To think 'celebrating your curves' is becoming a worrying trend?

[Freesunglasses]

So many of my overweight 'friends' on facebook are joining in the whole "I'm embracing my curves and loving this body, every inch"
The thing is they are Obese, not use a little overyweight but really fat. The more people see and read things like this the more it will become normalised.

Worrying times ahead I think. We're going to be a very fat country in the not too distant future.
I know it's hard to lose weight. I know lockdown has made lots put weight, I'm a little overweight myself but I will never say I'm happy with it because I'm not! I like being thin, I want to be thin.

For the love of God stop normalising and celebrating obesity.

I see ''celebrate your curves'' as meaning, look there's no pointing hating yourself that won't help. Love yourself, be kind to yourself.

Everybody bloody knows that it's healthier to be in a normal range. Everybody knows that they need to eat differently to lose weight however they go about that. But it isn't easy.

But noone ever celebrsted being too thin that I know of. Noone says 'look at my skelatol frame, isn't it gorgeous'
They'd be told to see a doctor.

Did you miss the 90s? Kate Miss? heroin chic? Or the size zero trend in naughties? Or thigh gap? Women are constantly told the only thing that is beautiful is thinness (and a very narrow window of other characteristics). Body positivity is about fighting that. You don't have to follow the beauty industries vision of beauty to be beautiful and deserve love and respect. It's nothing to do with being healthy. You can be unhealthy and beautiful. If you're overweight (I am) you can strive to be healthy but still be loved now.

For me it's all about rejecting the message we receive from the media about what's beautiful and what's ugly, and how that message causes millions of women and girls to dislike their body and spend money on trying to make it different.

What makes me laugh on this thread is the faux concern people have for overweight people’s health. You are not concerned, you are just the same people who were bullies in school. Now you are are adults you have found another group of people to shame and make them feel shit about themselves.

@CounsellorTroi I think girdles were to exaggerate the female shape more than to make women appear thinner. Back then, everybody was within a normal weight range, and still there was pressure! Being thin wasn't enough, you had to have a really exaggerated waist to hip ratio

We need to take discussions about obesity away from being about appearance and make them about health

In my job I see the negative consequences of obesity in middle aged and slightly older people all the time. Joint pain and ultimately replacements, infertility, increased risk of certain cancers, heart disease, diabetes the list goes on and on.

When you sign up to a gym they ask you about goals and most people initially want to look better but in fact the benefits for me of consistently working out are mostly in terms of my physical and mental health. I don't care overly much how I look now. My goals are all about lifting more weight, doing unassisted pull ups etc etc. I feel amazing when I achieve things like a personal best deadlift. Whether I do a kickboxing class or yoga I feel much less stressed afterwards and much better than if I sit on the sofa drinking wine and watching TV.

Feeling better on a day to day basis, functioning better and having better health in the long run are the reasons to maintain a healthy weight and we need to take it away from appearance which only makes people more miserable
After all I can't change my face (and I don't especially care these days)

@sunshinesontv

"Shaming people for being fat is not going to magically make them slimmer."

But what will? Increasing acceptance has run alongside increasing obesity. It's not shaming to provide facts and knowledge instead of pointless platitudes.

Generally, overweight people are aware of the damage it can wreak on the body. Problem is that it can seem like too big of a problem to even begin to tackle, so people get depressed and defeatist about it and then reach for the biscuit tin because what's the point in even trying?

If you believe everyone is judging you for your weight, are you going to get out to the gym, the swimming pool or on a bike? Or even for a walk? Or are you just going to hide away, miserably eating your feelings?

If public disapproval were enough to get people healthy, we'd not have an obesity problem.

'We're going to be a very fat country in the not too distant future.'

We already are.

Totally agree op. Of course we shouldn't mock or insult fat people but the public health message is getting lost in all the 'celebrate your curves' crap.

You can be body confident, and should be, whilst still recognising being overweight has a multitude of serious health risks so do whatever you can to change your lifestyle, not applaud it.

Honey Ross is a brat fascinating case study........, She shamed her parents for having a sensitively handled and gently presented preference for normal weight over obesity. That's a level of cognitive dissonance on her part that is impressive.

[quote Hypie]@NoFashion, I think the correlation is that parents who worry about childhood obesity are much less likely to have obese children who turn into obese adults.[/quote]
Ah! Phew. Hope that's the case.

I read it like parents who were concerned about obesity had more chance of children becoming obese.

'She shamed her parents for having a sensitively handled and gently presented preference for normal weight over obesity. That's a level of cognitive dissonance on her part that is impressive.'

Yes it is bizarre that any comment on the health issues of obesity is met with abuse.

Said dd doesn’t need to gain weight anymore and won’t with snacks. I suspect they’ll drop one but she’ll still need two and from what I’ve heard dietician will still advise 2 and not going without food for longer than 3/4 hours.It’s interesting being on all the ED forums how hard gaining weight can be even with snacks.

Anorexia is not just caused by wanting control. It’s a variety of things and social media has and is having a big impact. Trust me when it sneaks in AN is incredibly difficult to get rid of.

But does anybody really worry about strangers' health?
I know I don't. I try to keep my own bmi within the normal range and it might have crept over 25, I will admit to needing to lose a few pounds to take me back in to the official normal range, and even though that is me I'm not really that worried. I wouldn't the inclination or the curiosity or the headspace to care about other people's weight.

I think with Honey Ross and her parents, they are a family and when families live together and eat together and care about each other, there will be conversations about food and weight and health, or rather, in some cases, attempts to have conversations that are shut down.

But what I meant was, strangers being overweight. I don't care.

I suppose I could read an article about the burden on the NHS and I would think yes that's terrible. But I blame the food industry and the free rein its given, and I blame the fact that profits always come first.

Who sits there thinking omg fat strangers stop it you're making me angry with your fatness.

bunch of hideous judgmental bitches that some of you are. I’m fat: and I thank God that all my friends are much nicer than you

I’d never have guessed 🤣

Scrutinising body shape really doesn’t help any ED.

Eating regularly, balanced and sensibly alongside ensuring good MH and you get enough exercise surely needs to be the focus. Body shape should surely be the last thing you focus on. For one thing we’re all built very differently anyway and nobody knows what is going on under skin.

The nhs encourages and supports smokers to stop, discourage heavy drinking. Both serious health issues but people accept this health advice, they may ignore it of course but they accept that hcps have got to advise people.

Tell an overweight person they must change their lifestyle or they risk type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol which causes strokes and heart disease and they take it as a terrible personal insult. Why?!

"If you believe everyone is judging you for your weight, are you going to get out to the gym, the swimming pool or on a bike? Or even for a walk? Or are you just going to hide away, miserably eating your feelings?"

So we encourage fat people to celebrate their curves so that they eventually love their body shape enough to feel empowered enough to change it?

"But does anybody really worry about strangers' health?"

Not individually no, but as a society.

"For the love of God stop normalising and celebrating obesity."

There have always been obese women. The Venus of Willendorf is at least 250000 years old, well before there were pizza or donuts.

Yes some people are naturally designed to be slim. They have slender bones and slim ankles. Other people have different body shapes. There are ectomorphs, endomorphs and mesomorphs. Ten percent of European women (including me) have lipedema, a genetic predisposition to weight gain below the waist. This is diet resistant fat.

Yes some people eat a huge amount and weigh too much. But those of us who just eat normally and still fall in the overweight or borderline obese category, especially post menopause, have spent their whole adult lives being shamed.

If society would just back the heck off and stop making women of any natural size feel shame I would be very happy about it.

I don't know if they're insulted so much as they know from experience how hard it is. What overweight person hasn't tried to lose weight? Few haven't already tried.

Dr Jason Fung tells overweight patients to leave longer in between meals and to work up to fasting for 20 hours and then 36 hours.

He was finding that people got so confused with what they had to buy and how they had to prepare it and they got worried about the extra expense of it all that not eating was easier for them.

So it's a message which is out there peripherally and I think it will become more mainstream, basically that fasting for a day is easier than washing chopping weighing calculating counting steaming and finally sitting down to eat a tiny tiny meal. Just put off that meal for longer and don't mess with your head.

But the food industries and the diet industries will not want messages about fasting to become mainstream.

@EmeraldShamrock The women wearing them were more likely underweight or malnourished.

This is just more self-deception. Look at photos from the 1970s. Easily available ones to find are the street parties from the 1977 Jubilee. The people on those photos are noticeably slimmer than the same photos of street parties would be now. But they’re not underweight or malnourished. Men, women, children - they’re all much slimmer versions of us. That’s only 45 years or so ago. As a population we’ve absolutely ballooned.

This is just more self-deception. Look at photos from the 1970s. Easily available ones to find are the street parties from the 1977 Jubile
Not in my situation I'm very petite at 7stone 8lb at 5ft 3 and my size 10 vintage coat is very tight and won't close.
I'd say it's a 4 these days as I can fit a 6 if I needed to.

@Mousetown

What makes me laugh on this thread is the faux concern people have for overweight people’s health. You are not concerned, you are just the same people who were bullies in school. Now you are are adults you have found another group of people to shame and make them feel shit about themselves.

I look at overweight people and see premature death. Sorry. The defensiveness is weird. Look at all the weight loss threads. So much support if you want to do it.

@HopeClearwater
And yet in the 70s those people were by and large not dieting. There were no "low fat" alternatives, no skimmed milk, no "go ahead" brands. You put butter on your veg. No one avoided carbs.

Nobody fasted for 24 hours.

The fact that society has ballooned is not because back then people were better at dieting.

Something has got fucked up between now and then in our relationship with food, and it's not the fault of any individual within the system.

'Here we go - the holier than thou crowd talking about ‘health’ when it’s just an nasty excuse to spew their hatred and judgement of women who are overweight. Shame on you. You might have the perfect figure but you still need to work on the inner ugliness.'

So much defensiveness on this thread, some seem to have massive chips on their shoulders. I haven't got a perfect figure but I do have a healthy BMI and it doesn't just happen by accident, it takes effort.

This isn't anything to do with aesthetics, if fat people were healthy I'd say crack on but obesity increases the risks of so many conditions massively. Also, it isn't just women obviously.

Obesity is being normalised because to discuss it leads to an onslaught of abuse as demonstrated on this thread. There's should be obesity clinics for people to regularly get blood sugars and cholesterol checked to actually demonstrate their risk of strokes and diabetes. That may be an incentive, but there won't be because that is of course 'fat shaming'.