Took a little break from the internet and touched some grass and it was great. Wander back in here after my hiatus and what do I find? Just a thread with a bunch of fatphobia.
Cute.
For a community that is incredibly careful about protecting its users from the -phobias and the -isms, there sure is a hell of a lot of unchecked fatphobia here basically any time fatness gets brought up.
It’s something I’ve noticed on the left in general as well. The leftist org I’m in has almost no fat people in it and something tells me that’s not because there aren’t any fat leftists out there.
Fatphobia is rooted in anti-Blackness and ableism.
I’d highly recommend the “Maintenance Phase” podcast with Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon, as well as Aubrey Gordon’s books “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat” and “You Just Need To Lose Weight.”
TL;DR: There’s mounting evidence that anti-fat bias in medicine is more to blame for poor medical outcomes in fat people rather than just the fat itself.
Diet and exercise don’t result in long-term weight loss for something like 95% of people. As a leftist, are you really gonna sit here and blame this on individual choices rather than systemic issues? Are you really gonna try to convince us that 95% of people are just lacking willpower?
Please note that this thread is not an invitation to convince me I’m wrong or share your own personal anecdotal story of successful long-term weight loss with the implication that others can do it because you did it. This post is a request that any thin person (or thin-adjacent person) reading this who wants to argue about how being fat is bad for your health do some research and some self-crit. This post is a request that this community rethink the way it engages with discussions about fatness, diet, fatphobia, and anti-fat bias.
Anti-fat bias literally kills people.
I assume the argument might be related to the amount of people who relapse to their old lifestyle, but then that's not really about diet or exercise not making you lose weight.
Edit for the next person who's gonna misinterpret me and then get incredibly hostile over something I didn't write: I don't agree with this argument. I don't think being overweight is comparable to addiction, the "relapse" terminology is what I've heard used in defense of this argument however, which is why I used it.
i think you should really do some introspection on why you think fat people should be obligated to diet forever or else they’re “relapsing”
I don't think that, but thanks for the accusation. Diet culture is just another capitalist money market, it's fadbased and meant to make money. Which is why I wrote "lifestyle changes". I'm getting so sick of people here willfully misinterpreting something so they can assume bad faith and then get aggressive immediately.
your comment is reinforcing fatphobia and i am pointing that out. do you consider thin people who quit a diet and go back to eating junk food all day to be “relapsing to their old lifestyle”.
really the fundamental question here is: do you think fat people should need to lose weight in order to be treated with the same respect as thin people?
Disengage
It’s not about “dieting” forever, it’s about concrete lifestyle changes which is why diet culture fucking sucks and so many people are unsuccessful.
not all fat people live the same lifestyle, as i’m sure you’re aware. many fat people live incredibly fit and active lifestyles and are still fat. and even if a fat person lives an “unhealthy” lifestyle, so what? the premise i’m operating on here that fat people should not have to lose weight in order to be treated with respect.
I’m not arguing fat people shouldn’t have respect tho, I’m just explaining that the concept of dieting is not helpful for weight loss.
I’m not even saying it falls completely on the individual.
There are so many societal factors that play a role: cheap unhealthy foods, the entire confusing industry of fad diets and all that misinformation, people being too overworked to stick to or make healthy changes, the unhealthy food culture of the US in general, people going untreated for medical conditions etc etc.
I’ve suffered from plenty of these, I’ve been overweight…I’m still a bit overweight.
I have a lot of physical factors that make it harder for me to lose weight than other people.
For a long time I was just awash in a sea of conflicting information about what you should eat, how you should eat, how you lose weight.
It felt hopeless.
So…maybe I have my own personal issues with all of this, but I just don’t really appreciate the talking point of “95% can’t (as opposed to don’t) lose weight or keep it off” as if it’s just a scientific impossibility.
It feels very defeatist, very crab in a bucket.
I’m at a point in my life where I feel like I finally have some control, some clarity over things and it kind of rubs me the wrong way to see stuff that could potentially keep others in that same pit I was in.
Maybe I’ve got my own issues to work on, but that’s how I see it.
I’m sorry if it feels defeatist, but I do think knowing the data is important. And again, I’d really recommend the “Maintenance Phase” podcast
That's an odd premise to engage me with, considering I didn't say fat people had to lose weight to be treated respectfully.
deleted by creator
I find this confusing, what's the definition of the forever diet here? If it's diet (lifestyle) it kind of precludes being forever
It’s about diet and exercise not keeping the weight off long-term. People lose weight from diet and exercise all the time, the vast majority just don’t keep it off.
Assuming it's all behavioral is one of the issues. Using the term "relapse" on this is so telling.
"Relapsing to a lifestyle". What does this mean? What is assumed here?
Removed by mod
Edit: just saw you disengaged from this, my bad
I see that now, thank you.
Edit: no worries, I didn't tell you to disengage (it's not a magical "last word" spell, it can't be part of a post) so you don't have to. I appreciate the clarification of the language because I missed it.
Thank you for the clarification. I am sorry I misinterpeted you.
deleted by creator
500 calories a day is a massive deficit, why are you going into extremes? Changing your lifestyle is possible and living on a base caloric or running a slight deficit is not some herculean task.
Also diet culture is a fuck, which is why I mentioned life style changes, but hey thanks for misreading and flying off the handle.
No actually. While some obese people have some form of addiction to food, losing weight is not comparable to addiction. Addiction is comparable to addiction and people who are addicted need with a lot more than just a lifestyle change. They need healthcare, they need therapy to adress traumas, they need a lot of stuff. Following your logic you're basically saying overweight people are sick, which seems very contrary to what you wish to advocate for.
Also in your analogy the 12-step program works? Part of it is to not be judgemental when you relapse, it's part of the process.
I have a feeling this is gonna continue, so I'm gonna disengage here.
The 12 step program also does not work. Literally every intervention for substance use has an abysmal long-term success rate.
Yes I was just making a hasty comparison of the poor efficacy of 12 step programs to the poor efficacy of long term diet and exercise programs, when other better alternatives exist for both scenarios. Didn't want to imply eating as an addiction. Apologies for the poor choice
For what it's worth, at the end of my few decade long "weight maintenance" the only way to maintain my then weight was opting to fast every other day entirely. Healthy? If you asked the experts, I was still too fat.
Eating is not an addiction. Eating is not the issue. Behavior is not the issue. The issue is the construct that there is some one size a body should be that everyone fits in. This is no different than other strickt categories we are being put in. The "normal" that keeps being brought up is a statistical curve that was made by an eugenist, using fit male bodies as the baseline. It is inherently a racist construct as well.
The way body size has been weaponized in pathriarchal culture and the way the medical and Western scientists took part in constructing the ideal is the issue. The way most people need to spend their lives on a diet to try and meet this ideal is the issue. The way these diets harm peoples health is the issue. The way this is used to control especially womens bodies is the issue.
This exactly. Once they’ve lost weight, formerly fat people are expected to engage in disordered eating forever to remain thin. Expected, encouraged, and celebrated if and only if they keep the weight off. “Health” isn’t really a factor in the conversation because people have “thin=healthy” so deeply-ingrained.
deleted by creator
Hi please put all of these calorie deficit suggestions and frankly all calorie talk behind a spoiler tag as it can be triggering to those with ED.
Edited to add: Please give an actual, helpful, informative spoiler tag that includes a content warning about ED triggers.
deleted by creator
This is breaking the disengage rule and you know it.