Why does everyone say they love being fat until they get their hands on skinny jabs?

[Holmints]

I’m seeing this so much on social media. People screaming from the rooftops how they love their bodies. Hate comments come and they combat them with body positivity, I admired them so much.

Lately though, the very people who were oh-so-body-positive are popping back up five stone lighter. Some comment on it and some don’t, as if they’re waiting for people to ask. Hang on a minute, I thought you loved your big body? Did you love being fat or not?

For me it may be a personality matter. I don't like to take any medication without good cause. All medications have risks and side effects, so the use of them has to be justified for me. I would rather work on losing weight the 'hard way' but, if the doctor suddenly told me I was borderline for diabetes and my blood pressure was way too high, I might consider the jabs short term to get myself sorted.

Who, though? You haven’t said a single name on who has done this.

I think both things can be true. I'm one of those people who've lost 5 stone on Mounjaro - and who genuinely liked my body beforehand. It wasn't about how it looked for me, but the health issues being overweight was causing me.

Losing weight has crashed my sex drive into nothingness because I don't particularly like how my body looks now - I don't feel like me, I don't feel sexy, I feel skinny and angular looking (although I'm not yet anywhere near 'thin' - it's my perception of myself rather than an objective truth!). Things I liked about my body - my boobs, my bum, a general softness - aren't there any more and it's a big adjustment. I preferred, in how it made me feel about myself, my body before. But equally, I'm making a compromise, because I've reversed my T2 diabetes and back pain.

I imagine I'm in the minority: we're pretty constantly told that fat bodies aren't sexy, so a lot of people who may well have liked their bodies before will feel better and more valued in bodies that weigh less. But there will be people who feel the same as me, I'm sure.

Surely it’s pretty obvious. They were struggling to do anything about their weight so they were celebrating what they were, now they can do something about it they are. It’s not that they were lying, they were feeling good about themselves and celebrating what they had, but given the option being thinner is probably better for overall quality of life throughout life, if it’s an option.

I don’t think anyone loves being fat really.
the only scenario I can imagine this maybe being somewhat true is that if they’ve always been bigger, they wouldn’t know necessarily how ‘bad’ they actually feel day to day. I put on huge amounts of weight during pregnancy and after baby was born I honestly felt absolutely horrendous. Everything was a huge effort and my body was just struggling so much! I was desperately uncomfortable moving around and doing anything much at all. It made me feel ill daily. Even losing a few kilos from then I felt so so so much better.

I think the body positivity has gone too far and the truth is it’s a way for us to all
continue eating rubbish, the food industry must be laughing as they can continue with terrible quality, unnatural ingredients etc. And now the pharma industry can make money from it aswell! I think the whole things a shambles and really we should be eating better food, moving more and taking responsibility for our own health.

The laziest thing around here seems to be your brain.

You can love your body as it is and also be willing to change it.

I'm in the early stages of a migraine right now. I've just taken some medicine for that. But I still love my brain, and am happy to live my life with occasional migraines, and value some of the experiences that I've had as a result of those migraines, and am glad that sometimes at stressful moments by body forces me into resting, and I don't want to be treated badly, or discriminated against, or have people make assumptions about me based on my migraines.

If people kept on talking about people who got migraines were feeble, lazy , ugly, miserable, skivers, then I would probably spend quite a lot of time and effort on loving myself with my migraines.

This will 'go down' well...

I'm not sure why people find it hard to understand. Once you are obese, losing weight naturally and keeping it off is incredibly hard and often more or less impossible. So if you can't change it, why not embrace it and try to love yourself? Now there's a way of losing the weight without the extreme difficulties that you'd otherwise have so of course lots of people will opt for that - it's not good for you to be fat.
It's like saying that you don't get why a body-positive amputee wouldn't choose to have their leg back if they can.

It’s really common to have to embrace a particular state of affairs where there isn’t really a viable alternative, it doesn’t mean you wouldn’t change it given the option, just that you choose contentment to avoid being stuck in a negative thought cycle. Weird that you’re acting like they have sold out by choosing to become healthier when the option became available.

What a well-put post.

Only thing to add is that "body positivity" is a good thing if it means that people with slow metabolisms, little time or money to cook healthily and weight issues as a result, don't hate themselves and do realize that society and genes are as much, and probably much more to blame than some sort of personal moral failing.

We should try to be body positive in terms of not allowing our weight to depress us, but we should not lie to ourselves that it is in any way aspirational or ideal.

Have you read the literature?

That’s interesting. I know two people “on the pen”, both were overweight for many years, both did hardcore regimes to shed stones, were delighted but then went back to square one on the scales. For them the jabs are a godsend as neither was happy (or healthy) at the weight they were.

I have a friend whose husband is hugely overweight. He's also one of those people who is oblivious to how much he eats. she has tried to get him to think about this, but he doesn't. As a lot of his weight is on his middle and he definitely is eating more than he should but NOT the sort of excessive amount you would expect to see with a man this overweight, she would like him to tae the drugs.

He read one thing, in passing, about possible impact on th epancreas and is refusing to even consider it.

People liek him, and you, just show your ignorance regarding how weight loss works, how the injections work and what actually causes obesity.

These are not new drugs. They’ve been around for 20 years.

OP - It’s because you’re looking on social media where people post positives.

It's all for more followers and likes. They have an audience and want people to relate.

I think that there is a very large difference between

(1) having a personal positive mental attitude and not letting the negatives get you down (whether that is your rusty old car or weight or the fact your friends have drifted away) on the one hand,

and

(2) celebrating bad things on the other. Pretending that you would not swap your rusty 20 year old car that breaks down every other week for a newer model. Pretending that you never liked having people to talk to anyway.

Body positivity (combined with realistic beliefs about health implications) from a PMA point of view is great... trying to create a world where obesity (which kills) is celebrated is, on the other hand borderline evil, IMHO.

Best comment on the thread. The intellectual laziness of the “eat less/run around more” cult never ceases to amaze me.

Honestly as an overweight person I do admire people who are slim ans toned at my age. It takes discipline and work to maintain a good level of fitness and not succumb to eating too much.

Possible to love your body and take measures to be healthy?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10159347/

Maybe those people are confident about their bodies no matter how fat or thin they are? Which is pretty admirable, in my opinion.

We live in a deeply fatphobic society (just look at some of the comments on this thread). Nobody will be more aware of that than a fat person. You're telling me you can't see why someone given the opportunity to lose weight and be more acceptable by society's standards wouldn't take that opportunity, having spent their whole lives being treated differently because of their body? Even if that person worked really hard to feel confident before?

I'm all for body autonomy and positivity. If that means someone choses to love their body as is then that's great. if that means someone decides to lose weight, then so be it. It's really none of my business, and I'd suggest you stop looking to other people's confidence to bolster your own.

Comparison to smoking is such a bad idea - there is nothing good about smoking. Remember these medications are also prescribed for diabetes so alarmist posts about future harms could be upsetting.

Every medication is new at some point and it takes decades to fully evaluate their benefits and harms - so should we stop developing new medicines?

I agree that people probably use body positivity as a means of deflecting and of self-protection. But also - nothing on SM is as it seems so I can’t get too worked up about it.

Just seems odd that decades ago there weren't that many obese people but now calorific food is everywhere and very easily accessible loads of people are obese but it's because of a sudden upswing in hormonal issues and definitely not because people are eating a lot more than they think.

I'm 5'2, in my 40s, currently about 11.5 stone, losing weight at 1700 calories.

Perhaps I have more muscle due to strength training but I wouldn't have thought it would make 100s of calories a day difference.

Yes, we should really start considering compulsory don't be a fuckwit sessions to tackle this sort of behaviour. It's becoming endemic.