Is fatphobia a real thing?

It might suggest a lack of discipline in one specific area of your life. The overweight and obese women that I know are all successfully running their lives, their family's lives, working, studying, taking part in hobbies and activities.... To suggest they generally lack discipline would be crazy. It's because it is a visible indicator of a minor flaw, that the person cannot hide, which means it's open for other people to comment on and judge on. So many people have a lack of discipline in some area of their personal lives, but are able to successfully hide it because it isn't immediately visible to an outside observer. That's all.

Yes there is prejudice against fat people.
At the same time many of the prejudiced people really value the existence of fat people as it gives them somebody to be superior to. This is borne out by the amount of scorn and judgement ( dressed up as "concern")heaped on people using the weight loss injections.
Lazy, easy way, cheating , eat less move more, stay out of the fridge, you will pile it all back on, you look haggard........ Its language that would never be levelled at people taking medication for other conditions.

Your post is a perfect example of fatphobia

men are socialised to believe that women should be attractive for them to look at. Some of them don’t realise that but they are.

Absolutely this!

Of course there is. When a person posts on here that they are really overweight and posters fall over themselves to say oh no one cares no one is looking at you - absolute bollocks. I was in a bar a couple of weeks ago, a very overweight woman was crossing the road, really out of breath and looked really uncomfortable/ miserable (which may have been nothing to do with her weight). Some middle aged blokes behind me started talking about her, bloody hell who ate all the pies. After a few minutes of this I turned round and looked at them, they knew why without me saying a word and were very embarrassed and immediately shut up although one of them did say to the other „it was a private conversation „.

men are socialised to believe that women should be attractive for them to look at. Some of them don’t realise that but they are. And women are as bad, the grey hair threads on here , she’s not making the most of herself - for who? For others to look at I assume.

If we were in a time of famine you’d understand the hatred because of the perceived greed. But we are not. In fact more and more people are obese.

As for attractiveness, when I was larger and younger I had partners most of the time. Now I am older and slimmer - thanks to a massive blitz on diet and exercise and then Mounjaro - and I am alone. I’m reasonably happy this way though!

r. I think those who haven’t had a weight problem don’t realise it’s not something people have chosen.

Yep. They assume all fat people are just lazy with zero discipline and think losing weight is incredibly easy. For those who have had obesity trying to lose that is like literally going to war with your mind. It’s also why only a minority of those who lose weight keep it off past two years.

I also think there is a lot of faux health concern about obesity.
A lot of people will say they dislike it because it’s “unhealthy” but the reality is people simply find fat unattractive to look at.
Especially in women. I know a number of unhealthy skinny women in my circle (in terms of diet and exercise) but they never get negative comments from people.

Of course it’s a thing, as every fat person knows - they deal with it all the time and it affects every area of their life.

You see it at play on Mumsnet. There is nothing worse than being fat - according to them.

It's a tricky one. Do lots of people treat obese individuals more poorly than slim people? Yeah I think they do, even subconsciously. Some of the things that are called fatphobia are just reasonable, for example choosing to hire someone slim for a job that requires a lot of fast walking throughout the day compared to someone morbidly obese.

On the flipside, privilege is intersectional and not straightforward. Having the resources, finances, and access to so much food you're able to eat much more than what you need, to the point where you've eaten so much additional food it's now store on your body to get you through lean periods, is a privilege in a world where so many people can't afford or access enough food to survive.

Thin privilege in many respects is fat consequences.

I am very obese (coming down a bit now thanks to mounjaro but weighed about 18/19 stone for most of my adult life). It doesn't happen often, but yes, I have had random strangers comment on my weight.

I've had a man on a night out shout 'fat cunt' from across the street, and once I was standing on Oxford Street, minding my own business, eating one of the those little cake slices that Boots sell whilst waiting to go into a job interview. A woman came up to me and I thought she was going to ask for directions or something. Instead, she just pointed at the cake and made a pig oinking noise in my face. Great morale booster just as you are going into a job interview...

What I don't understand is why? I'm not asking for all the body positivity stuff (which I can already see people have mentioned and I can assure you that being fat is very much not normalised), but why do I have to be actively abused? It's not like a smoker who is polluting the atmosphere around them, or someone drinking who may have had too much and is causing chaos. In those examples above I was literally minding my own business, causing these people no bother at all. Why does being fat seem to give people the confidence to openly insult a stranger?

And if people are saying stuff like this openly, what the hell are more people saying behind my back?

I'm surprised about your comment about heavy smokers. I think they're judged quite heavily these days and, in my circle, really quite rare.

I know if I get into a lift at work that a smoker has been in, I'm mortified thinking people will think it's me who stinks.

I'm surprised about your comment about heavy smokers. I think they're judged quite heavily these days and, in my circle, really quite rare.

I know if I get into a lift at work that a smoker has been in, I'm mortified thinking people will think it's me who stinks.

I’m 5ft 9. I was a size 16. Now a 12. I was overweight and looked it up

I think the comment you mention on the panorama documentary is just as much about misogyny as it is about fat shaming or phobia or whatever you want to call it.

That made me chuckle (sorry) .

You also made me realise that I misspelled 'fattism'!

Ah yes, those ones are reserved for mounjaro threads where ‘all you need is discipline’.

I once told a fried she was "fattist."

She looked so absolutely aghast I thought I had got through to her and she perhaps perhaps did have some sense of conscience about her attitude after all - until it became clear her horror was she thought I meant she was "the fattest."

Yes fatphobia is a thing. Hits all area ranging from employment to the way people look at you at buffets to the way you can be treated in restaurants

Of course fatphobia is a thing, fatism is probably a better term??

My old boss told me he would never hire a fat person because he would assume they were lazy.

But who cares about the reasons? Should any of us be judging people for their bodies anyway?

Scared of fat people

That's just funny

At least those ones aren’t usually even trying to pretend they’re being anything other than shallow lol as opposed to the ones who claim they’re only worried about the fat persons health

I’ve heard a few people, usually men, who smoke make comments about them only caring about obesity from a health angle and I’ve had to pull them up on it. I have said why aren’t they concerned about their own smoking if that’s the case?

And the thing is you can actually avoid cigarettes altogether and cut it out completely, but you can’t avoid food so arguably in some ways it’s harder to address if there is over eating involved. Food usually does contain some nutrients at least even if it’s not that healthy or eaten in too large quantities. Smoking serves zero purpose.

More evidence that the health concern thing is BS.

I suppose it’s seen as self-inflicted. It’s a much more difficult issue than that, of course.

But strangely nobody is really nasty about heavy smokers who have bad teeth, stink, are actively ruining their health and have made a much more definite choice. Maybe because the smoking helps them stay slimmer.

The measure of “attractiveness” is hard-wired.

All I can say about the negative comments is most of the time they only made the issue worse for me. It felt impossible to get slimmer and so I felt a complete failure. And then that would make me give up because it has always been a big battle against the food noise.

I think rudeness about someone’s looks is often a sign of low intelligence and low class.

I notice there is almost always an element of this.