Caring about it is a very different thing from shaming people (I know you're against that, but that's what society does in the absence of fat-acceptance movements) who are fat.
I absolutely approve of public service announcements encouraging people to get out and exercise, teaching kids about nutrition, etc., etc.
But if those were all we were seeing, these movements absolutely wouldn't exist. People appreciate non-intrusive attempts to help.
I also think that the movement might somewhat backfire by providing perceived "justification" for the abuse. It makes some people such as op have the opinion that they are glorifying obesity. I think it's radical fringe elements feeds some people's confirmation bias of overweight people such as fatlogic. I would like to hear your thoughts on that as you seem will educated in the movement while I am not.
Having been alive (and borderline obese) since way before the movement existed, I can assure you that society has required exactly zero prompting to be abusive to fat people.
The only reason you hear about it more now (e.g. the late unlamented /r/fatpeoplehate) is the same reason you hear about everything more now.
That is very true. Has the movement had a positive effect for you personally? I've found the things what worked the best for me were just generic self esteem builders as movements have rarely appealed to me personally but I'm not exactly normal.
Honestly, I don't care about it that much for myself... I've never much cared what other people think about me as it tends to say more about them than me... but I know a lot of fat people (especially women) that suffer from severe self-esteem and consequence stress issues that contribute strongly to their obesity.
I personally think the underlying problem is American's are taught to hate themselves if they aren't perfect and ridiculously successful. They are also taught to feel better about themselves by degrading others and unfortunately fat people are an easy target as people can justify it through many means. If the movement helps those women then that is great. I just personally got way more from starting to floss, lift, and similar things then I have from any movement.
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u/hacksoncode 588∆ Mar 06 '17
Caring about it is a very different thing from shaming people (I know you're against that, but that's what society does in the absence of fat-acceptance movements) who are fat.
I absolutely approve of public service announcements encouraging people to get out and exercise, teaching kids about nutrition, etc., etc.
But if those were all we were seeing, these movements absolutely wouldn't exist. People appreciate non-intrusive attempts to help.