To think if being "body positive" was promoting anorexia...

[Piglatin]

...everyone would be up in arms? Yet I see the phrase being used more and more on social media by obese women. I don't understand why being "thick", "curvy", "plus size", "voluptuous" are just other ways to avoid saying fat, yet if skeletal women were posting things about being "body positive" most people would see how damaging it is. Are we all meant to pretend that being unhealthily overweight is OK now?!

can we just take a second and get the terminology correct please? Anorexia is an eating disorder and an incredibly serious disease that kills people. Not every underweight person has anorexia, therefore underweight and anorexic are not interchangeable terms.

Of course people with anorexia celebrating anorexia as a positive trait is damaging, it's an illness not a life choice.

There's absolutely a difference between anorexia and being slightly underweight

I've been the latter for much of my life, but never the former

My fertility Dr told me I had to get my BMI up to 18 minimum (preferably 19) in order to start IVF because of the risk of hyperstimulation being higher in slim women (NHS eligibility criteria includes BMI needing to be between 19-30)

But I'm naturally lean, and being slightly underweight hasn't had any impact on my health to concern any of the many clinicians I've dealt with over the years for a multitude of other health issues. That's a million miles away from anorexia.

But being

Cross post with @Mumblebucket! +1 to what she said

Also there is a world of difference between being a bit overweight and being obese, but seemingly not in tne eyes of those who think size 12 is automatically fat and size 10 is big.

Exactly, Seren.

I also love being lectured about obesity from women who have never been obese.

If you think for a second that obesity is becoming socially acceptable or even desirable you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how systemic prejudice works.

This is project by an obese artist called Haley Morris-Cafiero. She took photos of herself in situations where her weight made her feel uncomfortable to capture peoples reactions to her body. The images she captured are heartbreaking and to me, they illustrate everything that's wrong with your opinion.

Your whole argument is based on the belief that body positivity is about the promotion or acceptance of obesity.. it's not at all. I'll say this once:

Body positivity is not about accepting obesity, it's about not castigating it.

That's not the same thing.

Loads of them photos mean nothing. Shes posing stupidly with someone taking photos of course people are going to look at her. Many of them just look and nothing their facial expressions betray nothing of what they think.

And no one thinks size 12 is automatically fat. If you are referencing that other thread people pointed out size 12 means different things to different bodies it doesnt automatically mean slim.

Martha the book has more images than the article and i disagree with you. If a thin, beautiful women was taking photos would the reaction be the same?

But sure, ignore my commentary and just look at the pictures

mumblebucket sorry my opinion is different to yours. I see something different to wht you see in the photos displayed. And a thin woman is irrelevant too people might give her dirty looks for being slutty or something equally stupid. The whole point of her project was the photos so why would i do anything other than look at them and form my own opinion?

There’s one particular photo where she’s sitting on a bleacher and there’s a man standing behind her pointedly looking down at her with a sneer on his face, while the woman he’s with take a photo of them both. The camera in that photo is hidden from the view of the man and the woman he’s with. That one is particularly poignant for me because I’ve had it happen.

I was in my first week of university and a group of lads surrounded me in a club then they mocked performing sex acts on me while their friend took photos. They thought I couldn’t see them and didn’t realise what they were doing because I was dancing with friends, but I saw and felt it all.

Another time I was walking home after a night out and a man commented to his friend ‘let’s follow her, she looks like she knows where the best takeaway is’.. cue laughter and much elbow nudging

At a festival a woman complained loudly to her friend that I was blocking her view of the stage and that ‘fat people shouldn’t be allowed in theatres’

I was out walking my dogs one day when a couple passed me and thought they were out of ear shot when one said to the other ‘poor dogs probably never get walked, it’s so unfair on them’

At a cafe the woman on the toll said to me and my DH ‘I’m surprised you’ve only had one slice of cake between you!’

In the supermarket the cashier said ‘Well done, this food looks so healthy! You’ll be skinny in no time’.. we had not mentioned our weights or said we were dieting, this was the first thing that was exchanged between us. We were not dieting.

If you are a healthy weight and you think for a second that body positivity is about promoting obesity and not just about picking up the self esteem of people who put up with this shit every day, you’re delusional.

Because you ignored my comment in your response and just gave an opinion on the photos as that bit is subjective, giving you an excellent way to ignore the parts of my post you disagree with rather than form an argument to rebuff them.

I think anorexia is also being misunderstood here. It's the psychiatric disorder with the highest mortality rate of all. Up to one in five people who have it will die of it.

That’s a very scary statistic @ofthread .

I saw a documentary on it recently and it really is a hideous illness.

You gave your opinion ans i gave mine on the same project. I dont understand why i have to quote your opinion back that doesnt mean i ignored it. I am sorry for the abuse you have suffered. I have also suffered abuse from my weight. Men have physically lifted me up and carried me out of pubs saying i "was going in the boot". I have had men roughly grab my wrists and squeeze them telling me how easy they were to snap. Ive been sexually intimiated and told shagging me was like a skeleton. Rudeness about weight goes both ways.
What i dont understand is why is promoting it seen as healthy and good which it is from what i see postex on my facebook.

If that's what you see on your facebook you need different friends. I've never seen obesity promoted as healthy, just as not unhealthy/ not shame-worthy. "nothing to be ashamed of' is not the same as 'good'. Semantics.

@ofthread - Anorexia - Up to one in five people who have it will die of it.
I wonder how many in 5 who are obese would die with it. If we think about obese people the way we think about anorexic people, things will look different indeed.

@bananafish81 - my doctor said something similar when I was seeking IVF - that I should try to gain more weight to support me just in case I was going to carry multiples. No one got angry about that. However, if someone's doctor told them to loose weight before IVF, I bet there would be a thread about it on mumsnet.

One thing though - why is it perfectly okay for someone to walk up to me and say, 'you've become thinner since I last saw you! You must eat a bit more' and we all say, 'Aww' but if I said, 'you've become fatter since I last saw you! You need to eat less', everyone would say, 'How rude '?

I'm slim, fit and healthy but people keep saying I'm 'thin' like it's a bad thing. It's become far more okay to be overweight now. There is something wrong there.

if someone's doctor told them to loose weight before IVF, I bet there would be a thread about it on mumsnet.

I’ve never had the experience myself, but I think it’s quite common for people to be told to lose weight before starting IVF. There probably are threads about it on mumsnet, but usually asking for how to lose weight so that they can begin ivf. I’ve never seen anyone claiming moral outrage at being asked to lose weight for ivf on here (yet).

Insideoutsider again, fundamental misunderstanding of how stigma works and you've just proved your own point.

Someone saying to you 'you must eat more, you've lost weight since I last saw you!' isn't ok, it's not acceptable to comment on weight at any end of the spectrum, however the person saying it possibly wouldnt be aware it would offend you. On the other hand, EVERYONE is aware saying someone has gained weight is offensive by your own admission.

Why is that?

The answer to that last question is because there's a much larger stigma attached to being overweight even though being underweight is just as dangerous, hence why body positivity is about breaking that excessive stigma and promoting a healthy attitude to body image.

However, if someone's doctor told them to loose weight before IVF, I bet there would be a thread about it on mumsnet

Rubbish! It’s really common for people to be told to have to lose weight before Ivf. BMI is part of the criteria for eligibility.

In the IVF point, it's standard practice to refuse IVF until a candidate has achieved a healthier weight. That's normal, fine and no one is morally outraged about it.

I've never seen obesity promoted as healthy, just as not unhealthy

Thats still a problem and actually just the same thing. Obesity is unhealthy, it shouldnt be promoted as being not unhealthy.

I got caught up in the Health at Every Size movement about a decade+ ago. It certainly did encourage me to be complacent about my weight and ignore any health concerns. I had a sharp wake-up call about four years ago when I realised that I couldn't go without eating for a few hours without feeling weak and shaky, and I relied on sugar to get me through the day. My lowest point was when I ate an entire chocolate cake - in secret - over the course of a week. I had to bake a new one to cover my tracks. Nothing healthy about that behaviour.

I managed to lose a significant amount of weight before getting pregnant and I'm now working on (finally) reaching a healthy BMI. I really regret my complacency that got me to the point of obesity. It didn't do me any favours. My health suffered.

But having said that, the only person who could have improved my situation was me, and for a long time I was happy being obese and eating cake. Fortunately the health problems I started experiencing have gone now that I've changed my habits (I eat whole foods and I'm now a qualified yoga teacher), and even though I'm still overweight I am healthier than I was 10 years ago. That means a lot to me.

I think that any "movement" that requires validation for one's self worth from an outside source is problematic. We need to love ourselves first and foremost.

The answer to that last question is because there's a much larger stigma attached to being overweight even though being underweight is just as dangerous, hence why body positivity is about breaking that excessive stigma and promoting a healthy attitude to body image

As much as I agree people should not make offensive remarks about over or underweight people, I believe there should be a stigma attached to anything unhealthy, be it drinking too much, smoking, or under or over eating to the extent it's visible on your body. There should not be a healthy or positive body image and attitude associated with being over or underweight.

I think though stigma is thr wrong word, more it should be seen as what it is, unhealthy, not good and something as a society we recognise as unhealthy immediately.

Bluntness I agree, but it's the disparity between the attitude to underweight and overweight that's the crux of the issue. Being underweight is just as dangerous as being overweight, and yet as a society we feel it's ok to talk about being underweight because being underweight is socially acceptable, however to be overweight/ comment on being overweight is never acceptable because being overweight is not socially acceptable despite the fact they are equally as unhealthy as each other.