Does the age of Ozempic and MJ jabs expose what a load of bollocks the ‘Body Positivity’ and ‘Health at any Size’ movements were

[Lardychops]

I was always very clear in my own mind as a very overweight woman, that the body positivity moment was far less about inclusion and moral neutrality around body size (including when seeking healthcare, and waaayy more about trying to persuade/pressurise men into include larger/very fat women in their dating pool. It seemed to wholly focus on fat being seen as sexy (‘real men actually want meat not bones’ etc) and also included a lot of thin-shaming/highly derogatory language about men and women who have/prefer slim or smaller bodies
With the wide availability of Weight loss jabs, however, as far as I can see many of the movement’s most ardent activists and celebrity advocates appear to have done a complete U-turn and are literally unrecognisable as half (or even a third) of the person the used to be!!
From Megan Trainor proving that it wasn’t ‘all about the base’ after all, and to Lizzo who would at one point only hire plus size dancers and backing singers; to the plus size influencers Gabby Lascano and Sophie Goodman who literally built their careers reaching 1000’s of followers, on the ‘big is not only beautiful but BETTER ’ mantra -they are all literally shrinking in plain sight!!

I have lost stacks of weight on WLI’s and am no longer fat. It’s fabulous and a game changer.
I make no bones about the fact that I would crawl through a mile of shit for my weekly dose/pay double for them if I had to. Same for many of my friends. We hated being fat when we were fat and made no secret of it.

I feel that the (now very slim) previous proponents of the body positive /fat is beautiful and healthy (see also: slim, fit attractive men should date us or they are evil shits ) movement are total
hypocrites given the numbers of people that buy their music/watch their films/ consume their content follow them on SM etc etc - many of which can’t access these miracle cures for financial/health reasons etc.
The knots these women tie themselves in trying to justify their weight-loss while not looking like a total twat ( they do - just be honest love ) to satiate their larger bodied fans is utterly galling and I think exposes the whole moment for what it was.

My take? And I’ve been a range of sizes.

Body positivity was always a rationalization.

At the end of the day … hey whatever…Nothing really affected me about it one way or another (except the vanity sizing…that shit ain’t cool). So if someone wants to tell themselves that they are healthy at 200#s or they are big boned or whatever ok good luck with that.

You know what I like an evening cocktail… is it healthier than not drinking Not so much sadly. But the difference is I’m not going to waste time nor effort pretending it it is. I’m just going to own the fact I have an evening cocktail.

I think this sort of tired whataboutery will also die out once WLI have really brought the UK obesity figures down.

I grew up in the 70s when all the whataboutery was from smokers trying to deflect, and point the finger elsewhere.

I could never have imagined a time when hardly anyone smoked, and the majority of people's eyes were opened up to the damage it does.

I think the same will definitely happen with obesity during the next decade or so.

You can blame them for adding in addictive substances for profit. Which sugar is.

And yes - personal responsibility. Of course that matters. However what you're suggesting, I would like to see that applied across the board, with your household being the first to go under scrutiny. One whiff of anything slightly not virtuous, a free choice you're happy with - or one of your kids is happy with - and sorry, to private healthcare you go. I'm betting I'll find something. Likely many somethings. With biometric data collection being what it is these days you should be careful - one day you may find the standards you apply to fat people are pointed back at you.

How's your vaping rates? Ours are through the roof. More people are smoking and vaping in NZ now than when I was a kid in the 90s. Crazytown.

And not whataboutery. You say people's free choices that result in bad outcomes should not receive care on public healthcare. I would agree with you in theory as long as that extends to ALL free choices that impact on health, not just the ones you don't like. That includes things like vax history, food intake, exercise, alcohol and substance use (ALL substances), sleep patterns, work choices, sexual behaviors and number of partners, stress management, behaviours when sick, personal hygiene, recreational pursuits, choice of transport etc etc. All of that is personal responsibility too.

My guess though is you don't like to consider that because that tramples on your "rights". Whereas you just want to be able to beat down on fat people.

I'm getting a bit sick of this "overweight" nonsense on this thread. Being obese is unhealthy, being a bit overweight not necessarily so. I had a friend who was slim. They smoked, drank every day, and didn't eat a healthy diet. I've never smoked, don't drink, and eat loads of fruit and vegetables but because I am a little overweight am I unhealthy while my friend is healthy simply because they are slim? I recently saw my GP regarding my BP. He looked at me and said "you're fine". Stop trying to make everyone who isn't slim feel bad about themselves - you aren't some superior beings you know.

No, it doesn't, OP, HTH.

I went and scrolled through Instagram after reading this thread and saw a fat yoga teacher, a fat runner and a fat weightlifter. Try as you might, I don't think there is a negative spin you can put on that. They're women showing other fat women how to exercise and inspiring them to see that size is not a barrier to becoming active. Surely that's something we want. Being body positive in fitness spaces is really helpful as a lot of fat people can feel anxious about being seen exercising, what they look like in gym clothes, whether certain exercises (like yoga!) are just for thin women. Again, nothing to do with the OP's ridiculous assertion that it's all about making men date fat women. Nothing about encouraging people to stay fat. Just a simple message that being active is good for you, mentally and physically, and you can do it whatever size you are. That's body positivity. What problem could anyone have with that?

Being obese doesn’t mean the same as being ignorant or somehow stupid.. You write like an obese person doesn’t know what being so overweight weight is unhealthy for multiple reasons, let alone that people snigger quietly when you walk in a room or a use themselves saying I like your dress and immediately smiling with an eyebrow lift at the person next to them. Being very over weight is complex. It is not as simple as ‘eat less, move more’. No one would be obese if that were the case.

I think some may have been like that. I used to really the ones who were encouraging women to just live even if they were fat, go to a yoga class, treat yourself nicely. Losing weight is pretty hard and for some people just embracing where they were and living well regardless was the point. How many women are constantly on a diet, feel the need to tweak their appearance to be “acceptable”. I very much admired the women who went “fuck it, imma put these shorts on and do a pole dancing exercise class”.

I think a lot of people simply haven't engaged with body positive accounts. They've seen some obnoxious rage-baity stuff like someone posting that only a dog likes a bone or whatever and think that's body positivity. It isn't - it's just someone being obnoxious online for attention. You get that in every sphere; it is not a body positivity thing. It's an irritating online thing. If you go and look at the actual body positive community, you see it's about support and encouragement to fat people to have self worth and feel that they're allowed to exist and be seen and do normal things without shame and self-hatred. That just is not a problematic thing.

Any movement will have its fringe weirdos and nutters who distort it. You can't them be emblematic of the rest of the group.

The problem is that if your algorithm doesn't bring you into contact with the wider body positive community then all you've seen is the clickbait extremism, and you think that's all there is to it. Which simply isn't the case!

I agree with you @Lardychops.

I had to Google lizzo and Megan trainer.

They both lost loads of weight. Obviously WLI.

I guess no one does want to be fat after all.

I can see it from different angles, a few years ago my BMI was 32. I’m 5ft 1 and was over 80Kg during the pandemic after stress eating multiple takeaways daily. Yes. More than one takeaway on the same day! 😣

I struggle to notice my weight so I didn’t realise until I weighed myself in summer 2021 and suddenly saw myself as huge. I didn’t want to leave the house, which I already had anxiety doing since the pandemic had started and felt miserable about it so the poor eating choices continued.
There was a gym in my apartment complex but I felt so self conscious going. I also noticed people around me treated me differently than from when I was a size 8. This made me feel worse and probably helped contribute to the low mood and then sugar binges.

Body positivity content creators helped me to have the confidence to go for walks, to go to the gym and to just approach weight loss from a place of “hey let’s feed my body nourishing food as an act of love”. They also spoke out against fatphobia in society and pointed out the hypocrisy of those who celebrate thinness even if it’s achieved or maintained by unhealthy habits. And reminded us there’s more to life than being consumed by your weight.

As a result I became less stressed, my sleep improved my cortisol levels probably went down, my blood pressure certainly did and so did my weight. Obviously all this wasn’t because of body positivity but it helped.

The other day I had a look at my NHS medical records, and I was so chuffed to update the 2022 weight reading of 80kg to my current weight which is 63Kg.

However I do realise there are some influencers who categorically stated if there was a magic pill they could take to lose weight they wouldn’t . And now they’re on WLI, so it was clearly a cope and does make them look a bit disingenuous now.

And in some online communities losing weight was frowned upon and would lead to accusations by others that they didn’t in fact love their bodies. I see that as the more fringe elements of the BP movement though. Most - that I came across - were not that militant.

Tbh
It's more about finances
It's a slim pool of people who are helped by the NHS with their weight .
The rest of us are left with body positivity or paying for jabs
All the recent thinness just highlights who has spare cash for jabs and who doesn't.
I really don't think it's any more complicated than that

Has nobody else considered that there is far too much time and energy spent telling people (mainly women) whether they should be comfortable in their bodies or not?

I’ve lost 3 stone on WLI and have about another 2 stone to go. For several years I felt ‘less than’ and cloaked in shame because of the extra weight. I dressed in black ‘tents’ and disqualified myself from doing a lot of things because of the fear of people thinking I was too fat to be there.

To me, the body positive movement was more about encouraging women to accept who they are and live full lives anyway. Feeling totally trapped in my weight situation and the endless yo yo of one diet after another, I did actually like this way of thinking. But if any of the influencers tried to suggest they were actually happy being fat, I knew that was extremely unlikely. They were probably (like me) just tired of the constant ‘less than’ feelings so tried to smash it on the head by embracing it. At least that’s how I saw it.

Would have been far better to have been honest from the start and say ‘I find it really hard to lose weight so I’m going to make the most of who I am right now’ instead of pretending they actually loved the flab!

Losing weight and (so far) keeping it off has been incredibly eye opening for me. People DO treat me differently and are far nicer, more engaging. No, it’s not fair and we should accept people at all body sizes but that’s not how it works.

I am not massively familiar with the Health At any size slogan, but for me HAES means you should value movement and a healthy diet at any size. Trying to be as healthy as you can at whatever size you are.

However, I think the idea that you can be healthy at ANY size is questionable because being very fat at 25 is so different from being very fat at say 45. And also it depends on how fat. Are you 5ft 3 and 11 stone or 5ft 3 and 20 stone?

I think once you get to a certain age carrying a significant amount of excess weight, often its only a matter of time before the health issues show. There are always exceptions of course.

That said, I simply don’t believe most people involved in criticising or focusing on fat women are bothered about their health. I spent most of my adult life under 60Kg, size 8 and chucking back the cakes, chocolate and huge plates of pasta and no one was bothered. People would actually applaud it! I got a lot of admiring “ You lucky so and so - where does all the food go?”type of comment.

When I started getting past 70kg was when the snide comments from colleagues or even friends started. Was I sure I wanted to eat that calorie laden snack or have such a big slice of the cake?

Another example is I have a friend who lost 4 stone which is great and I am proud of her, but she seems to think that’s her health journey sorted, despite the fact she’s still a regular smoker and has been since her teen years.

Personally for me that wouldn’t make sense, my weight loss journey was driven by both health and “vanity” concerns - and mostly the former.

I don’t drink or smoke to begin with but my thing was sugar. I just consumed too much of it. It was a major goal of mine to reduce my sugar intake (and not substitute it with artificial sweeteners) even if it was within my calorie allowance, because it wasn’t just about losing the weight. I focused on overhauling my whole diet and eating more wholefoods, reducing UPFs and controlling my portions. I was also concerned with improving my fitness levels and now have a smartwatch to monitor my steps and heart rate. I got myself a body analysis machine and still do regularly check my body fat, visceral fat, body water, protein levels etc

I am so much more proud of the process and what it took for me to lose weight than the fact that I am significantly thinner now.

I recently had to give my own head a wobble when a colleague (who is tall and very athletic) brought his wife to the Christmas do and I was really surprised to see she’s a very large woman. They’re in their 30s and have been married for around 18 months. She’s probably around a size 26-28 and in my head, I started wondering if she’d always been that size, why didn’t she try WLI and all sorts of other thoughts. I was quite advanced down that path until I suddenly realised exactly what I was doing. Her weight is absolutely NONE of my business and yet here was my brain telling me it was. Felt quite embarrassed for myself when I realised that I too have absorbed some of the culture that seems to think the shape and size of other people is mine to judge. It’s not.

I hope that I never do that again but whether we like it or not, our ways of thinking are shaped by the culture around us.

Great post and very true.

That’s a great post and you put it better than myself - I do think if you are a bigger woman then get out and about, wear that nice dress, get your hair nice etc and enjoy yourself, don’t hide away and no people shouldn’t be making ‘who ate all the pies’ comments- but there’s no denying it’s shit for your health long term and very much so post menopause - - it all caught up with me post covid at 60 and I started getting unpleasant health stuff .

I'm still fat but I too find it hard to find clothes that actually fit. I have assumed the current fashion is very much a commercial decision. I've been trying on clothes and apparently I can fit in many of them from a size small to a large - they just hang differently. I think they are trying to make them fit as many people as possible rather than have them better fitting and limit their buyers. At the other end of the scale with a petite frame it's driving me crazy and I did say to my husband that I wondered where it left women with bodies smaller than mine.

That said shops do seem to be pulling back on their extended ranges. I think in the end it's all about money.

Yes, this! Losing significant amounts of weight and keeping it off feels utterly impossible. Prior to WLI, I’d started to genuinely wonder if there was something wrong with me. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t stick long term to a calorie deficit - I was just constantly craving food. A 1200 calorie diet left me permanently hungry and it was all consuming. I skipped birthday parties, weddings and family occasions because for me it was a choice between starving myself or feasting (and no in-between). My first thought in the morning was what I was having for breakfast and my lunchtime thought was what was I going to have for dinner. No relief, just constant thoughts about controlling my weight, feeling guilty about eating an extra biscuit or deciding if this was a day where I could be ‘off’ and eat whatever I wanted. Utterly exhausting. And then WLI came along and within a day, it just all stopped. No more torturous thoughts about food or weight or guilt or ‘days off’, just zero thoughts or emotions about food. Utterly incredible!

But influencers would do better if they were just honest about it. Admit you hated being fat but you were exhausted by the mental battle and decided to embrace it. But then WLI came along and changed everything. I actually think they’d get more views by being honest about it.

i am very interested in this thread as I am currently doing my dissertation on this very subject. So it is interesting to hear other views. (I will not be quoting anyone for ethical reasons if anyone is worried)

@waytooearlythisAM yep - I’m doing it without WLI as did 6 weeks and hated the side effects- but I think this is really individual - I’ve also got really good will power that was never my issue - I just liked too much of the nice healthy home cooked stuff -oh and wine ! And I ate far too much carb

Agree 💯

How interesting !
What’s your dissertation abstract ? What you looking at in particular? X