Lets talk about: Obesity Acceptance

[Pieturli]

Before I start, I'd like to add this little disclaimer: No, I am not a bodybuilder or fitness nut. I am a strength training enthusiast. I don't have a sixpack, I've never had bodyfat lower than 12%.

For those of you who don't know, obesity acceptance is a sort of "movement" that has developed from what I can tell fairly recently, and the basic gist of it is the idea that obesity is perfectly healthy for some people. In other words, according to the proponents of this movement, some people are just naturally obese.


For my part at least, it scares the fuck out of me that there are people who try to pass grade-A horseshit like this off as truth. It's almost like the anti-vaccine crowd, only not quite as poisonous.

The fact is, healthy bodyfat levels are a spectrum, which is to say that bodyfat percentage that is conductive to health and fitness (which are two different things, by the way) will vary from person to person. The problem is, the obesity acceptance crowd seems to think that this means everything goes. This is demonstrably untrue. To quote Jonathon Sullivan "it's possible to be fat and fit and healthy, it's just that it's real freakin' unusual".


Now, if an obese person is perfectly content with their bodies and their levels of health and fitness, I can't exactly tell that person that they are wrong. It's their body, they get to do with it as they please. What I absolutely can and will call bullshit on is when they start feeding people the idea that obesity is healthy.

There is a limit to which I am willing to enable delusional people, and obesity acceptance is one of those things where it just goes completely over that limit. Again, it is an inalienable human right to be able to do with your body as you please, but when you start flat out lying about things like health and well-being to suit your beliefs, I start to lose a whole hell of a lot of sympathy.

 

[Zhukov]

My disclaimer thingy: I'm a bit overweight. I'm not fat, in that when someone sees me walking down the street they don't think, "There goes a chubby guy", or at least I certainly hope not, but I would like to have less fat on me than I do. I used to be proper fat in my early teens and I really didn't care for it one fucking bit.

Aaaaand I basically agree with everything you said. It's horseshit.

I don't think everyone has some duty to look like an underwear model or anything. Hell, some people carry weight very well and I think a certain amount of plumpness can look very fetching. And of course people are free to do as they with with their own bodies.

However, anyone trying to pass obesity off as healthy is kidding themselves. Thing is, kidding oneself is a great deal easier than doing two hours of intensive exercise every day for eight months.

I don't think the movement, such as it is, will amount to much. It's one of those funny little internet echo chamber things that melts when you expose it to the unforgiving glare of the wider world.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think it's mostly a cultural thing. In the US where two thirds of the population is overweight or obese you're going to find a lot more acceptance for obesity, the same way you "accept" they speak French in France and Spain has a waterfront. The minute you think of it as "the obese country" you stop caring about just how obese each person is.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I've never come across people saying that.

I have, however, come across the fat acceptance movement, which is often misrepresented as being that, but isn't. Now, they might say that being fat is natural, that it's something many people can't really do anything about, and that the health risks are exaggerated and misunderstood, but that's not the same thing.

The movement is very invested in condemning the way society treats fat people. This can be simple things like not having much in the way of plus sized clothes and celebs who are larger than stick insects being claimed as being plus sized.

At the other end of the spectrum, you've got complaints fat people seeing a doctor who will automatically assume that being fat is the cause of whatever ailment they have, without bothering to do a proper diagnosis (with obvious results). Or how attempts to deal with "the obesity epidemic" usually revolve around continuing to shame fat people for being fat, only moreso.

There is a lot of hatred aimed at people who is fat, it's hardly surprising people are banding together to try and oppose this, though with little success, as far as I can see.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I'm not sure about anyone else, but to me obesity means something close to 'so overweight that the person has serious difficulty functioning'.

I don't think having difficulty functioning can be any source of pride.

 

[Someone Depressing]

I always just assumed it's people trying to feel comfortable in their own skin. But instead of getting off their ass and doing something about it, they very poorly claim that it's "natural" to live 15 years shorter.

A little research later, and... that's exactly what it is. I think obesity does have some sort of genetic or medical basis, but I'm not a doctor, and I haven't done enough research to have a completely solid opinion. But yes, that's exactly what this sounds like.

 

[Lieju]

The problem here is that what's considered 'fat' in the first place is not uniform and can be twisted.

My body-weight index is 'normal', and I have always been called 'fat', and been told to lose weight, or have people joke about it.

And if you look at media, and especially how overweight (or women considered overweight) women are portayed...
What is the acceptable weight for a woman according to Hollywood?

So in the first place people are using the word 'fat' to mean different things.

I think obesity does have some sort of genetic or medical basis, but I'm not a doctor, and I haven't done enough research to have a completely solid opinion. But yes, that's exactly what this sounds like.

Weight control is different for different people. For some people it's easier.

I was on medication that just made me hungry. So I gained weight and became overweight.
After I stopped taking it I returned back to my normal weight, without any effort.

I ate the same stuff, I just had to eat less to feel full.

 

[Pieturli]

The amount of fat you "naturally" carry is determined by genetics. However, no man is naturally 35% bodyfat, with the exception of EXTREMELY rare medical conditions.

 

[lacktheknack]

I enjoy not being punched in the face for having a BMI of 31, so I'll take fat acceptance over the alternative if that stays the status quo.

(It doesn't help that I have literally every single thing imaginable working against me in weight-loss, to the point that my weight-loss efforts often make me GAIN weight.)

That said, when I read stories of "trans-fat activists" wearing pillows under their shirts to simulate being fat, or a surreally hilarious blog post on how "humans are naturally fat because it helped us float when we were aqueous creatures in the tropics", I also feel that it's gone too far with some people, like every other movement.

 

[renegade7]

"Acceptance"?

I'm not intolerant of fat people. I have no hostility towards fat people. I accept the obese, and if being obese is really a lifestyle decision, then whatever, more power to you.

The fat acceptance movement, however, seems more concerned with bitching about the fact that thin people have better lives. Well...yea. Thin people are more attractive, that has implications in everything from business to romance to your ability to be accepted to college. If a light weight is maintained in a healthy manner then they will be healthier on numerous levels, and therefore happier and more intelligent. And if you're so enormously massive that you take up two seats on an airplane, thereby depriving another passenger of his ability to make his trip, I think you should be paying for that extra seat.

They say obesity is a choice that be respected. And yes, I respect your lifestyle decisions because it's your life, not mine.

But here's the thing: you can't have your cake and eat it too (See what I did there?). Being fat is a lifestyle decision. Statistically, it's very, very unlikely to be out of your control. Being thin or normal weight is ALSO a lifestyle decision, and from the rhetoric from the fat acceptance movement, it really does seem to be the better one. I don't think the entirety of society both at the economic level (for instance, being unable to take your rightfully paid for seat on an airplane because an obese person is taking it up as well as his own) and the personal (being told it's a bad thing that you're not attracted to a certain body type) for a personal decision to eat doughnuts and potato chips instead of some fruit every now and then. If you can't beat them, why don't you just hit the treadmill and join them?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Thin people are more attractive

Because society has decided that fat people are unattractive. There is a problem there.

 

[Eddie the head]

Thin people are more attractive

Because society has decided that fat people are unattractive. There is a problem there.

Yeah it's not like we're social creatures or anything. Whenever society tells you to do something that's a problem. Like being accepting of peop- oh wait.

What about something being decided on by a society makes it intrinsically bad? False? Or Whatever?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Thin people are more attractive

Because society has decided that fat people are unattractive. There is a problem there.

Fat people used to be "attractive" because their blubber was a symbol of social status, not because rolls of fat were ever hailed as aesthetically pleasing. The ideal of a fit, athletic body has been championed for as long as people drew in vases and cave walls. And before you start on about the Venus of Willendorf: she's a fertility deity, given grossly exaggerated fertility attributes. Divine representation always hinged on exaggerating or underlining this or that attribute.

 

[DementedSheep]

A bit chubby isn't really a worry but actually obese? people shouldn't be happy with that. It's a flaw and health risk. You shouldn't just accept your flaws, you should try and change them.
That said I don't get hostility to people who are obese and yes doctors should not assume a problem is caused by obesity because that isn't always the case and leads to other problems going untreated.

 

[Pieturli]

Thin people are more attractive

Because society has decided that fat people are unattractive. There is a problem there.

Fat people used to be "attractive" because their blubber was a symbol of social status, not because rolls of fat were ever hailed as aesthetically pleasing. The ideal of a fit, athletic body has been championed for as long as people drew in vases and cave walls. And before you start on about the Venus of Willendorf: she's a fertility deity, given grossly exaggerated fertility attributes. Divine representation always hinged on exaggerating or underlining this or that attribute.

Precisely. Well put.

 

[Eddie the head]

And before you start on about the Venus of Willendorf: she's a fertility deity, given grossly exaggerated fertility attributes. Divine representation always hinged on exaggerating or underlining this or that attribute.

Furthermore you could just call that being decided by society. So then there is a problem.

 

[krazykidd]

Depends on what you call obese. Im thin and i find thin girl unattractive. I like my girls fat.

I don't see why we can't just all get along. You know, people come in all shapes and sizes.

And it is possible to be overweight and healthy .

 

[Hoplon]

It's tricky, on the one hand the BMI is horse shit, on the other, i find being fat intensely uncomfortable.

I got really bad when on steroids for an auto immune condition, they are the worse fuckin' things i have ever had to deal with. It was seriously a take them or go blind so i kind of had to stick with them for a couple of years. But i could eat till i felt like i would rupture and still not feel full.

Honestly though like the OP said, while it's not about having 2% body fat (which apparently can be unhealthy in and of it's self) being close enough to an ideal weight so you can jog for 20 mins with out hurting your self isn't really being a body fascist.

 

[Pieturli]

I should interject here and say that the point here really genuinely wasn't to belittle fat people for not fitting into the subjective ideas of beauty. It really is about health. The Pro-ana movement is just as poisonous as the pro-lard movement.

Depends on what you call obese. Im thin and i find thin girl unattractive. I like my girls fat.

I don't see why we can't just all get along. You know, people come in all shapes and sizes.

And it is possible to be overweight and healthy .

Yes it is possible to be overweight and healthy, but this depends on what overweight is. If we go by BMI, then it is more than possible - in fact, those in the "overweight" BMI bracket have the longest lifespans.

But we're not talking about people who have some superfluous fat. We're talking about people who are actually fucking fat, and it is negatively impacting their health, as it is wont to do. The fact that some people are trying to convince others that this is healthy is the thing that is bullshit.

 

[Pieturli]

It's tricky, on the one hand the BMI is horse shit, on the other, i find being fat intensely uncomfortable.

I got really bad when on steroids for an auto immune condition, they are the worse fuckin' things i have ever had to deal with. It was seriously a take them or go blind so i kind of had to stick with them for a couple of years. But i could eat till i felt like i would rupture and still not feel full.

Honestly though like the OP said, while it's not about having 2% body fat (which apparently can be unhealthy in and of it's self) being close enough to an ideal weight so you can jog for 20 mins with out hurting your self isn't really being a body fascist.

Yep. Physical fitness is the natural state of a human being. People tend to forget that we're animals, and a corpulent mess is not a terribly efficient animal.

2% bodyfat is competition-phase bodybuilder territory. The vast majority of performance athletes walk around at above 10%, usually more like 15.