Overweight issue - debate

[DSM]

I've been thinking about this a bit recently, with the 'fat shaming' (which, as any other kind of 'shaming', is vile) and I have a couple of Facebook friends who have posted articles where basically they are justifying being overweight by using the 'my body my choice' line.

I'm conflicted.

First, I absolutely am a feminist and absolutely agree that no person should have to conform to any societal ideal, on anything.

However, I don't think it is 'okay' to be obese, and I don't think it should necessarily be a feminist issue. Both men and women who are obese are unhealthy. Fit people are not obese. I realise, it is not always a choice and there are a lot of people for whom obesity is a medical issue (my sister is one of them) but I certainly wouldn't expect those people to encourage others to be obese, or not tackle their obesity, by affiliating it alongside other feminist principles.

Thoughts?

Yes, and those pricks are ridiculous. Of course that's not obese.

Nothing about that fat shaming campaign is right. Nothing.

But that isn't the issue I am trying to discuss.

What When the red said Every word.

None of the fat- acceptance stuff I've seen claims that obese= healthy.

I think it's more about saying, "here I am, I'm a human being just like skinny people and I can do stuff and have a nice life and even wear nice clothes just like skinny people, even if I do have a less than ideal health issue."

I think fat acceptance is more about accepting the fat person , not the fat iyswim.

Just existing seems to be an issue for obese people. They can't exist without people judging and insulting them- even on the Internet. So actively putting themselves out there is a bold and brave act of self-esteem. It's really not about claiming that it's ok to be fat. It's about saying, I am just as valuable a person as anyone else.

Hmm I see what you mean whenthered, and that makes some sense.

I think though, my issue isn't with people commenting on obesity. It's more that I am not comfortable having obesity supported as a feminist issue, because I don't think it is something to be proud of or promote. It is not a healthy, or desirable way of life. And that had nothing to do with appearance, solely health.

I also think fat acceptance and obesity acceptance are different things. I have been overweight. I have overweight friends. They are no less attractive than my skinny friends.

But obese is different. That is when you reach a level that is no longer healthy. When your organs are struggling to cope with the weight. When you struggle with short walks.

Also, the only fat acceptance stuff I've seen is put out there by obese people? It's the same thing?

No, it's not. Overweight and campaigning for body size acceptance is great, and I support it entirely. I do not agree with the misogynistic ideal about skinny being attractive.

But you're just classifying women by their body size- healthy/overweight/obese bmi. What's the cut off point to be able to campaign about accepting your body, according to you?

How about just campaigning for women not to be judged on their bodies- whatever their size?

An obese person saying, "I like myself" does NOT = "I think my weight is ideal and I think everyone should be like me"

If you want to understand why people believe in fat acceptance, you should read this book: www.amazon.co.uk/Lessons-Fat-Sphere-Dieting-Declare/dp/0399534970

There is a ton of medical evidence to show that dieting is unhealthy and doesn't work, staying at a stable weight is actually better for you (blood pressure, cholesterol etc) than trying to starve yourself and messing up your metabolism.

Obviously it's great if people can exercise, but it can be hard to exercise in a society where you are laughed at and judged for being fat - lots of people are afraid of the judgement at the gym or of being seen in a bathing suit. Fat acceptance works to counter this and free people to like their bodies as they are and feel comfortable with exercise.

Extreme dieting will be unhealthy. As will putting on excessive weight. Dieting isn't about starving yourself. Dieting is about rewriting what you eat. Writing a diet that means you can live at a healthier weight without losing an unhealthy amount of weight or putting an unhealthy amount on

Actually smoking was a feminist issue for quite a long time.

It was always associated with rebelliousness, "new" women, women who were progressive, modern etc. In the thirties, forties and fifties, smoking was associated with sexiness, being grown up and sexual - a sign of sophistication. Anyone remember that dreadful film Sabrina Fair, with Audrey Hepburn, where one of the signs that she is grown up and "ready for love" (vom) is that she now smokes?

When the Women's Liberation movement came along, advertisers hijacked it and Virginia Slims launched a big advertising campaign which promoted the idea of smoking as being associated with liberation. They actually launched cigarettes specifically for women read all about it And I distinctly remember Kim cigarettes in the 80's harking back to that slogan - even that late, when all the health risks were no longer even debated, they were still latching on to the idea that smoking was for liberated women and coming up with marketing campaigns around that idea.

Sorry, bit of a diversion but it might be vaguely connected in that it links into the OP's uneasiness about latching onto the liberation of women to sell stuff (or ideas, or concepts) that are positively harmful to women - like smoking in that case, obesity, lapdancing as empowerizement, skyscraper heels as powerful, etc.

TBH I think dieting is pretty much a harmful thing most of the time.

It has a 90%+ failure rate. Most people 5 years after a diet, will be fatter than when they first started and will have done at least one or more other diets in between.

They haven't been "extreme" dieters, just people who started off wanting to lose a few pounds and somehow got sucked into that yoyo thing.

Fat is a Feminist Issue is really worth reading on this even though when she wrote it the dieting-as-normal-state-of-being-for most-women-in-the-western-world hadn't really got going. Still totally relevant today though, IMO.

I am obese. My opinion is that my body is not your bloody business. I don't believe that you can call yourself Feminist and make judgements about my body and therefore me. You don't know me.

Wasn't it lenin who said that comfort eating was the one form of self medicating that still leaves you 100% able to function? (Cheap too, relative to drugs or gambling, say)

which is another interesting factor - ties in with the moral judgements you are lazy and especially weak

The fact that there are lots of societal and MH issues that lead to weight being a gendered issue doesn't stop the fact that being morbidly obese (as opposed to BMI 26!) is unhealthy. You can't fight biology. It's massively unfair that women's fertility drops off a cliff after 35 whereas men reman fertile until very late in life, but that is how it is. Being very overweight is unhealthy, and I am also uncomfortable with obesity seemingly being the backlash against body fascim (I am by no means skinny, I am a generous size 14). The message we should be sending women is that it is about health. We should love ourselves enough to take good care of our bodies. Our bodies which live our lives, carry and feed our babies, and hopefully walk us into a healthy and mobile old age.

I have a few friends who are very overweight (size 22+). As we get older, the impact on their health and mobility is becoming worryingly apparent. One friend really struggles to get in and out of the car. This is real, quality of life stuff. Pretending it isn't because women get a lot of crap about weight and appearance is an unhelpful lie.

I don't think people are pretending it's only about that. The health aspect is real. The point is it's no one's business what anyone dies with their bodies yet people feel uninhibited about doing so.

What seems to be emerging from this thread is we should be aiming for disinterested neutrality on the subject of other people's weight.

Pretending the comments and attitudes are just about concern for health isn't right either. it just gives a smug little cover for good old fashioned judging. (not saying you are doing that, of course!)

And it is more women that are judged as people for being fat. Fat women seem to regarded as an irrelevance, more than men, imo.

Surely it is a feminist issue when women are "shamed" or "attacked" for how they look? Whether she is 3lb or 300lbs overweight she has a right to not be shamed because she is not deemed sexually attractive.

I wouldn't worry about the "making obesity acceptable". Health care professionals, the government, etc won't change how obesity is handled because people who are obese are making memes about being attractive and happy with the way they look.

It is about abusing women. In the pic on my twitter account i am a size 12/14 They still abused me for being overweight.

And yes the links between poverty and obesity ARE real.

I gained a lot of weight in the late 90s when on JSA We were paid by giro once a fortnight and it just wasnt enough to buy food for the whole fortnight So for a few days a week i wasnt eating So on the days i did eat my body stored it because it knew it was going to be going without again at some point.
In 2001 i got a quite well paid job in a sex chatline office. It was this wage that paid for me to join Slimming World the following year where i lost ten stone.....a stone a month for seven months. A MEDICALLY QUALIFIED NHS surgeon told me that losing the weight too quickly was what gave me gallstones.

DH....heart attack in 2006 We were living on 40 pounds a week by 2008 and i started to gain weight again.
Ive gained back some but nowhere near all of what ive lost. Now im not on JSA at the mo but many women who are on this or very low wages how on earth are they supossed to afford a decent supportive sports bra!!!!! Something men dont have to worry about when excersising.

Acceptance is not the same as promotion

Exactly. I am completely accepting of people being obese. I have said before, I don't care. I am unaffected, and literally do not give a crap what size a person is. But I do not like the idea of feminist appropriation to obesity. I am not comfortable with it, as it's not about being attractive (actually the fact that this is the instant conclusion many posters here have jumped to is indicative of ingrained patriarchy) it's about being healthy.

Obesity is not a healthy state to be in. Nor is morbidly underweight - and I feel the same way about that, it's just this particular discussion was sparked by the recent 'fat shaming'.

I don't judge overweight or obese people. I have been one. I don't judge, at all.

Basil your smoking analogy is brilliant. Very interesting. I would abhor that now, as I am sure most people would. And you hit the nail on the head for me - I am uneasy with using feminism, or womens liberation alongside anything that is potentially harmful; as you said, smoking, lap dancing, prostitution, porn, obesity...

Of course it's unhealthy to be very obese, but fundamentally it isn't anybody else's business. I see what you mean about feeling uncomfortable about feminism being seen to 'promote' something unhealthy, but I think that a) you are over-estimating the cultural power of feminism against what is the mainstream view, and b) you arent giving enough emphasis to the fact that the whole concept of fat-shaming is deeply misogynistic.

Men who are overweight don't face anything like the same contempt for transgressing societal demands that they exist for the aesthetic pleasure of the opposite sex.

I feel that it's important that feminists (and all right-thinking human beings) assert the right of anybody to be accepted as a full person, regardless of their physical appearance. And that sometimes means dumping faux concern for people's health and confronting your own prejudices.

Add to that the massive amount of harm the diet industry does to women, and the fact that eating disorders are experienced far more often by women, I really would not be in a hurry to line up with the agenda of the 'fat-shamers'.

the diet industry and celebrity culture feed off each other. A good example of this was the Weight Watchers ads last January featuring Patsy Kensit and Greg Wallace.