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'd look into the origins of this epidemic if I were you.
Honestly I think I understand where you are trying to come from with this comment and yet it feels like this is victimizing fat people and still framing fatness as inherently bad and also somehow an individual choice even when you aknowledge we live in a society?
You bring up the bus seats and such as a point of I assume frustration? Wonder why that is and why this has become such a big deal? Why everyone is just ok with bullying the fat person that never fits in when for example tall people and big men also have this issue and take up more space in the world. But that nobody even notices.
I'm a little confused how you came to this conclusion when I specifically responded in agreement to a comment about how this is societal, and that it is something inflicted upon people and not an individual choice, and that easily-accessed processed foods are responsible for this. It feels like you read it and interpreted it as the exact opposite, and apparently a mod somewhere did the same.
Edit: I brought up public transportation because that is the primary context where one person is affected by another person's fatness in their day-to-day lives. There's obviously the cost factor that constantly gets brought up but that's not very tangible and naturally these industries will increase prices regardless of any associated costs. I explained that the proximity makes the individual the obvious target, but again, it feels like the entire comment just got missed.