Has body positivity gone too far?

[EnglishRose1320]

I'm overweight and want to try and change that. Was chatting to a friend about improving my diet, and exercising more (I know I won't lose weight exercising, that's more to help with a healthy life/better mental health). She is also overweight and got really defensive, said I shouldn't do it if it made my mental health worse, we have to look after our mental health first and learn to love the bodies we have and that people like Lizzo are amazing. But are they? Surely we shouldn't judge anyone for the weight they are, but we shouldn't act like being overweight is okay either?

You can reset your threshold weight by maintaining a lower weight for some time, it's something like 6 months or a year.

I haven't really noticed the world becoming more positive towards fat people? How many people do you know who's goal is to be fat? How many people say they are aiming for a BMI of 30+

I see this idea trotted out on MN every few weeks. But no I don't think its gone too far

Would it be healthier to lose weight, of course. But no one loses weight through hating themselves. The body positivity movement is about removing the shame associated with being overweight, not about encouraging people to be fat. Fat bodies are not disgusting and don't need to be hidden away

Shame is often a big barrier to people losing weight. Feeling ashamed to go to the gym or go for a run because they are embarrassed About their size. Wanting to hide away inside in summer, and with that comes depression and overeating. People not seeing the point in losing weight because they are fat, and often a binge restriction cycle.

As a doctor if your patient feels shame when you tell them they need to lose weight then they are less likely to action it. All they feel is embarassment and all they hear is you criticising them as a person and it doesn't help anyone.

A lot of very slim people (particularly on MN) thrive on the concept that they are better than fat people because they are able to stay thin. They don't hate fat people as such but they want to keep those negative associations with fat because its how they derive a lot of self worth.

But no ones self worth should be derived from their body or their weight. The body positivity movement is essentially about removing the notion that thin is generally better. And poor self worth does not lead to people making time to excercise or making healthy food choices

I have seen before discussions about 'Thin tokens'. Slimmer people perhaps have worked really hard and suffered to lose weight on a restrictive diet, gone to the gym a few times a week, had surgery, because the media and society tells us that we need to be slim to have friends, partners, get married, be seen as beautiful and worthy. A happy fat person makes that currency of thin tokens completely worthless. It makes it all for nothing.
And some folks are just naturally slim and are aware of the privilege that gets them. They don't want to lose it.

I couldn’t care less if people are big or small. Not one jot. I think you are boring and irritating your friend, she is probably happy just as she is, and doesn’t care. Lose weight if you want to, but don’t bore other people with the details. Many people are quite content exactly as they are.

@bryceQ Yes, it’s difficult to embrace the more extreme examples of body positivity when family members are experiencing health problems. We have two examples in our family- one man in his 50’s who obsessively exercises, monitors his weight in ounces and has some food issues-outwardly he seems OK, but he’s really not.

One of DH’s sisters is more like your Dad. Mid-40’s, has gradually become morbidly obese, struggles to walk up steps and now starting to have serious health problems.

Neither end of the spectrum is healthy, but as PP’s have said, the thin person is viewed more positively.
In reality, somewhere in the middle is far more positive.

Except as OP updates, her friend would not allow the OP to decline chocolate. Its not the OP who is lecturing her friend to lose weight. Other way round.

@Lastchancechica sorry it wasn't clear in my original message, which is why I added an update, which clearly explains she was the one that bought it up. I simply didn't want some chocolate offered to me and she couldn't let it drop, wanted me to accept and then probed why I wouldn't eat it. I wouldn't have said anything otherwise.

Or the "well i eat 2 chocolate bars a week and am still a healthy wright. I've never been fat in my life, you just need to eat less!" Types 🙄🙄🙄

Well good for fucking you!!!!
We. Don't. Care.

I was really proud when my sister lost 3st last year. It's totally inspiring for me & I'm really happy for her.

She DID do shitloads of exercise - so don't let anyone tell you it doesn't help!

And she DOESN'T bang on and on about it. Or tell me what I should do. Because she's not a self obsessed, patronising wanker. Simple really.

This!

Honestly, I don’t think this is true. However I do think it’s a convenient narrative for those who are overweight and who don’t want to take any responsibilty to keep telling themselves.

This sums it up perfectly

I meant AN, though maybe I was misdiagnosed. I presented at a ED clinic assessment moderately underweight but the questionnaire was all yeah this is stuff that made sense when I was an anorexic teen but didn't ring true the second time.

Well it's not for nothing is it, unless someone heavily restricts etc maintaining a healthy weight via healthy means is so much healthier and better for your body than carrying excess weight. That doesn't change whether its in fashion or seen as aesthetically desirable or not.

Also eating a balanced diet isn't a restrictive diet in and of itself, and doing physical exercise at the gym a few times a week is hardly wildly arduous.

I'm not overweight and never have been. The opposite I have a history of EDs, and have spent a long time hating my body and doing horrible things to it to enable me to lose weight

Any threads on food are filled with competitive undereating. Women talking about very restrictive diets as if this is normal, talking about eating 1200kcal a day etc. Talking about sharing normal portions between a family of 4 etc.

In real life I hear endless criticism of fat people. People laughing at fat people, people talking about how fat people shouldn't wear this clothes, shouldn't wear that. How they are okay because they aren't fat

It's naive to think that a lot of women don't derive a lot of self worth from their weight. The whole almond mother trend on SM where so many young people talk about watching their mothers eat restrictive diets and how that has affected them

I hear endless criticism of 'thin' women on MN and RL.

I've seen tons of young women desperate to put on weight because they've been convinced that their natural size means they're unattractive. It's really sad.

It absolutely goes both ways. Skeletal is a word mentioned on here a lot when discussing perfectly normal BMIs. And several times during this thread have comments been made about what all thin women allegedly think.

Rather than positivity, it would be nice if we left each other alone to be whatever size we are.

@EnglishRose1320 this situation isn’t about body positivity at all, it’s about your friend negging you because if you lose weight she will feel bad about herself. You do whatever you like!

Bang on yes this!