Fat acceptance

[karen2205]

A friend of mine wrote a (friends' locked) post in which she talked about fat acceptance (Sizeism on Wikipedia is a good place to start reading) and what it means. I'm quite interested in seeing what the skeptics have to say about it/why they think it's wrong.

My starting point with fat acceptance is a liberal/individualistic view point: each of us has autonomy over our own bodies, our appearance/fatness/thinness/weight/BMI is no one else's business. I have no moral or legal right to tell a thin person she ought to gain weight and no one else has the moral or legal right to tell me I ought to lose weight.

Unlike smoking, which can make other people ill, someone's weight/appearance etc does not affect other people's health (even if it does affect their own - and the evidence as to the relationship between weight and health problems is patchy and conflicting).

Following on from this, it's easy for me to agree with statements like:

I'm not better than someone because I'm thinner than them
Someone's appearance is not a good guide to how they choose to eat and exercise
My experience is not universally applicable - what works for some people in terms of the weight/appearance at which they feel comfortable won't be the same for other people.

I don't consider that there's anything virtuous about maintaining a BMI between 18.5-25.

I'm not sure what supportable arguments there are against fat acceptance - anyone care to enlighten me?

[This is a busy kitchen, if you can't stand the heat then go elsewhere. I don't police or stop flame wars - anything goes, though remember that there are a lot of very articulate people reading this journal and if you say something stupid you will be called on it, probably not too kindly.]

Comments

[lizzip.livejournal.com]

Also worth noting is that BMI is actually an atrocious indicator of the general health of individuals, and that whether or not someone is clinically obese isn't necessarily a good indicator of their health, any more than someone being thin means that they're not going to die of "weight-related" illnesses (adult-onset diabetes, heart disease etc). Um, feminist and kissmyass_cosmo frequently have good discussions about this kind of thing (the latter particularly, because it's dedicated to discussion of beauty standards from a feminist viewpoint), and sources are linked to from there, but I should go and do some more work now. Erm, you've said all this.

Basically the issue with fat people *where there is not genuine cause for concern about an individual's health* seems to be that "they're not pretty", from my reading. So.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I think it's wrong for the same reasons I think pro-anorexia sites are wrong.

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

I don't think there are good arguments but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist - in the same way that there aren't good arguments for racism but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I suspect that psychologically some people associate a slim figure with self-discipline, but even if there's some sort of vague correlation there (and I have no idea how you would measure such a thing), doesn't mean that you should make judgements on it in the same way, that you shouldn't assume a woman isn't good at mathematics just because on average men are better at mathematics than women.

[nyecamden.livejournal.com]

I can only really talk about this in personal terms.

It's a difficult one. I think there is a position between being fat positive and fat negative that is more helpful than either 'extreme'. Being political about my body made it easy to ignore my weight rocketing, and it has got to the point that it became unhealthy (walking short distances became difficult, cutting my bloomin' toenails is not easy). I had to fight some of my political attitudes in order to try and do something about my health. I'm focusing on getting fit rather than losing weight, it's something that I can do in a sustainable way. I have to have some acceptance, some acceptance of how my body is now, in order to feel comfortable in the gym trying to change it. If I just felt bad about my body I'd likely sit at home stuffing my face.

[commonreader.livejournal.com]

In general, I think it's more destructive to police the behavior of adults than it is to let them behave in a manner that may be unhealthy. The evidence that overweight is unhealthy looks really dubious to me. Obesity is probably not great for most obese people, but I suspect most obese people were made that way by enforced childhood calorie restriction.

Personally, I have recently realized that I am chronically undernourished, which has almost certainly been a major contribution to my poor health, but since I stay "normal weight," no medical professional has ever thought to inquire into my eating habits. So fat acceptance is important to me personally, because maybe if people realize that fat doesn't always mean unhealthy and thin doesn't always mean healthy, it will occur to moron doctors to check up that people like me are getting enough to eat.

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

Apologies if this turns into a rant.

Going at this from the other direction, I have a BMI of 15.somat and as a teen had to go to a stupid dietician as "people" were concerned and when you're officially at risk your parents take you to the dietician. It was a complete total and utter waste of my time. I was physically healthy, active and ate more then anyone else I knew, and didn't throw it up or anything. BMI has only limited use.

Beyond that, parts of societies towards fat people is just stupid. Fat people *can* be very attractive, but not any more then thin people, or average people. Only, I'm sure it's harder to feel attractive if you're getting messages that you're ugly because of your weight and this has to demotivate you for making changes if you do feel you ought to make them for health reasons. Yes this sounds obvious, but... broken world.

I don't think there really are any good arguments against the statements you listed. Doesn't stop (some) people from disagreeing with them anyway (if only at a psychological level in many cases?)

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I pinged the sceptic box because, while I don't generally disagree with the statements, I've noticed an overreaction to the old "it's all diet and exercise" idea creeping in; not merely that there is a genetic component, but that it's _all_ genetics and that, short of actual starvation, there is no diet-and-exercise element. Which is complete nonsense.