To wonder if ‘body positivity’ has gone too far?

[WildUmberScroller]

While I fully accept supporting everyone for who they are, sometimes I feel like the body positivity movement is promoting unhealthy lifestyles. AIBU to feel like there should be limits?

I wouldn’t want to be obese and elderly. I would be worried about being lifted properly and kept clean.

It's gone way too far. Watching morbidly obese people strolling down the street in crop tops and shorts is depressing.

Yes, exactly!

But why does it matter how other people do it?

I don't doubt it about the exploitation and I don't think the series would be created now, but I don't think they were lying about what they were eating. Why would they?

I think that would be body neutrality. I see body positivity as linked to the pro-fat movement and those who criticise 'diet culture' and potentially quite bad for people's health.

Well firstly - to make better tv! Secondly, any studies that ask people to self report what they eat are notoriously unreliable because people don't give an accurate account of their diet for all sorts of reasons. Also, people change what they eat when they start recording what they eat. The act of writing it down actually affects what the person consumes, and how much. If you're eager to get on tv or you think you might be able to access help or support that you feel you need (not that this show offered help but it did purport to) then yeah, you will likely make your food diary more dramatic to help your chances of getting selected. There is no reason to imagine that anyone involved in casting, producing, hosting or participating in that programme had any interest in accurately presenting those people's lives and habits.

100%

it’s a movement that gives the middle finger to the health consequences of being overweight and promotes how you feel over and above the negative impact of being overweight has on your health. It runs along the same lines as not giving a toss about anyone but yourself and how you feel in spite of the obvious deficiencies of your body image.

Diet culture is bad for people's health too. Neutrality would probably be the ideal, but we're a long way from that being the majority stance.

In my real life comparisons between myself and fat friends / relatives I notice the same difference in type of food / quantity of food / exercise habits and drinking. Thin people do not just magically evaporate calories.

Of course! But that show was presenting extreme food intakes at both end of the spectrum that do not reflect the way people actually eat. I'm not saying fat and thin people eat the same way or the same quantity; I'm saying that show was absolute garbage and extremely dangerous.

Yes, I do have an issue with everything on your list.

One of my friends was morbidly obese, she said she couldn't lose weight and thought it was because of her thyroid. She had her thyroid tested and it was normal, having her excuse taken away she got her eating in order and started exercising and got down to a healthy weight.

It matters because the poster wants to feel superior, recognised, more socially accepted, and more accomplished than those who need a medication to correct a hormone receptor issue in order to achieve similar successes.

Yeah, similar. I just one Saturday had a head wobble reminding myself I am normally a rational person and went on cal controlled diet and workout regime there and than. 🤷 No metabolic disaster here.... Weight went off.

That's great for her! Unfortunately, studies have shown that for most people who become obese, they won't successfully lose it and maintain a healthy weight in the long term. It's a very small minority of people who do achieve this, and for most people they will yo-yo which can actually be more harmful to health overall than staying at a steady weight even if that steady weight is in itself an unhealthily high one. So people, once obese, do find themselves in something of a trap. I'm not arguing the morals or otherwise of this, just the facts of weight loss. You can conclude that the 95% of people who regain their lost weight and more within five years do so because they're lazy and greedy if you want, just as someone else can conclude that there might be some other factors at play. But either way, it's true. I think in general if we can extend a more compassionate view towards those people, it would probably be better for everyone and we might go some way to finding solutions. I think in general though, stating an anecdote like this one with the implication that fat people are mostly just hiding behind excuses isn't contributing much that's helpful to the wider conversation. For everyone for whom that's true, there is someone else with a different experience. That poster who found body positivity discouraging found another way to lose weight, but there are plenty of others who find body positivity helps them to gain the self worth and confidence that inspires them to make healthier choices,to exercise without embarrassment and to be kind enough to themselves that they take time to nourish their bodies well. Nothing works the same way for everyone.

By the same argument you're invalidating my experience. And who are you to tell her she's being invalidated? Even if, why are you assuming she can't handle someone saying their experience is different? See, we can go on forever in this nonsense circle. Stop assuming you know someone's level of resilience, and telling people what should and shouldn't hurt their feelings.

Yes, I'm actually surprised by someone who attributes their weight gain to IVF not being sympathetic to the role hormones might play for someone else.

My heart goes out to anyone who has experienced fertility struggles, but it's a helpful illustration that our bodies and experiences don't all work the same way and that we shouldn't assume they do or can.

As someone who struggled to gain weight during pregnancy due to HG I have first hand experience of the effect of hormones on appetite in a way that is completely beyond a person's control. It's quite humbling to have your body ruling the roost.

Google tells me that Ashley Graham is a size 16. A PP referred to a friend who has gone to size 22 so no, she's not what we're talking about here.

Beware the pendulum swings...

I don't know what store sizes Google is using for that information. She's the same height as me and weighs 30kg more than I do. No way she is size 16, she is way bigger than that.

Isn't that a US 16 (so UK 20?) Also - she's lost a lot of weight recently.

Billboards have been replaced by influencers.

@WildUmberScroller I am more worried about extremely underweight celebrities/ influencers who are promoting starvation. I don't think there are lot of young people out there seeing an overweight person and says wow I'm going to force myself to eat too much so I can be like that🤷‍♀️

Yes. I noticed this on Net-a-Porter the other day and, as someone who grew up in the Kate Moss era, was viscerally reminded of how damaging that was to us.