Body positivity is out of control…

[YumYumY]

Inspired by another thread raising the topic of UPFs (by a fit 70 year old).

And I’m definitely people judging and shaming.

Lot of us eat shit food (availability of shit food definitely an issue) and seem to be proud of it.

Common MN army, lay into me.

I’ve done both, got used to eating crap as well as got more disciplined and got the crap out of my system (more than once and the change in diet was never a pleasurable experience).

But looking at the streets people just look so, yes fat, and unhealthy. And I’m calling already a size 12 fat here just to be clear (with some leeway for different bone structures)

When will we start admitting we are fat and it is a problem.

I would love to see proof that celebrating obese bodies under the "be proud of your curves" has actually helped anyone, ever. If you are obese, it's not "curves". it's unhealthy fat.

Is the so-called body positivity denial actually working?

I’m a size 12 and bang in the middle of a healthy BMI. It seems like your post is purely intended to goad.

I am fat. I know it’s a problem. Nothing helps because I have seemingly incurable mental health issues. Shaming doesn’t help. Dieting doesn’t help. Exercise doesn’t help, therapy and antidepressants don’t help. I am ready to give up living because I can’t stop eating and I can no longer stand the way I am viewed and treated as a fat woman.

I'm known for my hatred of sport but when I was at school (long time ago), we had one PE lesson a day. On Wednesday it was a double period, the rest just single.

School lunches were proper cooked meals and virtually no one in the lower school brought a packed lunch. That was the privilege of the top year only.

Yes I hated it but there was only one "fat" girl in my class and yes she really stood out.

Chronic, debilitating pain and physical limitations add a whole other complication. I, too, experience the same frustrations and overwhelm. I hear you. All we can do is try our best, @Octavia64.

I was fat when I was a size 12, when I started reaching size 14 I was BMI 30 and obese, with vanity sizing these days a 12 is about a 16 and way.

I don't know what the answer is because weight issues are so complex and people get so defensive about it.

No one is abusing people for eating healthy, balanced diets. You sound very angry and like you’ve got a chip on your shoulder.

I am very overweight at a size 20. I have approx 4 stone to lose to be within a healthy BMI.

No amount of body positivity is going to make me feel good about my body, I hate it. It’s all I think about. Obsessively. I hate myself and I can’t seem to make the changes I need to, for long enough, to lose the weight I need to. I’ve done every diet and have always regained it all back.

What body positivity does do, and I am glad of this, is send a message that regardless of your size you have a right to live a fulfilled life. To be happy, to wear nice clothes, to travel, to have nice experiences. It sends the message that size doesn’t dictate what kind of person you are. Whether you are underweight or overweight. You deserve to be happy.

I have two children and I want them to be confident enough to live their life to the full regardless of their weight / size / shape.

Body positivity does not keep me fat. I do.

Weight is multifactoral and complicated. To me, there is no point at all shaming anyone for it - it won't help and will actively make their life worse. All it does is the give the judger a little burst of feeling better than someone else. A little ego boost.

If we are going to actually use honesty to drive change we need to:

a) address sugar companies and other UPF manufacturers lobbying the government in all sorts of ways that add to up to a far more favourable selling market for them than they deserve. These foods have an element of dependency or addiction and we should treat them as such.
b) address the limits we have on physical exercise today; we need far more pedestrian zones, safe and beautifal (green!) pathways, greater access to rural land - particularly we need to ensure the land we do have access to is not boxed in by private land so that it can only ever be visted by trespass or helicopter (a genuine problem).
c) address mental health: better mental health support that is accessible from well before health is so bad it's a crisis; better work/life balance and reduced working hours so that people have time to relax, to exercise and to cook.

Bonus add-ons....
d) address garden sizes with property and/or access to alloments. Post war houses had large gardens with the view there should be space to grow crops for a family in them - we need to ensure everyone has access to space in some form that can be used to grow your own fruit and veg (e.g. councils should have to provide X decent, well maintained allotments per Y of headcount).
e) better food and cooking education: not necessarily in school but wrap around care could be used to give children proper knowledge about hwo to cook so that no one becomes an adult without having basic cookery skills.

Of course, none of that would actually make people any money so the chances of it happening are pretty slim (ironically ).

No one is abusing people for eating healthy, balanced diets.

unless you are on MN. I find it equally amusing and depressing, but on this forum it's definitively a thing.

I also think it's dangerous, new mums are reading looking for advice and it's not helpful to pretend unhealthy food is a good idea.

Just an observation. I'm very tall and I have broad shoulders and hips. Due to my body frame I can't be a size 12. At a size 14 I look slim and healthy. Not skinny, but just right.

Why exactly? I don’t think I am.

What body positivity does do, and I am glad of this, is send a message that regardless of your size you have a right to live a fulfilled life. To be happy, to wear nice clothes, to travel, to have nice experiences. It sends the message that size doesn’t dictate what kind of person you are. Whether you are underweight or overweight. You deserve to be happy.

Also agree with this.

I think it incredibly important that everyone sees themselves as worthy of this, regardless of their physical form.

Please can you stand in the election? You'd get my vote 🙂

What a gross post. I’m much happier and healthier at a truly enormous size 12 than when I was a size 6 and counting calories like my life depended on it. Shaming people who you think are too fat is pathetic, bullying behaviour and you should have grown out of it when you left school.

Haven’t yet fully read some of the later posts. Saying size 12 might be a bit harsh but my posts are clear about the fact that I’m talking about being overweight from medical point of view (what ever size that will be for each individual).

The food available is big issue.

I’m not trying to drive change with my post as it will definitely not go big.

Yes, I could trigger some people when I said size 12 but again not trying to save the world here and I’m not actually shaming how people look visually. I keep saying health.

I agree with this (but people hate to hear it for some reason!).

Worst come to worst (time/money wise) you can life off of omelettes, baked potatoes, and lentil curries/lentil-based veggie bolognaise for dinner each night. Plus veggies and rice, wholemeal pasta. Cheap, natural foods. Takes ten minutes to cook and prepare (or bung potato in the oven). Far cheaper and healthier than frozen anything or a ready meal.

I’ve gone from underweight, to overweight, to healthy weight to obese. I have Crohn’s disease, have taken steroids, have mobility problems and complex mental health. The meds that keep me alive cause weight gain. Add two kids under 4 and working part time, extreme fatigue etc. I can’t cook a meal from scratch, and get benefits in part because of this. It’s taken me a long time to get to a place where I don’t hate my body. I would rather be a healthy weight, but will be kind to myself so I don’t start a negative mental health spiral. I have gained 5 stone over the last 4 years, for context, but my physical and mental health is better than it was when I was 5 stone lighter

I think there is a grain of something in your post. When I was young I couldn't have cared less about how my weight impacted my health. Health issues were for old people and blood pressure, dodgy knees, and cancers were decades away. I stayed within a healthy weight because it was a prerequisit of looking attractive. No other reason.
I think BP, and particularly the more liberal definition of what constitutes slim (A size 12/14 can mean a waist size on or around the unhealthy for many women) has possibly removed some of the incentive for (particularly young) women to maintain a healthy weight. Certainly there are many more heavier young women then in earlier decades, and they dont consider it to be a problem in the way previous generations did. But, that incentive came from a bad place, and i wouldn't want to see that burdening another generation.

Please can you stand in the election? You'd get my vote 🙂

Remember: a vote for BastardisMendacem is a vote for having to walk to your allotment, to dig up your own potatoes, lug them home again and then have to cook them yourself. But at least the pathway home will be safe and green

You cannot have a discussion about healthy weight anyway, and state that being overweight is a negative without someone jumping and shouting about shaming bullying and so on

@YumYumY frankly you sound like a person who would say nasty things about a colleague or acquaintance who has put on weight (or is above a size 12), claiming ‘I’m just being honest’.

Congrats on your slim figure

I would definitely be fat as a 12, but I am barely 5', light framed and have always been 6-8. Even a 10 is overweight for me, even if the notoriously inaccurate BMI charts disagree that I would be based on weight.

I do agree that we should not be cheerleading for obesity being healthy. It isn't, for anyone, regardless of it's cause. That said, I don't think any individual should be shamed or excluded for it either. I am more interested in who people are than what they look like or what their dress size is. Which is where the whole body positivity thing started from, acceptance of everyone for themselves, as they are. The pendulum may have swung a bit far at the moment, it will swing back.

Oh bugger off with your ignorance. Body positivity is an attempt to balance the disgusting body shaming experienced by fat people and is not about the health or otherwise of being fat.
Fat shaming actually makes trying to lose weight much harder as it leads to self loathing, guilt, depression which can all cause comfort eating. It also makes people frightened to go out and exercise because of what others will think and sometimes say to you or about you.
People are fat for a variety of reasons, some more complex than others.
As for size 12 being fat well thank you for revealing yourself and your narrow minded views even further.
Is it time for fat season again on MN? Are we bored with disabled scroungers?

I don't agree either, I've never heard of size 12 being described as fat. Yes, clothes sizing in shops is notoriously unreliable, but I've yet to meet a fat person who normally fits into a size 12.

I am currently fat (I am size 12-14 but short) and am trying to lose weight.

For me personally being overweight negatively impacts my life and I am changing that. What body positivity means to me is that I don't need to hide in baggy black clothes while I'm too fat, and I can go out running in shorts even if my legs jiggle and to try and have the confidence to wear what I want.