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?

Right - she was already 30 stone, the radical feminists have not made her 30 stone.
So whatever she was doing before wasn't, by your lights "working".
So how do you know this is going to be worse, and by what definition of worse?
Maybe being told it is ok to be 30 stone will get her exercising instead of being ashamed to be seen trying.

No!

I obviously am not explaining this well..

She was, up until recently, taking steps towards losing weight. She has been trying for a while, but obviously finds it very hard to exercise etc, and she has actively been eating less. She has been for a consultation for a gastric band. Whether it was 'working' or not was irrelevant at this stage, she was accepting that it needed to change.

Since joining this group, she has decided to fuck all that, as she now says that the doctors are only trying to get her to conform, they are misogynist, etc etc. She has gone back to eating as she did before, and didn't go for the follow up with the consultant.

YY Vinegar Ive seen posts on the Relationships board where the OP has said that her partner goes to the gym straight from work and then moans that his partner has put on weight but will they look after their own DC so that the lady can get to the gym?

Ive seen a few threads like this.
And what some men seem to want is a woman who can/will eat steak and chips with them and still stay slim
There are 3 of us in our SW group who are excsersising our guts out but it just isnt showing on the scales ( ive lost half a stone in 2 months) A guy from my SW class whos going to the gym is having the same problem but his body fat percentage gets recorded at the gym and hes lost 1% of it.

Last night i found myself googling fat binders and carb blockers because i dont see what else i can do that im not already doing. Those arseholes doing the fat shaming week havent helped matters but i felt i had to stand up to them.

SlangKing thats a bloody fab post and very insightful.

Some of you may find this thread an interesting read.
My posts appear on it from about page 10.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1824580-to-think-the-diet-industry-is-utterly-evil

I have been obese all my life, with periods when I have managed to reduce my weight. So far I have not found a way of "fixing" myself permanently.

It is akin to my (luckily relatively minor) depression, something which I logically know can be improved if I take certain steps but which can be hard to tackle and get to grips with and I haven't found a permanent "fix" for either.

It seems likely that these are both battles I will continue to have throughout my life.

However, I do not need people to "approve" of my weight or my mental health. I just need them to accept that I am doing my best and to know that their judgement has never helped me deal with either issue in a positive way. What helps are the people who show care and compassion.

TBH I don't care whether the people who bullied me in the past were doing so from a feminist perspective. It was still bullying.

DSM Any group who are encouraging people to ignore the advice of their Dr when it comes to serious health issues is obviously wrong.

But I'm amazed that you haven't mentioned this earlier in the debate. Surely that's your main argument? That rather than just asking for acceptance they are convincing people to ignore information given to them by health care professionals.

DSM, I do get what you are saying, but the bigger picture is not the last few weeks, during which you believe your friend was taking medical advice, and that ultimately it would have "worked" (you are not in a position to know either of these facts for sure by the way)

The bigger picture is your friend's whole life.

If, just suppose for a second that the issue is your friend's weight, then:

Either conventional advice works but your friend has been unable to follow it long term.
Or it doesn't, or at least doesn't work for your friend.

so it's not going to get worse is it?

However, the issue as far as feminism is concerned, is not your friend's weight but how society treats women who are of a certain weight and whether they have to put up with it or not.

There are a million factors over a very long time that go into making a person 30 stone.

firstly, you get a bit chubby
then someone slaps your arse and laughs on the school bus. You are christened "chubster"
then you start avoiding PE because it is embarrassing
Then you find that alcohol makes you feel much more confident and warmer and people seem to be nicer to you, when you and they have had a lot to drink

etc etc etc

The question is, how different would that woman's life had been if society had been behind her and she had never given up PE, never decided that she couldn't wear shorts, never decided that she needed a bottle of wine inside her to have a laugh?

that story could have gone another way. There are other women who decide on the day of the "chubster" incident that they will do everything in their power to get and stay slim and never be humiliated again. Some of them are very resentful of women who have let themselves off that hook.

WhentheRed, right - and it could be that nothing has actually changed about what the woman was doing, but she has stopped feeling the need to tell all her friends that she is being a good girl and eating 1000 low fat calories a day. (that is what I meant when I pointed out that DSM actually has no way of knowing whether she was really following the doctor's advice before)

No one is ecouraging anyone to be fat by saying they have the right to be fat

Alcoholism, drugs, cigarettes/ hell even extreme sports are probably much worse for people's health and in some cases much more likely to affect others around them..

Funny enough I never see shaming tactics for the above..only for weight and almost always just for women who make the mistake of being fat.

There are 2 seperate Issues here, Obesity is absolutely unhealthy for both genders, and I agree with the sideline of freak fat fetsishizing that seems to be emerging now too,i.e fat for cash was on the other night, It its disturbing, most overweight people realize they need to change their lifestyle.

I say that as an obese person myself. I am young, married with 2 kids but I behave like an utterly normal person in some ways people find that harder to swallow I'm not some 'gagging for it fat lass' being apologetic/justyfing my existance with grotesque oversexed behaviour. Just in my experience,

However, the difference between how men and women who are obese are treat by comparision in society is absolutely a feminist Issue!!, the general line of thinking is you are not decorative so you are a lesser human being.men don't get stripped of their humanity/dignity in the same way women do.

In the past I've heard the idea that women who are overweight are doing three different things that our society says women shouldn't do:

Consuming more than a bare minimum of resources.
Taking up more than a bare minimum of space.
And of course, failing to look decorative in the currently fashionable manner.

So naturally, there is disapproval.

I haven't read all of it but has anyone mentioned the sexual abuse side of weight? I Have read previously that overweight women were more likely to have suffered sexual abuse in the past and weight and food is kinds of a "shield" and comfort factor.

So I would see that as making it more of a feminist issue too.

DSM - I didn't specifically address your OP previously cuz, like others, I found it confusing. It read like "Some women in my group who were obese/unhealthy yesterday are today obese/unhealthy and proud. I'm struggling to support the health aspect as a feminist issue." But their health hadn't changed, only the decision to label themselves 'proud' in a quest for empowerment. Where are we now - 130+ messages? - and still nobody has addressed the elephant in the room. Specifically, will deciding to be proud empower them or are they kidding themselves? In a political forum it's asking a lot from people to commit to a conclusion over such a sensitive issue. Of course, they can call themselves whatever they like but will it empower them? Who knows? We don't know them like you do. Turns out you're worried about your sister and friend but have tried to intellectualise something that's too personal. Kudos for trying, but it's backfired on you. Folly is the cloak of knavery - or something like that. I've seen from your subsequent posts that you've acknowledged that you're approach may've been misguided. In a political forum on a sensitive subject people will leap on any ill-chosen word or ambiguous phrasing and so they should. That said, now that it's obvious you're in some turmoil maybe the politics should take a back seat. Kicking someone when they're down ain't my idea of fun. I do wonder, though, if your reluctance to seek help in AIBU is due to a notion that you'll appear weak to 'indoctrinated geezers' like me - "It's OK to be upset you silly girl" - in which event you maybe need to ask yourself if (sometimes) the feminist cause demands similar conformity as patriarchal acceptance. I'm not seeking an answer. Your feminism is immaterial to me when I can see that you're distressed. A good time for reflection perhaps? I hope your sister remains healthy,, for both your sakes.

Tei - I think that is a very neat summation of how overweight women are seen as "transgressive" and therefore must be shamed into "complying" with what society deems a woman should be.

Yes very good summation TeiTetua. Nails it I think.

OMG Tei - I'd heard the usual bollox about smokers (me), obese/fat ppl and the other 'usual suspects' "draining the NHS" but I didn't know the moronic majority had expanded that to include all resources. If thems da rules, sure it's 'the healthy' who MUST BE DESTROYED! They have more than their fair share of oxygen, fruit, salad, veg and cereals. Burn more fossil fuels keeping warm and driving for 80 years,, eroding tyres and roads while they're at it. More domestic waste and utility consumption, etc. When they finally get around to dying (after expensive joint replacements, cataract surgeries) they cost the same as people who die young. As for taking up space, 4m sq of obesity watching Eastenders omnibus for 2hrs only takes up that 4m sq, but a 1.5m sq 'fittie' who spends that 2hrs doing a 10km run passes through 15,000m sq. (Space hoggin' bastards!). Finally, if lack of visual appeal is grounds for persecution, BBW sites are more popular than Matures so, all things considered, dying young is a considerate social gift! Seriously though, how does one identify the cryll-brained folk who peddle such twaddle? Tis them who actually need bullying out of their cerebral stupor.

I saw some internalised mysogyny today. i bumped into someone i used to be at college with today She asked how i was getting on with my weight loss so i told her how hard i was trying but not getting the results on the scales. (half a stone in two months) At one point she said to me "turn around and look at the girl behind you" So i did and saw a young woman in a burgundy dress (bit like a Herve Leger dress) then she said "would you wear that if you had bulges like her" I said yes i would theres nothing wrong with it.

This was AFTER id mentioned to her about my discovery of feminism 2 years ago and how empowering ive found it.
Why the fuck does looks even have to come into it. The young woman she was being derogatory about was slimmer than me and her although i do realise that is NOT the point.
Why do some people just not get it.

The NHS talks a load of arrant nonsense about health & body shape. I read a page the other day, which stated it's been proven that a large waist (they gave numbers) causes heart disease. This is impossible. A waist measurement can't cause a heart to do anything. The NHS made the very mistake of confusing causation with correlation. They'd do better by looking into the common factors in the heart disease of people with large waists, and focusing on that instead.

It also makes people think they must be healthy if they're slim and fit. Women, indeed, tend to assume they are healthier the thinner they are. Underweight puts a much bigger strain on the heart than over weight and, unlike obesity, ultimately causes multiple organ failure.

There's a long list of conditions which have been found less prevalent in patients on the overweight-obese part of the curve (massively obese have specialised ailments.) Nobody talks about the ways in which a substantial layer of fat makes you healthier. Again, this is important for women because fat transports hormones/neurotransmitters - and some vitamins - around the body. Statistically, fat women have bigger, healthier babies and fewer problems in childbirth.

I don't think there has been any pointed move to push women into become less healthy by becoming thinner, but that is the effect. Taken on a more metaphorical level, the trend is pointed that way - as Tei said, women are pushed to take up less space & be more physically insignificant. Fragile health ties in with that.

<strong>Darkest</strong>, I thought of posting this on one of your threads: Have you ever read <a class="break-all" href="http://failsafediet.wordpress.com/the-rpah-elimination-diet-failsafe/quick-reference-what-am-i-reacting-to/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Failsafe Diet</a> website? It's about food allergies & intolerances. I found it after I developed a severe allergy to sulphites, and am using it to identify other foods that make me feel sicker. I thought of it after reading about some of the symptoms you and Haggis described.

• sorry for typos. Am supposed to be programming.

Oh thankyou for that garlic Thats very kind

:)

Why do some people just not get it.

Oh, they do get 'it', just an entirely different 'it'. Never let anything get in the way of a good judging, you miss a chance to self validate your opinions. Hate is great for empowerment of a shallow soul.

YY dad

Just seen this post in AIBU on a "vanity clothes sizing thread" proving that even if you ARE doing something about your weight you STILL get snide remarks.

TalkinpeaceFri 11-Oct-13 22:49:48

Misty My point exactly.
randall most people who have a handle on their weight agree that vanity sizing is a BAD THING

the vast majority of those who think that sizes have risen for other than vanity reasons are fatter than they admit.
I know because we have a steady trickle of them landing in 5:2 land.