It is no secret that the American public is rapidly achieving a collective mass that is disturbing at best and obscene at worst.
Many scholarly articles have been written about this trend, much hand-wringing has been done about how to stop it, but apparently no one is prepared to sit back and say, “Look people. We are getting fat because we eat more calories than we expend on a daily basis.”
Today I am ranting about the blogs and web sites that have been set up over the last couple of years that are pushing for “Fat Acceptance.” There is one in particular that I visit upon occasion because they are not “just” about what they coyly refer to as FA, but they also talk about feminist issues like the sexualization of women and equal pay for equal work. They make some very good points.
These gals are right up front about their position. ”We are fat and we have dieted and we can’t keep the weight off because we have psychological issues and we don’t want to hear from anybody, NOT ANYBODY, who suggests that we are not perfect just as we are.” God forbid you should leave a comment about how you managed to lose weight and keep it off and possibly it is within the realm of reality that they could do the same. If you mention anything like that on their site, no matter how politely you address them, they will mark you as a troll and ban you from commenting. That doesn’t strike me as being very accepting, but hey.
This new “Fat Acceptance” movement has become so ingrained in public consciousness that I actually saw a blog post recently entitled, “Is it okay for me to want to lose weight?”
Look, I’m all for Fat Acceptance. I’ve been fat. In fact, according to the Body Mass Index calculator, I have been not just overweight but obese, with a BMI of 36.6. Today I have acheived “overweight,” and quite soon I am going to achieve what the BMI thinks is “normal weight” for the first time in approximately 35 years. I accepted myself as an overweight woman. I bought extra large clothes, and never agonized about it. I didn’t hate myself.
Once in a while I would think, “Gosh, I probably should see if I can lose some weight.” But I never really did anything about it. I rejoiced when my doctor ordered cardiac stress tests and echocardiograms which showed my circulatory system to be functioning at optimum. I could work hard and long, I was strong, I had stamina. I had no problem. I liked to eat what I liked to eat. I liked myself. Well, except for the rash I developed where my flab made creases — that I didn’t like.
Of course, when my mother needed a knee replacement, I thought about the stress my knees were experiencing as they hauled around the approximately 33% extra body weight I had accumulated. And my sister got adult onset diabetes due to the fact that she weighed way over 300 pounds for many years. I sort of worried about developing insulin resistance myself. But brownies, mmmm. Ice cream, heaven. I should give up my french fry addiction? I think not!
But here’s the thing. I look at these zaftig ladies and see that they are smart, active people, that they are just as sensuous and sexy as a coathanger thin person, really. I don’t think “She should lose weight,” when I talk to a brilliant and funny fat woman, I think “She is brilliant and funny.”
I totally understand about physical conditions such as cancer and chemotherapy, muscular dystrophy, chronic fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis, paralysis, etc. etc. that contribute to an inability to get weight off and keep it off. I thank goodness that I am not similarly afflicted.
When am I going over the line of “Fat Acceptance” though?
When I go to Walmart and I see a person who is so obese that they cannot walk around the store, but must ride in a scooter, and their huge belly hangs down in between their knees and thighs almost to the foot rests of the scooter, am I being “Unaccepting” to find that sight not only disturbing but disgusting?
When I know someone who is obese and who has diabetes and is using injectable insulin, stents in her cardiac arteries, other health issues, and takes numerous medications, if she “can’t keep her hands out of the cookies”, what am I accepting here? Her need to slowly commit suicide? Can you call the suicide prevention hotline for this? What would you say?
When an obese person comes into my home and uses my toilet and breaks the seat when they sit on it, exits my bathroom without mentioning it, and I get a nasty pinch on my own buttocks when I sit on the broken seat, do I have to accept that? Can I not ask for my toilet seat to be replaced?
What about when an obese person sits on my toilet (different person, different toilet) and leans back and snaps the tank right off and then not only do I have water all over my bathroom but I have to buy a whole new toilet? Is it unaccepting to feel like that person maybe ought to purchase a new toilet?
What about the broken dining room chair? Or the hand made Windsor chair in the living room whose legs are over-spread because of having to bear the burden of between an eighth and a quarter of a ton of personage?
What about when I get on an airplane and I am seated between two grossly overweight people who squeeze me in between them as their adipose tissue oozes under and around the arm rest, their gargantuan thighs flapping and jiggling on and over my own? Sentenced to several hours of listening to stertorous wheezing and being squashed between these human furnaces — am I “unaccepting” because I find this wearing?
I read the blogs, although not as often as I used to. What I see are rationalizations and excuses wrapped up in fancy phraseology designed to make one feel not just politically incorrect, but positively rude for thinking that perhaps these sweet sexy ladies might consider eating less and exercising more, and getting some therapy to overcome their psychological issues if they can’t manage it on their own. They make me tired.
I recall a sentence I heard someone use when they met a person who was vastly overweight. “What is she doing, committing suicide with her fork?”
Maybe that question should be asked more often. But it wouldn’t be “accepting,” I suppose.
Have you seen this article about The Fat Acceptance Movement?
It almost provoked a similar ranty post from me, but you beat me to it.
I am FAT. I don’t like it. And frankly, when I see obese people like the Walmart one you described I am disgusted.
I started gaining weight about ten years ago, after I had a hysterectomy. It was very slow… maybe five pounds a year. But after ten years, guess what? I was “suddenly” 50 pounds overweight. And okay, in part I can put this down hormonal flux created by the operation and an aging metabolism, because I didn’t suddenly start eating more, but I wasn’t listening to what my body needed – and didn’t need – and I also didn’t increase my physical activity.
I suspect that the majority of people who moan about not being able to lose weight are either in denial or are just too lazy to get up off their fat asses and do something sensible about it. And usually both.
”We are fat and we have dieted and we can’t keep the weight off because we have psychological issues and we don’t want to hear from anybody, NOT ANYBODY, who suggests that we are not perfect just as we are.”
Oh puhleeze! As you very sensibly pointed out, Ellie, successfully losing weight is simply a combination of eating less and doing more. With the emphasis on doing more. Sure there are some people with medical conditions that make it very difficult if not impossible to lose weight, but they are a very small minority.
Just to be clear, I am not talking about people 10-20 pounds overweight, because quite often people are actually healthier with a few extra pounds on them, and some people are just naturally a bit heftier than others. But once you get big enough to break toilet seats or can’t keep yours excess flesh from spilling over into somebody else’s airplane seat … you are morbidly obese, unhealthy and gross to look at. And I see no reason I should have to “accept” this.
I congratulate you on your recent success at becoming a svelter and healthier you, and I am following in your footsteps.
That article makes a wonderful point at the end, which wasn’t stressed enough.
We can accept fat all we like in our brains, and accept it on the bodies of other people. But no matter how much political activism we engage in, we cannot force our physical bodies to accept it as well. They will develop rashes where the flesh overlaps, insulin resistance leading to diabetes, heart and arterial problems, joint problems and I don’t know how many other conditions if we load them down with fat. Sorry, that’s the reality.
I also have no problem with 10 to 20 extra pounds. A lot of times that will make the difference between life and death if a person is “enjoying” amoebic dysentery or chemotherapy, for example. But I managed to get 77 pounds over a good healthy weight for me and my bone structure. It has not been easy, and I took a 3 year break in the middle of losing the excess where I stabilized at a weight 32 pounds lower than my historic high. Now I have only 21 pounds left to lose to get to what I consider an ideal weight. And now that I’ve established the pattern, it hasn’t been that hard to do.
The overlap of tissue is gone now, and the rash with it. That alone has made the effort worth it.
I am happy to know that you are following in my footsteps, and I wish you success. I know that you are a stubborn lass and I’m sure you will succeed.
Good rant, lots of good points.
Generally, I am in favour of accepting people of all shapes & sizes, but when you have to spend time squeezed between the two obese people on the plane or they are damaging property with their weight, there is a line that has been crossed.
I guess what struck me in reading your post, Az’s comments, and the article Az linked to is that we are so caught up in black & white thinking about this. One on the one hand, we have the obsession with skinniness in our culture, which I believe is very damaging; on the other hand, we have a burgeoning fat acceptance counter-movement. It’s a reactionary movement, which I get, but I don’t think it’s doing anyone any favours, either. There seems to be no middle ground.
I’m a big girl. I also have normal blood pressure, normal bloodwork that is regularly checked, and apart from my mental health issues, am very healthy. I am pretty active and eat decently. But, because I do have mental health issues and take 4 medications, it’s hard to lose weight. I have tried and tried, but it just doesn’t budge, despite regular work-outs, diet amendments, etc. I have had to learn acceptance of myself, which is a long process that never seems to end. But it’s getting better.
That medication thing is a real issue. I have seen more than one person who has been affected by them in exactly that way — either because of fluid retention or metabolic changes or both, and it is one of the most frustrating thing about those sorts of drugs. You HAVE to take them in order to keep from having a heart attack or becoming suicidal or having a grand mal seizure or going into a psychotic rage (take your pick), and yet the side effects are cruel. Another side effect that is common is the elimination of all libido, and that one sucks too.
We do the best with what we have and go on.
I suspect that even as a big girl, you probably would not break my toilet or furniture.
No, I’m not THAT big!
One of my meds is famous for inducing massive sugar cravings and is nicknamed “instant fat-ass.” I’m trying to get off of it now, actually, and it’s going OK except for the fact that it’s causing massive sleep disruption. It’s a juggle always, and it’s really demoralizing, too. And the illness itself isn’t helpful, either. I can’t seem to win!
The more I hear about meds the happier I am that I don’t need any. (yet)
Sleep disruption is a major health problem, actually. HOpe you get over that quick.
Maybe you need to redefine “winning” — perhaps having mental stability, normal blood pressure, normal bloodwork and plenty of energy should be a winning place for you. If you see that as having won, then maybe a slow loss of what you wish to lose will also feel like winning.
Then I have to wonder why we are creating medications that cause massive sugar cravings or create instant impotence. Surely we could address specific issues without affecting systems that aren’t even associated with the problem. But maybe I’m too simplisitic.
Also, I’m totally with you on the obsession with thinness in this culture. It isn’t surprising that there is a reaction to it. But we need to hit a happy medium someplace. Az is right in that we need to learn to listen to our bodies and give them what they truly need.
Nothing is simple.
Oh, I have redefined winning – pretty much as you wrote in your comment. I was being a bit sarcastic when I said I couldn’t win. ;P Sometimes stuff like that doesn’t translate, eh?
Actually, I’m doing pretty well for myself all things considered!
Tone of voice and facial expression do not come across on the internet. . .
You sound pretty upbeat to me. Glad to have you here, by the way.
WC, you are quite far from “toilet breaking” weight, and I agree that you are wise to accept some extra weight as a consequence of the meds you need to take. Not sleeping enough can also fuck up your metabolism. I’ve seen you talking a lot about afternoon naps lately and I say – keep doing that! I found while I was on chemo that even a short siesta after lunch made all the difference in how I felt. And when I was on holiday in Málaga last week I ended up sometimes taking 2 hour naps! I couldn’t believe it. But it felt right, especially after a 2-3 hour walk around town or along the beach.
And speaking of meds, I can’t tell you how many times people commented on my weight while I was on chemo. As if to say that I didn’t look like I had cancer because I wasn’t emaciated with gaunt cheeks and sunken eyes, when in reality one big topic on the colon cancer forum I participate on is how to get rid of “chemo weight”. Some of this can be attributed to comfort eating, but I think it’s mostly that chemo totally sucks your energy so you just end up a lot less active than you normally are.
HMH: I always read, and I subscribe, too. Just don’t comment that much. Felt compelled to this time though.
Az: one of the new meds I’m on makes me drowsy and sometimes I just can’t keep my eyes open in the afternoon, so that’s when I nap. I’ve been told & told for years and years that it’s bad sleep hygiene, but I really don’t care anymore. The medication I’ve just stopped in the last 3 weeks was sedating and without it I’m not sleeping through the night, so I tend to be more tired during the day on top of that.
“I’ve been told & told for years and years that it’s bad sleep hygiene”
What a load of crap. Every Spaniard knows that a 20-30 minute nap after lunch is a life necessity. If you need a bit longer right now, then take it.
I am soooooo into naps these days that I want to make sure I continue this very healthy practice when I start back to work in September. Especially as I don’t sleep well during the night.
There was JUST an article about the very subject of how to have a long healthy life in the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) magazine this month. One of the 13 likely contributors to longevity is a daily nap. Direct quote from the article: “Science shows that a regular 30-minute nap decreases the risk of heart attack” I can’t imagine that a bit longer would change that.
Naps are good. The Spaniards (and the Greeks and the Italians and several other cultures as well) are right.
[...] a good old rant and discussion going on at HealingMagicHands place about this ridiculous “movement” (feel free to join us there) and it reminded [...]
Hi Hands, I don’t have much to add to this conversation, knowing nothing of the fat acceptance movement. But I have been on an airplane in that position, and see the sad people on the scooters at walmart and grocery store. Should I feel sorry for them, or not? I do, as there was obesity in my family. But my father and brother both lost massive amounts of weight on doctor’s orders. So it is possible, with the change of eating habits, for some. I have had antique chairs broken, and lazyboys too. I am most proud of your determination to get to your target weight. You set a fine example and are a beacon to others.
Frances
I suppose this post comes across as ranty and not very compassionate. At the same time I am repulsed by the morbidly obese, I certainly have compassion for their plight. And I know it is not easy to change the habits of a life time. Once you are that overweight that you cannot move without assistance, losing weight becomes very difficult.
I’m trying not to be on too high of a horse here, after all I was bordering on achieving morbid obesity myself, and would have been able to do it to if I had not made a huge change in life style. At least I didn’t have a lot of psychological barriers to overcome.
It’s interesting to hear you express disgust at the way other people look (and sound and radiate, on a plane). Part of me is repelled by that expression as not at all compassionate or loving. But it’s honest. Morbidly obese people are so far outside the norm that I bet it’s simply human nature, so to speak, to be disgusted.
Not eating right and exercising sure can have a psychological component. Food is pretty primal, after all. But I think there’s a point when most people simply need to make a choice to change their behaviors. Of course, modern society doesn’t really foster that kind of will effort, either! Nor does it typically inspire us toward good food choices, given how cheap and easy bad food is to get, or get proper exercise, given how easy it is to be completely sedentary.
Wow. I just checked my estimated BMI. Looks like I’d have to lose 100 pounds to get to the top of “healthy”. Hmmm…family history of heart attack, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Maybe it’s time to go on that raw food diet and get off my tuchus.
The fact is, I am not always compassionate or loving. I try to be, but I am an imperfect human like other humans.
I believe I described the situation on the plane as “wearing”, but when I was actually in that position I wasn’t so much disgusted as made extremely uncomfortable by the situation. Fortunately it wasn’t a very long flight.
Make sure you read sledpress’s comment below, because she makes a very good point about Real Food and how our bodies deal with it as opposed to how they deal with the engineered and manufactured stuff.
The diet here at the Havens is almost completely organic, and definitely “real”. I can’t remember the last time I knowingly ate something that had artificial color or flavoring in it. Since we do occasionally go out to eat, I can’t state categorically that I “never” eat those things, but it doesn’t happen very often. And since I have made that conscious switch, it seems like the weight has been just falling off me.
I have a few spins on some of this. First of all, anyone I’ve known who was ever really alarmingly obese — who needed that cart in the grocery store or had to push him/herself up out of chairs with a “splort” sound — ate as if they were being paid. I’ve heard every story about childhood hunger or a “defective appestat” or a sore knee or you name it. These people were eating an amount that would make anyone UNCOMFORTABLE. It looked like some kind of contest with themselves. And this describes a lot of people who are only moderately, but unhealthily, heavy.
I do think we are seeing the result of people eating food that doesn’t bear any resemblance to food. Not just too much, but “food” that the metabolism can’t interpret in any functional way. We have industry to thank for this but individual humans have to keep saying no — no to fast food, no to engineered food, no to oceans of sugar. I always liked the Matt Furey saying, “There is only one diet and it’s the ‘Don’t Eat Crap’ diet.” It’s almost magical how appetite can limit itself if you are eating real food made from ingredients peple would have reecognized a century ago.
We also live in a world where people have access to fully prepared food almost around the clock, and I don’t think the human system was made to have that kind of constant input even if people say they are “only nibbling.” No question that people sit on their asses too much, but I damn near live in the gym and I see people who are still absurdly fat after training for years. Your stomach can always outrun your legs.
Well said, sledpress. When I think about the people I know personally who are morbidly obese, your description of the way they eat is spot on. It is like they are getting paid to eat.
My ownpersonal experience with the “Don’t eat crap” diet is that Matt Furey is right. I am eating real food, mostly fresh, none of it pre-prepared in a factory, and my appetite has limited itself quite well. I am trying to limit myself to 1200 calories a day, and I am doing pretty well at achieving that goal. And I am not running around hungry. when I really need a snack, I run out and find a cucumber or have a cup of herb tea.
We did not evolve to eat around the clock, you are right. We also did not evolve to have plenty available year round. Our propensity for saving calories for later was engendered by the hard long cold winters that the ancestors who were able to find enough to put on some fat during the summer managed to survive. We are descended from them, and I sometimes think what we all need is a good famine at the end of every winter.
I have been cogitating on the idea that perhaps if we all only ate what we could personally grow and raise a lot of us would be a lot thinner!
I love your last sentence. It is true. My stomach can outrun my legs. It has before, that’s for sure.
I had my say over at Azahar’s. I am what is classified as “morbidly obese”, and I have if I broke your chair or toilet, I would replace it. But it is kind of hurtful to hear that you are “disgusting” just because of your body weight. That is like being “lazy and disgusting” because of your skin tone. Think about it.
Most of the solutions to obesity either don’t work for long, or they cause health problems worse than the obesity. Doctors have offered me weight loss surgery, but I don’t think iatrogenic malnutrition is a healthy substitute for just carrying the weight. Would my knees be better for not carrying the weight for all these years? Maybe, but then again, my normal weight brother, who’s ten years younger has bad knees, as did my father. It runs in the family. You might also be surprised at how little I eat some days. And how difficult it is for an apartment dwelling poor person to afford all that lovely healthy food. I’m making an effort, but most folks can’t lose more than about 20% of their body weight for very long, according to the studies.
Obesity is a big industry, and a lot of the hype we are getting about how bad it is for us is based on getting us to spend some money to get rid of it. If we suddenly accepted that people that are classified as “overweight” live the longest, followed by people who are “normal” and “obese”, and that even “morbidly obese” like me live longer than the “thin” people, it would put a crimp in the economy. Think about that.
As azahar said below “It’s the image that disgusts, SS, not the person. If I wasn’t clear about that either here or on my blog then I apologise.”
When I wrote this post I was afraid that I was going to hurt some feelings, which is why I waited so long to write it. I have been cogitating and digesting this subject for about a year, actually. I see that even that long digestion did not make it possible for me to write this post in such a way that it was not hurtful. Your and Henitsirk’s comments have made this clear to me.
It has also been made abundantly clear to me that I need to work on my own attitudes.
The irony is that if I have a relationship with someone who is morbidly obese, or if they are on my massage table, I am completely accepting of them as they are, I am not disgusted by them. My sister is dangerously morbidly obese, but I do not find her disgusting. I have some very very fat clients, too. But if it is a total stranger presenting to me when I am “unaware”, I find myself recoiling. The sad thing is, I have been programmed by media and images just as well as the next person, in spite of my constant battle against that very programming. After all, I have no way of knowing what is going on in that person’s life.
My reaction is particularly strong when I see the person in the cart at Walmart and their little basket is filled with potato chips, Dr. Pepper, a Walmart cake, and similar items. Maybe I’m reacting to the food in their cart and not them — especially the Walmart cake (ugh, shudder).
Like az, the anorexically thin also disturb me.
Perhaps disgust is not the right word. Maybe what I am feeling is fear, fear that I could be struck with a autoimmune disorder that would leave me stuck in a cart and gaining weight uncontrollably. It is possible I mask my fear from myself with some other, more socially acceptable, emotion.
As far as being able to afford healthy food, I probably am the last person who can talk about how much it costs to eat fresh healthy produce. I haven’t bought any in years, because I am not in an apartment. I imagine if I had to buy all the food that we eat here, we would be looking for ways to economize! But any time you buy food that has been processed in any way, you have to pay for the workers and machinery that processed it.
Another soapbox I could get on is the one about food stamps. I firmly believe that people on food stamps should be limited to spending those tax dollars on INGREDIENTS: flour, sugar, eggs, potatoes, dried beans, pasta, tomato puree (NOT spaghetti sauce!), etc. NOT Hamburger Helper, NOT Oreida frozen hash browns or their relatives, NOT Lego frozen waffles. If they want potato chips or crackers or candy, they have to buy it with their own dollars, not with food stamps. However, I’m not going to get into that full diatribe here.
I hope that this post and the discussion following it will help me to work on my own attitudes and find the compassion and kindness that I would like to have as a hallmark of my life, and apply it to all, even the strangers that cross my path.
It’s interesting to hear your (non)reaction to overweight massage clients. I’ve had maybe two massages ever, and don’t have a good enough self-image to do it more often, precisely because I imagine being judged by the therapist. Even though I know they are professionals, seeing all sorts of bodies is part of their normal work, etc.
Food stamps is a huge issue, as are the various subsidies we provide to the industrial corn complex that so willingly doses us all with corn syrup in all its guises. There’s a reason all the crap food is cheaper: subsidized corn as well as relatively cheap fossil fuels.
We’ve forgotten what real food looks and tastes like. Kids get used to eating salty, sugary foods, and that’s what they crave for the rest of their lives. We also have designed our lives to make real cooking difficult: we come home tired from working all day and are defeated by the idea of cooking, so we eat fast food or processed food. (Of course, the slow cooker is an incredibly useful solution for that!)
But changing that is possible. I did it! My parents cooked when I was a girl, but we also ate tons of processed food. College was a time of ramen noodles and bagels and cream cheese. When I was first married, we didn’t eat much better, and I didn’t really know how to cook. Now I cook simple, whole foods all the time, and processed foods are relatively rare.
But again, I still have to get off my tuchus. I’m definitely putting in a vegetable garden next spring in our new house.
PUtting in a vegetable garden will also help increase your activity level! Plus you will not believe how much better the veggies taste when they come straight out of the garden to your table.
Believe me when I say that at 250 pounds you would not even be in the running for the most overweight person on my massage table. I do not judge people on my table, and because of it I have clients who are overweight, who are amputees, who have burn scars over 60% of their bodies, etc. They come back because they sense I am not judgmental.
So the reaction I have when I see the morbidly obese person at Walmart is even more confusing to me. I struggle with my own attitudes every day.
I’ve also been hovering at the edges of the FA movement, because I am a feminist and I like the values it espouses: accepting people for what they are, breaking the mould of what women “should” look like, putting yo-yo dieting on the shelf forever. However, like you, I feel ambivalence – surely healthy eating, some getting about and moving, stopping eating processed sugary foods would help people lose at least some of the pounds.
When I read FA blogs, I have to switch off my urge to say, “Try low-carb! It really worked for me! All that sugar is making you FAT!” However, I resist and keep reading because there is a certain radical mindset there that I like – bodies are what they are, it is the people inside that matter.
This post completely describes my ambivalence and thanks for your honesty.
Thanks, charlotte. I like the values of the FA movement too: accepting people for what they are.
I believe a lot of what is going on in terms of overweight humans can be laid at the door of the manufacturers of high fructose corn syrup and other processed ingredients, that are jacking up the caloric content of food without adding any actual nutritional value. If your body is starving for magnesium, you are going to keep eating until you find something that has it in it, and you won’t feel satisfied until you get that missing nutrient.
“Morbidly obese people are so far outside the norm that I bet it’s simply human nature, so to speak, to be disgusted.”
Well, for the record henitsirk, I also feel disgusted when I see grossly underweight people. I can’t help it – the sight of razor-blade shoulders, sunken cheeks and joints sticking out all over the place creeps me out.
“But it is kind of hurtful to hear that you are “disgusting” just because of your body weight.”
It’s the image that disgusts, SS, not the person. If I wasn’t clear about that either here or on my blog then I apologise.
And I meant it to be implied that *any* shape outside the norm might be disturbing. How neutral do most of us feel when we see a little person, or a grossly underweight person? I think human brains automatically categorize and judge visual imputs; it’s something of an ancient survival mechanism. Even if our higher selves immediately step in and we willfully remember that the “abnormal” person is a human being worthy of compassion, that judgment has still occurred.
Add to that how we feel when we see an amputee, or a burn victim. I think you are right about the ancient survival mechanism.
Birds still have it. They will attack and kill an abnormal or injured member of the flock because a weak member is a menace to the whole group. It could have a contagious disease or attract a predator.
We have a lot of evolving left to do.
[...] the weight, even after this drastic surgery, why all the recrimination of fat people here* and here, even by those who have been or are, by their own admission, overweight or obese? Why the [...]
This is a post well worth reading, I’m glad I did.
“The irony is that if I have a relationship with someone who is morbidly obese, or if they are on my massage table, I am completely accepting of them as they are, I am not disgusted by them.”
I don’t think that’s irony, hmh. It just shows that you are not calling the person carrying around the fat bod disgusting, but that the image is repugnant to you. You do have a right to feel like this, as do I, even if it doesn’t sound nice & PC to others.
I don’t think I need to apologise for feeling disgusted when I see grossly overweight or underweight people in the street. I also don’t feel a need to dredge up some extra compassion for them since these are mostly self-inflicted health problems. Sure, no doubt many people could use counselling, rehab, etc. But what they don’t need is another fad diet or other quick-fix option like surgery. Or a “movement” telling them that it’s not only okay to be dangerously overweight or underweight, but that they should rejoice in their unhealthy conditions and expect others to share their opinions.
Apparently the concept of “dangerously overweight or underweight” is one that is under attack. The folks in the FA movement have studies to indicate that being overweight is not bad for them.
Of course, the opponents of legislation to help curb CO2 in the atmosphere have studies that indicate that there is no such thing as global warming going on, too.
I think we can be compassionate toward the person without approving of their choices. I think there’s a difference between an acceptance movement raising awareness of discrimination and judgments and enabling poor choices. I think we can show equal compassion to all human beings without feeling like we have to “dredge up” extra.
I thought about affirmative action: at one time, it was crucial to raise awareness of discrimination against racial minorities and to begin equalizing opportunities. Perhaps the necessities of that have passed; perhaps not. Same with fat acceptance.
I’ve been at about 250 lbs for at least 10 years, both before and after birthing two kids. Is that my “normal” weight? I guess it is, given what I currently eat and my level of activity. Is it my ideal or healthiest weight? No.
I guess I can accept it for what it is. I guess I don’t expect other people to “accept” it, though I would hope they don’t judge me for it. I guess I can not accept that I have a hard time finding flattering clothes that aren’t polyester and hideous and expensive.
Azahar, you quoted something from the FA movement: “We don’t want to hear from anybody, NOT ANYBODY, who suggests that we are not perfect just as we are.”
Maybe the problem is in that little word, “perfect.” Nobody’s perfect, but we all deserve compassion.
Very well said Henitsirk. I will only add this: the acceptance movement should stick to raising awareness of discrimination and stop dredging up “evidence” that being morbidly obese is not a health problem. That steps over the line into “enabling”, IMHO.
I “accepted” my 77 excess pounds too, and the rash that went along with them. Until one day, I guess I slammed the door on the enabling thoughts I was having and decided to do something about it.
If you really want to do it, I believe you can change your patterns and your shape. Anything I can do to help or encourage you, I’d be happy to do. Especially when you start that garden. . .
At the risk of steaming up the windows again — I think we are coming close to the nub of the matter.
I distinctly did NOT get the “thin genes” in my family, or at least didn’t get them exclusively. There are a lot of ways I could have sat down and gotten fat, but I didn’t — out of sheer mulishness and revulsion toward what I saw on my mother’s side of the family. “Oh, we’re all faaat! We just cain’t HELP it! Wheyah’s that coconut cake? Have you eaten this morning? Have a Co-cola! Heyah’s some tater salad! Taste of it!” Last I heard — and I don’t have anything to do with those people now that I can shut them out of my life and not look back — they were all on heart drugs and all wearing unflattering polyester and going OOOF when they sat down.
Emphasis on the heart drugs and the OOOF. I had and have no intention of transitioning by the age of forty into a life of drugs and ooof.
Now, someone I do love dearly comes from a similar background, she just turned seventy, and she is on the drugs and does the oof. And I feel rage that she has been robbed of the age-seventy life that fitter people enjoy — plenty of them are clients of mine — and somehow conditioned to believe she can just never change it, when it glares out at me that she’s doing that “eat like she’s being paid” thing and finding every possible way to allocate her time except in the fitness center a few steps away in her senior residence, which is rigged out for people that night have a few special needs. I feel grief because she will die before she has to. I feel loss because she cannot go out with me and do things we’d both enjoy — she doesn’t even want to visit me because there are steps up to my door.
I have another friend who’s gone from 330 to 400 since I knew him. He wants a pill he can take to make the fat go away.
My late and ex husband’s niece — who is an annoying person no matter how fat or thin — went to Overeaters Anonymous for years and preened about working on her “emotional issues,” but she didn’t get rid of the excess 150 pounds till she began using the time to exercise instead, and quit acting like food was an emergency (she once arrived at my house for a massage with a deli tub of soup asking if she could heat it in my microwave — which I don’t have!)
People do turn their lives around. People do get rid of fat — if they stop telling themselves they can’t, or that their only options are heroically stupid measures like stomach stapling. Non-crap food can be found at an affordable price if you’re willing to prepare it. You’re certainly not getting your money’s worth if you buy processed crap-food — unless you count money’s worth by number of chews.
I think it is perfectly normal and human to observe that distorted thinking has led to a distorted, unhealthy body and feel anger, pity, distress or frustration. Some people will always have trouble gaining weight and some people will always have to work to keep it off. I know that. But don’t ask me to collude in the denial that is involved when a person without a pre-existing mobility impairment hits the “morbidly obese” mark.
And yes, because excuse-making, denial, self-deception and often selfishness are involved — the 400 pound guy has in effect made himself the dependent child of a wife who has multiple medical problems of her own — I do pass judgment on the person whose choices have led them to be “in that body.” I may recognize that they are struggling with this issue or that and feel compassion — but aren’t we all? Fat can mean everything from a hormone disorder to a slow-healing injury, but most of the time, it just means a succession of stubbornly bad choices, and how is one not supposed to have a judgment about that?
I like steamed up windows.
For a very long time I have wondered about the “fat gene” thing. Do we really have genes that predispose us to be fat or thin? For that matter, I have also doubted the “cancer gene” as well. Both doubts are caused by a similar train of thought.
I’m getting Google Alerts for the search term “fat acceptance movement” because I only discovered that service recently and couldn’t think of anything better to try it out with, so please excuse my random appearance.
I don’t know which FA blogs you’ve visited, but I am subscribed to quite a number of them and I get the impression that you’ve only skimmed a few posts and wrote them off as crazy. Of course you could have just as well read more and decided that the bloggers were all lying … but outside of those two explanations, what you say doesn’t make much sense.
Haven’t you noticed that ~80% of FA blogs promote exercise and certain forms of healthy eating? Haven’t you noticed that many bloggers DO have therapists and regularly write about their sessions, or mention that they used to go to therapy and now don’t need it anymore? Haven’t you noticed that some of them freely admit they used to suffer from Binge Eating Disorder, have lost weight over the course of their treatment, but are still not thin despite having a healthy relationship with food by now? I could go on like this for a while.
Personally I was thin when I discovered FA. I stuck with it not for the feminism, but rather for the science. I had never been able to believe that all thin people ate very little and all fat people ate very much because I was thin and ate a lot, but my mother was fat and didn’t. Plus, I’d been trying to find out what “healthy eating” meant ever since I’d heard of it as a child and all I found was that the definition seemed to change every other year. So I went looking for evidence proving any of the numerous theories out there in order to decide which to pick, but couldn’t find anything. FA only confirmed that it was all mostly assumptions.
Then, of course, I not only had a child, but also went on three different medications that all caused weight gain. I went up three or four clothing sizes while my lifestyle changed not one bit. In fact, I was often too sick to eat enough, and yet I gained weight. I suppose I am “overweight” or “obese” now, although I refuse to spend money on a scale – but I am THE EXACT SAME PERSON. My character did not change. If you assume that I am lazy or delusional NOW, I must have been so for all my life – even when I was at my thinnest.
You could call me an exception. You could say that the meds give me a free pass, that I am one of only a few rare individuals who gained weight for a reason completely out of their control, but to be honest … the same thing happened to my mother after she had children, although she was not sick at all. I never looked like her, but now we’re almost exactly the same shape. Genes, anyone??
The thing is, many people in the FA movement have told their personal stories. One gained weight while consuming less than 1000 calories a day and throwing part of it back up (not on purpose). One had trouble following Weight Watchers because the plan told her to eat more than she wanted. One had anorexia nervosa for a long time and is now fat and healthy. Most have tried many diets, lifestyle changes and exercise regimes without success – but not because they couldn’t stick to them. They were still on the diet and yet the weight already started to come back. Some eat more than I do, some eat less. Some exercise a lot, some a little.
Do you really think they’re lying or delusional? ALL of them?? Because there aren’t just three or four.
It is true: Some people can lose weight and keep it off. Especially if they only had 10-20 pounds to lose, it can even be achieved through a normal lifestyle change. In fact, most people will lose 10-20 pounds if they make such a change, no matter at which weight they start out. But often it ends there. In case of an eating disorder, therapy might work. In case of medications, physical diseases or genetic predisposition, however, success is very rare. There are a few who can tolerate burning stomach pain for every minute of their remaining lives and literally starve themselves thin, as well as a few who get lucky. DO NOT assume that just because they exist, everyone else must be able to do the same. Bodies are complex and each is different. There are people who followed a very sensible “lifestyle change” and became so ill through it that they are now disabled.
The real point of FA is that you don’t NEED to lose weight though, whether you can or not. Yes, there are doctors, nurses, nutritionists, biologists, psychologists and medical researchers who don’t buy into the message that fat automatically equals unhealthy. Not all of them are fat themselves. These are intelligent and educated people who looked at the evidence and reached a difference conclusion than the media.
Feel free to pursue weight loss if that is your wish – personally I have more important things to do with my time, but FA, like feminism, is about choice. You do your thing, I do mine. I wish you luck … you might need it.
P.S. The fat person on the scooter thing always irks me – they might have been disabled before they became fat, or their disability might have nothing to do with their fatness. How can you tell that the two are even related?
Tiana, I almost didn’t reply to you. There are so many ways I could argue with you, but all I can say is this. I have read some of the FA blogs, not all of them, but the ones I have read I read fairly regularly, regularly enough to decide I didn’t have to go there any more.
Any body can find a study to “prove” whatever they want to, statistics do lie and statisticians manipulate them.
It is not hard to find information on how to eat healthy. What is hard is to never never never ingest artificial flavors, artificial colors and preservatives. That is the first rule. Don’t eat stuff that is not actually food. The second rule is if you want to eat healthy, get 1/3 of your calories from complex carbohydrates, 1/3 of your calories from protein, and 1/3 of your calories from unprocessed natural fats (like butter and olive oil). It has to be calories, not volume.
I have a scale. they are cheap. I use it as a self monitoring device. I step on it every day. It helps me stay focused on what it is that I really want. And that is knees that don’t hurt later in my life. I’m 56 now, and so far I am on NO medications. None. I rarely even take a pain killer, because I am rarely in pain. I attribute that to the fact that I stretch my body every day, after I have exercised it well. But I may just be lucky.
Other than that, I have this to say. The fat person on the cart had Dr. Pepper, potato chips, candy, cookies, pre-cooked microwave Healthy Choice meals (about 3 of them), Ice cream and a walmart cake. If that person was disabled before they got fat I’ll eat my hat.
I’ve thought long and hard about adding this comment because I’m not fat (though I’m no longer as skinny as I was in my twenties) and never have been, so I’m sure there will be those who think I should shut up and leave the debate to those who are affected by it… but when I considered why I have been so careful not to become obese – especially since my metabolism slowed in my late thirties – I realised it is because my mother has been fat (not just a little plump) for as long as I can remember.
Okay, she has had five children. Okay, she has had a hysterectomy. Okay, she is on medication for a thyroid condition. Okay, she damaged her knees in a car crash when she was 18.
But the reason she was and is morbidly obese is because she eats too much and exercises too little.
How can I be so sure of that? Because in 2003 she came to live with me for a year and I witnessed her denial.
She needed a knee replacement operation – had needed it for 3 years as she was unable to walk more than a few steps without pain – but had to lose 3 stone (42 pounds or 19 kilos) in order to have the op because of the risk to her heart. She had tried and failed to do this herself: she’d been ‘dieting’ on and off for 30 years and honestly didn’t think she ate very much.
When she came to my house I prepared the meals and I quickly saw that her idea of a portion and mine were very different. Plus, she snacked without even being aware of it: “I’ve been really good all morning, so I can have a couple of biscuits with my cup of tea now, it won’t make a difference.”
I had her keep a food diary where she was supposed to note everything that passed her lips for a week. She couldn’t do it, whether consciously or not, she would omit or underestimate several things every day.
Every day had to have a little treat – and obviously that speaks of a deeper unhappiness which was psychological – but they were all ‘exceptions’ so they didn’t really count…
Even when confronted by it in black and white, she still couldn’t see that she consumed more food than I did, every day, at the same time as she got less exercise to burn it off. There was always an excuse as to why today was an aberration.
However, despite the medication and the knee pain and the thyroid problem, she lost those 3 stone in the year she lived at my house. But only because I was the food police: she ate what I ate and nothing else (and I don’t starve myself, believe me, I eat at least 2,000 calories a day because I am very active but I stopped buying biscuits and treats so they wouldn’t be a temptation) and I encouraged her first to help me in the garden a little and later to come with me to the local gym.
She even came off the medication for 7 months because her body was able to correct itself.
After her operation, and with brand new, pain-free knees, I thought she’d be fine and would carry on her new healthier lifestyle.
She didn’t – she went back to live with my father and has regained those 3 stone because she went back to the same food and the same lifestyle.
And I have to say, I love her and have pity for her, but no respect.
You make such a good point. It goes right along with azahar’s points about people eating like they are getting paid.
I’m sorry your mother could not make a successful lifestyle change. It is extremely difficult to do. I know. I have done it, and I find it difficult to maintain my focus on what I actually want as a final outcome. But I’m pretty stubborn.
And I DO have a scale, and I step on it every morning.
What a great dialogue you’ve opened up here HMH. I don’t have much to add but one thing I’ve noticed with our few morbidly obese patients at the Gimcrack is the rate at which they eat their food. One woman in particular can eat her entire meal plus dessert in under five minutes. I don’t believe she chews each mouthful more than twice.
Another patient regularly skips meals but is constantly coming to my desk asking for change for the drinks/snacks machine. I tell her I don’t have any as often as I can but we are under instructions to supply change when it is requested. Recently there has been discussion about having the machine removed as it is inappropriate in a hospital setting. I hope this happens
Sadly, this patient returned last month from a six week stint in a bariatric centre where she was put on an exercise regime and her food intake was monitored. During this time she lost ten kilos and was walking every day. Now she is back to her old routine of NEVER leaving her room except for food related reasons such as trips to buy Coke from the drinks machine and the weight is returning. She also suffers from schizophrenia so there are multiple issues involved but it is really sad to see her become agoraphobic again. She freely admits this is because she feels judged for her size so dislikes being in public view.
I’m not sure how you get a schizophrenic to eat a healthy diet unless you are controlling their entire lives, which sounds like what was going on in the bariatric center.
So, to add fuel to the flames here, let us not forget about the calories we drink on a daily basis. I personally know a morbidly obese person who wants to lose weight because she knows it would be better for her. She simply can’t do it, and she honestly doesn’t EAT much every day. She can’t understand why she doesn’t lose weight when she is eating only one small meal a day.
She walks around with coffee in her hand all the time. She drinks around 16 cups a day. (I won’t even get into the effects of all that caffeine.) However, she can’t tolerate coffee black. (I sometimes think if you can’t stand coffee black then you don’t really like coffee and should get your caffeine someplace else like tea.) So each and every cup has a tablespoon of cream: 45 calories. She doesn’t use non dairy creamer because of the chemicals. And each and every cup has a tablespoon of sugar: another approximately 45 calories. That means that in the course of a day she ingests 1445 calories along with her coffee. Guess what? If you really want to lose weight you really need to cut back to about 1200 calories per day. Add her “small” meal, and she is on a maintenance diet.
I haven’t read the entire comment thread, but I would like to say something about the reaction of distaste/disgust toward the morbidly obese.
My mother is about 150 pounds overweight, partly thanks to her metabolism being completely screwed up by the very harsh birth control pills that were available when she was young, partly due to family tendency, partly due to a lifetime of incredible stress, and partly due to the fact that she doesn’t actively exercise. I don’t find my mother disgusting at all, and I don’t feel repulsed by any of the other morbidly obese people I know. I worry about some of them, because they are obviously physically uncomfortable (my incredibly energetic mother doesn’t fall into that category, luckily for her). So the issue is not that I am completely judgmental.
However, I do feel some negative judgment toward the morbidly obese. Like HMH, I don’t like having my personal space intruded upon in close seating situations. I find it hard to manage my internal reaction of impatience when I see a morbidly obese person making very obviously unhealthy food choices at the store.
I also feel a great deal of negative judgment when I see people smoking. I don’t want their stink and raspy breathing to intrude on my personal space when they sit next to me. I feel a great deal of negative judgment toward people who are visibly drunk. I don’t want them slobbering and vomiting on me if I’m stuck in a seat next to them, and I don’t want them intruding on my personal space by talking to me in the idiotic way that drunk people do. I find it very difficult to respect these people’s choices regarding how they treat themselves physically, and I find it very difficult indeed to handle, with equanimity, the fact that their poor choices negatively impacts me, when I’m just trying to live my life, contained in my own space.
For me, this really isn’t about fat acceptance or lack of it; it’s about the fact that I’d like to live my life without being intruded upon by other people’s poor choices. While I realize that this isn’t a very compassionate attitude, the other truth is that I go out of my way not to make myself intrusive. There are circumstances under which my own internal wiring and hangups *do* make me potentially intrusive to other people, and so, as a responsible citizen, I either don’t participate in circumstances where I would be likely to inconvenience innocent bystanders, or I take steps to mitigate my own annoyingness.
There is indeed an epidemic of morbid obesity in this country, and so that particular form of intrusion is far more common than being seated next to a drunk person. In my own case, I’m not really judging the person, I’m reacting to the intrusion. Yep, if you sit down next to me in the concert hall, and your size is such that I am forced over into a corner of the seat I paid $150 for, I’m going to be annoyed. Similarly, if you are six foot six and your legs are so long that they force me into a corner of the seat I paid $150 for, I will be similarly annoyed, and wonder why the hell you didn’t ask for an aisle seat. If you sit down next to me and you obviously have a cold, I will judge you as a thoughtless asshole.
So. The upshot of what I’m saying is that some of this may not be about fat acceptance, but about general courtesy.
I can handle the people who are 150 pounds overweight. The person I was describing probably weighed in at around 400 pounds. I make this judgment because my own sister weighed 380 before she had to lose weight due to her diabetes. I don’t care how tall you are, when you weigh that much you are far more than 150 pounds over weight.
It is sad that they are so uncomfortable. I can’t imagine that sort of life, myself, and my reactions are very complex when I see people like that because of the mixture of sadness, annoyance, fear (there but for the grace of God go I) etc.
I think you are right David. It is more about general courtesy when it gets right down to it. And that fact is what makes the whining and rationalization so darned annoying. “I’m fat and I have a right to be the way I am and too bad if it inconveniences you. I’m entitled.”
That sense of entitlement is rife in our culture now, and I am finding it annoying in a lot of other areas. The sense of entitlement that comes out in some comment streams I have read where people are so upset that there is a drought and there is water rationing and they are going to have to “put up with” not being able to shower three times a day. I invite them to live the way I did when I was a little girl and also when I lived in the bush in Alaska, and haul all the water they need in 5 gallon jerry cans. Perhaps then they would not feel that water is an infinite and unlimited resource that they can waste as they choose.
Admittedly, I don’t get out much, but this might be the best discussion of this subject that I’ve ever read. Very interesting, reasoned, non-judgmental and well thought out on everyone’s part. Just wanted to say thanks for the education, now I’ll go back to lurking.
Hey, Beth. I’m always glad to meet lurkers. I know you are out there. I have stats. Actually, I’m glad you commented because I was beginning to worry that we were all starting to sound too righteous and not accepting enough.
A couple of things I feel moved to add after reading the recent comments:
1) Even the nastiest medication side effects (like from primitve birth control pills) are not necessarily forever. It can take some outside the box thinking and real reform of not just diet quantity but composition. Nonetheless, people’s endocrine systems can do an about face.
2) As to that matter of being the same person, fat or thin. I knocked forty pounds off my last serious boyfriend — but only at his request, when his doctor showed him a blood sugar reading of 250. And he had to change practically everything about his life to do it, but yes, he was the same person — I still loved him thin.
And it was nice to think he was going to stay healthy longer. Even if he dumped me, I’m glad he’s still thin. Just so no one thinks this is my criterion for human acceptance, here.
I’m building up to a new post about “Healthy Eating.” I’m in total agreement with you, especially about the primitive birth control. I’m of a certain age, and when I was taking birth control pills they had just been invented, that’s about as primitive as it gets. So I know all about weight gain and hormonal disruption. You are right. It is not necessarily forever, and your endocrine system can do an about face. Mine did.
I’ve knocked 55 pounds off myself in the past few years, and I’m still the same loveable bitch I was before.
Just one more thing in response to the Fat Acceptance Movement: I have read several of its members claim that judging someone adversely for being fat is the same as judging someone adversely for their ‘skin tone’, which is obviously a euphemistic reference to being of a race other than caucasian.
Now, that’s just plain fallacious.
Race is not a choice – by which I mean one is born with one’s racial characteristics determined by one’s genes. One does not acquire one’s race because of lifestyle choices.
On the contrary, babies are not born obese, they become obese – faster and faster it seems, nowadays – but that is due to the fact that their parents over feed them foods and drinks full of sugar, fat and salt and do not encourage them to get enough exercise. I accept that there are a a tiny, tiny minority who have a medical condition and who are the exception – I use to work at a Children’s Hospice, so I have seen those conditions. They are extremely rare, thankfully.
No, for most people – adults and children- obesity is about consuming too much (and its an excellent point about how liquid intake also counts!) and burning too little.
And no, its not easy to burn it off. Whether you weigh 8 stone or 15 stone, exercise is not easy. If it were, it wouldn’t be doing you any good. That’s the amazing thing about the human body – as long as you get your heart rate up and work up a sweat, you’re exercising. When you’re obese, like my mother was, then just walking to the shops and back can be exercise. As you get fitter, you can do more. But nobody recommending more exercise to people who are obese is suggesting that they go out and run 5 miles straight away.
I’ll stop now.
Nobody recommending more exercise to anybody who hasn’t been engaging in it, obese or not, suggests they go out and run 5 miles straight away. Or even walk that far.
And you are so right about the foods and drinks full of sugar and fat being adminstered to babies. I can’t tell you how horrifying I think it is to see a toddler running around with a sippy cup full of Coke. That is so wrong on so many levels.
Hey since your “brushing” up on facts on feminist websites you should look at real studies. Equal pay for equal work is such a bullshit study.