inator wrote:The majority of this fat acceptance thing seems to be about having some respect for overweight individuals and not shaming them as people.
This is a distinction EquALLity has tried to draw a few times, but I don't think it works in practice. Shaming any trait or behavior of a person may shame that person (from that person's perspective) if he or she identifies existentially with that trait or behavior.
People strongly identify with their physical appearances, negative or positive, so shaming any aspect related to that can be interpreted as shaming the person, whether intentional or not.
inator wrote:I've heard of very few people who actually think that fat is just as healthy as skinny and that there's no value in trying to lose weight.
I've seen that around, I think it's a growing myth in the fat acceptance and fat positive movements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_at_Every_Size
It may be well intentioned, but it's incredibly harmful, both by denying the science, and by telling people they can't lose weight and that people should not try to lose weight.
inator wrote:It's just a reaction to fat shaming, and fat shaming often concerns the aesthetic aspect rather than the health aspect.
HAES is about health. Pseudoscience around health is at the root of the movement, no different from Freelee's RT4 and HCLF nonsense. Metabolic damage, and all of that nonsense.
Wikipedia wrote:Fabrey helped Louderback research his subsequent book, Fat Power, and Louderback supported Fabrey in founding the National Association to Aid Fat Americans (NAAFA) in 1969, a nonprofit human rights organization. NAAFA would subsequently change its name by the mid-1980s to the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance.
It's right in the name "Fat Acceptance"; it seems to have stemmed from the propaganda arm of the HAES crowd.
Some of the pseudoscience itemized, from that page:
Wikipedia wrote:1. "Thin fat people" suffer physically and emotionally from having dieted to below their natural body weight.
2. Forced changes in weight are not only likely to be temporary, but also to cause physical and emotional damage.
3. Dieting seems to unleash destructive emotional forces.
4. Eating without dieting, allowed Louderback and his wife to relax, feel better while maintaining the same weight.
They're all about intuitive eating, saying you're naturally fat and you shouldn't be thin or it will cause metabolic damage which will make you fatter if you try to diet, etc. If you want pork rinds, that's what your body needs to heal.
Wikipedia wrote:As part of the wider fat acceptance movement,[8][9] HAES includes also a significant social and psychological dimension. Proponents view the common wisdom that obesity is unhealthy as part of a general stigmatization of the obese, and especially of obese women; thus, the movement has furthermore strong connections with feminism.
I think that makes it pretty clear. They see the health issues as underlying the stigma, and thus think they need to create pseudoscience to deceive people into believing it's healthy so the foundation of the discrimination (the rational justification) can no longer stand.
If you actually talk to people who mock the aesthetics of obesity, I think you'll find most of them will support this with claims that it's unhealthy (as opposed to a circular argument that it just looks gross to them), and that fat people lack willpower or are stupid, as justifications.
They must be stupid or lack will power, because if neither of these were true they could lose weight if they wanted. And they must want to lose weight, because only a crazy person would want to be so fat due to the severe health concerns.
These are all profound indictments of character.
inator wrote:Like: "Why is that fat person wearing shorts, that's so disgusting, it's hurting my eyes..." As if people are obligated to dress in a way that pleases other's aesthetic sense and, if they're fat, they shouldn't be allowed to wear the equivalent of what a skinny person might wear.
A little extra fat, into overweight, used to be considered attractive. Why has this fallen out of vogue?
I think aesthetics track crudely to follow perceptions of health. It's also the case with disease, or things that are "dirty". Evolutionarily, that is the purpose, and culturally there seem to be parallels as well.
While it's a superficial reason, that doesn't mean there aren't deeper justifications for those feelings. Most people seem to find those in health and wellness.
Much like how "cuteness" tends to be perceived with eyes and expressive character, playing, etc. It's not a perfect match to sentience, but it is a close enough approximation that we can understand what people are crudely interpreting.
When we see a pig or cow playing and folicking, it goes from not cute to cute, because we've witnessed behavior we can relate to and that reflects what we understand to be an emotional state similar to that which our pets and children have.
Some people aren't smart or insightful enough to say anything beyond "that's cute", but it serves as a crude intuitive approximation to stimulate empathy for reasons that can be tracked to behavioral expression of emotion and correlation with common features.
Anyway, my point is that aesthetic reactions can't always be written off as
completely shallow.
On some meaningful level, it's ugly because it's unhealthy, and people don't want to see it for the same reason they don't want to see open festering oozing sores everywhere.
Only by changing the perceptions of ill health associated with obesity can these aesthetic positions be fully undermined, and that's a dangerous gambit that means allying with pseudoscience.
inator wrote:I guess it's a double edged sword. Some don't care about their health anyway, so they wouldn't take any steps to lose the weight were it not for the aesthetic aspect.
The only people who don't care at all about health are those who have never experienced it and are too depressed to care about life.
It feels terrible to be obese, and nobody who values life wants to leave it early due to their poor choices.
Some of them are also delusional and think they ARE healthy, or have been deceived by the HAES pseudoscience.
inator wrote:But this is also partly why some people get a liposuction or go for crazy fad diets instead of changing their habits. It's not to become healthy, it's to look better. Because that's the main aspect that's being shamed.
That's likely more because they've given up and think they can't lose weight by any other means, or they're too lazy to do what needs to be done and don't have enough willpower.
These promises of quick fixes are a problem.
inator wrote:Of course losing weight can and should be done, but many of those who have never faced a comparable problem, or haven't had a loved one go through it, have a very hard time understanding how hard it can be and what amount of will is necessary to do it.
I think the bigger issue, as I've mentioned before, is that they're often shamed when trying to lose weight, like by running or going to the gym, or buying and eating healthier foods. It draws attention to them. AND worse yet, they're often shamed by their fat peers and family and made fun of for trying to lose weight.
This kind of thing makes a quick fix more appealing.
inator wrote:Will is a limited resource,
That may be true in some sense, but you can also build up your will power: it can be exercised like anything, and a substantial influence limiting it is actually your expectation. Placebos can be pretty powerful at regenerating willpower. In some sense, it may be limited by our beliefs that it's limited.
inator wrote:Having some sympathy for others is not just a kindness, it's also a tool of analysis - it gives us a way of figuring out why other people are how they are. If we want to help them, it's important to try to understand what difficulties they have and what's the best way to deal with them, to get them motivated.
Sure, that can certainly be helpful. The more we know, the better.
inator wrote:Some level of shame may be a temporary motivating factor for some, but generally positive incentives work much better.
Likely true as well, or at least stick AND carrot. I think the most important thing is to remove the shame and obstacles to losing weight.
"Haha look at that fat person run/eat a salad! He thinks he can be skinny!" That kind of stuff needs to stop.
It's important not to shame the more reasonable fat shamers, though, who want to ensure that obesity remains at least somewhat shameful and socially unacceptable, but are happy to encourage those who are working to lose weight and open to the use of positive incentives too. Removing the negative isn't likely to help the situation.
) and you don't have to hit the gym for 5 hours the next day. Take it slow; slowly change into a reliable diet, and go for 1 hour the first month, 2 the next, and then max that out at 3. Now if you don't have time, you have to at least have some time to change diets.
