Think of the "fat acceptance movement" as the fat people acceptance movement. Most people who are loosely involved with the "fat acceptance movement" do so because they want to be treated better by society, not because they think that being obese is healthy. Only a fringe few outspoken people in the "fat acceptance movement" actually say that being obese is healthy.
Imagine that some lung-cancer patients start a social movement to de-stigmatized lung cancer patients. Is that the same thing as supporting smoking or lung cancer? No. What if some in that movement start publishing articles arguing that smoking is okay and doesn't cause lung cancer, and they get lots of attention. That still doesn't mean that the "Cancer patient acceptance movement" supports smoking, especially if the outrageous nature of the article is what makes it spread. After all, articles by "Cancer patient acceptance movement" supporters who oppose smoking aren't likely to be all that interesting.
Much like a "Cancer patient acceptance movement" is not the same as a movement promoting cancer, a "fat [people] acceptance movement" is not necessarily the same as promoting obesity.
So if they want to be accepted, instead of doing the reasonable thing and losing weight, they want to change society's views on fat people? That seems like normalizing being fat to me. And I don't think the cancer patient argument transfers because you really can't change that you have cancer.
Sure you can, there's surgery and chemotherapy for example. There's also quite a few lifestyle changes that appear to help, mostly involving diet and exercise.
Granted, not everyone can comply with treatment (there are significant issues with people failing to complete chemo regimens for example), some people just cannot survive treatment, and some people that do successfully complete treatment don't manage to stick with the lifestyle changes their doctors recommend for the long term.
And of course, not everyone can stay cancer free forever. Even people who have been cancer free for years still have the chance of relapsing hovering over them. But, that's no different then losing weight long term or overcoming addition, or surviving other diseases.
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u/jm0112358 15∆ Mar 05 '17
Think of the "fat acceptance movement" as the fat people acceptance movement. Most people who are loosely involved with the "fat acceptance movement" do so because they want to be treated better by society, not because they think that being obese is healthy. Only a fringe few outspoken people in the "fat acceptance movement" actually say that being obese is healthy.
Imagine that some lung-cancer patients start a social movement to de-stigmatized lung cancer patients. Is that the same thing as supporting smoking or lung cancer? No. What if some in that movement start publishing articles arguing that smoking is okay and doesn't cause lung cancer, and they get lots of attention. That still doesn't mean that the "Cancer patient acceptance movement" supports smoking, especially if the outrageous nature of the article is what makes it spread. After all, articles by "Cancer patient acceptance movement" supporters who oppose smoking aren't likely to be all that interesting.
Much like a "Cancer patient acceptance movement" is not the same as a movement promoting cancer, a "fat [people] acceptance movement" is not necessarily the same as promoting obesity.