Brief but aggressive drama in /r/fatlogic when a popular Fat Acceptance blogger shows up to chew them out (np.reddit.com)
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71 ups - 20 downs = 51 votes
83 comments submitted at 19:25:12 on Mar 4, 2014 by TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK
Brief but aggressive drama in /r/fatlogic when a popular Fat Acceptance blogger shows up to chew them out (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
71 ups - 20 downs = 51 votes
83 comments submitted at 19:25:12 on Mar 4, 2014 by TAKEitTOrCIRCLEJERK
Iv worked out all my life and at gyms I have the upmost respect for any big person trying to lose some weight. Would never make fun of anyone that's trying to change their life for the good.
But the whole fat acceptance movement really irks me. I honestly don't understand what goes through their mind
Don't be an asshole to someone just because they're fat. What's to understand?
That's not the problem, though. The problem is telling fat people it's not their fault they're fat. You don't have to be weak. People have this magical ability we refer to as "agency."
It's not about stripping people of their agency. It's about recognizing that people and societies are incredibly complex, and no one factor solely contributes to obesity. I mean, over the last decade or so, US obesity rates have more than doubled. In 10 years! That's fucking incredible, and I have a hard time believing that millions of people just suddenly decided that they wanted to start getting fat.
Again, that is not the issue. You are inventing points that are not a problem. The problem is the idea "health at every size." It is neither true nor beneficial for a severely obese person to hear that ridiculous idea. It is also a problem to tell people it is not their fault they are fat. There many be complex issues surrounding it (food deserts, advertising, etc. etc.), but ultimately the only person who can go for a jog is you.
Saying, "People and societies are complex," is a nothing statement that can be attributed to almost any movement or belief system. Please stop masking the position in vague language designed to lead your point.
>The problem is the idea "health at every size." It is neither true nor beneficial for a severely obese person to hear that ridiculous idea.
See my comment below about HAES. I think a lot of people who have negative opinions of such programs have never actually read about it.
So you agree, then? HAES is part and parcel of the so-called fat acceptance movement. It is not about "not being an asshole to fat people," as your original comment suggested.
HAES is a part of the fat acceptance movement in the same way that pro-choice issues are part of the feminist movement. It's an important part of it, but they are not one and the same. Fat acceptance is a far more broad movement to change attitudes toward fat people.
So you agree? HAES is part and parcel (which is another way of saying essential) of the so-called movement.
No.
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Yup - they probably didn't make a conscious decision to get fat. Instead, dramatic lifestyle changes (like moving less and eating more high calorie foods) caused it.
On a cultural scale this is tough to handle; on a personal level it's really fucking simple. (And I am speaking as someone whose mother nearly died of obesity related illness.)
>That's fucking incredible, and I have a hard time believing that millions of people just suddenly decided that they wanted to start getting fat.
They may not have decided to get fat, but they sure as hell decide to stay fat.
Nah, it's like the tunblrinas who are like "you're obligated to find me attractive!"
It's the small number of people who act as if the struggles of fat people are literally worse than the oppression of gays or some other clearly more disadvantaged group that irk me.
That's not really what the fat acceptance movement is about. Not from what I've seen.
When you try to stop people from being healthy because it makes you feel bad about yourself, you need to reevaluate your life.
Who's stopping anyone from being healthy? Fat acceptance is about treating people like humans, despite their size. Fat people do face a lot of discrimination in our society, and that's pretty fucked up. A lot of people who are part of the fat acceptance movement are also focused on getting people healthier, though, as is demonstrated by Healthy At Every Size.
No, Health at Every Size is about debunking the "myth" that being obese is unhealthy, which is not only completely stupid, it is outright dangerous.
I can't help but feel like we have had completely different experiences with this movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HealthatEvery_Size
Healthy At Every Size is about getting people to focus on their health rather than weight loss. And it's pretty necessary to do so because:
(1) Diets don't work. They just don't. There are very few people out there who will have long-term success with dieting, and a lot of diets out there aren't healthy anyway. Focusing on lifestyle changes--e.g. taking up exercise for the enjoyment of it or eating healthier, tastier foods because they taste good--is far more effective in getting people healthy than telling them they need to lose weight.
(2) There's this mass assumption that fat people can't be healthy, simply by virtue of being fat. This creates a defeatist attitude toward health among the overweight and obese.
>(1) Diets don't work. They just don't.
What you mean is they don't work when people give up on them after two weeks?
That's part of the point. It's similar to saying abstinence doesn't work - no one is arguing that abstinence itself is not an effective way to prevent getting pregnant. It is, but it's not a very effective strategy for preventing teen pregnancy because many won't follow through with it. The same is being argued here about dieting - the problem is a lot of people won't follow through with diets, or succeed at losing the weight only to put it back on in an unhealthy cycle. You could say "suck it up and follow through on the diet anyway" or you could look for more effective strategies.
My initial impression was that that is what they were saying - that altering what you eat to something healthier will not result in weight loss.
I fully support the idea that the strict, one option per meal regimen does not work for the vast majority of people. I've been "dieting" for fifteen years, and there was a time when I was younger that I aspired to be a body builder, and as a result I've grown used to being very strict with what I eat, especially now that I'm out of my twenties. It's not difficult for me to determine what I should/can eat to gain/lose weight, but I see people struggle with it every day, and I know how difficult it is, especially if you haven't put the time in to condition yourself to make the healthy choices, or if you were not raised that way (I was raised on McDonald's.) Learning (not being told precisely) what to eat , and how to fit physical exercise into your routine that you actually enjoy leads to a much higher success rate.
I see and hear a lot of people just jumping into a fad diet and diving onto a treadmill giving up almost immediately, which doesn't surprise me because that sounds like torture.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/dieting-does-not-work-ucla-researchers-7832.aspx
That's awesome. I can see you're very entrenched in this topic, so I'm not going to go and find the 31 studies that they used as references, dive into their methodology, or try to change your view. If you fully believe that every participant in each of those studies actually followed their diet plan for 2-5 years, and as such diets are disproven, then that is totally cool. I'm more inclined to believe that the individuals set too rigid of a diet plan for themselves to successfully follow, and lacked the resources to knowledgeably create flexibility within the restrictions of the diet, as that is pretty much universally the case when it comes to weight loss failure.
You seem spirited and knowledgeable, so I'll leave you to it.
I love how when reddit is presented with a scientific, peer-reviewed article that goes against their worldview, they suddenly know the science better than the experimenters and make up stuff for why it's wrong. Do you really think the scientists wouldn't take such things into consideration...?
The researchers say that eating in moderation and exercise work, and they did not look at people that ate in moderation and exercised in that study.
The article doesn't mention the outcome for people who continued the diet and made it a lifestyle change. Did they regain that weight?
Well the whole problem is that diets aren't meant to be for life. They're supposed to get you thin, and then most people quit when they reach their goal. Or they can't reach their goal because it's too restrictive. Which is the whole point of focusing on health instead of weight. Diet and weight loss programs are a problem because not only do they provide an "end point", beyond which the program becomes pointless or even dangerous, they also do nothing to encourage healthy habits in thin people. The assumption is that if you're thin, you're healthy. That is very much not true, and one of the things that HAES seeks to address.
Edit: God, so many typos.
> Focusing on lifestyle changes--e.g. taking up exercise for the enjoyment of it or eating healthier, tastier foods because they taste good
So changing your diet and exercising? Few rational people think that crash dieting or short term staving can effectively solve weight issues, what your saying is just a less harsh way of saying "eat less shitty".
> This creates a defeatist attitude toward health among the overweight and obese.
True, but there is also the reality that at a certain point weight is unhealthy. It causes extra stress on joints and limbs and can negatively effect other health conditions, as well as just forcing the body to expend more energy to do less.
I am all for body acceptance within reason. No one should mocked or shamed for their body, but that doesn't mean we can't acknowledge it's not actually healthy to be obese.
One unfortunate fact about this discussion that I think gets overlooked a lot is that, generally, people prefer to date average sized partners.
You can talk about how that's unfair, and I'd agree, but changing that cultural norm is a Big Thing. It's not gonna happen right this second.
We can sit here and debate studies and statistics and anecdotes for a long time, but I think a central point remains: a good amount of overweight people want to lose weight because they want to look and feel "sexy" as we currently define it.
I can't really argue with that, but that's not the only point to FA or HAES. Fat people do face a lot of discrimination in employment and healthcare, which is a big problem imo. A lot of what's taken as being "You HAVE to find fat people attractive!" is actually "Stop thinking of fat people as sub-human!"
Granted, there have been some hiccups along the road, like "Real Women Have Curves", "Only dogs like bones", etc. I think some people see the more mockable stuff and think that's what it's all about.
> A lot of what's taken as being "You HAVE to find fat people attractive!" is actually "Stop thinking of fat people as sub-human!"
Yeah, these get conflated a lot, I think.
I don't think anyone would say "I think fat people deserve subaverage health care" or "I think fat people deserve to be discriminated against in the workplace," but I can find you lots of people who would say, "I don't want to date fat people."
How dare you try to be reasonable in SRD!
Really though, I think reddit's collective fat-hate-brain would explode if they found out that fat acceptance actually leads to weight loss. If they really cared about people's health, they would be supporting fat acceptance. Is it really that difficult to see that shaming fat people will obviously exacerbate the problem?
How does fat acceptance lead to weight loss?
Psychology. If others make you feel like a lazy slob with no chance of living past 40, it tends to make people give up. People also tend to avoid gyms and health food stores if they feel like they're being judged negatively.
I almost wish that weren't the case because it implies that the only reason you should be nice to fat people is so they become thin. I think fat acceptance is an admirable goal regardless of whether it helps people lose weight.