To wonder if ‘body positivity’ has gone too far?

Yes, I'm actually surprised by someone who attributes their weight gain to IVF not being sympathetic to the role hormones might play for someone else.

My heart goes out to anyone who has experienced fertility struggles, but it's a helpful illustration that our bodies and experiences don't all work the same way and that we shouldn't assume they do or can.

As someone who struggled to gain weight during pregnancy due to HG I have first hand experience of the effect of hormones on appetite in a way that is completely beyond a person's control. It's quite humbling to have your body ruling the roost.

By the same argument you're invalidating my experience. And who are you to tell her she's being invalidated? Even if, why are you assuming she can't handle someone saying their experience is different? See, we can go on forever in this nonsense circle. Stop assuming you know someone's level of resilience, and telling people what should and shouldn't hurt their feelings.

That's great for her! Unfortunately, studies have shown that for most people who become obese, they won't successfully lose it and maintain a healthy weight in the long term. It's a very small minority of people who do achieve this, and for most people they will yo-yo which can actually be more harmful to health overall than staying at a steady weight even if that steady weight is in itself an unhealthily high one. So people, once obese, do find themselves in something of a trap. I'm not arguing the morals or otherwise of this, just the facts of weight loss. You can conclude that the 95% of people who regain their lost weight and more within five years do so because they're lazy and greedy if you want, just as someone else can conclude that there might be some other factors at play. But either way, it's true. I think in general if we can extend a more compassionate view towards those people, it would probably be better for everyone and we might go some way to finding solutions. I think in general though, stating an anecdote like this one with the implication that fat people are mostly just hiding behind excuses isn't contributing much that's helpful to the wider conversation. For everyone for whom that's true, there is someone else with a different experience. That poster who found body positivity discouraging found another way to lose weight, but there are plenty of others who find body positivity helps them to gain the self worth and confidence that inspires them to make healthier choices,to exercise without embarrassment and to be kind enough to themselves that they take time to nourish their bodies well. Nothing works the same way for everyone.

Yeah, similar. I just one Saturday had a head wobble reminding myself I am normally a rational person and went on cal controlled diet and workout regime there and than. 🤷 No metabolic disaster here.... Weight went off.

It matters because the poster wants to feel superior, recognised, more socially accepted, and more accomplished than those who need a medication to correct a hormone receptor issue in order to achieve similar successes.

One of my friends was morbidly obese, she said she couldn't lose weight and thought it was because of her thyroid. She had her thyroid tested and it was normal, having her excuse taken away she got her eating in order and started exercising and got down to a healthy weight.

Yes, I do have an issue with everything on your list.

Of course! But that show was presenting extreme food intakes at both end of the spectrum that do not reflect the way people actually eat. I'm not saying fat and thin people eat the same way or the same quantity; I'm saying that show was absolute garbage and extremely dangerous.

In my real life comparisons between myself and fat friends / relatives I notice the same difference in type of food / quantity of food / exercise habits and drinking. Thin people do not just magically evaporate calories.

Diet culture is bad for people's health too. Neutrality would probably be the ideal, but we're a long way from that being the majority stance.

100%

it’s a movement that gives the middle finger to the health consequences of being overweight and promotes how you feel over and above the negative impact of being overweight has on your health. It runs along the same lines as not giving a toss about anyone but yourself and how you feel in spite of the obvious deficiencies of your body image.

Well firstly - to make better tv! Secondly, any studies that ask people to self report what they eat are notoriously unreliable because people don't give an accurate account of their diet for all sorts of reasons. Also, people change what they eat when they start recording what they eat. The act of writing it down actually affects what the person consumes, and how much. If you're eager to get on tv or you think you might be able to access help or support that you feel you need (not that this show offered help but it did purport to) then yeah, you will likely make your food diary more dramatic to help your chances of getting selected. There is no reason to imagine that anyone involved in casting, producing, hosting or participating in that programme had any interest in accurately presenting those people's lives and habits.

I think that would be body neutrality. I see body positivity as linked to the pro-fat movement and those who criticise 'diet culture' and potentially quite bad for people's health.

I don't doubt it about the exploitation and I don't think the series would be created now, but I don't think they were lying about what they were eating. Why would they?

But why does it matter how other people do it?

Yes, exactly!

It's gone way too far. Watching morbidly obese people strolling down the street in crop tops and shorts is depressing.

I wouldn’t want to be obese and elderly. I would be worried about being lifted properly and kept clean.

I also had problem with many of them lying openly about what they eat and exercise. And they do lie because there is no way 200kg person can workout daily, eat very little of low cal food to tune of 1200cal and still be 200kg. If that is absolute true, they should be and would be in medical journals.

When I was obese, verging on morbidly (probably dipped in) , these influencers and many on weightloss forums simply demotivated me, gave me"hmm I probably have that metabolism thing too" "what's the point of trying for me when no one on diet seems to lose anyway" etc. I lost to nearly healthy only after leaving all this I thought was supposed to support.

"I am healthy, you can be healthy any size" makes me want to scream "temporarily, you dimwit, you are 20..." and that goes for really underweight underweight as well as obese/morbidly obese.

A subsection of body positivity has gone too far, such as claiming morbid obesity has no effect on health and if you actively try to lose weight it's fat phobic.

But, there is a flip size, health at any size for example, was the idea you CAN be healthy, and strive for health, despite being bigger, which in turn actually seemed to be more motivating factor for positive lifestyle changes than shame & self hatred. I get the concept, that its never going to be optimum for health to be bigger, but making people feel segregated, ashamed, and humiliated isn't going to help, and there's a potential to be healthier, at any size - however, this message has been lost on the before mentioned subsection, who have intepretated this to mean that obese = no health risks.

Yep. Loose Women’s Nadia Sawalha does
it all the time but its obvious it’s just an excuse to get her unfit body out for the views and likes. She oddly claims she has body dysmorphia but likes to whip out her breast at any given opportunity. I don’t think that’s empowering or encouraging.

I take body positivity to mean the idea that people aren’t lesser because of their size and should not be treated as if they are. With that in mind, I think we still have some way to go rather than it having gone too far.

She can add total invalidation of her own account of her own experience to the difficult life events too now. Well done.

These threads are like crack to MNetters. 10 pages already. How many times has this been "debated" on here and the same stereotypes rolled out. Bet the OP is excited though, they've found their people ...

This is such a great post.