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.
Ok so this is just anecdotal, but I'll give you a real life example of what this "management" can look like.
I was told during pregnancy that if I would not lose weight, I'd leave my child motherless. I reacted to this medical violence by engaging in self hate fueled dieting that I did for two decades.
This was a lifestyle where I spent well over 10 hours per week in vigorous exercise. I broke my spine, knees, got myocarditis. Was always sick with everything. Yet my bodysize remained obe,*e, like it has since I was a small child.
I counted every calorie. On a scale. I kept a food diary, I was always in an outrageous deficit. At the end I had to fully fast every other day to maintain my still fat weight. I am not talking just a bit fat, but bmi properly in the high end.
I made it into a profession. Coaching was the only way to sustain the ridiculous amounts of exercise I needed to stay thinner. My entire life revolved around it. I definitely did not read leftist books or engage in education for myself, I was just maintaining that weight.
I am an autist who will follow the rules I make for myself all the way to the bitter end. When I say I counted calories it means I wrote down everything. I still have those diaries, they are the story of starvation by choice.
And none of this was considered an ED. I was celebrated for it. For trying to force my body into the norm.
Then someone said to me that you don't have to live like this so I was finally given room to stop. I stopped looking at thin pictures of other women, I started looking at diverse bodies. My mental health and self-esteem got so much better as my body went back to the size it clearly likes to be. My hands and feet that were always cold are now warm.
I studied a whole new profession after this, I am so much freer now. I realized a lot of my internal fat stigma was gender norm related. I embrace my masculine body now.
It isn't cico. Bodies are more complex than that.