It's wild how fat America has gotten. I don't even know what works and what doesn't from a health advice perspective, anymore.
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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There's also a big difference between "life expectancy" and "quality of life". Being overweight is uncomfortable, limiting, and can be a burden on people around you. I have no way of knowing if I'll live longer, but my life has become immeasurably better since I went from nearly obese to normal weight.
Additionally, I think the biggest factor to control for is socioeconomic status. A well-off fat person is probably going to have better life expectancy than a poor skinny person.
Being overweight is uncomfortable, limiting, and can be a burden on people around you.
The amount of times I've heard this used as fat-shaming rhetoric is shocking.
"You're immoral, you're selfish, why can't you think about everyone around you who has to put up with, and is affected by, your obesity."
It's inexcusably vile. It's hateful rhetoric. I'm sure you don't mean it that way, but that's what it is. And the problem is that such hateful language toward fat people is so, so pervasive, accepted, and woven throughout our society, that people say things without even realizing how harmful they are.
Also, socioeconomic status is probably the most important factor. As you said, a fat person with access to affordable health care with competent doctors that don't blame everything on weight, is going to be much healthier than a poor skinny or poor fat person. Further, if you're in a marginalized community, it makes it even more challenging. Then you have food deserts, long working hours, poor wages, lack of affordable child care. Lack of affordable education to help get out of your situation. Lack of social mobility depending on who you are.
It's almost like the person's body weight is barely even a factor in deciding their health.
It's not fat shaming, it's stating the truth. And I say that as a former fat person.
Being fat is not just fate or lottery, it's a challenge one can and should overcome. All that sugarcoating of language does nothing for fat people and rather works against them, since it normalizes a willfully unhealthy state.
Let me be very clear here: being fat is nothing to be positive about. There's zero, literally zero benefits, but tons of disadvantages and problems.
People aren't "wilfully" fat. People struggle to prevent weight gain/lose weight to the point of self harm and eating disorders. It's not sugarcoating to say you should treat people with respect if you really want to help them.
The main message of being "fat positive" is mostly just "don't be a dick to fat people". Because a) don't be a dick anyway, and b) being a dick doesn't do anything except make people feel like bad. If your intent is to be harsh in order to help, the data proves that when people are fat shamed, it usually causes them to gain even more weight.
So if you really want to help people be healthier or have better quality of life, be encouraging and positive.
There's a difference between shaming and telling the truth.
Fat positivity may have been intended to mean "no hate" at some point, but today it is used as "no criticism". It's the same principle as free speech ultras claiming that someone else infringes their free speech by criticizing what they're saying.
Again, being fat is not positive.
And you're making a value judgement on these people that they haven't put in enough effort to make themselves not fat, ignoring the differences in our bodies and experiences. It's simply not nice to keep pushing the same rhetoric all over this post. We get it, you managed to get healthier and you wish to extol the virtues of how you managed to do it. For many people, they already tried all the things it took you so long to adopt and telling them that they need to try harder or have no excuses is not helpful to them.
You need to be nicer on our instance.
You need to understand that sugarcoating everything is not helpful.
Seriously, what is so hard to get about that? You jumped directly from "not lying" to "hateful insult" and that's just not a valid point. If a doctor tells you, that you will die sooner because you smoke, drink, or eat too much that's not hateful, but simply a factual statement.
Just tell me: how will any obese person benefit from simply ignoring their actual problems? You want to be super cushy positive, I get it. But in reality, you're just advocating for deadly silence.
Accusing anyone who disagrees with you of being hateful is either lazy, evil, or stupid.
I'm not saying you're being hateful, I'm asking you to be nicer. You don't seem very receptive to being told by an admin or a mod to follow our only rule, so you're getting a 7 day ban to think things over. If you show up again and keep violating our only rule, you'll get a permanent ban.
And that, my friend, is purely egocentric censorship. I'm not being nice to you, because I have the audacity, to point out, that you might be delusional and that means I am not nice.
This is exactly the reason, why the left has been losing so hard lately. Instead of tackling actual problems, people like you created their little echo chambers of ignorance.
You're not helping. You're making a bad situation even worse.
Ah, I see. So you read my comment and was like "hm, the person they replied to probably wasn't being hateful. Let me swoop in there and make sure I make my bigotry clear."
Perfect echo of "I'm not racist. It's just science..."
I'm not going to validate your bigotry with a discussion. Enjoy being blocked.
Sure, because telling you from my own experiences is bigotry.
This behavior, ignoring the problem, is BTW exactly how people get fat. No, it's just a few kilos too much, that's fine. No, that tub of ice cream is perfectly fine, I walked to the store.
Sometimes I come down with 'i did it why can't they' but my circumstances and options were and are different from theirs. There are times when I have to actively remind myself that the things I do to manage my weight don't always align well with being a good friend; I have to meet people where they are, eat what works for me, and offer to share some guilt free. It's about providing pathways for someone to adopt healthier habits and encouraging successes.
@storksforlegs has some great advice regarding adjusting your language to help make your message of healthier lifestyles more accessible, so others can have the kind of success you've had (congrats, btw; great job!) but, you know... in their style of body positivity for them.
Sorry, but that's apologetic crap. Eating less is not that hard, you won't become a social outcast and it's not like you can never ever eat anything with your friends.
There are always hundreds of excuses, but hardly any of them are reasonable.
I'll absolutely concede that our western environment isn't exactly healthy and a lot of people are interested in us overeating, but blaming everything on external factors is addict behavior. And we shouldn't fuel that behavior.