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?

DSM, firstly, you are being very triggering on this thread. Just so you know. I think you should consider reporting this to mn and getting a note in the title that makes it clear that it is not suitable for people with eating disorders.

Secondly - I know someone has touched on this but I just want to come back to it - you are, I believe, misunderstanding "obese". A person with a BMI of 30 or over is technically obese. For a person who is 5 foot 7 that is around 13 stone 11, and that looks like this:

how2peelanonion.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/weight-other-side-of-my-love-of-food.html

(this is not me. Apologies if this is your blog and you don't want this linked to but by the way I think you are bloody gorgeous, blogger)

Scroll down to the "before" picture - that woman is technically obese. To me she looks like she can run up the stairs as many times as she needs to and perhaps enjoys a game of tennis. I don't think we all need to fan ourselves with fear about her health or mobility. On the other hand - we could be wrong. WE CAN'T TELL BY LOOKING. And on YET another hand, EVEN IF WE COULD, HER HEALTH IS HER BUSINESS.

Thirdly, you really need to let go. If a very overweight feminist includes standing up for her right to have the body that suits her, as part of her feminism, who is that harming? she isn't making anyone else be a particular way, or be more unhealthy (even if fat = unhealthy, which it doesn't). You seem to be talking about health as a cover for something else. Because you don't become unhealthy by sharing a political movement with people who could stand to lose a couple of stone. Is it that you don't want your movement to be associated with that sort of thing? because it doesn't look good?

Oh dear god, no!

Firstly, I am not misunderstanding obese. I have stated multiple times, on this thread, that I do not pay attention to BMI. The word obese is used, and I have explained, for people who are of a morbid weight. Not people who are overweight.

I don't know why you are telling me to 'let go'? This was a discussion topic, a request for intelligent debate and conversation on a pretty specific subject.

I don't give a fuck what someone looks like, and I am pretty appalled that you would suggest that, I assume you are trying to shame a reaction out of me. It won't happen. That, to any intelligent person reading this thread, is not, and has never been implied.

If you seriously think this thread is about me thinking I will 'become unhealthy by sharing a political movement with people who could stand to lose a couple of stone', then I respectfully ask you to bow out.

But DSM - if you use the term 'obese' you must expect posters to assume you're using the standard definition of the word. If you're ONLY talking about people who are morbidly obese (and even then I find your attitude rather unkind and unsympathetic) you should have said so from the beginning. In the first paragraph of your OP you complain about people who are merely 'overweight' justifying themselves.

You are misusing "obese". You are using it as a shorthand for something that it doesn't technically mean and this is dangerous in a very loaded area like this. You don't get to decide what "obese" means any more than you get to decide what "table" or "centimetre" means. You may or may not pay attention to BMI, but obese = BMI of 30 or more. If you don't want to talk about obese people in that sense, pick another word.

When I say "let go" I am suggesting that you "let go" of other people's feminism and what matters to them. I am not saying "don't talk about it" I am saying "stop being so emotionally invested in something that is not your problem". You are SO SO SO SO LUCKY that it is not your problem. If you can't support it, forget about it and don't argue with it.

Of course I do not think you will become unhealthy. I was just wondering what you are so worried about - because you are talking about health a lot, but that must surely be a red herring

I see what you are saying, and I do understand. I guess in my head I wouldn't ever equate 'obese' to mean anything other than morbidly overweight, because I dismiss BMI's. I apologise if anyone has misunderstood my comments to be in reference to people who are simply overweight. I have explained this many times on the thread, but you're right, I should have been clearer from the beginning.

I am not unkind, or unsympathetic. I could not care less what size someone is - it does not affect me. I do not care. I do care, when I promote feminism and all that goes along with feminism, and teach my children that feminism is right in all it's forms - and then there is a sub division who are appropriating feminism to a particular issue that is not healthy, or empowering for women.

It is extremism, as there always is in any political movement. There are other aspects of extreme feminism that I also am uncomfortable with, but those aren't the subject of this debate.

It's not actually about me, or my opinions, this is an open discussion!

I guess I am referring to health in a very specific way because my friend, who sparked this conversation, is very unhealthy at her weight, and was trying to do something about it until this new wave came along and she seems to have jumped on it and decided her size is no longer a problem, and in fact it is anti-feminist to suggest she should have to change.

Perhaps I have been to personally invested in this to have been as objective as I intended.

How can you tell if someone is (by your own definition, which differs from the actual definition) morbidly obese if you don't take account of looks but also don't take account of BMI?

I don't even know how to answer that vinegar. It's rather obvious when someone is at a stage when they are excessively overweight.

And you can't see BMI either, so your point is moot.

In the nicest possible way I think you are very confused. Other people have tried to explain this to you, but I will try again, based on this:

"appropriating feminism to a particular issue that is not healthy, or empowering for women."

Fat acceptance is not promoting being fat.
Fat acceptance is promoting not penalising people for being fat.

What IS healthy and empowering for women, is for women not to have their bodily profile at the heart of their persona in the world. For people not to have the right to abuse them or discount them because they do not have patriarchy-sanctioned bodies.

As a separate issue, you believe that the fat itself is a problem for people to have too much of it. I really think that is the bit you need to let go of. Because:

1 - as explained above, that is not what fat acceptance is about
2 - anyway it is not necessarily in itself unhealthy or disempowering
3 - if it were, that would be none of your business
4 - there may, quite literally, be nothing they can do about it. honestly, this is sometimes the case and very little understood by some people,
5 - even if there is something they can do about it, it could quite literally take up nearly everyone's waking hours dealing with the matter. I am not obese (in your sense, or in the actual sense) but I put weight on very easily and sometimes I could cry when I think of the waste of my life spent in calorie counting, agonising about my weight, exercising without enjoying it purely to burn calories, and being non-functional because I am deliberatley operating on a severe calorie deficit. I have wasted my life on the matter. If I had not, I would probably be twice the size, but who knows what else I would have accomplished. If a person has the guts to stand up to society's hatred and qualify as a lawyer and fight human rights abuses (or be a musician or a teacher or a doctor or a bloody good parent or whatever else they could do) rather than fainting on a treadmill for 2 hours every day, and as a result weigh 20 stone, well in my book bloody good luck to them, and they are a better person than me.

so when I say "let go" I mean this very seriously, it is a crie de couer. The pressure of the gaze of everyone who would prefer you to be smaller is leading to the gradual erosion of having the time, inclination or self confidence to lead an authentic life. So please please please let go of other people's fat.

I suspect you imagine that person being just as they are but eating fewer crisps, wearing a 12 / 14 and (you imagine) living longer. It isn't like that. It is giving up your life. For some people they have simply no other way to be and so when you say "you shouldn't be like that" you are saying "I don't approve of your existence"

Keeping people busy on treadmills and hungry is a way of utterly negating their existence even if they don't actually die

of course some die too

The thing is, BMI is imperfect but it does actually correlate clinically with health outcomes. Unlike your subjective opinion. I think that's what a few people are saying - that you have no idea how healthy or not someone is just by looking at them.

By all means bring up your DC to understand the importance of healthy eating & exercise, but don't correlate that with your own judgement about whether someone is "too fat" by looks alone.

I have been so misunderstood on this thread, I wish I hadn't started it.

I have been overweight, very overweight. I know the struggle to get weight down, I know it isn't that easy. My sister has a medical condition, which has meant she is at a size which is very unhealthy, and there is little she can do about it. I am very supportive of her, and hate the comments that people make. Believe me, I am more than aware of what you are explaining.

I also agree that people who are bigger can be more healthy than people who are smaller. I have said that numerous times.

But people who are 30+ stone are not healthy. No matter how you look at it, no matter how you try to justify it, that is not healthy.

I do not have anything to let go of. I do not care, or gaze, or comment (other than, obviously, on this thread!) about peoples weight. I have no interest in it, I cannot 'let go' because I am not holding onto it. I do not care.

But, I don't think it is about appearance, or being judged on appearance. It is about society 'judging' or commenting on people who are unhealthy. Much like smokers, drug users, alcoholics.

I do not think this is a feminist issue, because it should not be associated with looks.

I don't suggest she change. She does, her doctors do. She is at a point where she struggles to walk unaided, she is using a breathing machine at night. She was tackling the problem.

Now she isn't because she has found a group of radical feminists who have convinced her that her size is empowering, and she actually believes her male doctor was being patriarchal when he told her to lose weight.

She has also got my sister to join the group, which is worrying for me as she too is heading down that path and doesn't have the capacity to realise how wrong it would be to continue gaining weight.

I really tried not to make this about her, or turn it into an 'AIBU to be worried about my friend..' and genuinely have a proper, intelligent discussion, but I have failed. I presume I have been too emotionally attached to be as objective as I would have liked.

Are your opinions of your friend and sister so low that you think their intelligent knowledge of the health risks of extreme obesity will disappear because of a FB group?

Please don't define my friends change in direction by suggesting I have a low opinion of her.

She has joined a group, yes it started on FB but they have been meeting up, and has genuinely decided that the doctors are wrong and just trying to get her to conform to a patriarchal ideal, rather than actually having a concern for her wellbeing. And she invited my sister to join, which she has accepted, and she does not have the intelligent knowledge of the health risks to evaluate both sides and make her own decision, she will go along with whats being told to her.

Again, this was not meant to be a personal issue - I am sorry it has delved into that.

stopdoingthat absolutely. There are many reasons why women put on weight (and men) and they could definitely, in some circumstances, be attributed to feminist issues - particularly from pregnancy and BF, though the rest of your list could be as easily attributed to men).

I agree that people are overweight for many reasons, and no one should be judged for anything, including their size.

But I am really referring to extremism.

The thing is, it is personal, because you aren't interested in a wide ranging discussion about whether 'fat is a feminist issue'. You seem to just want to discuss your opinion of your definition of obesity and the way one specific FB group has affected your morbidly obese friend and sister.

Not really something any of the rest of us can comment on then!

But that's exactly what I am interested in discussing!

Obviously, everyone wants to discuss their own opinion, isn't that the point of a discussion

I really don't mean this to sound flippant. I don't mean it flippantly at all. but from the sounds of it, it doesn't sound like the conventional message of not-explicit but very implicit fat-shaming was working for your 30 stone overweight friend. It's not like, ooh everything was fine and then she met a radical feminist who told her it was ok to be fat and suddenly she is 30 stone overweight.
I think it may be the case that the radical feminist will make no change at all to her weight, but help her to find some happiness.
On the other hand, it may be the case that if she had met the radical feminist when she was 2 stone overweight (15 years ago, or whatever) she would now be 2 and a half stone overweight rather than 30.

But you are telling everyone else that their definition of obesity is wrong, and in fact you want to limit obesity to a tiny tiny % of women who are visibly morbidly obese. Not to mention the fact your thread title says overweight and not obese....

So let's discuss my earlier point which you have conceded is valid - that for many women, weight issues start/are exacerbated by the overwhelming changes to our bodies that occur as a result of physically having children.

It is then perpetuated by the societal norms that make it OK for fathers to go to the gym/running/cycling every night while assuming the women will pick up the slack. And norms that mean women do the bulk of the domestic drudgery possibly contributing to higher rates of eating for comfort/out of boredom/loneliness etc.

And many other points already made on this thread.

But your argument seems to be entirely based on your friend's experience...?

mildred - she was already 30 stone. My issue is exactly what you have said - the radical feminists she has grouped up with, are encouraging her to make no change at all to her weight, and that she should and can be happy. That's great, I genuinely want her to be happy, but she will die.

This group has made her believe that she is being oppressed by being told she has to lose weight.

mooncup - yes, I know, and I did not intend that at the beginning. I started this thread without specifics, because I was feeling uncomfortable about this group and my own feelings towards it, which were conflicting between believing entirely in promoting a healthy body image and not patriarchal ideals, and promoting the same thing when it gets to a dangerously unhealthy level.

I hope that makes sense. I didn't want this to descent into a personal attack, or upset anybody with my use of certain words - that was not the intention. I really just wanted a reasoned debate which I hoped would help me sway one way or the other towards an opinion.

Like I say, I think I have been skewed in some of my comments because this is personal to me, but I was trying to keep it unbiased.