I'm going to post a couple links to sources for the next couple days to hopefully start a conversation in this space! These will fall in the area of Fat Studies and there's some norms you should be aware of:
- "fat" is taken as a neutral descriptor, think of it as reclaiming the word.
- "obese" arbitrarily medicalises fatness and Others fat people
I'm a cis man and I have (had) body image issues (in the past)
https://humanparts.medium.com/my-journey-toward-radical-body-positivity-3412796df8ff
I'm queer and fat
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yeefpijtl4s7orv/Flaunting%20Fat%20%E2%80%93%C2%A0Sex%20with%20the%20Lights%20On.pdf?dl=0
I'm queer and not fat
https://www.bitchmedia.org/post/fat-liberation-is-totally-queer
The others don't apply to me and/or I only have the energy/time to read one source
https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/
:sankara-salute:
But it IS a medical issue for many people. Of course people can chose what they want to do with their bodies and disparaging them doesn't work. However many people are trying to "overcorrect" by pretending that abnormal weight is actually good for you or that nothing you ever try will help you deal with it and I really don't think it is helpful at all. My cousin has struggled with obesity for a long time, at some point he had to be operated because it was damaging his body. He is doing better than back then now but it's really not that great, and his learning difficulties plus a mostly unhelpful family in that regard are making it harder. I don't think this kind of approach is necessarily helpful.