Body positivity and wanting to lose weight

[constituaint]

I can’t square away my desire to lose some weight with my agreement that women’s bodies (especially fat ones) are weaponised by patriarchal media and that it’s quite hard to be a fat woman in society.

I do believe in health at any size, that women’s bodies are not there for the male gaze, that my whole generation (elder millennial…shudder) have got quite disordered ways of looking at our bodies but I still find myself wanting to lose some weight because, after all, I’m quite vain and I do think I would look better 15kg lighter.

BUT it does seem really to be an undercurrent now that my desire to lose weight implies that I hold other people to these standards, that I think there’s something wrong with fat bodies in general, that I think there’s a right and a wrong way to be a woman and take up space etc etc. I don’t! It’s an impossibly high bar I set for myself.

I understand that on top of women’s health not being treated as seriously as men’s there’s an extra layer for fat women who are told that losing weight will solve all their problems - or to come back to GP when they’ve lost a certain amt of weight which is just awful. And I do get that health at every size is possible, but I am left wondering how true this is? Is someone like me with prob 15kg to lose at a much higher risk of various serious conditions or is this ‘systemic fatphobia’ I’ve been reading about? I know BMI is rubbish on an individual level but good for populations.

I suppose my question is, AIBH(ypocritical) to want to personally lose weight (because I’m vain and maybe there are real health reasons) but to support the body positivity movement? Or is the BP movement making excuses for obesity which is a really serious thing and health at every size is balonz?

Yes, you can have both those thoughts in your head. You wanting to lose weight doesn’t mean that you don’t support body positivity. You can want to lose weight without it meaning you judge other women. And without having to aim for the heroin chic look.

Healthy at any weight isn’t true. Obesity is one of the biggest risk factors for cancer.

This is a good podcast about ultra process food and how it is so unhealthy and makes you want to eat more. Don’t know what your day to day foods are but it’s certainly made me think about what I eat.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017tcz/episodes/downloads

You sound fabulous!

Ooh, look! Fat phobia out in force here.

Health at every size is about being as healthy as you can at every size. Sure. I'd be a lot healthier if the 50kg of fibrotic fat was off me, but lipoedema makes it so that won't happen with diet and exercise.

I still exercise and look to control my normal fat though. I do it looking like the before picture even at my lightest possible weight. Post surgeries I'm starting the work to get back to full health.

Look after your body as best you can and ignore anyone who says you aren't okay until you achieve thinness. It's not true.

Studies have found a lot of the additional health risks of being over weight come down to the health system not taking fat peoples pain seriously and not offering the same level of care. Black people have the same difficulties being believed.

Studies have also shown that PoC are more susceptible to diabetes/ heart disease/ Covid and therefore can be ill even at a relatively healthy weight.

I am Asian, 50, 5"7 and 11 stone, so at the top end of a healthy BMI but not technically overweight. I have been told to lose weight though because I have diabetes in my family. And of course Asians are genetically prone to diabetes.

I don't see this as fat phobic or discriminatory. It's the same as if my GP told me I had eczema. It's not a moral judgement of me as a person, it's just health advice.

The whole body positively thing has gotten out of hand and is potentially dangerous.

It's funny how there was an outcry about the fashion industry using underweight models yet the opposite is happening now with people applauding the use of overweight models. Whilst I think it makes sense to show how clothes look on different bodies, I don't think we should lose sight that being overweight or underweight can have health implications. I don't judge anyone elses weight. That's up to them. If someone's happy being overweight good for them, but let's not kid ourselves that it's healthy.

60% of the population in the UK is overweight and it's only going to get worse. When you look around and see most overweight people you think "oh I'm fine, I'm normal, I'm not as fat as that person bla bla bla."

I've always been health conscious, I've never been overweight but I have been unhappy with my body, wanted to be more toned etc. I eat well and go to the gym regularly and I'm pretty happy with how my body looks now. I've had comments like," if you think you need to tone up what must you think of me". That's their issue. I'm not going to stop striving to look my best because someone else has insecurities about their body.

I think you're overthinking it. If you want to lose weight do it. What's more body positive than eating better, doing more exercise and being healthier. If anyone thinks that's a dig at them that's their own shit that they need to deal with.

You have assumed my weight is pure excess fat I think. I have a lot of muscle and probably the same amount of fat as my sister who is slim, I just have it on top of muscle. If I lost the muscle I wouldn’t be overweight.

Intuitive eating for someone with unhealthy eating habits (which those of us who have reached obese DO have) isn't a good idea at all.

Where is the fat phobia?

I do believe in health at any size

Oh good Lord. Seriously Op?

I haven't assumed anything of the sort!
i also have a lot of muscle (I can feel it under my fat!) and if I lost my muscle I'd be a lot lighter but less healthy. But that's another false equivalence. A skinny lightly muscled woman is still at lower risk of many diseases than a fat, heavily muscled woman. You should be comparing yourself with your own self with less body fat.

How old are you? Since turning 40 my focus for losing weight has largely moved away from how I look and has become much more about being healthy. I'm hoping to get another 40 years out of this body

Totally agree with this. I care less and less about how I look or how others view me. I care more and more about ongoing health and independence - and the freedoms they bring - as I move through my 40s and look further ahead to my old age.

You don’t have to stay overweight to prove you don’t have fat people. It just sounds in your op like you basically feel guilty for wanting a healthy body.

*don’t hate fat people!

Just Eat It by Laura Thomas

Which studies? I would presume many of the health difficulties come not from being ignored by doctors (I mean surely the health issue already exists if the doctor is ignoring them) but from excess fat around organs, lack of movement, lack of proper nutrition etc. If the issues are caused by doctors ignoring fat people’s pain then where is the pain coming from?

Or looking for an excuse to carry on munching on the ginger nuts

This is exactly the issue. People assuming every health issue a fat person has is due to weight. Anyone can get ill regardless of weight. I’m not saying being fat isn’t bad for you just that if we had a non fat-phobic health care system there would be better outcomes for fat people.
I have become interested in the issues faced in the fat community through Sophie Hagen a stand up comedian and fat rights activist. I can’t remember the details of the studies she has referenced but if you Google fat-phobia in the health system a bunch come up.

I think its all got a bit mixed up. Originally it was about shaming people who were not 'perfect' sized. I was adequate to feel 'fat' as a young adult when I really wasn't fat at all- I was a size 12-14 and lovely looking back. But my mum called me fat, men wanted me to be a size 8-10 and when I became tbat weight I suddenly had lots of interest. That type of judgement should stop.

But honestly, being body positive about being a size 22 obese person seems crazy to me. There are huge health implications there and whilst I don't think there should be discrimination I do think someone that size can't be as healthy due to the pressure on organs.

I'm overweight now- I'm 13 stone and a size 14. On my height that is overweight and I can really feel it. I get very out of breath walking uphill for example. I need to lose weight for health reasons and because I look awful. However, when I was 10 stone and a size 12 I should not have beenade to feel as bad asI was. Which is probably why I can't lose weight now.

Well of course anyone can get ill regardless of their weight but as you well know there is a stack of evidence that you are way more likely to develop a raft of adverse health conditions if you are overweight or obese. A GP is not being fat-phobic to a patient if they initially suspect that your complaints of shortness of breath, tiredness and chest pains might be linked to heart disease and the fact they are middle aged and obese. Further testing might prove otherwise but I imagine the initial assumption in most cases would prove correct.

Life is too short to not do what you’d like to do with your own body - if you want to lose weight just do it

When I got pregnant with Dd at nearly 40 I was classified as obese.

I felt really over weight and try as I might the weight was not shifting.

I remember going to my first appointment at the hospital and the nurse taking one look at me and giving me a lecture about older mothers and eating and my bmi.

Then she took my blood pressure and heart rate (a couple of times). She said my heart rate was reading at 40bpm and that was Olympic athlete standard
I explained that I did a 2 hour aerobic workout every morning. Running cycling and the stair master (120 floors) I also won the rowing challenge in the woman’s event I had entered so 40bpm was probably right.
I ended up losing so much weight because of throwing up everything I ate at one point I was 8st 4lb and really slim

put it all back on and more at the end when heartburn could only be settled by drinking litres of milk each hour

You can be fat and fit but I don’t think the amount of work you have to put in and as you age other issues arise, so long term it isn’t a thing you can keep up.

The body positivity movement has fallen prey to the simplistic “one problem” mindset.

In the eyes of its adherents, all problems related to obesity are due to societal stigma against fatness.

But of course fat people have two problems: societal stigma AND the negative health consequences of being overweight.

it would be lovely if it was as simple as the body positive activists make out, but sadly that’s not the case. Defensive shame caused by social stigma makes bopo activists overcompensate in the opposite direction, to their detriment.

FWIW I have struggled with obesity since childhood, have a binge eating disorder, was very badly treated by peers and family when. I was growing up because of my weight. And yet my weight and ED would still be a problem if I lived alone in a cave. Always and forever, two problems! We do better if we are clear-eyed about it.

That ^^

To me HAES is that you can eat better and exercise at any size, being a size 18 doesn't mean you can't work out, but being a size 8 isn't the be all and end all to health

I'm overweight but try and eat a lot of fruit and veg, exercise most days with cardio and strength and believe I can be fit and overweight - my weight doesn't stop me being able to do 90 mins of spin

But I don't believe that EVERY extreme size is healthy whether that as a size 2 or 30