To call out friend on 'body positivity' delusion?

YANBU

I was 19 stone and someone had a frank conversation with me and it was the catalyst to be now being 11st.

Sometimes people need a reality check, as painful as it is.

Sometimes it's kinder to just murmur "mmmm" and change the subject rather than entering a conversation which is highly unlikely to have a positive outcome, regardless of good intentions.

Not every thought has to be expressed, no matter how valid it is. We are not children.

I used to have a friend who prided herself on 'speaking her mind'. Before our friendship ended, she was down to her last friend (me).

I have another friend who has been overweight all her adult life. We have rarely spoken of it. Several times she has lost huge amounts of weight. If she raises the subject I tell her she looks amazing. When the weight goes back on, I never mention it. When I see her I tell her she looks fab (she does, wears beautiful clothes, always well groomed, the kindest person imaginable), she tells me the same. Neither of us are gorgeous but we love each other and have been friends for a quarter of a century. Recently she lost a good bit of weight and it's staying off. Unless she mentions it I don't say a thing other than to tell her she looks wonderful. Weight is only one aspect of her as a person. We are both in our 50s, both love and accept the other just as we are.

There is absolutely no one who is size 30 who doesn’t worry about their weight, no matter how they might discuss it with others.

If you are as concerned as you say you are, you could have mentioned it to her privately and offered to go walking together, for example. Embarrassing her in front of the group was unnecessary and unkind. Everyone, including her, can see that she is overweight. You were more interested in being “right” than in being a friend.

I would apologise and explain you just want the best for her. Ultimately, she is an adult and it’s up to her how she wants to live her life.

You sound like such a good friend to me, you’ve really tried to hold your tongue and be careful and you’re genuinely worried about what your friends doing to herself. She is very lucky to have you. You have also put up with listening to a load of bullshit about self-care and body positivity. I find this really hard when people are deluding themselves and expecting you to nod and agree. So yeah, basically you’ve done something a bit unskilful for sure but understandable.
you don’t sound condescending at all, you are right and it’s her fragility and inability to face reality that’s ultimately going ti hurt her, by hurting her body and also alienating people which she is doing now.
we are very focused on the individual in the west, but in other cultures a persons self care is seen as caring for the community who loves them. I think we owe it to the people who love us to take good care of ourselves and to be kind and listen to them when they raise concerns about our health. This is a very radical idea for a lot of people and frankly I don’t care if anyone disagrees. I had to grow up watching my mother and sisters abusing themselves and neglecting their own health with devastating consequences for them, their children and anybody who cares about them.
You are a good friend, best you can do is say sorry for being unskilful and I guess don’t bring it up again because she’s too fragile to talk about it.

A fat adult knows they're fat.

Telling them does nothing other than let them you know you're judging them and it won't change their habits... in fact it usually leads to shame and often binging for comfort.

You are not unreasonable in your thoughts, a person who is size 30 and can't walk up a short hill is in no way healthy.

You are unreasonable for mentioning it though. She will either come to the realisation herself, or she won't.

But a lot of her body positivity talk will be because she's insecure.

Your friend is delusional.
This is NOT body positivity!
I am a size 24. I have put weight on despite eating 1800 calories max and um under investigation at a london hosp due to a genetic disorder and they think that is linked to weight.
I eat well. Don't drink or smoke. do my 10k steps a day and run 5k three times a week. Swim twice a week. Weights twice a month. Drink my 1.5litres water daily. Take supplements. ETC
I could be more active but mum life, work and complex health issues.
I try and be body positive as my weight is out of my control and I try and take care of myself as much as i can so my weight doesnt define my health.
Eating crap, drinking and being unable to walk to walk a mile isnt body positivity.

Well done you.

The body positivity stuff is so, so insidious, it started out as celebrating all kinds of diversity as being 'good bodies', normal things like cellulite that women are often shamed for having or body hair, and things like disability representation. Then it got co opted by the pro obesity movement big time and gave lots of obese people a bunch of fairytales about how it's not their fault and their body isn't changeable and they can be healthy while obese. Just lots of non-scientific lies that have done tonnes of damage.

When you love someone, you have to be honest with them. You did her a favour even if she doesn't realise it yet. Being a loving kind friend doesn't always look like nodding along with someone's delusions while they slowly kill themselves.

I agree with your opinion, but if someone had commented on my appearance/health in front of people, I’d be quite upset.

I’d apologise, and just say that it wasn’t your place and you’re sorry for making her uncomfortable/upset.

People do not owe you their health

if they eat/drink/smoke whatever it is their business

I think body positivity is great and I think it is more productive anyway to start to learn to love yourself and your body (and maybe start making more positive health choices, if you want) rather than shame and negativity.

people who overeat often have some deep seated psychological issues (as do many people as life is hard) and it’s always kindest to just be supportive imo

your tutting and concern will not help her. I guess it might make you feel better though 🤔

What did you expect from the conversation though?

Did you expect her to bow to your wisdom of her weight problem and vow to never eat an ounce of fat again?

If you're genuinely concerned about her do you not think a word in private would have been better rather than embarrassing her in front of everyone?

Because the friend tried to get the others to agree with her, through their silence if not openly, that her weight is fine.

If she loses weight as a result if what you said, i'll eat my hat.

The friend was the one bringing the subject into conversation.

OP didn’t just randomly say, ‘you’re a bit fat aren’t you?’

When people bring contentious issues into conversation it can put the listeners into a tricky place. Silence is often interpreted by the speaker as agreement. And if you thing the listener’s opinion causes harm, you are placed in a tricky moral position.

Having thought about this, I think the friend has been unreasonable by repeatedly bringing the topic up but allowing no dissent.

I think it’s hard because anything you say will be taken badly by her. But then equally why did she bring the subject up? Did she really think everyone would agree with her? I don’t think you were being unreasonable because it wasn’t you who started talking about it.
She sounds like she is in denial. How many elderly people do you see in their 80/90s who are that size?

She’s suffering from the disease obesity. She is past the stage where a lifestyle change is likely to achieve much.
Various changes in her body are massively damaging, you are right.

However she isn’t going to fix it through shame and embarrassment. Or none of us would be fat because body positivity movement or not, all fat people have experienced enough shame and embarrassment to have done the job if that were all it took.

Body positivity isn’t about encouraging people to get fat. It’s about avoiding shaming those who do, and allowing them some positives despite their size.

I also think some of the body positive gurus just downright lie. I watched Tess Holliday on tik tok claim she’s a size 24 and demonstrate this by squeezing herself into a very stretchy skirt. Filtered and heavy make up for camera combines to create a very fake and unachievable body look that just perpetuates a lie about healthy fatness.

2014 i told my best friend she was going to die before she was 50 she was 42 at the time.tried gentle but she just laughed.
i buried her 2020 dec broke my heart
tough love is needed sometimes

Agree with you about the impact on health, and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong in being honest with a friend. I think, though, that body positivity is more about accepting and liking yourself as you are (which can be hard with the messages we constantly get about image) than specifically celebrating being overweight. That in itself isn't a bad mindset.

Absolutely this. You were not publicly shaming her, what you said was part of a discussion between friends. Obesity is normalised, as can be seen on most high streets in this country, and your friend’s obesity is probably going to make her very ill, very soon. Well done for speaking up.

You broached that really badly. In front of people and blunt.

You're right to be concerned about your friend though

Ion't think you were wrong OP. Maybe it would have been better to say something in the moment. OTOH, I think she opened the door to that conversation, and she can't expect her good friends to all nod along.

I know a few pp have said she already knows, I would argue she does in a way, but she is working very hard to talk herself out of it, and that is why she is trying to always put you guys in a position of agreeing with her. It helps to maintain the illusion, and I think in the end you were probably right not to play along. No differernt than if it were an addiction issue. Yes, only the individual can deal with it, but you probably shouldn't help them deny reality when they try and pull you in.

The body positivity stuff has a kernel of truth to it of course. It's important to basically love your physical body - that's part of what makes you want to keep it healthy. Trying not to have a hateful relationship, and taking care of it and how you present is basically a good thing, and should also contribute toward efforts to keep it healthy. But it seems like the body positivity movement is seriously fucked up to me, it's like a bunch of people who deep down hate their bodies, and maybe themselves, desperately trying to cover that up. And convince themselves as well as everyone else. (I am sure there must be some psychological term for this?)

Anyway, it sounds like your friend is on the road to very poor health. Some of these body positivity gurus have dies recently, and it's really say sad, maybe that will help your friend make changes. It's good I think that you have said something, I hope it doesn't interfere with your relationship.

If it was the opposite, she'd be on a ward receiving treatment for anorexia.
Should be the same for morbidly obese people. It's a mental illness.

Shaming her won't help though, it'll make it worse.

Your thinking is correct. You raising it with your friend is correct but the way you raised it was wrong

I think you were right to be honest, and to no longer enable her choices that are making her sick. I wish I was brave enough to do this with a friend who is in a similar conundrum although be it much worse.

Truth is, we wouldn't be so enabling if she was using heroin or crack cocaine.

She is in denial. It is actually really easy to convince yourself that you are ok when you are really overweight . I did - but there are things like not being able to get up a hill on holiday that SHOULD make you think.

Having lost 2.5 stone I now struggle to see how I couldn’t see what a problem my weight was and didn’t do something earlier. But I was stuck in a cycle of poor eating sleep stress and exhaustion.

I would have a chat with her and just listen. It’s great that she feels positive about herself ( I did) but it did hinder me losing weight as I didn’t see myself as unhealthy. It took me struggling on holiday, seeing my mum have a hip and knee replacement to do something.