Fat Acceptance Movement

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The fat acceptance movement (also known as the size acceptance, fat liberation, fat activism, fativism, or fat power movement) is a social movement seeking to change anti-fat bias in social attitudes.
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I thought that I had this all figured out when I posted this but I don't even know where to start.

I'm all for accepting the skin you're in but, having done some extensive reading on this topic over the last few days, I've seen people take this to the extreme. They've taken it beyond to just accepting the skin that they're in and have coined terms such as fat-shaming and body-shaming and thin privilege - you can just imagine what these mean just by reading them.

Also, another extreme example of the proponents of this movement, is to imply that people within normal weight bands, and with average body proportions, are shaming them by putting up pics of themselves on social media :wtf:. How can I shame someone by putting up a pic of me working out, or of my abs, or of how much progress I made at the gym? :confused:

And yet another, what I might even call dangerous, characteristic of this movement, is to promote body acceptance over health; simply put, it doesn't matter if you're obese, or morbidly obese, love the skin you're in, and anyone who would dare to advise you to make healthy choices, would be shaming you :wtf:. Along with this, you're also required to pick your words wisely with the supporters of this movement. Fat is out - it's considered at the same level as an insult, swear word, or perjorative even; so is obese. At best, you may refer to them as big or large.

I could go on and on about this, but what it is that I want to know, is what is your take on this?
 
Obesity kills, these people are idiots. It is something they can change.

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Source:
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/blog/The-Most-Preventable-Causes of Death-in-the-United-States.php
 
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These people are not being honest. Obesity is no joke, just ask me.
I mean, yes, we do sometimes joke about it, but at the back of my mind all the time is the constant knowledge that sooner or later I will have to lose the weight - or it will kill me.
I can list all the symptoms for you that are very unpleasant about obesity.
It's not something you want to live with at all - and you should do everything you can while you are young to avoid it.
 
I think its a combination of how difficult it is to lose weight these days, and a liberal movement towards being non judgmental and accepting of others.

I fully promote being non judgmental and accepting of others. But, I think being fat should not be accepted, celebrated, shamed or laughed at.

Being fat is a health risk, simple as that. It's like smoking. I don't envy smokers - they take longer to heal than non-smokers, have a much higher cancer risk, and a shorter life expectancy. But I don't laugh at them. For me, it is the same with being fat. I don't judge fat people, but I do pity them.

I think the roots of the fat acceptance movement is in how difficult it is to lose weight and how appearance obsessed we are today. So, a fat person knows that thin people are more attractive. And they want to be thin, so they do all they can. But for various reasons, these efforts fail. Now not only do they feel unattractive and unwanted, but they have failed at weight loss. They start to feel that it is unfair that they are considered unattractive for being fat - that everybody should just accept everybody else. Its the inward pressure of wanting to be attractive, and failing, that causes this.

So, they attack the "system" that rewards thinness. It is possible to attack the system and change minds about fatness, but for them, it may as well be impossible to lose weight.

Why is it so difficult to lose weight? Personally I think this is because most people don't know the causes of obesity. The other problem is that they ignore the importance of their minds in weight loss. They want to lose weight, but they haven't really managed to convince themselves that the effort is worth it. Modern eating habits become extremely ingrained and very difficult to break - some of them are so strong that we aren't even aware that they are only habits. People aren't aware of these habits or the psychological reasons why they eat what they eat, and this makes it impossible to lose weight. They have the expectation that if they can only eat a little bit less, they will lose weight. But then they get unexpectedly strong cravings that they don't know how to deal with. They haven't prepared for them and don't understand them, not able to see them as the results of decades of reinforcement.

As for thinness, men and the patriarchy tend to be blamed. The irony of it is that there are men who like fat women - they call them chubby chasers. I have never met a woman who wants to date a fat man. Ever.
 
How can someone love and accept a fat piece of blubber that struggles to do basic activities, is continuously exhausted from carrying around so much weight, is at risk from heart disease and other ailments, and which people rightly consider to be undesirable?

Just another shameful excuse to dig into Mcd's without the associated guilt.
 
If they want me to love them enough to accept their obesity, they need to love themselves even more to not be obese.

Besides I don't walk around judging fat people. Wtf. If an obese person comes up to me I engage them just like anyone else. I also don't walk away from the encounter judging them. However, if we're friends I will bring it up a few times that I'm concerned about your health. If my genuine concern for your well-being pisses you off...aahg eish I don't really care.
 
Ancalagon said:
I think its a combination of how difficult it is to lose weight these days, and a liberal movement towards being non judgmental and accepting of others.

I fully promote being non judgmental and accepting of others. But, I think being fat should not be accepted, celebrated, shamed or laughed at.

Being fat is a health risk, simple as that. It's like smoking. I don't envy smokers - they take longer to heal than non-smokers, have a much higher cancer risk, and a shorter life expectancy. But I don't laugh at them. For me, it is the same with being fat. I don't judge fat people, but I do pity them.

I think the roots of the fat acceptance movement is in how difficult it is to lose weight and how appearance obsessed we are today. So, a fat person knows that thin people are more attractive. And they want to be thin, so they do all they can. But for various reasons, these efforts fail. Now not only do they feel unattractive and unwanted, but they have failed at weight loss. They start to feel that it is unfair that they are considered unattractive for being fat - that everybody should just accept everybody else. Its the inward pressure of wanting to be attractive, and failing, that causes this.

So, they attack the "system" that rewards thinness. It is possible to attack the system and change minds about fatness, but for them, it may as well be impossible to lose weight.

Why is it so difficult to lose weight? Personally I think this is because most people don't know the causes of obesity. The other problem is that they ignore the importance of their minds in weight loss. They want to lose weight, but they haven't really managed to convince themselves that the effort is worth it. Modern eating habits become extremely ingrained and very difficult to break - some of them are so strong that we aren't even aware that they are only habits. People aren't aware of these habits or the psychological reasons why they eat what they eat, and this makes it impossible to lose weight. They have the expectation that if they can only eat a little bit less, they will lose weight. But then they get unexpectedly strong cravings that they don't know how to deal with. They haven't prepared for them and don't understand them, not able to see them as the results of decades of reinforcement.

As for thinness, men and the patriarchy tend to be blamed. The irony of it is that there are men who like fat women - they call them chubby chasers. I have never met a woman who wants to date a fat man. Ever.
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My apologies for quoting your whole post, but it made so much more sense that just putting a +1.

In addition, medically, there is a very small percentage of people who can't lose weight; the rest are just making excuses, and this is not me saying that, this is the medical profession. The problem with this though, is that these people will stop seeing a doctor because that doctor would be shaming them by telling them that they're obese.
 
It is interesting to note how often the word "feminism" appears in the wikipedia article.
 
Use hungry instead of fat. That way the people who have a genuine matabolistic disorder won't get offended as they're not hungry.
 
Ninja'd said:
That makes no sense.
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It sounded better when I thought it :mad:. I guess my point was that they should care for themselves enough to do their best to cut the weight rather than take no action and shift the burden of responsibility onto everyone else to 'accept them'.
 
Ok my 2c, am a large person ( yes , fat :p ) but this is ridiculous. If you don't care about being overweight then that's your concern, if you're working on it, that's also you're concern.

This PC world is really getting excessive.
 
Kosmik said:
Ok my 2c, am a large person ( yes , fat :p ) but this is ridiculous. If you don't care about being overweight then that's your concern, if you're working on it, that's also you're concern.

This PC world is really getting excessive.
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Your.

Pet peeve.
 
saor said:
If they want me to love them enough to accept their obesity, they need to love themselves even more to not be obese.
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Ninja'd said:
That makes no sense.
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It actually does hey.

It's been proven that most obese people have a poor relationship with food, think psychological problems and reverting to food for comfort, instead of sustenance.
 
99% of the time, your weight is related to your bad choices, bad eating habits, general unhealthiness. This must not be rewarded with acceptance. They just look for excuses to avoid having to actually lose weight so people stop judging them.
 
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