"I may be fat, but I beat my eating disorder"

[Napoléon]

Rant incoming. This "story" really grinds my effing gears for many reasons.

I've seen several people on my facebook newsfeed liking and sharing this shit now, so I wanna know whether it's just me, or whether all these people are just fucking retards.

http://fullbodiedlovin.tumblr.com/post/7...before-and

Here’s to a week for the unconventional before and after photos, National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. For most of my life, I’ve been heavier, and consequently shamed and belittled for my weight. When I started college, however, I weighed 103 pounds, was eating 400-600 calories a day, doing about 90 minutes of cardio daily, and most importantly, I was anorexic. I was 15 pounds underweight, but no one thought to say anything because they were too busy applauding me for my unnatural weight loss. This is me calling them out. This is my telling them they were wrong. This is me thanking my real life and tumblr friends for everything they have done to get me to the wonderful place I am today. So fuck you traditional pictures of “healthy”, I may be fat, but I beat my eating disorder.

I'd like to point out, for starters, in one picture you're covered in shit with no makeup and terrible lighting, in the other you're dressed up for a professional fucking photoshoot. Obviously people are going to be more inclined to think the 'after' picture looks better.

But well done for beating your eating disorder. Pat on the back for that. Genuinely. But giving someone a pat on the back for being fat is just as bad as giving them a pat on the back for being skinny IMHO. This is where my contention is with this crap.

She's swapped one version of unhealthiness for another.


Taken from the FAQ on her stupid as shit tumblr:

“You’re not fat, you’re X (healthy, beautiful, etc.)”

My question to these people is why can’t I choose all of the above? I personally identify as fat, but when did fat become the opposite of healthy or of beautiful?

Ummm, I dunno, might have something to do with the general understandings of what constitutes healthy from a medical perspective. I've not really seen 'being fat' mentioned anywhere as an ideal. Has anyone else? Do people go to their GP and expect to be praised for being overweight? Am I living on the same planet as this person? Do I have a warped idea of what constitutes as healthy?

Fat is not a dirty word and fat people don’t lose the capacity to be healthy or attractive because they’re fat.

Attractiveness is subjective. I guess some people like chubbiness, that's not a crime. I've not really got beef with that.

However, I'm not doctor, or dietician, but I'm reasonably sure the fatter you get the unhealthier you are. Being fat has some bearing on health right? So, to some extent at least, you do lose the capacity to be healthy when you're fat. Am I wrong in thinking that, or is this shitty tumblr post as shitty as I think it is? In everything I've learned, or had told to me by doctors, nobody has once said you can be fat and healthy. Being fat is not healthy. Is it healthier than what she used to be though? Maybe. But I guarantee she couldn't do 90 mins of cardio while being fat whereas she could before (according to her own blog). On most, if not all fitness tests that would suggest that you being fat is unhealthier than you being skinny, right?

It’s just something else they can be. I am fat, but I’m also, healthy

What really, really, pisses me off with this, is that this is almost being celebrated as though it's something people should strive for. It's even as far as blatant misinformation IMO. This kind of shit is just as bad as people promoting anorexia in the first place. In fact, it just strikes me as completely ironic that the very thing this girl criticises throughout her posts (the pro-anorexia sentiment/skinny is healthy) is actually not at all far from what she's doing herself. She's just promoting a different brand of unhealthy.

Nowhere through any of the tripe on her tumblr has she had confirmation from any kind of source or doctor that her new lifestyle is healthy, or even healthier than her old one. In fact, she goes as far to suggest that her own doctor (in her own professional opinion ofcourse) would actually misdiagnose people if they're overweight. At least that's how I took this particular quote: "Even when I was underweight, my doctor wasn’t misdiagnosing my problems because of my weight", it doesn't actually make much sense to me. (That bit is found in the FAQ section, I don't really get where she's going with it).


I'm all for self acceptance, and being happy. I know everyone is different and all that shit. Some people carry more weight than others and have different body types etc.

But I don't at all buy that she's at her optimum health by being overweight. I also absolutely loath the way this kind of shit is sort of being fashionably promoted as an ideal. Seems massively hypocritical to me to bash on the pro-anorexia sentiments in society, and then promote your own brand of unhealthiness by saying "look at me, I'm happy being fat". I'm sure they're plenty of people who could say the same while being anorexic.

I get the sense that all of these people are in denial somewhere along the line. Be who you want to be, but don't be in denial about whether it is healthy or not, and certainly don't make claims of healthiness that other people should strive for. That shit is dangerous.


But meh. End of rant.

I'm no doctor/dietician, so if my ideas of healthiness are wrong, feel free to rip me to shreds. But I honestly think this kind of shit is not only massively hypocritical, but just as dangerous to the health of impressionable people as what pro-anorexic posts are. And it ticks me the fuck off.