To call out friend on 'body positivity' delusion?

[treesandflowers95]

My bestie (i'll call her 'J') and I have been friends since primary school. She's godmother to my DD and we almost see each other as sisters as friends.

J has always been a curvier girl but as we've gone through our 20s, she's steadily put on more and more weight. She's 5ft 2 and now a size 30. Over the last couple of years its been noticeable how much into the 'body positivity' movement shes got. Her socials are full of shared posts about it, and she'll often bring it up in conversation.

Its not something i've ever really made an issue of with her before as though it worries me for her, i've always been of the view that everybody's body is their own business.

However we were on a hen do a few weeks ago, and honestly it was a real eye opener to just how big she's got and the impact that's starting to have on her health. The first one for me was that she needed a seatbelt extender on the flight and she seemed to think it was hilarious. We stayed in a villa on the edge of a little area with a strip of bars and restaurants. It was 350yds (i put it into Google maps) and slightly downhill on the way there and uphill on the way back, but nothing major. J was struggling to keep up with us on the way there, and on the way back was having to stop at least once because she was so out of breath. Bear in mind this was a group of girls quite a few in heels etc so its not like we were sprinting, and shes sweating and bright red. Aside from that, even basic stuff round the villa like walking upstairs (it was over 3 floors) and she struggled climbing up and down the ladders in and out of the pool. I didnt say anything to her at the time but its played on my mind.

This weekend there were four of us (all close friends) who'd been on the hen do out for drinks in the pub. We were talking about the hen do and i can't remember how it came up, but she started talking about the walk back to the villa and how steep the hill was etc. I said to her something along the lines of 'Oh it wasn't that bad' to which she replied 'Are you joking, it was so steep!' and was basically trying to get the other girls to agree and I just left it.

A bit later in the conversation she was talking about some body positivity stuff and how its about how you look after yourself and not how much you weigh. I've bit my tongue at stuff like this loads of times, but this time i said 'I think that's true to an extent but there's a point where you can't argue that you're healthy'. She didn't look happy and said 'what are you saying?'. I basically said that the fact she thought that walk on holiday was so difficult that she should have struggled with it so much was worrying, and might suggest her health wasn't as good as she seems to think it is. The reality is (and I didn't say this to her) that she eats really badly and drinks quite a lot. She spends loads on hair, make up, nails, etc which she considers as looking after herself.

She got really frosty with me, and has been funny in texts since, not her usual self, so i know i've annoyed her.

Fully accept it may not have been the best way to bring it up especially in front of others (but it wasnt like it was strangers, we're all mates back to primary school) but i just felt like it wasn't a time where i could just say nothing in the moment.

So i guess question is AIBU to have brought this up with her, and any advice on how to handle things next.

Exactly.

I get where OP is coming from. One of my best friends is very obese and suffering the consequences already in middle age. Nowhere near the size of OP's friend, but obese nonetheless. They are now diabetic which is poorly controlled, have lots of issues with their feet, can't walk very far. It is heartbreaking as I want them as a friend for much longer and I can't see them surviving until old age as they're not sorting their diet out, losing weight, or even adhering to their diabetes treatment plan.

The difference is, they know this, they own it. They will openly say they can't seem to find a way to stop bingeing on their junk food of choice, that it's affecting their weight and health, and that they're scared for their eyesight and mobility.

Nobody can make them change, only they can, and so far they seem to have been unable to which is really sad, but if they tried to sit there while we hung out and say 'I'm perfectly healthy at this size, all of my health issues are the result of medical fatphobia, that hill was too steep for someone like me who is perfectly fit, diabetes is a natural thing that can happen to anyone, I'm taking great care of my body' I wouldn't be able to stay quiet, nor should I have to. Instead they act like a grown up and don't try to gaslight people around them or try get them to agree with delusions. So when they complain about how hard it is I empathise with that and make sure they know I'm there for them and with them and will support in any way I can if they say the word.

I think it's hard to put yourself in OP's shoes unless you've lived loving someone who is really obese and watched them slowly deteriorate. It's awful. In many cases it's like watching a loved one slowly die from alcoholism or drug addiction (been there too). You are powerless over their actions and have to ensure you care for yourself and don't let yourself be dragged down while loving them the best you can, sometimes from afar to protect yourself.

I get it's a hard topic to consider when so many people are obese a good percentage of the people reading this thread will be, and it will sting recognising themselves in the friend's behaviour and having to consider for a moment what it's like for their loved ones to watch.

Better served than what? Don't understand your response.

My point is that nobody operates in a vacuum and that we owe it to family, friends and society at large to take the best care of our health that we are able. There are many reasons for this, our socialised healthcare system being just one of them.

Just to update she's replied and we've arranged to go for a coffee tomorrow morning

YABVU, she knows she's overweight and unhealthy no matter if she hides it under the guise of body positivity, there was no need for you to try and humiliate her in front of others.

By the way, shaming and humiliating rarely works, in fact its more likely to have the opposite effect.

That's great, I hope you manage to have a really open honest loving conversation and can get your friendship back on track :)

It's amusing in a way to see the trite phrases trotted out: the glib 'lifestyle choices' and 'accountability', whatever that is supposed to mean.

It's complicated: I don't actually agree with taking a blanket position that nothing can be done and compare it to telling depressed people to snap out of it - depression can be intractable and in some cases nothing seems to work but there are many instances where depressed people can live and work with the condition and may well be able to help themselves but they don't know how. It's why a compassionate GP Dr Claire Weekes wrote a book called Self-Help For Your Nerves for her patients many years ago which has become a classic and is available to read online for anyone who can't buy it.

A poster - Cat? earlier in the thread mentioned several factors causing the increase in overweight over the last however many years - some social, economic, some individual. I'd add another to her list, which perhaps affects women more than men and it is the effect of anti depressant drugs. I don't hear it commonly mentioned but I've read recently that they cause weight gain. This also raises issues about medical and healthcare practice. I wonder how many women who've been on these drugs know that or are overweight and struggle to lose weight but still rely on the drugs as a way to cope with depression.

Aww well done OP, that’s lovely.

I would focus on saying you are seriously sorry for what you said and leave it at that.

She knows she’s fat and the impact it’s having and she doesn’t need you judging her body and health. It won’t help x

you are not wrong to pick up there is something going on with body positivity movement that is just frankly toxic and dangerous. It’s been pivoted as a movement to mean something completely different from its original purpose, which was supposed to be about tolerance and acceptance of ourselves and others through our differences. This was meant to apply to people who are disabled too, who have literally zero choice over how they might look or their level of mobility. It’s been hijacked by an extreme community of activists who are using it as a tool to point the fingers at everyone else and hide behind ‘oppression’ and align themselves with less able body people whilst often actively promoting very unhealthy behaviours. You can try to steer your friend away from the movement as it is now - it’s likely actively harming her not helping her.

Body positivity and fat acceptance is acknowledging that there are many factors that mean someone finds it hard to change, but it should not be about abdicating any need or reason to make changes. Your health is always more important than what you look like, and at a certain weight/size you will be actively harming your body and putting your health at risk. Self love is really about reducing those risks to take care of yourself and also being treated like a human being and not being subjected to negativity. It’s not negativity or fat phobic to be concerned about someone’s health, however much the BP movement will make out it is. They even have a load of awful science debunking it’s like a cult

That's great. I hope it goes well in re establishing warm and sympathetic friendship between you. You clearly have strong opinions about her eating, drinking and weight but it would be very tricky for you to express them to her in a way that is not intrusive or unacceptable unless she led you to a discussion that invited your opinions and you could avoid acting with a finger wagging ' I am the authority, I am right and you are wrong or I am your moral guardian and I am 'concerned' about you/ your health', as if she is your charge and is not responsible for her own life and liberty.

If she opens up an opportunity to discuss the subject of weight or health, be cautious and positive about being there for her as a friend without wading in with both feet in any comments you make.

@FredericC I can really relate to this as one reason I have made lifestyle changes is seeing my own parents and in laws have an absolutely crap quality of life before they are even 60, due to long term obesity and lack of movement. They all have to take a load of medication, have had surgery to replace joints and none of them can really play with their grandchildren. I don’t want this for them, or for my own future. Watching someone you love get very immobile and frail very fast from something that was pretty much preventable is awful. I sit there sometimes and hear my MIL tell me she eats salad all day, which just cannot be true and I know it isn’t.

At some point change just seems too hard, and I understand this and am supportive but I am not supportive of active delusional thinking. You can’t sit there and make up completely false narratives ‘well I had a hip replacement at 55 could have happened to anyone’ when the doctor was telling them at 40 to lose weight to help hip pain and they did not listen. I have a limited amount of patience for joining in with letting them bullshit me over it. If you own the situation and say I don’t know what to do, I’m struggling that’s completely different

Excellent advice

What bothers me is their attempt to align themselves with genuinely marginalised communities who CANNOT change the thing about them that others are prejudiced about. Pretending that being fat means you experience the same oppression as someone who is black in a white area or as someone who requires a wheelchair in an environment suited only to people who can walk is frankly disgusting.

As someone with lifelong chronic pain, I would do ANYTHING to get rid of it. Anything. To see someone who has made choices that mean they are in pain and have less mobility claim that that's inevitable and nothing to do with their size or how many calories they eat is infuriating. As a white person I cannot even begin to imagine the rage someone who isn't white must feel when they see an obese white woman whip themselves up into a tizzy over the oppression and prejudice she experiences because she... ate too many donuts.

It's insulting. You can tell when there's no substance behind their rhetoric because they will try piggy back themselves onto other oppressed communities to try glean a little bit of social capital that way. Trying to align themselves with people experiencing racism, ableism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia because they hope listeners will be too dumb to take a second to think wait a moment... one of these things is not like the other lol.

That's my mother, hip replacement and all. Then she had a stroke caused by a weight related condition weeks into her early retirement. Gave me the kick to really start looking after myself. It's hard seeing her struggle, but it's been inevitable for decades.

@treesandflowers95 I would be encouraging your friend to move away from whatever content that she is consuming online. This is the issue in this movement. They recruit other vulnerable women into their angry delusional shouty spaces. There are lot of creators online who have realised how bad the movement is and are promoting real body positivity. Tess Holliday is no role model, unless you too want to be an angry out of work model. Her USP is just being angry at everyone else and she’s not exactly getting work like she used to. She was the OG ‘healthy at any size’ promoter and it’s all gone downhill from there. They have completely redefined what health means to fit their narrative and it’s almost all nonsense wrapped up in advocating for others but invading spaces of people who have no choice but to be less able or less conventionally meeting beauty standards

Absolutely nobody on this thread is 'fat bashing' The vast majority are simply highlighting the fact that being morbidly obese with the issues it causes cannot be described as healthy. People can be unhealthy at any weight but its obvious that being hugely overweight not only adds to health & mobility issues it also known to cause them.

@Abitofalark I’ve heard the same about antidepressants, although a recent study (a proper one, not just info on a website :-) suggests that happily, most AD’s are only linked to modest weight gain. I take Escitalopram and have gained about 3lbs, similar to the study’s results.

Link to study on this page:

www.health.harvard.edu/blog/weighing-in-on-weight-gain-from-antidepressants-202408023063

So you felt it was OK to shame her and humiliate her in front of other people. The fact they are mates does not matter. You're no friend and I hope she saw that.

What was ‘shaming’ or ‘humiliating’ given the friend was soliciting comments by endlessly bringing her weight up?

Tbh I’m surprised anyone on here has any friends, if a perfectly well meaning and mild comment is enough to make you cut them off. I don’t think you would in real life though - it’s just easy to say on here.

If you have nothing nice to say, no need to say it, of someone's interest in whatever irritate you so much, dont talk to them. OP clearly wanted to make those jabs for a while and wanted to relieve herself. She knew fow these comments would land and that they would ne hurtful. Going "oh I didnt really mean it" "I love her to bits) is masking her intentions really badly.

With friends like OP, her friend no longer needs enemies.

I know! Everyone's so quick to 'cut people off' these days and then queue the 'AIBU to have no friends' thread.

It's not healthy to be so snippy with those scissors. Sometimes friends will say what you don't want to hear. That's the part of being friends is being honest with each other and having different opinions.

Some people would rather friends lie to them so they don't get offended or hurt. So they'd rather have superficial, dishonest friendships.

I think it depends on how your body reacts to the medication. Not everyone has this problem. I have two friends who took Sertraline and didn;t gain a single pound, but when a family member took it, they gained a few pounds very quickly.

Having been the same weight all my adult life, and getting back to it after both pregnancies, I started on antidepressants. At my one-month check up everything was fine but I'd put on 4lb. The GP said nonsense, they don't cause weight gain, just lay off the pies! Within a year I was 20lbs overweight and found a lot of anecdotal evidence online from people on medication who did gain.

When I stopped taking the medication several years later, I was 30lbs heavier than when I started. I lost about 4lbs very quickly. But the rest didn't come off. I don't diet but I do exercise and eat healthily. I have lost 17lbs now but there's still a stone to go.

They do induce carb cravings - vicious ones. I went from being someone who never snacked to someone who constantly felt a sort of low blood sugar hollow 'hunger' between meals and I started snacking every couple of hours. And they can make some people feel very slow and drowsy, so life becomes less active. Both these were true for me. These days, after dinner, it never occurs to me to eat anything but when I was on ADs I was ready for a snack by the time I had done the washing up.

This is so true.

Your comment reminded me of a few years ago when I was going to apply for a job until one of the essential criteria was that you had to be 'plus sized' supposedly because of the essential life experience it would bring. Without being too outing it was in the charity sector and founded by someone morbidly obese. It was worded in the same way I've seen other roles require someone have a protected characteristic (e.g. be female, be black, be disabled)

But being overweight is not a protected characteristic!! Infuriating.

That's truly ridiculous.

@HRCsMumma Do you talk about weight with your friends? I don't think I’ve ever discussed weight with mine, because it’s a sensitive subject like politics- except to say something trivial like I need to lose a couple of pounds as my jeans are getting tight. As you say, don’t raise a subject unless you’re prepared to hear differing opinions.