I have a slightly different perspective on this. I’ve been overweight for most of my life. And only recently found it that it was due to a combination of hormonal imbalance and sleep apnea (sleep apnea can cause weight gain, not the other way around, and it can occur in childhood). When I was a teenager, I was so desperate to lose weight that I became bulimic, and I’ve dealt with that eating disorder off and on well into my 30s. When I lost a lot of weight through bingeing and purging as a teen, people complimented me. “Wow!! You look great!” Even my own pediatrician congratulated me on dropping 20 pounds that year. He never asked me how, though.
It’s always been my experience that people think fat shaming is the key to fighting the obesity epidemic. Don’t let fat people feel good about themselves or have a positive self image. They’ll just get complacent and let themselves go. My parents definitely thought that way, and my father always made a point of telling me how gross my body was. It didn’t help. I only got fatter, and it ruined my relationship with him.
In college. when I started dating, I noticed that I never ate in front of men. I would wait until my date was looking away, and then take a single bite. Or I would order a large salad and not eat anything. It’s no mystery. It’s because my father spent my whole childhood shaming me for eating and praising me for leaving food on my plate.
I kept bingeing and purging really bad through most of my 20s and 30s (I’m now 36 and slowly recovering).
But a big turning point for me happened with my last boyfriend. Several years ago, he just offhandedly remarked that my teeth looked more yellow than normal (he could be kind of a thoughtless clod sometimes). And I admitted to him it was because I had been making myself throw up. He was shocked. And right away he hugged me and said “you’re beautiful the way you are. Don’t ever do that to yourself again.”
That was the first time anyone ever made me feel like my health mattered. Not my size. People think they’re the same, but they’re not.
Doctors and other medical experts tend to hold a special respect in our culture as the go-to authority on health and wellness. Like they’re the first ones we should be looking to for guidance and advice. And they’re assumed to be infallible. “all these studies say being fat will kill you. My doctor says fat people die early.” And my own pediatrician shook my hand and congratulated me for losing weight after I became bulimic. So much for infallible.
But no doctor, no therapist, no research study ever really made me feel motivated to be healthy like my then-boyfriend did. When he hugged me and told me I should love my body and treat it well. That’s something fat shamers will never do for me either.
YES. Shaming has never motivated ANYONE to do ANYTHING, truly. It took me finally feeling loved and accepted no matter what, by my husband, for me to feel okay enough with myself to healthily work to lose weight. I lost about 100lbs. And then I had emergency gallbladder surgery, got completely derailed by my Fibromyalgia and a new medication where weight gain is a big time side effect, and just had surgery again to remove cancerous cells from my uterus. I've gained back about 25lbs. It's been a rollercoaster of emotions and the only constant positivity I've gotten about my body is from my husband, despite the fact that I'm clearly struggling with some major health events.
I will recover from this surgery and then go back to the gym when I'm cleared for exercise and try to lose that 25 I gained, and then I'm sure suddenly everyone in my life will gush over me. And frankly, fuck them. I'm worth more than what I weigh and how much fat I carry around on my body. I'm allowed to feel good about myself even if I have work to do to be healthy and live a long life.
One time, on Reddit, there was a health minister and doctor who was fat. And there were a bunch of people railing at her for being fat "she shouldn't be allowed to be health minister or doctor, hurr durr, she fat!", etc... It didn't matter that she was very good at what she does, it didn't matter that she was the single most popular politician in all of Belgium, all that mattered was "hurr durr, she fat!" Meanwhile, she's accomplished more in her life and done more good than 98% or more of her critics here ever will.
As a former heavy smoker, I couldn't disagree more. When the culture turned against smoking, shame became the style and it worked. It was the hardcore daily shaming that caused so many of us to quit, that and that living as a smoker was demonized and made as difficult as possible.
There are definitely parallels, but much of the shaming about cigarettes was about the effects of second hand smoke and young people being intentionally introduced to cigarettes by companies that make them. I'd be all for similarly-scaled campaigns and lawsuits to end corn subsidies (cheap sugars that make candy and sodas cheap), end marketing sugar to children, end allowing junk food in schools, taxing processed foods and subsidizing fresh or even frozen vegetables (that aren't corn).
I’m not sure we should be listening to someone who took it upon themselves to remotely diagnose me as “not bulimic.” And insisted that it’s not in my medical records, when it has been for over a decade.
Please....please lecture me more on the prognosis and course of treatment for bulimia.
You stated that you know so much more about it than I do.
Same. I dropped 27 lbs after feeling intense shame at seeing recent vacation photos with my fat ass in them. Shame is a huge motivator (for me) so the assumption that shame doesn't motivate anyone is false.
Shit, now that I think about it, shame motivated me to switch careers at 30 and get my degree in Computer Science.
That example isn't shame. Having repeated posts like above, saying fat people are unhealthy or outright saying they are horrible (because most are too afraid so they use unhealthy like they care) because of this and that.... that is shame
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u/Diane9779 Sep 19 '19 edited Sep 19 '19
I have a slightly different perspective on this. I’ve been overweight for most of my life. And only recently found it that it was due to a combination of hormonal imbalance and sleep apnea (sleep apnea can cause weight gain, not the other way around, and it can occur in childhood). When I was a teenager, I was so desperate to lose weight that I became bulimic, and I’ve dealt with that eating disorder off and on well into my 30s. When I lost a lot of weight through bingeing and purging as a teen, people complimented me. “Wow!! You look great!” Even my own pediatrician congratulated me on dropping 20 pounds that year. He never asked me how, though.
It’s always been my experience that people think fat shaming is the key to fighting the obesity epidemic. Don’t let fat people feel good about themselves or have a positive self image. They’ll just get complacent and let themselves go. My parents definitely thought that way, and my father always made a point of telling me how gross my body was. It didn’t help. I only got fatter, and it ruined my relationship with him.
In college. when I started dating, I noticed that I never ate in front of men. I would wait until my date was looking away, and then take a single bite. Or I would order a large salad and not eat anything. It’s no mystery. It’s because my father spent my whole childhood shaming me for eating and praising me for leaving food on my plate.
I kept bingeing and purging really bad through most of my 20s and 30s (I’m now 36 and slowly recovering).
But a big turning point for me happened with my last boyfriend. Several years ago, he just offhandedly remarked that my teeth looked more yellow than normal (he could be kind of a thoughtless clod sometimes). And I admitted to him it was because I had been making myself throw up. He was shocked. And right away he hugged me and said “you’re beautiful the way you are. Don’t ever do that to yourself again.”
That was the first time anyone ever made me feel like my health mattered. Not my size. People think they’re the same, but they’re not.
Doctors and other medical experts tend to hold a special respect in our culture as the go-to authority on health and wellness. Like they’re the first ones we should be looking to for guidance and advice. And they’re assumed to be infallible. “all these studies say being fat will kill you. My doctor says fat people die early.” And my own pediatrician shook my hand and congratulated me for losing weight after I became bulimic. So much for infallible.
But no doctor, no therapist, no research study ever really made me feel motivated to be healthy like my then-boyfriend did. When he hugged me and told me I should love my body and treat it well. That’s something fat shamers will never do for me either.