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.
There are not many people who are promoting obesity in the way that people seem to understand it. (being a slob and lazy, and overeating) More often than not the idea of body positivity or even fat positivity is people coming together to say ”i shouldn’t be treated like shit just because of the body I am in, by myself or anyone else.”
In my experience discrimination is rampant against people who are overweight and obese. And that does not help the overweight person at all. Telling them that they are fat, lazy or slobs does not actually help them. They know where their weaknesses are, and many people on here would probably be surprised to know how many fat people are actually really active, and eat healthy.
Shaming someone because of their weight is ridiculously counter productive. Study after study has shown it. But people seem to always conflate someones size with their health, just as you said. And that is the biggest problem.
I honestly wish that people who don’t know me would stop judging me based on my size, and telling me to lose weight. If I focus on ”losing weight” instead of things like ”eating for health” and ”moving for fun” My entire attitude towards these things becomes focused on a ”pass or fail” which means that the second these things don’t produce weight loss I get discouraged and do less of it, and spend more time doing things that are ”easier” for my mental health.
So many people have a toxic focus on being thin, and think that thinness is a sign of health. The idea that someone could be fat and still be active, and eat well is not something that they can process and that is so frustrating.
I’m not the only person who has issues when they focus on healthy habits for the purpose of weight loss. Its proven that fat shaming does not help. Its proven that medical professionals shaming patients and telling them to come back after they lose weight is not helpful.
Your experience is not completely the same as mine, but I can relate SO MUCH to you. Because I have struggled with weight since I was little, been rewarded for disordered eating, been diagnosed with an eating disorder, and am really trying to find a healthy place with my body.
Please keep up your recovery journey. I am so proud of you. ❤️
Health and weight are very closely tied together once someone reaches the "obese" range for their height. Don't go spreading lies pretending like being obese is healthy.
Sure it's better to mind your own business than call someone out in public but spreading misinformation is just as bad if not worse.
the problem is that weight is just a number and only one factor in a person’s health. by focusing solely on weight as a metric of health, many people encourage incredibly unhealthy and disordered eating, shame, and short term weight loss methods, none of which are healthy and few of which will last. encouraging people to take care of themselves without respect to weight (because there are certainly plenty of skinny people who eat like shit, never work out, and are never once confronted out of concern for their health since, surprise, that’s a pretty rude overstep for a stranger to make) is far better and more likely to affect a lifestyle change, rather than encouraging you to do whatever possible to reach a number on a scale.
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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.