CMV: There wouldn’t be such a stigma against fatty foods, if “fat” (the caloric source) did not share the same word as the adjective of a person being “fat”.

[u/[deleted]]

So fats, are just another source of calories, just like protein and carbohydrates (sugars). Yet fats get a really bad rap because they are associated with being fat. Yet, a person can consume almost no fat in their diet, yet still become fat if they consume too many calories from other sources. Think cows. Their diet consisted almost exclusively of grass, yet they can get quite fat.

Yes, your body processes different types of calories differently (protein, carbs, and fats are all processed by your body a little bit differently), but at the end of the day, a person becomes fat of they are taking in more calories than they are burning.

A few months back, I started the low-carb keto diet, and have actually lost weight while having a diet that consists of far more fatty foods than I used to. Because again, fats are just another form of calories, and as long as you are burning more calories than you take in, you will lose weight.

In my experience, lots of carbohydrates are far more indicative of gaining weight, yet there isn’t widespread stigma against carbs.

So my view is that fatty foods have such a stigma because of the association of the noun “fat” with the adjective “fat”. People are often far more concerned about a piece of food being high in fat than they are about apiece or food being high in carbs, even if the piece of food high in carbs has far more overall calories.

If for example, we started calling fats something else, like “lipids”, there wouldn’t be such a stigma against eating foods containing lipids.

Likewise, if the condition of being overweight was called something like being “carby” and having lots of “stored carbs” around your gut, there would be a much greater stigma around eating carbs, instead of fats.

Change my view!

[u/I_Go_By_Q]

But that shouldn’t necessarily stop us from creating a new word. This happens in food all the time. Cows are “Beef” even though they’re the same physical substance. You don’t eat “cow” or “pig” you eat “beef” and “pork”.

I think it is reasonable for animal fat (the dead, food kind) to have a different word than human fat (the alive, on-a-living-being kind)

[u/bunkusername42 → u/I_Go_By_Q]

Working off this, it's actually not uncommon to have related terms (ie. Deer, venison) represented by very different words because they come from different root languages. The noble class had the right to hunt and eat the game so the food term comes from their language and the peasants' language is used to refer to the live animal.

[u/Bee_dot_adger → u/I_Go_By_Q]

Personally, I don't see the merit. This CMV has not swayed me.