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?

Just came across this study that highlights the fact that 'fat shaming' has a negative effect on a person's ability to lose weight.

www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0070048

Considering women are always abused more as a result of weight gain than men I KNOW that this is a feminist issue.

This study shows direct discrimination toward obese women.

healthland.time.com/2010/09/22/explaining-the-gender-gap-obesity-costs-women-a-lot-more-than-men/

"The study found that obese women were paid lower wages than their normal-weighted counterparts, while obese men did not suffer any salary loss as a result of their belt size."

Came across the top link because I'm a regular over on Man Boobz.

The latest post on Man Boobz is about the subject of 'fat shaming', brought to us this week by the self confessed rapist and PUA Roosh V, who started all of this bullshit on 'Return Of Kings' with his disgusting 'Fat shaming Week.'

manboobz.com/2013/10/11/oops-roosh-vs-fatshamingweek-rallies-fat-acceptance-activists-makes-fat-shamers-look-like-the-dicks-they-are/

Read about the bastard Roosh V half way down on this Buzzfeed article:

www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/reddit-mens-rights-activists-are-fundraising-for-the-victim

"Roosh writes, “While walking to my place, I realized how drunk she was. In America, having sex with her would have been rape, since she legally couldn’t give her consent. It didn’t help matters that I was relatively sober, but I can’t say I cared or even hesitated. I won’t rationalize my actions, but having sex is what I do.”

You might not know who Roosh V is, but if he starts you talking about 'fat shaming' then this is definitely a feminist issue!

DSM, I understand where you're coming from, although I do think fat is a feminist issue to a certain extent.

However, I'm personally convinced that fat is actually far more of a class issue than a feminist one.

Working (and, let's be honest, 'under') class people are far more likely to be overweight compared with middle class people. Certainly more so than women compared with men.

I think fat in general is both a class issue and a feminist issue.

For different reasons, obv.

I think a distinction needs to be drawn between words like 'fat' and medical expressions like 'overweight'. One is a description of how someone looks. One is description of the status of their health.

Frankly neither of these is anybody else's business, but I would say that others being concerned about what people LOOK like is more often than not a feminist issue because people are always bloody going on about what women look like. 'Obese' started off as a medical term but is making the slide into appearance-shaming.

It's worth remembering that low self esteem and weight issues are so closely tied together that it's not clear which one comes first. Perhaps reclaiming obesity is more about reclaiming our self-esteem even if we are women and we are obese. Reclaiming my right to feel good about myself whatever YOU think about my appearance - and reclaiming my right to have my health be my own fucking business than you very much.

Made the mistake of reading this on my phone, and can't remember everything I wanted to reply to.

DSM, you seem convinced that being morbidly obese is all about health and has nothing to do with appearance. I can appreciate why it's the health angle that preys on your mind at the moment, but I have to disagree with you. Morbidly obese women are judged constantly for not conforming to socially acceptable standards of attractiveness. I'd say that alone makes it a feminist issue, because morbidly obese men aren't widely judged for the same.

If any group is promoting obesity as preferable to a "healthy" weight (whatever might constitute "healthy"), I'd be a little alarmed. But fat acceptance isn't about creating a scale of body shapes and sizes and saying "This end of the scale is better than that end." It's about throwing the scale out of the window and stopping judging people for their weight.

I don't agree that accepting obesity necessarily causes obese people to remain so. I've always been on the larger side, always vaguely meant to do something about it, but never really got round to it, because a lifetime of being told I was worthless because I was too fat to be fuckable meant my self esteem was at rock bottom and quite frankly, there didn't seem to be any point. There was an element of defensiveness in there too - buggered if I was going to lose weight and look prettier for all those bastards. Then I met someone who's attracted to larger women. Suddenly losing weight stopped being about trying to make myself more fuckable. His loving acceptance of my fat meant I was able to separate out a lot of issues surrounding my weight, and finally do something about them. Now my diet is good and I exercise daily, and (aside from the hideous smokers' cough) I'm pretty healthy, despite currently having post-pregnancy obesity to tackle.

I'm not just my fat. I'm not just a bundle of health issues caused by fat. I'm a whole person, a real live human being, and I deserve to be treated as one. People showing concern for my health didn't teach me that. They just highlighted that I was failing - failing at being healthy, failing at being thin, failing at being fuckable.

I'm sure there was plenty more I wanted to say, but haven't had chance to go back through the thread at leisure and order my thoughts. One final point though: when you tell other women that they should support this and they shouldn't support that, you're telling other women what to think, and that's very definitely a feminist issue. I find it very uncomfortable when I see people celebrating their fat and actively trying to increase it, but ultimately it's not up to me to police what they think about their own bodies.

Amen to that, Stormy

There is certainly a feminist issue in there. People laugh at Eric Pickles in a different way that obese women in the public eye. There is less tolerance of larger women than there would be of fat middle aged men in the City/public eye. David Cameron with his top off this summer looks as if he has put on three stone and frankly looks much worse than he ever did but I don't think he was subject to the criticism a female world leader who had put on 2 or 3 stone would have been.

I agree about class too. You could probably tell which people, male or female, were in which class reasonably well solely by whether or not they were overweight.

I don't personally think men and women who are fat look very good. Some cultures do believe that however - there are those girls in a tribe in Africa fattened in tents on loads of milk for months until they feel sick so they are fat enough to be attractive and of course it's women because just about everywhere it is always women having to change their appearance to suit men, rarely men.

I'm not just my fat. I'm not just a bundle of health issues caused by fat. I'm a whole person, a real live human being, and I deserve to be treated as one.

Your post summed it all up really well, imo, Stormy.

The class thing's interesting. Given that a raging metabolism is no predictor of wealth, should we assume there's even more pressure on middle & upper class women to be skinny?

... I imagine the answer to that's pretty obvious, since designers don't make clothes above a (real) size 14.

Thanks for those links Ophelia.
Stormy your post sums it up so well.
Out for my power walk this afternoon someone yelled out something from a van.
I couldnt hear what he said though because i had my mp3 up too loud. So it could have been derogatory or it could have been a compliment i have no idea. But why pass comment at all.

When it comes to the working classes vs middle classes and weight its hard for people lower down the economic scale to afford to eat healthily. And thats only going to get harder after this weeks news about fuel prices going up again.

I think a woman as big as Eric Pickles is, would never have been selected by any of the main parties as a candidate tbh.

I can't think of any woman MP ever, who's been as fat as him or Cyril Smith. I don't think it would be allowed.

Excellent point Basil.

Angela Merkel is not exactly skinny but certainly I agree women seek to control their weight a little more than men. Mind you that may simply be that they have more sense.If you're a normal weight you can move and bend and do things and life is easier than if you're overweight.

The internet frees people. A lot of women (and men) earn money behind a screen. They could be Chinese, obese, one legged, ugly or anything and their customers will not know. It is great that is so in so many areas of work these days.

I don't agree middle class professional women are normal weights because of pressure. I think they are normal weights because they have sense and a high IQ and simply eat well. We must not pathologise women who weigh 8 - 10 stone as somehow pressured and starving. They often eat a lot of good things and simply have not got obese.

There are plenty of intelligent middle-class professional women who are overweight. Weight certainly isn't just about money and intelligence and there are so many factors involved that generalisations aren't really that helpful.

So working class women in minimum wage jobs who cant afford to eat healthily are now going to be seen as not having any common sense or IQ Really??? This comes from the same sort of mentality that tells poor people that they are not managing their money properly. Those middle class woman CAN AFFORD to eat a lot of good things.
my best friend was a single mum on benefits throghout the 90s and most of 2000s and her daughter left uni this year with a maths degree.

A few other people raised class, above, not me. Class rather than whether you are male or female tends to be the determinant in whether you are overweight or not on the whole in the UK with of course a lot of exceptions. I also realise that plenty of those on the breadline in practice have to practise intermittent fasting (which can be good for people) not from choice as it were and are not overweight simply because they cannot buy the next meal. Not everyone without money is fat.

Brilliant post, Stormy.

I'm always a bit puzzled by the "but it's not healthy" observations about people that are obese. I always ponder those comments with a "no, shit sherlock, don't you think they know?" and a "what's it got to do with you?".

I am also a bit about the introduction of radical feminists to this thread, OP. Are they self-declared as such, or are you calling them that because you see their views as extreme? If the former, I would imagine that the reason why this is a radical feminist issue is exactly related to the transgressions list that Tei posted earlier. Obese men are generally viewed as non-sexual, I think, but obese women are viewed are anti-sexual, which is directly related to the status of women as the sex-class. And why the likes of a female equivalent of Eric Pickles is almost nthinkable. Non-sexual is OK, to a point, but anti-sexual for a woman is one of the biggest no-nos there is. Would a woman with the same credentials, including BMI, reach the same position as, say Digby Jones? No, for a multitude of reasons, one of which is that he looks well-fed in a gout-inducing successful way i.e. an excess of fine wine and heart-attack priming business dinners.

I would suggest that men have a much more subtle way of kidding themselves and each other that being an healthy weight for their height is OK. How many male bouncers have you seen that are not muscle-bound, but just tall and fat? Big is a positive thing for men, but not for women. The less a woman looks like a man (vis a vis height, width, amount of hair, general petiteness of features) the better, it seems, for a large proportion of the population. I don't know where I', going with this, or where it fits into the op, but I've written it now .

I don't agree middle class professional women are normal weights because of pressure. I think they are normal weights because they have sense and a high IQ and simply eat well.

Ooh, ouch...!!

I am middle class and slim, and that has even my hackles rising.

You simply cannot say that the reason working class women and men tend to be more overweight is because they don't have sense and their IQ is not as high. You just can't.

Everyone knows that too many calories in equals weight gain. You don't need a middle class education and a degree in rocket science to know that.

It's not about intelligence and common sense.

It costs money to eat well. Or, conversely, if you don't have much money, it is much, much cheaper, easier and quicker to eat crap. Even something as basic as bread. Standard issue white bread, is literally half the price - or even much less - than soy and linseed, sunflower and barley, spelt flour, mixed grain extravaganzas. And this applies to practically every food group. The crap product is inevitably much cheaper than the healthier alternative.

Is that you Xenia?

Basil You took the words out of my mouth!

Heh, of course it is!

She has been saying the same stuff (and more - she very much limits the expression of her interests to the audience) all over the net for years.

Is the Xenia comment to me...?

No! To 78bunion.

78bunion, do you think you would be in the position you are if you looked like the female equivalent to Digby Jones?

That sounds like I think you've got where you are on your looks. I don't, although perhaps think that you do, given that you have espoused the erotic capital thing before. What I mean is, do you think that the playing field is level gender-wise for people of the same level of physical fitness in terms of business?