As someone who fits into the morbidly obese category I have very mixed feelings about the Fat Acceptance movement.

On the one hand body shaming is horrible and should be fought. There is a lot of nasty prejudice attached to being overweight that does no good for anybody. The social emphasis we put on being thin does a lot of damage to people who cannot live up to ridiculously unattainable beauty standards and ultimately leads to dangerous eating disorders.

I also like the message that you shouldn't let your weight hold you back but rather live your life to the fullest now instead of waiting for that elusive point in the future where you've lost enough weight to be allowed to dance, dress nicely, get married, feel sexy etc., etc.

But on the other hand I really don't like the tendency the fat acceptable movement has to gloss over all the negative aspects of obesity. At the end of the day obesity is a fucking health problem — a disability even in the worst cases. The fat acceptance I've been exposed to has been very hostile towards attempts of losing weight and I believe that mere acceptance is doing obese people a disservice.

As a morbidly obese person getting rid of the prejudice will be an improvement but it won't keep my legs from swelling at night. It will not make me die less early. It will not protect my joints from being overloaded. It will not make it easier for me to get up from the couch. It will not make my movements less restricted or the mechanical possibilities of my sex life less limited. Being fat would still suck ass if everybody accepted and celebrated it.

What I really want is to not be so fat any more. And that is hard. To lose weight you have to fight your own body's survival mechanisms. Being genetically wired to store every available calorie was a winning strategy back when humans evolved and food was scarce and starvation was the norm. But in a modern society where food is readily available it just makes you fat.