Torn About Fat Acceptance
She was sitting with her back to me as I entered the ice cream place with my kids. She was very big – most likely not just medically overweight, but obese.
As we were standing in line, contemplating our order of a kid-size, single ice cream scoop in a small waffle cone, I glanced at her.
She was young – a teenager – eating fast, holding her extra large cone in one hand, feverishly texting with the other. She looked almost drugged – drugged with sugar I guess. It was obvious that the eating and texting were giving her intense pleasure, soothing her. She was oblivious to her surroundings. When I caught myself staring, I was grateful that she hadn’t noticed.
That afternoon, I was thinking about the girl at the ice cream store, and it got me thinking about Fat Acceptance and about how, after what I saw, I’m not so sure anymore that it’s such a great idea.
How do I accept that girl’s behavior when it’s wrong on so many levels? How do I tell that kid it’s OK to be fat without giving her permission to continue on this destructive path? Instead of talking about how we should accept fat, shouldn’t we do everything in our power, as a society and as a government, to educate the obese, and to tax, or otherwise punish, the food industry whenever it knowingly shoves calories, trans fats and other unhealthy ingredients down our throats?
Perhaps our goal should be to accept overweight and obese people in the sense of never, ever discriminating against them. So, we need to accept fat, but we need not accept the underlying reasons for it – partly our culture, partly the food industry’s carelessness, and partly people’s choices and actions.
How do you feel about “fat acceptance?”
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Maleia Kaminsky responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 10:42 am →
Fat Acceptance is not about perpetuating poor lifestyle choices. But, you can actually be quite healthy and still be “big boned” or whatever you want to call it. I don’t eat any different than my 190 pound, 6-foot-2 husband, and yet I am 5-foot-3 at 220 pounds. We don’t eat lots of candy and cake. We eat what everyone else does. I just metabolize it differently. I exercise daily, eat salads with negligible toppings/dressing, snack on veggies….. And I don’t lose weight. I stay at 200, as I have been for 10 years.
I’d also like to say that some people have genetic conditions that actually cause obesity. It’s true. Thyroid issues, to name just one. Should those people looked down upon?
Now, should the fashion industry cater to simply the sizes 6s and under, and leave the rest of us in mumus and frumpy rompers? Not if they want to make a buck.
Dr. J responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 10:42 am →
I can appreciate the distinction you make between “Fat Acceptance,” and accepting fat. Every person deserves respect and acceptance. I also support allowing others to peacefully live the life they choose. The problems in my opinion are these. Obesity is more than just a health issue, and it is a very costly health issue at that. None of us are an island, our actions affect others. The increasing mass of humanity is a dangerous condition affecting all of us in many areas of our lives. As with any abnormal condition, I support helping afflicted people in a compassionate, caring, and accepting environment.
Maleia Kaminsky responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 10:48 am →
One other thing: Yes, education about eating healthy is important. Even more important is learning moderation as a society, not just regarding food. When I go to McDonalds on my short lunch break, I have a choice. I can get a simple side salad and use just half the dressing packet, leaving myself full enough to get me through to dinner, OR I can get a large Big Mac meal, which stuffs me so much that I’m not hungry at dinner time, and yet I eat anyway. Sometimes I make a poor choice. But the more I educate myself on healthy issues, the more I go for the side salad or the veggies. I’m not for taking away the freedom to have a slice of cake. I want to be able to make that choice for myself, but I do think that ignoring the problem is not right.
Kim Woodbridge responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 11:25 am →
I just watched Food Inc over the weekend and I really think what we need to stop accepting is our current food industry. When I was a kid you rarely saw someone who was so overweight and it was kind of shocking because it was so rare – now it is becoming the norm. And it can’t just be lifestyle choices and health issues – there is something wrong with the food. When 4 companies are pretty much controlling most of our food there’s a problem.
And it’s easy enough for me to say I will only buy organic or only buy from the Farmer’s Markets but that only helps me – not people who need the education or even the stores and markets in their neighborhoods that will provide healthier choices.
Bamboo Forest - PunIntended responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 12:27 pm →
I think the girl in question isn’t totally aware of what she’s doing. In fact, I’ve come to believe that lacking awareness is the underlying reason anyone does anything self-destructive. This is not to say she doesn’t have a responsibility to increase her awareness — we all need to do that. I’m just saying I doubt she’s totally aware of the situation. I think her mind is clouded. Martial arts, meditation, yoga, any kind of exercise can help here. So can reading and meditating on the issue.
I do not blame the food industry. We live in a free society and the food industry will always do whatever they can to make the greatest profits. That’s just their nature…
However, here’s something I’d like to touch on: What about the parents? Couldn’t the parents of this teenage girl play a potent role in helping her to change her attitudes and behaviors regarding eating food? Couldn’t they serve as a monument of inspiration for her? And if the parents just aren’t good at that kind of thing, what could they do to improve?
While I don’t blame the parents — I am questioning what they could do more than they already are, or, do what they aren’t doing at all.
Yes, we need to blame the individual for their actions. But what often gets missed here is we also need to question what others could do to help. Are we not our brother’s keeper?
Memarie Lane responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 1:20 pm →
I totally agree with you, but I think it has to go deeper than that. Kids aren’t fat because of their own choices, they’re fat because of their parents’ choices. I heard a program on the radio about this the other day and all they would talk about is the food served in school cafeterias and junk food commercials aimed at young children. Are these children buying the groceries? No, their parents are. Are these children making the choice to eat in the cafeteria? No their parents are, because they feel they’re too busy to pack a healthy lunch. Too busy to cook healthy meals. Too busy to plan ahead when they go grocery shopping. What is needed here is a generation of parents for whom healthy eating and exercise are a priority, a priority they can pass on to their kids.
Hannah @Cooking Manager responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 1:53 pm →
Maleia,
Why do you go to McDonald’s? It’s an honest question. If you are concerned about your health, why not bring food from home and avoid temptation? Is it for social reasons?
In response to the post, I thought about this the first time I noticed more images of fat children in publications geared to children. While diversity in images is important, two overweight children out of 3 in an illustration sends the wrong message.
Rina responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 2:14 pm →
Love the person, hate the crime. Obesity is a disease like many others. We don’t discriminate against sick people; we encourage them to get treatment. We tell people to stop smoking, but we don’t hate/not accept/look down on them for it.
Thanks for this. Very true.
Michelle @ Find Your Balance responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 2:14 pm →
I guess you can love a person and hate their behavior, much like with smokers. My cousin is obese and it is definitely a symptom of larger problems – emotional, cultural, etc.
Hannah @Cooking Manager responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 2:20 pm →
Forgot to request followup comments.
MomGrind responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 2:42 pm →
Thanks everyone for your comments. I am staying out of the comments section today, because I pretty much said what I needed to say and am now very interested in listening to your opinions.
Betsy Wuebker responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 3:34 pm →
Ouch, ouch, ouch. Slippery, slippery slope. Taxing or creating other disincentives that target the food industry is a great idea in theory. But effecting societal change that targets reduction in obesity or other harmful behaviors is highly vulnerable to politically-based outcomes that interfere with individual liberties more than they discourage corporate purveyors. What gives us the idea that the government would responsibly administer a program of this nature rather than use it as a revenue source?
Blogs at the LATimes and the NYTimes have already called for a tax on fat people. The LAT calls it tough love. The Urban Institute is promoting a war on obesity using lessons from the tobacco wars. State employees considered obese in Alabama pay more in health insurance. “Sin tax” proposals routinely target tobacco, alcohol, soda, music, sporting events, massages, you name it.
Do we want to make fat people poorer, too? Maybe we should just round up all the fat people who are consuming so many of our precious environmental and financial resources, not to mention crowding us on airplanes and using more cloth to cover themselves, and lock them up somewhere in Outcast-land? I’m a pink person. Because the likelihood of skin cancer is higher for people who look like me, should I be taxed if I stay too long at the beach and get a sunburn?
What about someone who wants a cheeseburger? Will they have to get on a scale before they’re allowed to buy it at a certain price without an upcharge? Big Brother is already watching your weight.
Aydan responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 4:04 pm →
In fact, I’ve come to believe that lacking awareness is the underlying reason anyone does anything self-destructive.
Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed a good deal of self-destructive behavior that is self-aware.
As a college student, I see a lot more people who look unhealthily underweight than unhealthily overweight. In fact, if you asked me to name five peers in the latter category, I don’t think I could. There’s a perception that being a size 14, or even a size 8, is fat. And fat people are targeted for shaming in American culture a lot more than skinny people. Have you ever seen the website People of Walmart, for example? It’s supposed to be funny, but it’s mostly about mocking fat people.
Additionally, as a culture, we seem a lot more aware of the upper weight boundary for being healthy than the lower weight boundary. We all know that being fat can be unhealthy: we don’t all know how skinny is “too skinny.” When a skinny celebrity appears in the media, people say, “Oh, it’s just her body type… I wish I could look like that!” When a fat celebrity appears in the media, people trash her/him for a lack of self-control. It’s strange that as rates of obesity rise we become increasingly skinny-centered as a culture, but true nevertheless. So, while I understand criticisms of the fat acceptance movement, I think first we need to learn what “fat” truly is. Hint: it’s not being a size 8.
Aydan responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 4:06 pm →
Oh– shameless plug, but I wrote a related post today about my experiences with cultural ideas of weight: No Scales at Confessions of an Eco-Nut. (Vered, my apologies if this isn’t allowed!)
Former fat person responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 6:03 pm →
Another commenter mentioned certain medical conditions that cause obesity. There are also certain medications that cause people to gain weight, as well.
As someone who had walked a mile in that girl’s shoes, I can honestly say that there truly never has been any “fat acceptance” – there has always been a lot of contempt, prejudice and maltreatment of the heavier population.
Here’s an interesting article from the NY Times:
Heavier Americans Push Back on Health Debate
Bamboo Forest - PunIntended responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 7:49 pm →
@ Aydan: Really? Were the people in question totally self-aware? Maybe I should have been clearer, but when I referred to ’self-aware’ I wasn’t referring to a vague sense of it, we all have that. I was referring to having it so deeply that our bad habit eventually falls away.
It’s been advised before that if you’re a smoker one good thing you can do to help yourself kick the habit is go to a hospital and visit people who can no longer use their lungs without a machine due to smoking. Sure, prior to this, the smoker “knew” it wasn’t good for them — but this is a whole new level of awareness.
The best book I’ve ever read on personal-development by a very long margin is “Awaken the Giant Within” by Anthony Robbins. One of the things he underscores in his book is that to change any undesirable behavior one must associate more pain with doing the negative behavior than with giving it up. So I would say that the girl in question is likely associating more pain with giving up the undesirable habit of over eating than with continuing on the path of over eating. We humans respond to pain. And if we can begin to associate doing the undesirable behavior with greater pain than actually giving it up — we’ll give it up!
Problem is, we’re (including me) often unconscious of what’s actually going on in the mind. So yeah, in the bigger scheme of things: I think it largely comes down to awareness.
Nathalie Lussier responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 8:28 pm →
Hi Vered!
This is such a complex issue! I honestly don’t think it’s so much a fat person’s fault as much as the industries that make the food. The truth is that we don’t eat “real food” anymore. No wonder there’s so much obesity! I don’t know if we’ll ever see the government taxing companies who promote obesity-causing foods… the truth is that there are so many subsidies for growing corn and other necessary ingredients for things like Coke, etc.
So where do we draw the line? More education. Less advertising. More real food. Who knows it if it will be enough…
Daphne @ Joyful Days responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 8:32 pm →
Vered, you ask very thought-provoking questions. When I see a fat person jogging, swimming or otherwise taking the trouble to work out, I accept every ounce of that person’s fat because I know he has enough self-respect to get it down to an ‘acceptable’ level in his own point of view. But like you, when I see a fat person stuffing their face, it’s putting off because they obviously don’t care about themselves enough to do something about an unhealthy trend.
C. Wilks responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 8:36 pm →
There is a difference in accepting those who are fat and “Fat Acceptance.” We should accept people as they are, but there needs to education so that people’s health is not at such a risk. I agree with whomever it was that we can not regulate our way out of this situation. I do believe, however, that the food industry is partly to blame in this game, but individuals do have personal choice in what foods they consume. The food industry isn’t twisting your arm behind your back shoving that double quarter pounder cheeseburger, super sized fries, and extra large soda down your throat.
Noted anthropologist Dr. Richard W. Wrangham recently published his findings on his studies on processed foods and digestion and nutrition absorption. He found that the more processed a food is, the more calories and nutrients the body absorbs from the food. Processing starts with the cooking process and is now added to with the food industry making foods softer and filling them with preservatives. He found that this means that the calories marked on packaging is not what is always absorbed. Depending on how processed the food is the amount of calories varies. A steak will actually have fewer calories (if prepared without sauce or seasoning) than the packaging states, whereas a cheeseburger at McDonald’s will have MORE calories than what is on the packaging. This causes people to over consume calories and leads to more weight gain. The opposite can happen in raw diets. However, the food industry is only doing what is profitable, it is up to the consumer to choose whole foods over highly processed foods. I personally found that just switching to whole foods or non-processed foods I lost 10 lbs.
You would need to check out his book on the subject to get everything he has to say on the issue.
silentbeep responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 9:00 pm →
You have no idea who this girl is, or what her story is. Maybe she has an eating disorder? Maybe she’s on a diet and is desperate to break it? Maybe her parents don’t let her eat sweets so she was out for a “forbidden” snack? Or maybe she just wanted an ice cream? Thin people and fat people eat ice cream, and no, just because someone is fat, does not mean you can tell what their entire medical history is just by looking at them. You have made a judgment on her just by looking at her for all of what one minute? and somehow concluded that an entiere movement “fat acceptance” isn’t doing anybody any favors? Sorry I don’t mean to be insulting, but truly you don’t know what you are talking about. Promoting healthy lifestyles IS NOT at odds with fat acceptance, quote the contrary. Many of us in FA want to promote excercise andhealthy eating for people of ALL sizes without shaming, humiliation and prejudice.
Please read this:
——
“Advocates of punishing people for being overweight think that obesity is caused by bad decision-making, that people can shed their excess pounds simply by making “healthy choices.” They are wrong.
As Rockefeller University’s Jeffery Friedman wrote in the journal Science, “Obesity is not a personal failing. In trying to lose weight, the obese are fighting a difficult battle against biology, a battle that only the intrepid take on and one in which only a few prevail.” People like Jared, the guy on TV who lost 240 pounds by eating Subway sandwiches, are exceedingly rare.
The big winners in our culture’s obsession with weight are the drug companies. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of N.C., for example, is pushing two weight-loss drugs on obese state employees. They are expensive – $420 a year in insurance co-pays (more than $1,500 for the uninsured). Among their possible side effects are high blood pressure, “soiled” underwear, excessive flatulence and the sudden urge to defecate. And, because you start to regain the weight you lost as soon as you stop popping the pills, you have to take them forever.
Some unhealthy behaviors are, indeed, simply a matter of personal choice – driving while texting, for example. But being fat is not one of them. Your weight reflects a complex interplay between biology and culture that make permanent weight loss nearly impossible for most people. The New York Times’ Gina Kolata correctly argued in her book “Rethinking Thin” that the war on fat has become a moral crusade.
And, like some other recent wars, there is little evidence that it is winnable, particularly by penalizing the victims. ”
Fat People Aren’t the Enemy
RC - RC Rambling responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 9:39 pm →
I have been thin and have been given grief for being too thin or not thin enough (sizes 0-6). I’ve been average (sizes 8-12), and been ridiculed for not being thin enough by thin “friends.” And as I’m now in the fat category, and I’ve been ridiculed and made to feel guilty for how I look.
Trust me, I’ve never felt complete “acceptance” at any size, except by my husband.
I know what I need to do, and like any smoker or alcoholic who has tried to quit multiple times, I’ve succeeded multiple times. Without fail, something will throw me off track. (And usually, what throws me off track is someone remarking how much more weight I should/could lose, after I have just lost 20-30 pounds. I know, I shouldn’t let that get to me, but can we all stop judging, as I know I’m not the only one to be sabotaged by that feeling of defeat when some “well-meaning” person adds their two cents about how you can lose more weight?)
I’ve found that I do better when people around me accept me. And when I accept myself. Then losing weight, because I’m eating healthier and more active, happens naturally because I’m feeling good about myself – which provides a natural energy boost. (And yes, I’m an emotional eater.)
So yes, pushing for healthier choices in our schools, restaurants and grocery stores is a good thing. I love healthy foods (veggies & fruits) when I have several choices. And yes, I’m a nut about making certain my son has a well-rounded choice of good foods, since I don’t want him clinging to high-fat comfort foods like I do – and because of this, he has helped me make better choices for myself.
Sin tax for being overweight? I can pretty much guarantee that will make things worse for those of us who are emotional eaters. Sin tax on certain high-fat/high-calorie/poor-choice foods? I might be able to agree with this one. I find it a shame that we could all save a lot of money by simply choosing processed food all of the time.
But this is only one point of view from a fat person…
Heidi responds:
Posted: February 9th, 2010 at 10:16 pm →
As a “morbidly obese” (I prefer DEATHFAT!) woman who does not go into trances over food, I’m having a few issues with this post…
What relevance does the image have? A random fat person having a drink (of what you don’t know – it might well be unflavored iced tea, or even ice water) and looking peacefully out over the world. Does that person have a name? Part of the Fat Acceptance movement is getting rid of the anonymous fat person in favor of giving us ALL names and identities because we are all people, not nameless (most frequently headless) statistics. Is that person how you view “obese,” because if so, you may need to think about BMI numbers and how they really look.
Secondly, you’re not getting Fat Acceptance if you think all fat people mindlessly eat and are “drugged” by sugar. Sugar is arguably not a drug (scientists still don’t know if you can truly be addicted to sugar). What we do know is that some fat people emotionally eat. Thin people do too. When I see my thin 3.5-year-old son rolling his eyes up into his head and murmuring “oh, YUMMY!” when he bites into a piece of cake, or some succulent salmon, or a bowl of coleslaw, do I think that he has a problem with food or do I just assume that he’s really enjoying something.
You compare her serving size with yours, as if your decision to have a kid size cone was somehow more virtuous than her decision to have an extra large cone. Why should her cone size matter? Do you think that no thin people purchase large cones? I assure you that my husband, who is “average” sized and I both enjoy large cones from our favorite ice cream place once or twice in the summer, when we happen to be close by. He eats his FAR more quickly than I do, with a voracity that sometimes shocks me. I, the deathfat woman, like to savor my cone and eat it as slowly as I can without having it melt all over me.
I could say more…but Fat Acceptance is about giving everyone a basic level of humanity that has nothing to do with their size. It’s about giving people the benefit of the doubt and allowing that, whatever their size, level of fitness, or level of health, they deserve to be treated like human beings and given the right to live as they wish. That woman in the shop? You may be concerned that she has an eating disorder of some sort, or that she doesn’t get enough exercise, but you cannot know either of those things from a single observation. If a thin woman were holding an extra large cone, which she was eating raptly, and texting on her phone, would you have the same thoughts about her body? If you wouldn’t, you’re not worrying about her, you’re imposing a notion of what YOU think fat people are on her.
There are unhealthy fat people and there are healthy fat people. There are unhealthy thin people and there are healthy thin people. The point of Fat Acceptance is to acknowledge that we all have value, whatever our size. Many of we fatties choose to live healthier lifestyles not because we want to lose weight but because we want to be healthy, at whatever size our metabolisms allow us to be. Even if we aren’t healthy, we want the right to make our own lifestyle choices, just as thin people, whatever their health, are allowed to make their own lifestyle choices, except that they are not subjected to the same mass hysteria and fingerpointing as anybody who happens to be outside of what the media says is beautiful.
Chris Gregory responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 12:30 am →
This is a remarkable post, in many ways. How about we start weighing people before they’re allowed to eat ice cream? You, know, for their own good. They obviously disturb you. Maybe fat people shouldn’t be seen in public at all? For their own good, of course. We could put them in camps.
If we don’t tell them how to live right, how will they ever learn?
And don’t get me started on the coloured folk. But I’m sure we’re all in agreement on that.
Marelisa responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 2:01 am →
Hi Vered:
There’s a serious obesity problem in countries such as the US and England. I landed on a web site yesterday while stumbling that talked about how common it was for firefighters to have to remove people who weigh from 400 – 600 pounds from their homes and take them to the hospital because of medical problems. It used to be something that happened rarely, but now it’s something that happens on a pretty regular basis. I know that there are people who have a thyroid problem, and children can’t be blamed if they’re obese because they haven’t learned to take care of themselves yet, but a lot of people who are obese are simply engaging in very destructive behavior.
Hannah @Cooking Manager responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 2:16 am →
I think the focus has to be on prevention. Breastfeeding helpers are always getting flak about making mothers feel guilty. To a large extent the mothers need the information before they are in the position where they are considering weaning, not afterward. And there is nothing wrong with giving accurate information about dangers and risks (as opposed to scaremongering).
So yes, I agree with the commenters who said that the emphasis needs to be on education, especially for young parents and future parents, about how to prevent obesity in their children. Because it’s a lot easier to prevent it than to deal with it afterward.
Rayna responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 3:27 am →
That is a tough one, isn’t it? The thin dividing line between being obsessive about your body and not even caring for your health.
When I see kids with mounds of fat on them, I feel like shaking the mothers up, just as much as I feel like shaking up the mothers who put size zero ideas into the 6 year old daughter’s head.
B. Adu responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 3:32 am →
So let me get this straight, enjoying ice cream is a path to destruction?
Well, I can take it or leave it, but if anyone enjoys the food they eat, I’d congratulate them on being normal, you’re supposed to enjoy what you eat. I’m convinced that some slim people even enjoy food and they’re still slim.
Oh, and there’s already a fat tax-financial and otherwise- it’s called being fat, more especially if you’re a woman. I’m sure reactions to fatness have cost me hugely in lost earnings. Dario Fo comes to mind. Being mugged by society is no better than being robbed by random ‘freelancers’.
I’m not willing to donate any more cash to society for being fat. Find some other suckers to milk.
Urbanvox responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 3:46 am →
I was OK about accepting fat…
I was even growing some myself… reward for getting old – I said to myself…
if you look at old pics of me I have never been buffed and muscular… but I used to consider myself fit(ish)…
I am now weighting 288 pounds fat and have just looked at the mirror and could not help but feel disgusted at myself for letting this happen!
so I can say from now on I have fat tolerance ZERO!!
Lisa responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 3:52 am →
Oh, dear. You seem to be VERY confused about Fat Acceptance. FA is NOT about being “OK” with mindless, compulsive eating (which is what you were describing sounds like). Fat Acceptance is **not assuming things about people’s behaviors based on their body sizes** It’s about understanding that just because someone is fat doesn’t mean they don’t eat well, don’t exercize, don’t have a love life, etc… etc… And it’s about understanding that there are many thin people with poor eating and exercise habits who deserve attention and assistance at taking better care of themselves. And it’s about learning that fat people (contrary to the incorrect information in the press) don’t actually cost society more $ than thin people, and dieting (contrary to the incorrect information in the press) actually makes people fatter over the long run.
You are conflating behavior and physical characteristics – two VERY different things. So let me ask you – if you saw a thin girl compulsively ‘inhaling’ a big serving of ice cream, would that bother you? Would you be worried about her, her heath, her mental state? I know I would be.
Rowe responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 4:12 am →
I agree with you about not accepting poor choices. Education about healthy food intake and the right amount of exercise is, I think, a better option than accepting that people are getting fatter so lets all join the queue. Where there is no underlying medical condition that results in obesity, in order for the body to function optimally, it is preferable to minimise excess body fat. I also think that big bones does not necessarily equate to excess body fat.
LexieDi responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 4:26 am →
Look… Not all fat people are fat because they over-eat. That’s just a fact. Genetics, surroundings, medical history, income, it all plays it’s part on someone’s physical appearence. People are different heights, people have different hair colors, people are different shapes, people have different weights. It’s wonderful, beautiful.
Imagine yourself walking into the same ice cream store, the girl sitting with her back towards you is holding the same huge cone, eating it quickly, enjoying it, texting happily, loving what she’s doing… and she’s thin. What then? Do you feel the same way? Do you assume she’ll be okay because she’s thin, so she must be doing something right? Do you figure that she’s healthy? Honestly… how would you feel if she were thin?
Also, she can have whatever size cone she wants. You can have a kids cone, that doesn’t make you more virtuous or good. You don’t know anything about her. Maybe it’s her birthday and she decided to treat herself. Maybe she ran a marathon yesterday and was feeling really drained so she wanted something sugary and sweet. Maybe she just wanted a big ice cream! It doesn’t matter! You don’t know so you can’t judge.
Fat Acceptance is NOT about promoting bad health. Most FA activists promote Health At Every Size (HAES) which calls for having fun being active and eating healthily, but enjoying yourself too.
Fat acceptance is also about civil rights. A Yale-Rudd study shows that weight bias is just as common as racism especially among women, it also showed that fat people are discriminated against at the workplace and school, get paid less, get worse medical treatment, and are (obviously) harassed on the street. This is wrong. Period. I’m glad you’re still for standing up for fat rights but you need to realize that just because you have a smaller body size does NOT mean you’re better, smarter, have higher morals, more self-control, or are even healthier.
We’re all humans. We’re all free. I can be whom and whatever I want to be and so can that girl. No one has any right to judge, or take away rights just because we’re different.
Seriously, please don’t give up on Fat Acceptance, it’s about equality, not about lifestyle.
Heather Villa responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 4:42 am →
I don’t feel that we should regulate a person’s food intake. Is it really up to the government to tell someone what they should and should not eat? In the US, that’s part of our freedom, to make our own choices. It’s not like there aren’t healthy places to eat. When someone chooses to eat the greasy fast food everyday and there by becomes unhealthy and fat, that is their choice. There are plenty of people who choose to do the opposite, to eat right and work out. If we let the government put restrictions on what we can and can’t not eat, what’s to stop them from regulating other areas of our lives?
I’m in agreement with Rina – ” Love the person, hate the crime.”
Eve responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 4:44 am →
can you ever accept that other people’s weight and food choices is none of your business ? It is never a good idea to start making profound judgments about other people’s life styles on a seeing them briefly in a store.
Erylin responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 7:57 am →
So are you not allowed to eat an ice cream cone in public? So what if the teen is fat. She has right to eat what she wants, when she wants regardless of weight. Last time i checked its a free country. Also, everybody wants to bitch about subsidizing health carfe costs for the fat. DOes anybody stop to think that half of our medical bill come from being told to lose weight fatty? lap banding is expensive and the ONLY treatment found to be even remotely effective for losing weight long term. Doctors see a fat patient….and insted of listening to what is medically wrong all the doctor sees if fat and tell them to lose weight and it will get better….making us sicker and cost more, when a simple intervention at the START of the illness can often be cheaper and more effective. And if you are convinced that fatties will die early, then why do you care if we cost more….a skinny person will cost a LOT more (by that reasoning) down the line because they will live longer. 95% of diets fail. 95% And societey’s answer to fat people it to try harder…wtf.
How about making food advertisements illegal…i bet that would stop or at least slow down the consumption of twinkies. How about stop the corn subsidy so stuff like High Fructose corn syrup isnt practically free? Have you tried shoppping for produce in the inner city? (with real work hours dont give me that farmers market bs when poor people have to work long hours and can only really shop at the 24 hour places.) How about shopping when all you have is a bus to get around? OR shopping on a bus with 2 kids to feed? there are 2 grocery stores that i know of in the downtown part of KC. there are over 70 fast food stores. A dinner that is healthy cooked from said grocery store COSTS more than one bought at the save a lot in the burbs. Hell, a bad of lettuce there is 3.50, not 1.50 like it is here in my neighborhood. IF the person is a teen, how about the school lunhes served…….are THEY healthy? or are there snack lines too…and a pop machiene…and a vending machine with candy. Its very very easy to blame fat on the perosn who is fat….but remember 95% of diets fail (and it was MEDICARE that did that study, to determine if they will pay to help people to lose weight). All fat hatred does is create a scapegoat, someon to blame all our ills on (health care prices anyone?)
Knowledge1913 responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 8:01 am →
I do not understand how you can deem someone enjoying an ice cream cone as “drugged” or high off of sugar. Did you bother to ask if perhaps she was eating sugar-free ice cream or frozen yogurt?
Would you have given this young lady a second glance if she had been wearing a size 8 rather than perhaps a 22? How is it that if one is fat that one is not supposed to enjoy food either?
Since it seems that you did not bother to speak to the young lady, you have no idea why she is overweight. It is plain wrong to simply assume that someone is fat because they overeat. I know grown men larger than me that I can out-eat any day and I’m nowhere near morbidly obese.
Why do we as a society take it upon ourselves to decide what is wrong or right for someone else? How can you take something as innocuous as a teenager enjoying an ice cream cone and turn it into musings on fat acceptance.
This is more than fat acceptance. This is about respecting one’s humanity, no matter what their size is. Size should be as irrelevant as race, SES, or any other arbitrary factors that society uses to further ostracize and otherize people.
I have struggled my entire life with self-esteem related weight issues because of the stares, comments and gestures of people like you. If you want to truly help your children, encourage them to see people as humans, not as their meal or dress size.
Tess The Bold Life responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 9:03 am →
I think fast food and the like should be outlawed. Period.
Lori Hoeck responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 9:11 am →
Good choices and bad choices each come with consequences. Life is learning about which consequences we are willing to live with. I’m not fond of the idea of government getting involved with those decisions. Educational information is fine. Getting more fitness in schools is fine. A grassroots movement for teen exercise is fine. Celebrity ads campaigns are fine. Better food labeling is fine. An organization as powerful as Susan G. Komen advocating healthy eating is fine. But when Big Brother starts interfering with my right to choose because “we are just looking out for you, Lori,” well, let’s just say it’s a link in a chain I’d rather not see the end of.
MomGrind responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 9:22 am →
Thanks again everyone for your comments. Fascinating discussion on fat acceptance, interesting – and different – points of view. Keep them coming!
Atchka! responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 9:24 am →
Part of the problem with your thinking is that the obese need to be educated.
No, we don’t. We’re not morons. We’re not oblivious to the “obesity epidemic.” We’re not clueless about what is and is not healthy behaviors.
Everything you said about this girl: the way she was eating, the supposed pleasure and soothing she got from eating and texting, the fact that she looked drugged… all of those things are subjective interpretation that you probably would not have had if it were a thin teenage girl eating that same ice cream cone.
Could that girl have poor eating habits? Sure. But not every fat girl who eats ice cream is a glutton. Even if she is, her behavior is no more any of your business than whatever unhealthy habits you or your family members have (and there is not a person out there who does not have at least one, and usually multiple, unhealthy habits) is my business.
Fat Acceptance is about separating fat from health. You can be fat and make good lifestyle choices that improve your health without reducing your weight (since there is no long term weight loss solution with more than a 5% success rate at 5 years). But even if a person is making poor lifestyle choices, that is his or her prerogative, just as your right to make poor lifestyle choices (like getting drunk, using drugs, having unprotected sex with strangers) is your prerogative.
Fat people do not need education. We’re being bombarded by education in the media with constant reminders that fat people are unhealthy and ugly and a burden on society. We hear the drumbeat of health and we don’t need a louder drumbeat to make our own lifestyle choices.
The girl that you saw is more than a fat girl eating an ice cream cone. She’s a fat girl having to deal every day with the added pressure and stress of being a fat girl in a fat-hating world, where an otherwise rational person can assign negative connotations to an activity which said rational person is herself about to partake in.
The only difference is that you feel your lifestyle and/or body size grants you the right to enjoy an ice cream cone without scrutiny.
Peace,
Shannon
Hannah @Cooking Manager responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 10:00 am →
I thought this post from Cheap Healthy Good addresses some of the issues involved in making healthy choices:
Healthy Eating Doesn’t Have To Be Expensive
Carla responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 10:03 am →
This is a very complex issues. Having been overweight at one time myself, I know its not black or white, “eat less, exercise more”. My weight issues was more than just simply calories or fat. It was blood sugar, under active thyroid and food allergies. Going the conventional route just wasn’t working for me. I finally found what did work after years of experimenting and living in frustration. I wonder how many other people are in my same boat. Weight issues are not always cut and dry as other people pointed out.
In terms of the food industry and what we as Americans eat, I did my own research over the years. I didn’t need Michael Pollan to tell me what I should and shouldn’t eat. I took matters into my own hands when I realized what I’m eating just didn’t feel right. Food, Inc. was pretty much preaching to the choir for me.
To me, fat acceptance is fighting against job discrimination and other types of discrimination when it comes to people who are overweight and obese.
wife mom maniac responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 10:14 am →
I’m thin but have a huge appetite, lucky I am, I can eat whatever i want. I grew up on a traditional Polish diet, butter sliced thick like cheese, lots of doughy perogies, buttery potatoes, fatty cuts of cheap meat, sour cream. I eat the big full Big Mac meal, I eat the double scoop large ice cream (though I’m now off cold foods because they bug my sinuses), I eat the huge portions and polish my plate clean, yet remain at a normal size, size 10, 5′8, I fit in size mediums and consider myself neither big nor small, but perfectly average.
There is more to obesity then just eating, or acceptance. A good number of obese people have been sexually abused or abused in other ways when they were young, other good numbers of them have PCOS or other health issues, and sure, a number of them were fed improperly growing up. So many parents make their kids “clean their plates” without realizing they are destroying their children’s awareness of their own bodies, creating power struggles over food, creating emotional wierdness over food, control, power, and bodily awareness.
I really like the post from the college student up there about how in college the emphasis is on thinness, and how we are also thin obsessed, anorexia kills people and rampant thinness in teenage girls is bad too, there’s numerous studies that show that overly thin girls are at risk for bone density problems later. Perhaps we have too much “thin acceptance” and that what we really need to do is focus on health, hold food companies more accountable for their nutritional claims and stop the fat “unnacceptance” so that we can get down to the business of moving away from weight obsession either over or under, and towards health itself.
Amy responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 11:44 am →
It’s really unfortunate that people’s appearances only give us information about their physical selves. If we could see on the outside what’s in people’s minds and hearts, we’d be able to know who the mean, judgmental, arrogant people are and avoid them. I’d much rather go have an ice cream cone with the person in your photo than with a person who is secretly judging and rejecting others based on speculation about what their body sizes mean.
Diana responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 12:02 pm →
I LOVE ice cream, and donuts, and cookies, and pastries and cola (which I gave up) and cheeseburgers, quesadillas, potatoes, and M&Ms. I am the one gorging on sweets when my mood dips, when my mood is high, when my mood is nothing in particular. I have some sort of carbohydrate metabolism problem and I can never seemingly get enough! But I do have a good appestat, the thing that tells me that I’ve had enough, and that has saved me. Food loses its appeal after a certain amount, I don’t want any more — for a couple hours, then it starts again.
But I am not fat or thin. I am average. I weigh 155 and am 56 years old, a size 12. I don’t exercise because I have chronic fatigue syndrome and exercise makes me ill, so that’s not why I don’t get fat from what I eat.
I personally have some emotional reasons for eating and chocolate definitely adds serotonin to my brain. My daughters are of Germanic descent on their father’s side. One struggles with the same weight issues as her father and one, trying not to be as large as her sister, has monitored her food so that if she starts to go up… she exercises more and eats differently. But those two girls have been different since the day they were born, so genetics definitely play a role.
But I think the American diet is certainly to blame. I believe high fructose corn syrup is one culprit. We drank a LOT of Coke when I was a girl and no one got fat. My mom and sister were so skinny. My dad remained the same low weight all his life (91 yrs). He ate ice cream every night after dinner. But I’m 56 years old and I can see that food has changed. Sugar in cola did not make us as fat as I see drinks now (and even diet drinks) doing to some friends of mine. There is something wrong with high fructose corn syrup and the body.
Don’t blame it on white bread and pasta either. We ate plenty of it when times were lean. No whole wheat then. It was Spaghetti-ohs and wonder bread and mac & cheese. And we weren’t fat! No one on my street was fat. There was one girl in school that was obese and it was metabolic. She was teased mercilessly. So is my heaviest daughter.
No one has mentioned the psychological reasons we eat these days… displaced families, poverty, isolation, loneliness, and meaninglessness. Ice cream for me is as close to mother’s milk as I’ll ever get (I wasn’t breast-fed).
Ever read The Hungry Heart? It’s a great book about letting yourself have the comfort you are missing. I think less criticism, more empathy, is a better way to approach weight.
I think they are right to call fat-bashing the last acceptable hate crime. There has got to be an answer besides having food police. How about a warm loving mom substitute for everyone? A hug…
Living The Questions responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 12:25 pm →
Thank you for your post, and for welcoming even disagreement in your comments.
I agree with what so many have said, and don’t want to be overly repetitive. But I want to consolidate and add to one point: there are many, many reasons why people are fat. How fat a given person gets is governed by genes as much as his or her height is. Many genes and hormones are at play in appetite and fat (Linda Bacon’s book Health at Every Size offers a nice explanation of many of these factors). Furthermore, PCOS leads to weight gain. Also, there is some evidence that weight gain is the result (not the cause) of the same genetic factors that cause diabetes. Some people are fat because of binge eating disorders… disorders which are NOT healed by judgement or even education, any more than anorexia is. Also, some people are fat because they are self-medicating, recovering from a trauma. If whatever those people have gone through has been awful enough to lead to their need for food for therapy, I hope two things: first, that they may experience the small moments of comfort that food like ice cream can find them, and then that they may find other treatments that will help them heal, too. Again: shame and nutritional education won’t do it. Furthermore, some psychiatric drugs cause tremendous weight gain (and I for one would much rather be fat than dangerously manic or dangerously depressed, if I had to choose). And, beyond all of that, there is just some natural diversity to body size: fat is not inherently unhealthy. It is just tissue. Our view of what a healthy body looks like is tremendously narrow and quite skewed towards the thinnest side of the spectrum. In short: lots of factors contribute to cause fat bodies.
I’d also like to echo what others have said about how all you actually know about this young woman is that she is fat and that she was eating ice cream. That leaves a whole lot else out.
Finally, I’ll say this: it take tremendous, tremendous courage to be a fat person and to enjoy food in public. Being fat and eating in public is a political act, as your post proves, I think.
Living The Questions responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 12:43 pm →
Sorry: one more thing. The food industry. It seems to me that the healthiest way forward is to work to subsidize the growth of fresh fruits and vegetables. Taxing or banning what I’d probably agree with you are junk foods is laden with problems: to begin with, we would be all for taxing oreos, but not gourmet chocolate molten cake at a five star restaurant. There’s a tremendous class bias… we only talk about taxing pleasures that the poor can indulge in, not the pleasures that the rich can afford. And food IS in part about taking pleasure… it should be. It seems to me a much more positive, joyful, and uniting (rather than divisive) approach is to try to help more people enjoy and afford more of the pleasures that our best knowledge tells us are healthy. Let’s share the wealth of fruits and veggies, not tax the poor man’s cake? Slate dot com did a nice piece on this recently…within the last year… on the problems with a soda tax, but not a fruit juice tax. We don’t plan to tax the $4 juices that rich kids buy, but do want tax Coca Cola: it’s fundamentally unfair. Paul Campos addresses this in his book The Obesity Myth: fat prejudice is so enormous in our culture right now that lots of the conversations we believe are about health are actually just about prejudice. And there are some bad overlaps between racial and gender prejudices and fat prejudices, as he discusses compellingly… some of our culture’s misogyny and sexism has found an outlet in discussions of fat. Until we’ve had lots of honest discussions of that as a society, I think we’d better cool off some of the prognosticating over what to do about obesity.
Living The Questions responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 12:46 pm →
Sorry… I meant to write misogyny and racism.
Lorierrico responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 12:49 pm →
She was very big – most likely not just medically overweight, but obese.
Overweight and obese are medical terms, not subjective judgments. It sounds like, like many people, you are defining “overweight” as “looks fat to me, but not like a freak or anything” and “obese” as “somebody I think is really, really huge.”
In reality, your average overweight person, as identified by medical standards, looks like this.
Your average obese person, again as identified by medical standards, looks like this.
Most morbidly obese people look more like this than like the image you chose to illustrate this post, meaning that the person sitting on that bench is significantly larger than even most morbidly obese people, who already make up a small proportion of all obese people.
The image you chose to include with your piece is of a person larger than probably about 98% or so of the American population, maybe more. That is not to say, by any means, that they should be judged, ridiculed, hassled by the food police, or otherwise bothered by society about their size. However, it is to say that this whole idea that the country is overrun by 400-600 pound people who EMTs can’t get out of their homes and who are constantly stuffing their face with food from McDonald’s, as a previous commenter seems to think, is an urban legend both as pervasive and true as the idea that Pop Rocks and Coke will make you explode.
The fact that our views of what constitutes things like overweight and obese are so skewed–and so tied in with ideas about health that have no bearing in reality–is a big part of why fat acceptance is so necessary.
Lorierrico responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 1:00 pm →
Just because I love actual pictures of actual fat people and think they are always needed when people start getting outraged about all of the obese people taking over our country, here’s another one: an obese person (Me! My BMI was around 31 before I got pregnant) in their 8th month of a healthy and active, albeit seemingly VERY long pregnancy.
I certainly hope that, if I chose to enjoy an ice cream cone in public, nobody would start making assumptions about my overall lifestyle or mental state, or condescendingly “love me” despite my “crime.”
MiriamHeddy responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 1:01 pm →
She was sitting at her computer as I entered the blogosphere. She was thin, at least from the photo on her page, though it only showed her head. I tried not to judge her for it.
She was sitting in judgment of a complete stranger. She made sure to foreground her judgment by emphasizing her own carefully controlled eating habits, so that we might know her to be someone who carefully controls the eating of her child–as someone who is wholly against gluttony, against sloth–a wholly virtuous person who had every right to reflect on the lives of a stranger.
She was a fellow mom–feverishly typing, like me–yet also holding onto her prejudices and orthodoxy even as she would have surely said she was capable of empathy and skepticism. She sounded smug–drugged with the pleasures of being a thin woman in the midst of a moral panic about fatness. It was obvious that judging a fat teenager for daring to eat in public was giving her pleasure, soothing her. She was oblivious to other variables, unable to imagine that the teenage girl who was eating that ice cream might be eating quickly because she had to get home to babysit her little sister, or was speeding through the ice cream because she had spent days or even weeks eating nothing and was only now rewarding herself for her abstinence. Or perhaps that teenaged girl simply didn’t want the ice cream melting because she didn’t like it when it turned soupy.
Reading this woman’s blog post, I couldn’t help thinking about the kind of people who see one fat teenager eating as an opportunity to speculate not only on a stranger’s interior life but also on the lives of other strangers she has yet to meet. After reading her blog, I wondered if she knew very much about Fat Acceptance and suspected she didn’t.
This blogger asked her readers how she could “accept” the behavior of this one, fat teenager, as if she had not considered that if she did not accept her, her other option was intolerance, prejudice, hatred. She saw this teenager as “wrong on so many levels” and yet failed to see that her own reading of the moment lacked empathy and invited others to see that teenager as something less than human. Reading her blog, I wondered, “How do I tell her that she has revealed herself to be a bigot? How do I explain that she has no right to give or withhold permission for other people’s eating or lives? How do I help her see that it’s not her job or her right to use her power or privilege (and yes, as a thin woman, she has that) to “educate” those whom she is already dehumanizing (”The obese”? Really??!)? How can I make clear to her that she should focus first and foremost on educating herself, as she clearly has only a superficial understanding of the Fat Acceptance movement?”
Perhaps, I concluded, my goal should simply be to accept that she is, like many people, unwilling to do the work of self-education. After all, many thin people–like many fat people and even many very fat people–are lazy and smug and self-righteous. Perhaps those of us fighting with our very lives to end the fatphobic moral panic that so negatively impacts our lives must accept that there will be some who simply can’t be reached because they have too much investment in fat hate that they’ve learned from our culture, from the diet industry, and from other individuals who benefit from it.
How do you feel about people who use fat people they don’t know as “Exhibit A” for their own thinly-veiled hatred?
MomGrind responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 1:11 pm →
I’m still reading with great interest… keep them coming!
tombrokaw responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 1:54 pm →
I used to be fat.
I think fat people are gross. That is all. I really don’t care if they drive up my insurance. I would rather they not, but I can afford it. I just don’t want to see them in public, or be reminded of their existence. I don’t want to see them shovel copious amounts of food down their throats, or see their adipose tissue jiggle about like a hippo’s.
I want to keep stigmatizing them, I want to remind them that this society won’t let them be happy and fat. They will internalize this message, and the strong amongst them will summon the discipline to lose weight, like I did. The weak amongst them can suffer, I have no compassion for them. My aim is to give the strong a reason to show strength and see them enjoy the fruits of hard work.
For those who are too weak, give up, or even more hilariously, choose to pretend weight loss isn’t desirable in our modern context – leave them to their fatosphere of defeatist whine and delusion and junk pseudo science. It only provides me entertainment.
jjordan responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 2:11 pm →
Bra-vo, Miriam.
I’m 24 and spent my childhood and teenage years fat. I went to weight watchers with my mom for the first time when I was 11. I was subjected to so much shame, so much ridicule and hate, and I believed everything anyone ever said to me. You think that people don’t know they are fat? That’s ridiculous. From childhood, if there’s something different about you, you know it because the other kids latch onto it and make sure of it. I spent my adolescence thinking that I was subhuman and disgusting because I was fat. I tried dieting, exercising, not eating at all, and nothing worked and just made me feel more ugly and shameful (and come to find out, made me gain more weight, as yoyo dieting does). I prayed most nights for God to please just make me thin, that I’d do anything. I remember praying that I could be rich when I grew up so I could pay for diet programs or to go to a gym.
So for a good 10 years of my young life, I was completely miserable and hated myself. It wasn’t until I found FA that I realized that it didn’t have to be that way. I gained so much confidence just reading other people’s experiences of being fat and happy. I started wearing cute clothes, makeup, caring about how I looked. I became more outgoing, tried new things, and started living a fuller life. FA saved me from becoming a shut in. I still have a lot of self-loathing that I am working through in therapy, but the one thing I know now is that my life won’t be magically better if I lose weight, and going through the unhealthy process of yoyo dieting only makes things worse.
Also through the Fat Acceptance movement, I found women who seemed to have the same traits as me, and with their encouragement I went to three different doctors before I was finally diagnosed with PCOS. The other doctors I saw told me my symptoms were caused by being fat. PCOS makes you gain weight and makes it even more difficult to lose it.
It’s so hard to take proper care of your body when you hate yourself. Fat Acceptance has also exposed me to Health at Every Size. It’s all about being able to be healthy at any weight. I eat a lot less fast food and a lot more fresh meals because I finally pay attention to my food signals and how things make my body feel instead of good/bad/diet foods. I explore new ways to get moving not because I want to lose weight but to find ways to feel good and energized and have fun.
There’s already enough hatred in this world for fat people, we don’t need more. We don’t need educated. We need doctors, other people, teachers, and leaders to be educated about the negative effects of harassment, shame, and ridicule toward us.
SC responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 3:45 pm →
Miriam Heddy is my new favorite person. MomGrind, you really have nothing better to do than spout vitriol towards teenagers? That’s kind of sad.
BB responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 3:50 pm →
Think about this:
You don’t know this girl. You have no idea what may have caused her to become fat. It could be any number of reasons from emotional problems, to physical problems, to side-effects of medication, to yo-yo dieting. You don’t know anything about her, and yet you assume because you’ve witnessed her eating ONE ice cream that she’s fat because she’s stuffing her face with junk food 24/7.
Seeing one fat person having the balls to eat a foodstuff other than salad or raw vegetables in public does not provide proof that fat acceptance is flawed. Fat acceptance can actually help people recover from life-long struggles with eating disorders and prejudice and to lead them to live happier, healthier lives.
And it’s exactly the response that you’ve had to seeing one fat person eat just one ice-cream that makes it so vital to us to have the fat acceptance movement, to have allies against the prejudice that we experience every day. The fat acceptance movement gives us the support we need to break from the starve-binge cycle we’re trapped in, to get out into the world and live our lives, to take up healthy pursuits involving exercise (even when people are falling over themselves to shout “run fatty run” when you’re trying to enjoy a morning jog). It’s what makes us realise that we don’t have to eat everything in the fridge because tomorrow is a ‘no food day’.
And it’s this kind of prejudice which makes people equate thin with healthy. Which encourages the thin and averaged size to believe that important messages about healthy balanced diets and exercise don’t apply to them because they don’t need to lose weight. When a thin person sits on their arse all day eating cake then that’s just fine by society’s standards but in reality poor diet (lack of variety, lack of nutrients) and lack of exercise will cause you health problems whatever your size, just as a good diet (lots of variety, listening to what your body wants, plenty of nutrients) and increased exercise (even a small amount of gentle exercise will improve your health) will keep you healthy no whether you’re 7 stone or 17.
Fat people are not the enemy. Ice cream is also not the enemy – you shouldn’t live on it, but you shouldn’t live on peas either. Making snap judgments on other people without even speaking to them is a problem, but it’s not just your problem, it’s society’s problem. And quite contrary to popular belief, it’s not going to make any of us lose weight. If telling people they’re fat (as if they haven’t noticed) made people magically thin, trust me you’d have not one fat person in western society.
Raine @ Mama Rants responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 5:09 pm →
Not that long ago, I could’ve been the fat girl you talked about. I still see a lot of myself in that image. It’s not just the weight or the ice cream, but your description of feverish activity and that drugged look. I remember it a lot from the years I was bulimic. Ice cream was great, because it was so easy to throw back up, made easier by the judgmental stares from total strangers if you dared to eat in in public. I could eat with one hand while tracking the calories on my favorite mobile diet website on the other, figuring if I ate x calories, throwing up would get rid of about 1/2, and I could have ice cream or normal food again 3 days later, after a 2 day fast and exercise session to burn off the rest of the calories.
Then, I found the “truth” all of these anti-fat people want to drill into our heads – it wasn’t just the weight that was bad, it was the fat itself, and I’d have to stop eating and exercise more to make it go away. So I did, and lost my job, my college career, and almost my life. It’s ironic, I was anorexic and admitted to a hospital eating disorder unit, but never looked thin because I still had excess skin from my previous fat. If only I had learned how unacceptable eating and being overweight were earlier in life, before the age of 19. Maybe I could’ve skipped the weight gain and bulimia and went straight to restricting in 5th grade, rather then binging or purging. I could’ve been a skinny role model or another dead teenager, but at least I wouldn’t have been another fatass around to pollute society with my appearance.
Seriously, what do people want? Are they that offended by unperfect bodies that they’d rather encourage starvation or see us all drop dead or locked away than put up with a few extra pounds? Without some form of fat acceptance or positivity, that’s what it will take, because it’s pretty damn hard to take care of yourself and get healthy, at any size, when you are hating yourself and shamed by others. People get healthy by loving themselves and seeing themselves as worthy of taking care of, and that takes acceptance, not judgment.
Jannie Funster responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 6:39 pm →
I pretty-much accept all people as long as they’re not trying to harm me.
What I feel for the obese is sadness. I think it starts in childhood and is predominately nurtured, rather than a genetic predisposition. I doubt any outside influence from any agency can stop obesity or mandate against it. Support group can certainly help. But change, as all change must come from within. And if all a person has ever known is being fat it will most likely be a harder battle than someone who was always thin, then put on weight.
Patricia responds:
Posted: February 10th, 2010 at 9:35 pm →
Good discussion – I enjoyed reading all the comments,.
I am the only heavy person in my family…and I will shortly lose my health ins. – I can not get Long Term INS. now…I am treated as though I have no will power, I don’t like myself, and I am emotionally unstable….don’t exercise, eat fast food, and choose a food industry media promoted lifestyle.
I am 5″9″ tall and weigh over 200 pounds. I get checked for diabetes every time I walk into my Dr. office( and I pay for the lab work myself) …I do not have it….I exercise regularly, I measure, write down every bite I eat, I eat organically, and carefully….I believe for all the cancer/chemo I have had in my life my body is protecting me….non-stop…..I almost never eat in public or on planes or trains, because I get such nasty comments. I have taught a teen “style” program for years with a dietitian and we can no longer get kids to sign up for it…just like my marriage preparation classes…..it is very hard to be the small folks competing against the MacDonalds etc…..I watched Supersize ME, Food, INC. and keep hoping I can get other’s to understand.
I have done numerous weight loss programs and have been approached about having the weight on my upper arms surgically removed. I don’t think I look much like the person in the picture, but I most of all hate what people feel free to say to me….
I think programs like the BIGGEST LOSER and even Oprah and Dr. Oz help….(though I do not really watch TV)
WE NEED EDUCATION – because Greed is driving us to the brink …..what will we do when there is no clean water left? No CSA farms? No Health Care? I am more embarrassed by being the US citizen in my family than by my heaviness.
Maybe I am with Mother Theresa on this one: “There is enough bread in the world, but not enough love and appreciation.”
I think we have reached the rats in the cage…..eating each other and attacking….
BunnygotBlog responds:
Posted: February 11th, 2010 at 5:56 am →
I think this is an important topic. It is one think to have a health disorder making a person over weight but for someone who is overeating with bad diet habits, I think they are in need of support by friends and family.
I don’t stare or make fun of obese people. What I have done in the past was inform co-worker and strangers at snack machines that they are going to be hungry again in a half hour if they buy a certain snack especially with corn syrup.I have read that ingredients sends false messages to the brain often saying we are still hungry.This is sad.
MomGrind responds:
Posted: February 11th, 2010 at 12:48 pm →
Three comments:
1. The “fat tax” is not a tax that would be levied on fat people, but a tax on soda, sweets and fast food.
2. I think that this article on why “fat pride” is a bad idea is interesting. Thank you Dr. J of Calorie Lab for forwarding it to me.
3. “Lori” and “Living The Questions,” sorry but I had to delete a couple of your comments that were addressed at my regular readers, because I do not allow random readers of this blog to harass my regular readers. Attacking me is fine – being a blogger for 2 years grows you some pretty thick skin – but I cannot allow you to attack my readers.
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Before I close off comments to this post, I wanted to thank my regular readers for their thoughtful comments, and to also thank the Fat Acceptance folks for teaching me a few important lessons:
1. Heidi, B. Adu, LexieDi, Erylin and Knowledge1913 have taught me that portion control and mindful eating are hogwash. There’s nothing wrong with gorging on large amounts of junk food while not even paying attention to what one is eating. In fact, all these years of limiting my own junk food consumption and of teaching my kids to be satisfied with a small cone of ice cream and with a single daily treat after dinner were a huge waste of time and energy because portion control does not matter. Michelle Obama is getting it all wrong too in her current campaign against childhood obesity and when she talks about changes her own family is making, such as drinking more water, eating out less and monitoring portion sizes.
2. LexieDi and Knowledge1913 have taught me that fat people do not become fat by overeating, but because of a myriad of other reasons, and especially a slow metabolism. I guess this means that the human body has underwent huge changes over the past 50 years, since there are so many more obese people now than there used to be in the past. Lots more slow metabolisms in our society these days, huh?
3. Atchka! and BB have taught me that doctors have been getting it all wrong. Fat and health are completely unrelated! All those studies that show a clear link between excess weight and high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes and even some cancers? Hogwash. There is absolutely no connection between being overweight or obese and having health problems.
4. Most importantly, Amy, Miriam Heddy and SC have taught me that when you think someone is wrong and would like them to see your point of view, your best course of action is to attack them personally. This will immediately cause them to see the light and to join your cause and will never ever push them from simply being unaware, maybe insensitive to your pain, into actively, knowingly, wholeheartedly opposing you, your lifestyle choices and your cause – for the rest of their life.