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.

@bluewaxcrayon @AIfunguy and @Anxiousheartbeat @YumYumY having a lovely mutual fan club. I could join in, I run three times a week, eat no refined sugar, eat almost no processed food. It's easy, right?

The problem is that it's not. Without @BIWI and the fantastic low carb boot camp, I wouldn't be here saying this. Willpower didn't work, calorie counting, all the other bullshit. I am a dopamine-seeking ADHD older woman and it's not easy. Sometimes it's not possible. If people don't find whatever their version of the bootcamp is, if they don't have the time, resources, leftover energy, support at home, money and everything, they won't do it. Can't do it.

You can congratulate yourselves all you like and I'm sure you get a little thrill of superiority, but reducing a complex, multi-faceted issue to 'well I do it so you should' is ignorant. In the truest sense of the word.

The woman who started me running a few years ago welcomes everyone. The whole group is a combination of older, injured, disabled, overweight, tired, slow and unfit people. Every year she takes group of people like us and gets us to a 10k. She isn't paid for it, she doesn't expect anything, she is endlessly patient, kind and no bullshit. Rather than looking down your noses, why don't you think how you could contribute to wellness? I know it's easier to be unkind and sneer but actually do something. Start a community kitchen or wellness group, walking group that is welcoming, donate your time to kids who need nutrition, donate to local charities, volunteer at the school to donate time and food, give the food bank healthy alternatives. Be my running group person. Don't be a judgemental meanie.

You are conflating 2 issues. Body positivity does not mean we think obesity is healthy. It means we really shouldn't judge women on their looks. It means that I, as a woman, should be valued for my skills, intelligence, kindness, role in society etc. Not on whether I'm skinny and fuckable enough.

And body shaming doesn't work to make a person healthy. It just doesn't. Decades and decades of experiences of bullying and shaming from women's magazines have shown that.

There is some really weird stuff going on in the "body positivity" movement.

I also think some is just people being tired of thinking about controlling diets all the time, and a reaction to the very unhealthy trend over the past 10 years or so of food restricting. (Vegan, gluten free, nightshade free, etc etc.) It's very unnatural to have to spend so much brain power thinking about your diet.

It's notable that something has changed, if you look at a photo in a public place from the 1970s, people look completely different. And some places are still like that. I am inclined to think it's more lifestyle than food, the bad food comes from the bad lifestyle mainly. (Not sitting to eat, rushing around in the evenings, eating in the car, the rise of snacking for kids constantly, not enough time to cook.)

And again that’s your story but it’s not the same for everyone . Why do you think your circumstances or anyone else’s are any more difficult to mine for instance? You think I don’t and haven’t had my battles and difficulty finding that motivation and ‘will power?’

And yes I do congratulate myself! I congratulate myself because having been diagnosed with a serious illness several years ago and one that is now with me for life, I am so grateful that I have looked after my body and continue to do so, because the outcome had I not would have been very different. And today I am also off to my running club where we all welcome and encourage all those lovely women who nervously turn up, no matter what shape or size, that are motivated enough to want to take their health and wellness into their own hands and take responsibility without bullshit excuses.

This is such a bizarre, angry post.

my main point was in response to the woman conflating having children with being overweight, as if the latter is a direct consequence of the former.

it’s not. YOU are discussing a totally separate bunch of issues, none of which are related to childbirth or having children.

you’ve also got a particular set of circumstances. But this is MN, where EVERYONE has an illness or a disability which excuses everything. You’re a stranger so I don’t know if you do or you don’t - if you do, then I don’t see why you’re so angry and defensive when you have a valid reason to be struggling with your weight.

@YumYumY , obviously we don’t know about your cognitive abilities or level of education, so there is no judgement here, but it would seem that you have limited understanding regarding basic human psychology and how the judgement of others and feelings of shame affect the brain. Shame is a very poor motivator and does not support people to make healthy choices. If you are genuinely concerned about the health of our nation, then doing a little more research on how this works and what you can do to help would be my advice.

It is also worth noting that feelings of shame can inhibit our own abilities to develop empathy and compassion (there is a great deal of research around this in child development studies). Your lack of ability to see how things may feel from other people’s perspectives suggests that perhaps you have experienced significant feelings of shame yourself? Perhaps this has been in relation to your own body or eating habits, or maybe something else. Again, if you would like to help, I would suggest you seek ways to further examine this difficulty and it’s route causes, as without empathy or compassion you are unlikely to be able to affect change.

I don't know if it's body positivity or just general acceptance, but where I live, people in general are on the larger side. I am overweight myself as I piled on the lbs last year when working silly hours and it's coming off at about 1/8 of the speed it went on. I still have people presumably trying to be kind, telling me I'm not fat and don't need to lose weight. But I do need to, for my health as well as my appearance. I will admit that it's my appearance that is the bigger driver for me though.
Vanity sizing doesn't help. I was a size 14 in the early 90s. I'm a size 14 now too but it's a VERY different size now...

Now, what a lot of bollocks. Did you read all of my posts?

Let’s summarise.

I saw a thread written by the fit 70 year old who was making a point about UPF and most people replying to her completely missed the point she was making and focused on her instead.

If the food available in this country consisted mainly of food that needs prep and cooking we wouldn’t have the ability as much to snack and overeat. It won’t happen of course. It is not that fun to eat tons of lentil soup.

I’m not trying to enact change.

In real life if I saw anyone in my circle to make fun of, shame anyone because of their weight I would be among the first to call it out. BUT if someone is trying to make a point about it’s their choice to eat what and how much they eat of it or give their kids without showing any sign of acknowledgment that it is actually bad for them, then, well we are all grown adults and there is such thing as responsibility vs excuse making

As someone else said, I don’t really ‘care’ about older people. Weight management get’s harder with age as it is and people will have different circumstances, as the lady who lost her babies - I mean, easy to say, but try not to give a f…k about weight until you are in a place where you can address your weight if you feel like it is needed and will make you feel better health wise….

But if young impressionable people start thinking their excess weight is ok as everyone around them is overweight anyway, well….. is that a good thing?

Sadly, OP, the world does not conform to your view of it.

Can't say I'm particularly upset by that fact.

You might or might not be "unreasonable" but you certainly are "intolerant".

Maybe, many people will see it that way. And I’m actually a very tolerant person.

However, the responses on the above mentioned thread really irritated me.

Btw, what do you understand to be my view of the world?

How is OP intolerant? It’s not intolerant to point out lots of people are overweight.

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)

You’re calling a size 12 fat? No wonder everybody looks fat to you. Admittedly, I feel shocked at the sheer number of morbidly obese people you see these days; quite a rare sight 30 years ago. But a size 12 woman, or the male equivalent, wouldn’t even be overweight, so nothing for you to worry about!

Completely agree again with the point that it is not easy to control weight given the environment we are in.

It’s like a challenge. You have a race where two people need to get from A to B. The paths are the same and both have buckets hanging over the path that randomly tip over. Except, one path has paint in the buckets, the other has empty buckets. The challenge is to get to B without any paint on.

Body positivity may take some of the guilt and shame away from people. That can only be a good thing as it frees up some headspace to focus on becoming more healthy or more fit if they desire.

I hate the term clean eating as if anything else is bad and wrong. I also hate talking about eating in terms of discipline.

Flexibility and lack of dogma is important to me. I know quite a few people who are very disciplined in terms of eating in a way that impacts their lives and their friendships massively - as in finding places they will eat becomes an exercise in futility so planning a day out becomes strewn with all sorts of hazards that don't need to be there.

I said that before but I really don’t know about that. There are many people who do have that extra bit of fat that is putting extra strain on their bodies and are now normalised and considered standard average size.

Yes, better be that way than consumed by the weight. But the nation is overall on the larger side in excess of healthy.

Agree again. It all really is a mess.

I agree with some points that fat is now being normalised and there is a lot of defensiveness from people who DO clearly have access to food, gyms and are well educated and I find that frustrating. There will always be people in society who are at a disadvantage and I can’t judge them for the choices they make, but for those of us who do have the privileges and access we should make better choices and not normalise obesity. I was obese for many years and I don’t think I realised how much I was battling the body positivity movement - I had access to resources to change, but I didn’t want to, I wanted to just be accepted for making poor choices. I have changed my mind though and am no longer obese or overweight, I don’t owe it to anyone else but myself (and the NHS) to care for my own health.

Body positivity = good

Kidding yourself you are healthy despite being very overweight = not good

And I’m definitely people judging and shaming. = ugly bullying

You are right OP that being overweight is not conducive of a healthy lifestyle nor should it be made out to be. I agree that people are either uneducated or kidding themselves it is cheaper to buy nuggets and chips than cook an omelet. However, this is not always the root of the problem. People are also much more over weight than they used to be because of lifestyle changes over the years. It’s not the 1950s anymore.

People work longer hours
Travel further to get to work
Less manual and more desk jobs
Kids spend longer in day care
Parents are rushing round getting kids to different clubs

There are not always enough hours in the day. I can see why people choose the easier route at tea time and throw something quick in the oven. Unfortunately these “quick” dinners are usually full of fat, salt and sugar (and over the years come with a side order of heart disease and diabetes). However if you are struggling to tread water today you are not thinking about the future. Anyone in this position would probably love to have the time and financial resources to have a lovely Hello Fresh or Gousto order but it just isn’t in reach to a lot of families.

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)

I go along with you, OP, as far as agreeing that there is clearly an obesity crisis and that we shouldn't normalise obese bodies, or lose sight of what a healthy body looks like.

But like many pps, I think the size 12 cut-off is ridiculous. Yes, I know about vanity sizing but people's bodies are different in structure, as you acknowledge. When I got down to my lowest weight (very spiky!) I was finally limited in clothing size by my jutting pelvic bones. I was a 12 then, and certainly couldn't have gone lower, and there was no way I was obese or even overweight. I often have to size up to accommodate my broad shoulders, which is annoying because I have a small waist and then have to take things in.

Someone I know is over 6ft tall and of magnificent athletic build. Not a spare cm of chub on her - she was a county athlete until quite recently. But she's a size 16 - she's just a big woman. I once got laughed at for saying that I had a large frame (the usual jibe about bones not weighing much). Yes, I know bones don't weigh much, but for every extra inch of height you are carrying more flesh - it's obvious.

So: let's not be complacent about obesity, fine. But judging this by size alone is completely ridiculous.

@CoffeeCantata But you even quoted OP saying (with some leeway for different bone structures). Most women are not 6 ft +, of course your friend would be an outlier.

innerdesign · Today 13:09
@CoffeeCantata But you even quoted OP saying (with some leeway for different bone structures). Most women are not 6 ft +, of course your friend would be an outlier.

Yes, and I did acknowledge that, but I think the original post does seem to be very dogmatic about the size 12 cut-off! I think dress size alone (like weight) is a dodgy criterion.

I know the world divides into people (like my petite size 8 daughter) who recoil in horror at a size 12, and those whose life's ambition it is to get within spitting distance of it (me)! 😃

As many have said, you can be obese at a size 12 (tiny, small-boned women with pot bellies etc) or gaunt and skeletal (me when I got almost there).

I grabbed attention with my first post. I further expanded on the points I’m making in subsequent posts.

Generalising with size 12 is clearly touchy, despite the caveat. But I would expect people to see the points I’m putting across even if feeling initially offended by size 12, if indeed reading the actual updates.

It's not. It's skill and motivation not finance.

I’m not trying to enact change.

That's obvious.

Isn’t it the case that people in the overweight (not obese) category have the longest life expectancies?