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Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
#31
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
Look, OP, my main point here is that fat shaming does not work. All it does is depress them even further. That's never the best way to get fat people to lose weight.

Also, keep in mind that, with anything, there is no one sufficient cause leading to extreme weight. It is always a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors interacting with each other.
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#32
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
(October 29, 2015 at 10:12 am)Irrational Wrote: Look, OP, my main point here is that fat shaming does not work. All it does is depress them even further. That's never the best way to get fat people to lose weight.

Yup, which is a point a lot of people- a lot of people- don't get. Plenty of peeps will line up to judge or outright mock you if you're fat, and it's still weirdly socially acceptable to do it; I think that's what the body acceptance movement is in reaction to. This idea that you shouldn't be treated poorly because of the way you look isn't a crazy one.

But the other thing is, it's like, oh really, being overweight is unhealthy? I've never heard that before! Never once have I been told, in this appearance obsessed culture that's happy to pass comment on the weight of anybody around, especially women, that being overweight increases health risks. Thank you for telling me! I'll just completely change all my habits and be instantly fine, because diet is the only contributing factor to weight and you, a complete stranger, definitely knows everything there is to know about my health, what I'm already doing, and where I've come from! I'm so glad you saw it in yourself to make personal comments to a total stranger! /s

This idea that people desperately need to remind fat people of these things as though it just never occurred to them is dumb; of course they know. Everybody knows, it's not as if it isn't common knowledge. But hey, please do continue making unjustified assumptions, public at large, about a stranger in order to judge their bodies inferior and make unwelcome personal comments to them: we all know you surrender your right to privacy and being left alone in public at a certain weight threshold, after all. Rolleyes
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee

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#33
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
(October 29, 2015 at 10:34 am)Esquilax Wrote:
(October 29, 2015 at 10:12 am)Irrational Wrote: Look, OP, my main point here is that fat shaming does not work. All it does is depress them even further. That's never the best way to get fat people to lose weight.

Yup, which is a point a lot of people- a lot of people- don't get. Plenty of peeps will line up to judge or outright mock you if you're fat, and it's still weirdly socially acceptable to do it; I think that's what the body acceptance movement is in reaction to. This idea that you shouldn't be treated poorly because of the way you look isn't a crazy one.

But the other thing is, it's like, oh really, being overweight is unhealthy? I've never heard that before! Never once have I been told, in this appearance obsessed culture that's happy to pass comment on the weight of anybody around, especially women, that being overweight increases health risks. Thank you for telling me! I'll just completely change all my habits and be instantly fine, because diet is the only contributing factor to weight and you, a complete stranger, definitely knows everything there is to know about my health, what I'm already doing, and where I've come from! I'm so glad you saw it in yourself to make personal comments to a total stranger! /s

This idea that people desperately need to remind fat people of these things as though it just never occurred to them is dumb; of course they know. Everybody knows, it's not as if it isn't common knowledge. But hey, please do continue making unjustified assumptions, public at large, about a stranger in order to judge their bodies inferior and make unwelcome personal comments to them: we all know you surrender your right to privacy and being left alone in public at a certain weight threshold, after all.  Rolleyes

I have a cousin who is really overweight. And he is suffering because of it. My brother, who used to be overweight himself as a child and teenager but was able to lose the extra weight growing up, has been trying to help him out by having him go to gym with him and encouraging him to diet properly. But it is never easy for him. Aside from the fact that some people are really unlucky biologically when it comes to weight, There are psychological blocks that make it very hard for someone like him to just simply be happy enough to go hit the gym every couple of days and go on a calorie restricting diet every day. Even though he knows it's not healthy to keep all that weight, and more importantly, he is NOT happy about his weight. Hell, I don't like going to gym, and I'm only very slightly overweight (I was thin for most of my teen years and twenties).

I have suggested to him that perhaps a therapist might help him with the psychological issues regarding his perception of his weight, but have also told him it's ok to love himself anyway and not to let other people dictate how he should feel about his weight. Because at the end of the day, he is the one truly suffering from his own weight, not the other people who condemn him for that.
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#34
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
(October 29, 2015 at 11:06 am)Irrational Wrote: ...but have also told him it's ok to love himself anyway and not to let other people dictate how he should feel about his weight.

And there you have the impetus for the entire movement. It is not about saying being obese is healthy, it is about not shaming people because of their bodies.

It all started with the anti-supermodel lilt. Society is being force fed the perfect ideal for what a female body should look like, and by proxy, what a male should look like. The whole point of the fat acceptance deal was initially if you had love handles to be okay with that. It was taken a little farther, and like every movement, co-opted by the extremes. Yes, you can find examples of people co-opting the movement and saying that you can be perfectly healthy at 450 lbs. That's bullshit. You can't be healthy at 450 lbs, even if you're 7'2". What you can be, is body positive, and get support from your friends rather than derision.

To say that fat acceptance supporters want everyone to be fat is the same as saying people who say 'Happy Holidays" want to end Christmas. No. It's about being positive and inclusive. It doesn't mean you have to support a lifestyle that will lead to obesity. It means maybe we don't judge a person's character or literally anything about them based on their outward appearance.

I have struggled with many things in my life. I am hopelessly addicted to caffeine. I know that drinking a .5L of soda a day is terrible for me. (I don't mean to make these two things sound as if they are on the same plane---just drawing a parallel by which I can empathize) It would technically be easy for me to stop drinking pop. Just don't buy the shit any more, right? And I've done, for weeks, sometimes months at a time. But I keep going back. I don't think this is some sort of character flaw on my part. But society has made it just that for obese people. I simply reject that notion, and try to empathize. That, to me in a nutshell, is fat acceptance.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great

PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
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#35
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
@ steelcurtain Clap

Well said. My wife and one daughter struggle with weight. You said what I was thinking, but I was a little ticked off and the words weren't coming. I repped you for it, and that's maybe the third or fourth rep I've given since I've been here.
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#36
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
Quote:Yup, which is a point a lot of people- a lot of people- don't get. Plenty of peeps will line up to judge or outright mock you if you're fat, and it's still weirdly socially acceptable to do it; I think that's what the body acceptance movement is in reaction to. This idea that you shouldn't be treated poorly because of the way you look isn't a crazy one.
Never did I defend the position that fat people should be shamed just for the sake of being fat - In fact, I rarely shame anyone unless they do something evil to others - I agree that shaming people for wrong reasons is counterproductive, but there's a difference between shaming, constructive criticism and backlash against the position certain people defend. People shouldn't be treated poorly because of the way they look, but do you really think it is that socially acceptable to shame fat people? Do you know the restrictions I have to go trough as a smoker (even though I reduced the amount of cigarettes I smoke per day) and the social stigma attached to it? If I write one article saying that smokers are unhealthy and that we need to tax cigarettes and reduce the amount of smokers, and if I write a similar article about fat people, can you guess which one will get the worse backlash - Fat acceptance or smokers acceptance? I think treating people poorly is bad, period, but we need to think ahead about the repercussions of the growing trends of obesity in the western world and even in some countries outside it where there's lots of wealth - Can you imagine the chaos that would be if, say, we didn't have enough fit people (I mean minimally fit, not necessarily professional athletes) to form an army or to do most manual work?

Quote:But the other thing is, it's like, oh really, being overweight is unhealthy? I've never heard that before! Never once have I been told, in this appearance obsessed culture that's happy to pass comment on the weight of anybody around, especially women, that being overweight increases health risks. Thank you for telling me! I'll just completely change all my habits and be instantly fine, because diet is the only contributing factor to weight and you, a complete stranger, definitely knows everything there is to know about my health, what I'm already doing, and where I've come from! I'm so glad you saw it in yourself to make personal comments to a total stranger! /s
Why do I keep seeing Smoking Kills on cigarette packs then? Don't you think I've had completely enough of it? Do you think smokers don't already know the hazards of inhaling nicotine and other toxins?

Quote:This idea that people desperately need to remind fat people of these things as though it just never occurred to them is dumb; of course they know. Everybody knows, it's not as if it isn't common knowledge. But hey, please do continue making unjustified assumptions, public at large, about a stranger in order to judge their bodies inferior and make unwelcome personal comments to them: we all know you surrender your right to privacy and being left alone in public at a certain weight threshold, after all.  Rolleyes
People do that kind of stuff about everyone for many reasons, whether it's weight, religion or politics, etc - Curiously, you're referring to a group of people who are aware of it, but there are plenty of people who are noticeably overweight, or even obese (I mean those who are very heavy) and claim that they are perfectly healtyh weight-wise (or even that they're just big boned and not fat at all).
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you

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#37
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
Quote:And there you have the impetus for the entire movement. It is not about saying being obese is healthy, it is about not shaming people because of their bodies.
I think you're wrong about this - While it is true that some people just don't want to be discriminated against, which is fine and I agree with, there are people who actively claim that every weight is equally healthy and that there isn't any health risks associated with being fat - Kinda like race, which you don't pick, being fat or not is just a matter of perspective and everyone is different. Again I ask, why is everyone concerned about shaming but no one really cares that the poor cigarette smoker has to go trough all kinds of restrictions that, if it were possible to apply to fat people, would be considered persecution?

Quote:It all started with the anti-supermodel lilt. Society is being force fed the perfect ideal for what a female body should look like, and by proxy, what a male should look like. The whole point of the fat acceptance deal was initially if you had love handles to be okay with that. It was taken a little farther, and like every movement, co-opted by the extremes. Yes, you can find examples of people co-opting the movement and saying that you can be perfectly healthy at 450 lbs. That's bullshit. You can't be healthy at 450 lbs, even if you're 7'2". What you can be, is body positive, and get support from your friends rather than derision.
The thing is that people who think that are increasing, specially if you look at America and how it is getting fatter. Honestly, I understand the backlash against super-thin models and anorexia, but if you look at the data there have been successful efforts and even legal impositions in many countries to restrict how thin models can be and eating disorders like anorexia nervosa or bulímia are under control - This is not the case with obesity that has a tendency to grow. Yes, everyone has an ideal body type, and the media promotes a certain image, but I think most people who've been in relationships know real life is not the same as movies or the media - None of this means you can't personally try to be as healthy as possible. I feel bad for smoking, but I try to keep a nice weight and I've been fat for a lot of years - I don't try to look as a supermodel, just as good as I can.

Quote:To say that fat acceptance supporters want everyone to be fat is the same as saying people who say 'Happy Holidays" want to end Christmas. No. It's about being positive and inclusive. It doesn't mean you have to support a lifestyle that will lead to obesity. It means maybe we don't judge a person's character or literally anything about them based on their outward appearance.
I never said that Steel, but there are people who think that, from a health perspective, being obese should be exactly the same as being average weight, fit or thin - There are people who complain about not getting any dates because of their weight, there are people who complain about paying an extra ticket on an airplane, etc, those cases aren't so rare.
Quote:I have struggled with many things in my life. I am hopelessly addicted to caffeine. I know that drinking a .5L of soda a day is terrible for me. (I don't mean to make these two things sound as if they are on the same plane---just drawing a parallel by which I can empathize) It would technically be easy for me to stop drinking pop. Just don't buy the shit any more, right? And I've done, for weeks, sometimes months at a time. But I keep going back. I don't think this is some sort of character flaw on my part. But society has made it just that for obese people. I simply reject that notion, and try to empathize. That, to me in a nutshell, is fat acceptance.
I have unhealthy habits as well, but I recognize they're bad and try to improve whenever possible.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you

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#38
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
(October 29, 2015 at 1:44 pm)Dystopia Wrote:
SteelCurtain Wrote:And there you have the impetus for the entire movement. It is not about saying being obese is healthy, it is about not shaming people because of their bodies.
I think you're wrong about this - While it is true that some people just don't want to be discriminated against, which is fine and I agree with, there are people who actively claim that every weight is equally healthy and that there isn't any health risks associated with being fat - Kinda like race, which you don't pick, being fat or not is just a matter of perspective and everyone is different. Again I ask, why is everyone concerned about shaming but no one really cares that the poor cigarette smoker has to go trough all kinds of restrictions that, if it were possible to apply to fat people, would be considered persecution?

Those people who are claiming there are no health risks to being obese are the outliers. It would be just as dishonest to say that Christians are picketing soldiers' funerals with "God Hates Fags" posters. That's the WBC, and it's not mainstream Christianity. I am immersed in a lot of these social movements, and seriously the first time I'd ever heard of these people saying that you can be healthy when you're morbidly obese was today, in this thread.

(October 29, 2015 at 1:44 pm)Dystopia Wrote:
SteelCurtain Wrote:It all started with the anti-supermodel lilt. Society is being force fed the perfect ideal for what a female body should look like, and by proxy, what a male should look like. The whole point of the fat acceptance deal was initially if you had love handles to be okay with that. It was taken a little farther, and like every movement, co-opted by the extremes. Yes, you can find examples of people co-opting the movement and saying that you can be perfectly healthy at 450 lbs. That's bullshit. You can't be healthy at 450 lbs, even if you're 7'2". What you can be, is body positive, and get support from your friends rather than derision.
The thing is that people who think that are increasing, specially if you look at America and how it is getting fatter. Honestly, I understand the backlash against super-thin models and anorexia, but if you look at the data there have been successful efforts and even legal impositions in many countries to restrict how thin models can be and eating disorders like anorexia nervosa or bulímia are under control - This is not the case with obesity that has a tendency to grow. Yes, everyone has an ideal body type, and the media promotes a certain image, but I think most people who've been in relationships know real life is not the same as movies or the media - None of this means you can't personally try to be as healthy as possible. I feel bad for smoking, but I try to keep a nice weight and I've been fat for a lot of years - I don't try to look as a supermodel, just as good as I can.

I think you're drawing a little bit of a causal relationship between people getting fatter in America and people believing that being fat is healthy. Americans are getting fatter because there is a Burger King on every corner, we work 51 weeks a year, and we have screens in every room of our house. Believe me, I live in Tennessee. There are more morbidly overweight people here than you can possibly imagine. Yet I still hear them tell me they want to lost weight, their doctor told them they were going to lose their foot to necrosis from diabetes. Not one person has tried to convince me that they were healthy while riding a scooter in WalMart.

(October 29, 2015 at 1:44 pm)Dystopia Wrote:
SteelCurtain Wrote:To say that fat acceptance supporters want everyone to be fat is the same as saying people who say 'Happy Holidays" want to end Christmas. No. It's about being positive and inclusive. It doesn't mean you have to support a lifestyle that will lead to obesity. It means maybe we don't judge a person's character or literally anything about them based on their outward appearance.
I never said that Steel, but there are people who think that, from a health perspective, being obese should be exactly the same as being average weight, fit or thin - There are people who complain about not getting any dates because of their weight, there are people who complain about paying an extra ticket on an airplane, etc, those cases aren't so rare.

You didn't say that, but someone else in the thread did. I wasn't talking to you specifically, I was responding to the thread. Again, those people are such a fringe. I haven't met anybody who has tried to convince me this was true. I am not saying they don't exist, I just think they are not as representative of this movement as you think they are.

(October 29, 2015 at 1:44 pm)Dystopia Wrote:
SteelCurtain Wrote:I have struggled with many things in my life. I am hopelessly addicted to caffeine. I know that drinking a .5L of soda a day is terrible for me. (I don't mean to make these two things sound as if they are on the same plane---just drawing a parallel by which I can empathize) It would technically be easy for me to stop drinking pop. Just don't buy the shit any more, right? And I've done, for weeks, sometimes months at a time. But I keep going back. I don't think this is some sort of character flaw on my part. But society has made it just that for obese people. I simply reject that notion, and try to empathize. That, to me in a nutshell, is fat acceptance.
I have unhealthy habits as well, but I recognize they're bad and try to improve whenever possible.

I think that's all some overweight people are trying to do. Or---they just want you to leave them alone if they are happy doing what they're doing, living how they're living.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great

PM me your email address to join the Slack chat! I'll give you a taco(or five) if you join! --->There's an app and everything!<---
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#39
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
Quote:I think you're drawing a little bit of a causal relationship between people getting fatter in America and people believing that being fat is healthy. Americans are getting fatter because there is a Burger King on every corner, we work 51 weeks a year, and we have screens in every room of our house. Believe me, I live in Tennessee. There are more morbidly overweight people here than you can possibly imagine. Yet I still hear them tell me they want to lost weight, their doctor told them they were going to lose their foot to necrosis from diabetes. Not one person has tried to convince me that they were healthy while riding a scooter in WalMart.
I think this is misleading - Saying that Americans (or for the matter any other people) are getting fatter because there's a burger king or a fast food restaurant every corner is like saying the cause of gun shootings and killing sprees is the fact guns are sold in many stores - While I live in Europe and it is mostly illegal for civilians to own guns here, I think the cause of shooting sprees is not the fact guns are legal in America because, as you probably know, killing sprees are not that uncommon in scandinavia and people still acquire guns there. I think the availability of food influences how fat people get, but I don't think you can blame more weight on it - I'm pretty sure (and correct me if I'm wrong) that despite the fact America has so much processed food and junk food, it's more than possible to find healthy or otherwise normal food for decent prices - I also don't want to assume how many Burger Kings are out there, but in Europe fast food restaurants have existed and spread their availability for a long time, but I still don't see many of my friends going to MacDonalds every single day - In fact, I have a MacDonalds right next to me and I haven't gone there in 3 months because when I go out to dinner or lunch I prefer some traditional dish (mostly meat because I don't like fish much) since it's more worth the money.


Quote:Look, OP, my main point here is that fat shaming does not work. All it does is depress them even further. That's never the best way to get fat people to lose weight.

Also, keep in mind that, with anything, there is no one sufficient cause leading to extreme weight. It is always a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors interacting with each other.
Never did i argue that fat-shaming should be done to anybody - But I also think some people mistake a legitimate concern for someone's weight for fat-shaming. It's not fat-shaming if there aren't clothing sizes for you, or if you there isn't an elevator and you have trouble going up the stairs.

Also, I seriously doubt that factors are anything more than social since 50 years ago people were much thinner - I mean, my country itself is much fatter now, but when people were poor and couldn't eat much everybody was very thin, and I believe America before the 2000's was thin as well, so I don't think there's a genetic reason behind the increase in obesity. It's basic reasoning here.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you

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#40
RE: Rant about weight, fat acceptance, obesity and health
(October 30, 2015 at 8:59 am)Dystopia Wrote: Also, I seriously doubt that factors are anything more than social since 50 years ago people were much thinner - I mean, my country itself is much fatter now, but when people were poor and couldn't eat much everybody was very thin, and I believe America before the 2000's was thin as well, so I don't think there's a genetic reason behind the increase in obesity. It's basic reasoning here.

Sometimes it may take a certain type of environment to trigger genetic expressions (or even vulnerabilities!).
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