Fat/Size Acceptance

Heiffer - The thing is, I'm pretty sure she doesn't mind being fat. As far as she's concerned she is fat and happy being fat. For her and others in the fat/size acceptance movement, being fat is not doom, it just is. People who confuse openly stating 'I am fat' with being defeatest or victimhood need to read a bit more.

I think shes being defeatisit saying she wont have a life without obesity thats its shocking more people arent sadddened by that, I sure if she was anorexic the blog would be viewed as pro- anna. beinbg overweight/underweight is UNHEALTHY.

And as dittany has said Jamie focuses on food/nutrition not 'get into a size 8 yer fat cow!'

BMI is flawed but is probably a better indicator than dress size... and the evidence seems to show that a 'overweight' BMI is not a significant risk factor in ill health but an 'obese' BMI is.

i would say that society judges anybody in real life with an 'overweight' BMI as 'fat' (certainly any woman) whereas in the world the media inhabit even a 'normal' BMI can be considered 'curvey'.

you can't define fat as a dress size - it doesn't work.

define fat in the context of this argument

are we talking a size 14

or re we talking higher or lower

It seems more conformity as well. To be accepted you must be slim and petite as magazines would make you believe

Goth - yes, that is funny!

Being fat is not the same as being alcoholic. For most people, being fat doesn't impair their daily lives, damage their relationships, stop them from keeping a job.

Being 'fat' might not "impair their daily lives, damage their relationships, stop them from keeping a job" but being obese might very well do so. Ever heard of functioning alcoholics? There's a sliding scale from overweight to obese as to the impact on daily life/relationships etc, same as there's a sliding scale from functioning alcoholic to homeless wino. You asked if I can find a male equivalent to Oprah; I gave you one.

There's a higher rate of obesity in women than men, mostly for historic reasons to do with women's place in the home etc etc; there's a higher rate of alcoholism in men than in women for similar reasons.

I don't give a shiny shite about healthcare costs, but I think there's a danger that the message that obesity nearly always has a hugely negative impact on a person's health and life because people are not willing to accept responsibility in this regard, as evidenced by the mega-dramatic refusal to accept that obesity is mostly preventable in the blog linked to.

As a fat person myself the viewpoints on there are actuallty quite warped

the whole 'i will never not be fat' who says? sounds a bit defeatist and noone is born obese.

and the 'you get rid of fat you get of me' (not exact quote) your more than a lump of fat or a number on a weighing scale being fat isnt part of an intrinsic self

Yes LRD, that's it in a nutshell.

'Could it not be that those who feel entitled to demonise fat people, fat women in particular, use the "it's not healthy" argument as a front for their bigotry?'

I think this is so true. And I think that's the reason women get targeted in particular. Our society has a real problem with the idea that women's bodies actually belong to the women themselves and are not somehow public property. So I think some people, when they see a fat woman, do not just disapprove out of concern for her health - they disapprove because subconsciously, they feel that woman has selfishly done something unhealthy/unattractive to the body that isn't just for her. This seems to me a bit like the very judgy attitudes people get with pregnant women's bodies.

Could it not be that those who feel entitled to demonise fat people, fat women in particular, use the "it's not healthy" argument as a front for their bigotry? Yes, very, very overweight people are prone to greater health risks than those in the normal range, but so are very, very underweight people. The problem is that the "normal range" according to dominant perceptions in society, is not the same as the "normal healthy range" and tends towards an unhealthily thin zone.

I don't think it's particularly helpful to compare being over weight with being an alcoholic, or to suggest that there isn't a strong gendered angle to the demonisation of fat women because there is a counterpart in the demonisation of alcoholic men.

I'm not quite sure what your point is, GothAnneGeddes. If you're saying that there's far too much pressure on women to conform to a certain standard body type, then I am in agreement with you.
However, you also appear to be saying that people shouldn't be told that being fat or obese is generally unhealthy, and I can't agree with that. While being slightly overweight may not have much impact on your health, being obese does.

"Overweight and obesity are the fifth leading risk for global deaths. At least 2.8 million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. In addition, 44% of the diabetes burden, 23% of the ischaemic heart disease burden and between 7% and 41% of certain cancer burdens are attributable to overweight and obesity." www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/

In a world where more and more people are becoming obese, I don't actually see the problem in pointing out that this is not a good thing, in the same way that it's been pointed out that smoking and drinking to excess are not desirable either.

Your male equivalent to Oprah could be any on-again/off-again alcoholic. Or any smoker who's having health problems because of their smoking, like my DP, who're ashamed of the fact that they can't seem to give up.

As ColdTruth says, you don't have to be either/or about this, you can be against the diet industry and the ridiculous assumption that any woman over a size 10 is fat, while still supporting the idea that obesity is also a problem. "Healthy weight" is actually quite a wide range.

So whilst being fat back then was a sign of wealth, health and a comfortable life, in our society it is now a sign of bad health. Also those that would be fat would be few a complete contrast to now where people gain weight far too fast and way too much it is even affecting our children.

The reason being fat back then or still is in some parts of the world was/is because it was/is damn hard to get fat and in order to do it you had/have to be wealthy. It's the complete opposite now though where being fat is more a sign of eating too much or too little exercise.

What is also annoying is the either/or mentality people get when talking about weight. If someone mentions being fat/obese is not a good thing people go straight to the opposite end and talk about being ultra thin as though there is nothing in between.

Fat is not a bad thing, it becomes so when there is too much of it and our obesity problem is self inflicted for most.

Actually, being overweight (not obese) is the healthiest way to be. Do some research!

I agree - being overweight has numerous health implications that can't be ignored.

I think you have to be careful going so far the other way that obesity becomes okay, it simply is not you don't even have to be obese to have a large increase in the risk of developing major health issues relating to being overweight.

In my eyes it is similar to the abuse of alcohol I am not talking about alcoholics but the all round binge drinking culture we have both of which are causing a large strain on our health services as we increasing catch up with America.

Well, by that reckoning, Robot, why shouldn't I drink a bottle of vodka a day, just because I like drinking bottles of vodka? Just because other people drink just one small glass of red wine a day, why should they criticize my drinking and say I'm unhealthy?

My weight has crept up slowly but steadily since I met my DP two years ago. I used to be reliably 11 stone and now I'm just under 12. I'm not eating or drinking massively more or more unhealthily than I used to, just that little bit more, regularly (eating bigger portions, large amounts of bread, and drinking too much, mostly). However, I know that if I don't do something about it now, in another two years, I'll be 13 or 14 stone. And then I'll probably stop exercising because I feel ridiculous exercising when I'm fat, and I don't want to put on running shorts when my thighs are rubbing together. And from there, things snowball and before I know it I'm 20 stone and don't go out much anymore.
You know what I mean? It's not like overweight or obese people wake up one day and they're fat...it's usually a slow build-up over many years.

I think we genuinely don't know what it's like to be in other people's bodies though, and so assuming that a size 20 person is just like (size 12) me but eating FAR FAR FAR more, probably isn't the case. Yes, that person probably does eat a bit more unhealthily than me. But that much more unhealthily? I just don't know. Because I do eat shit on shifts when I'm tired (although last night was an extreme example) and I do have 3 or so bags of crisps a week, but then again I can't remember the last time I went into McDonalds for example, or had a takeaway pizza (by which I mean it must have been several years ago). They're too lardy for me and I don't enjoy them. And I do have a glass of wine most nights, but never more than one. So I'm far from perfect - but I can see how half a bottle of wine most nights, and McDonalds / Dominos once a week would make me a size 16 within a year, and probably upwards from there. And if I cut out the daily tipple and the crisps? A size 10 probably.

But the stark truth is I don't want to be a size 10 and live without those things. I like them. Which, of course, is nobody's business but mine as I have a BMI of 21 and getting it down to 20 isn't something my doctor would give two hoots about. But if I was bigger, I might feel just the same about the Dominos and the McDonalds - that I would rather be bigger than go years without them. But in that case, everyone has an opinion. And I'm not sure that's fair. If I'm not prepared to like without 3 bags of hula hoops a week, why should I expect anyone else to do without their Big Mac, just because I don't like them?

When was the last time folks heard anyone commenting on a man's trouser size, with a, "Oh, he used to be just a 30 waist, but now I'm sure he's at least a 34. He's really let himself go." But, there seems to be an obsession about clothing sizes and women. It's a function of society's obsession about women's appearance, the need to control that appearance (and underlying that, the need to control women full stop, imho.)

In the 19th century, a larger than average woman was seen as attractive. Her size was an indicator that she was of a privileged background because she was well-fed, not suffering from any emaciating disease and didn't have to work. Now, folks would view the same woman as being unattractive and her size being a result of poor self-control, laziness and being unintelligent/unwilling/unable to choose a healthier lifestyle. Both views are still about controlling women.

In my experience, clothing sizes are far from absolute. I have some shoes that are size 6 and some size 8, but since I don't take off and swap my feet for others, there must be something inconsistent in the sizing. Same goes for my clothes. I routinely take 3 different sized garments into a changing room and it's anybody's guess what number will correspond to the one that fits. My boss is probably a size 18 or 20, at a guess. But she's also about 6' 2" so would certainly not be in a healthy state if she were an average size 10 or 12. She is fit and healthy, physically active, but damn, she's the wrong dress size, so fit to be "judged" by others. People automatically believe they have a right to make "helpful" suggestions to her about dealing with her "size." And yes, she gets schtick from both women and men about her size (height and weight) - maybe because women aren't "meant" to take up that much physical or verbal space and other people feel entitled to tell her so.