The Fat Acceptance thread

[Renie]

I'm a Fat Acceptance activist! That means I fight for the rights of fat people to be treated as equals, and with the dignity accorded to every other human being. For more information, please see this site, of which I'm a co-author: Fat Acceptance 101

I want this thread to be about any questions people might have about Fat Acceptance (and I'm sure there will be many, since it's both controversial and widely unknown).

Feel free to ask your questions here!

[Unicron]

They're not fat. Everyone else is undernourished.

[Renie]

Ah yes, and Uni brings up an important point...the reclamation of the word "fat."

It's no secret that, especially amongst women, modern-day culture has turned "fat" into a four-letter word. However, we believe that fat is simply a description of a body type, and is no more insulting than "thin" or "small" or "petite."

[RJDiogenes]

It's sad to think that this would be considered controversial. Everybody should be treated with dignity and equality.

As for being fat or thin or whatever, as long as somebody is healthy and comfortable, what of it?

[Renie]

^Ah yes, but beware. The whole "as long as someone is healthy and comfortable" is a point brought up by people who are anti-fat. That is, they think that fat people are automatically unhealthy, and they "must not be comfortable," so they use that as an "in" to then claim they can legislate/dictate/parent fat people into becoming healthy/comfortable/whatever.

I'm also railing against Healthism --- that is, the perception that being healthy or unhealthy is a moral and societal act. Health is the state of your body, and your body is your business, no one else's.

[Sean]

^ Agreed. I'm a husky fellow. I'm not very athletic, but I'm somewhat muscular, yet extremely overweight either. I'm pretty happy with my body. Would I like to lose a few pounds, sure, but it's not on the top of my to-do list. I can't stand when people are judged automatically by their appearance. If they're a jerk, fine, ignore them all you want, but no one should be ignored or treated badly because they're overweight.

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Right. Content of character, not appearance.

^Ah yes, but beware. The whole "as long as someone is healthy and comfortable" is a point brought up by people who are anti-fat. That is, they think that fat people are automatically unhealthy, and they "must not be comfortable," so they use that as an "in" to then claim they can legislate/dictate/parent fat people into becoming healthy/comfortable/whatever.

Yeah, everybody wants to be a fascist these days.

I'm also railing against Healthism --- that is, the perception that being healthy or unhealthy is a moral and societal act. Health is the state of your body, and your body is your business, no one else's.

That's a weird one-- the "moral and societal act" part, I mean. I certainly agree that it's the individual's business, but I can also see a large gray area. For example, when does average behavior become unhealthy, when does unhealthy become self-destructive and when does self-destructive become extreme enough to warrant intervention?

[Renie]

^That's a very dangerous area to delve into, RJ, honestly. Like I said before, the argument that self-destruction warrants an intervention is an "in" that the state really wants. The power to control your body and your choices through extending the definition of self-destruction from immediately obviously suicidal acts, to acts like smoking which are arguably always bad for you, to acts like perceived overeating in which a larger person usually doesn't even engage (that's true, actually --- non eating-disordered larger people on average usually do not consume more than non eating-disordered average-sized people).

Once you give the state the power to "intervene" into perceived acts of self-destructiveness, it's my claim (and proven by history) that there will exist the tendency to broaden the definition of self-destructiveness in order to encompass wider and wider swaths of behavior, hence eventually resulting in nearly complete control over personal choice.

[RJDiogenes]

That's what makes it a gray area; what about those eating disorders?

[Renie]

Ah yes, I can see where this is going. There exists the popular perception that most fat people (at least, obese people) are that way because they are eating-disordered. Just like most thin people are not eating-disordered, most fat people are not eating disordered. In fact, true eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating encompass a very small percentage of the population.

Disordered eating, however, encompasses a much wider segment of the population. And do you know who falls most squarely into the realm of disordered eating? The chronic dieter, of course.

Our country is disordered with respect to eating. People conflate dieting and restricting with "healthy" eating, when in fact the healthiest eating it to just eat normally, for hunger and taste, and a variety of foods at that.

But does that signify the government should step into people's lives and tell them they must no longer diet (which usually makes people fatter in the long), or will have their bodies and choices monitored so that they are forced to recover from anorexia/bulimia/BED?

I don't think so.

[RJDiogenes]

Well, you specified "non-eating disordered," so I thought you were implying approval for some kind of intervention.

[Renie]

No. I was merely saying that though binge eating disorder exists and does push people's weights up artificially higher, most people who are fat do not have BED, just like most people who are thin do not have anorexia or bulimia.

[RJDiogenes]

Oh, okay; I misunderstood what you meant.

[Renie]

Cheers, no problem

[blablover5]

Hey Renie, I linked to your series on weddings in a messageboard as some people really needed to read it.

Makes me sad.