realize-fat-is-unhealthy/
http://kateharding.net/faq/
http://www.obesitymyths.com

My sister gained weight from medication.
She always tries to lose weight but it's like pull water into a leaking cup. It can never be full.
Yes, I think we just accept the person as they are.

i think it's so unhealthy and dangerous!like, YES it's bad to try to force unrealistic beauty standards on people and to say that underweight is the only beautiful.but all i see from the 'fat acceptance' stuff is hate and personal attacks on thin women and an attempt to justify very serious eating disorders.an eating disorder is very very VERY dangerous whether it makes you fat or thin or neither, and encouraging people to indulge in self destructive behaviour is NOT a good thing.

Fat people get attacked for being outside society's unrealistic standards, but it's ok as long as someone is trying to show them how unhealthy they are?

Maybe I just read too much into your post

*note* I really am trying to understand where you are coming from and not be rude. I am genuinely interested in discussing this with you maturely.

I posted results from a study on a Health at Every Size program, part of the fat acceptance movement: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/624937-health-at-every-size-haes-related-research

Yes, simple calorie restriction and exercise should lead to weight loss. However, there's a lot involved in doing in right. What food choices are good and bad? If I'm starving, should I eat something or stick to the rigid calorie plan? How do I exercise with my schedule? How do I break through emotional attachments to food?

The Fat Acceptance Movement has the ability to address these issues by educating people about nutrition and healthy habits, without the stress of number crunching and depression when it doesn't work out. People may not lose weight, but they can lower their blood pressure, cholesterol, stress...all things that will make them healthier than if they were on a traditional diet that they couldn't maintain.

I think the movement would be spreading itself too thin by focusing on health education, when health is not the point of the movement. There are plenty of groups and programs out there that address health, nutrition, and exercise. I think the answer is to let them focus on the health, and Fat Acceptance focus on Fat Acceptance. FA promoting the idea of Health at Every Size is enough.

Basically, wanting Fat Acceptance to focus on health education is like wanting feminism to focus on sex education. While HAES is an important part of Fat Acceptance and sexual expression is an important part of feminism, both groups have more important things to focus on, especially when there are other people out there already promoting health and sex education/treatment.

I think it should be flipped on its head and people should just accept that if they're fat they WILL need to pay for two seats on a plane, they WILL need to pay extra on their insurance, etc etc.

Being fat and not doing anything about it doesn't mean everyone else around you should have to adapt to you.

Okay I think it is good because it tells us we dont have to be a size 0 to be beautiful. We must learn to love ourselves and some people find bigger people really attractive.The most important thing is being healthy plus young females need to have healthy body images we dont want them to starve to be a size 0, have self hate and die from a eating disorder.

I think it should be flipped on its head and people should just accept that if they're fat they WILL need to pay for two seats on a plane, they WILL need to pay extra on their insurance, etc etc.

Being fat and not doing anything about it doesn't mean everyone else around you should have to adapt to you.

Exactly! When it negatively impacts other people then you're forcing your problems on others.

I feel like acceptance is the wrong word. I don't think we should accept obesity or encourage it, (do we really want to teach our children that obesity and poor health is totally cool, and that their life will be as totally rad and fulfilled as a normal sized healthy person? Probably not.) but we should treat those who are overweight with the same respect and dignity and any other person and not just assume that they're weak willed/ stupid/ wastes of life.

Hmm I'm pretty sure that there isn't an alcoholic acceptance movement and I would guess nobody would advocate one, however do the same things not apply to alcoholics?

For some obese people it's a lifestyle choice - just as drinking lots is
For some obese people, it's an addiction, same as alcoholics
On end of the scale where one might eat a little too much - or drink a little too much, you probably wouldn't treat either of those any differently - acceptance

On the other end of the scale you would surely seek to help those who are very obese, just as you would those who were alchoholic? I'm not sure you should make too many allowances for either should you?

"but we should treat those who are overweight with the same respect and dignity and any other person and not just assume that they're weak willed/ stupid/ wastes of life."

Would you afford the same respect for a drunk? I guess we should really

What a load of tree-hugging hippie crap!

For sure there's no reason on earth for people to subject fat-folk to hatred and ridicule, that's beneath contempt. But a movement to promote societal attitute that fat is OK? That society at large should change to adopt the super-fat few? Utter tosh.

Being very fat is not OK. It's not healthy for us as individuals, it robs children of their parents prematurely and it put strain on our social healthcare systems and welfare systems. If we start promoting an attitute that this is perfectly fine (indeed why not encourage it) all we do is enable people to go on damaging themselves. I think the same argument applies to excessive drinking, to smoking and to drug use. As a society we have to pull together to help people, sometimes that means protecting them from themselves..........we shouldn't be enabling this further.

I just dont want to pay for a (mostly) self inflicted ailment with my tax money. I'm all for loving yourself, and I need to get to that point too, but it goes a bit too far when people stop admitting to themselves that they're unhealthy.

Acceptance of any eating disorder is not okay, and overeating is definitely an ED