Opinion of fat liberation/fat acceptance movement?

[Matty]

I've been seeing more references to this movement on facebook and on various articles and news pieces.

For example, just saw this today

http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/news/20170803/fat-shaming-patients-can-cause-real-harm

[JA]

I support it to an extent. The kind that you commonly see on Tumblr is pretty absurd and even dangerous. Overweight and obesity is commonly associated with numerous elevated health risks. It can also pose a problem to one's mental health due to poor self-image. For those reasons, it's not smart to treat being overweight as a good thing. However, the social shaming, intolerance, and dehumanization of persons based on their physical appearance that commonly occurs is awful as well. You can promote healthiness without making people feel bad about themselves for being outside of socially constructed body expectations.

Not to mention how the media, Hollywood, and the beauty industry promotes rather unrealistic beauty standards, such as nearly anorexic women and overly muscular men, which deviate substantially from the human norm. It does have affects on people, especially young people, and should be addressed. It also tends to ignore the reality that the majority of Americans are overweight and does not even remotely represent the American body, which isn't good either. So, there is a balance that must be struck between promoting healthy living and socially shaming people for their bodies.

Another issue that is often ignored is the underlying cause of rampant overweight and obesity in America. It stems primarily from the cost imbalance between cheap junk food and expensive healthy food, countless food deserts that make access to healthy food difficult, and lack of time (particularly among working class families) to make homemade food. That has resulted in a disproportionate number of lower income Americans being overweight, and the rate of obesity to decline as one moves up the income scale. Exercise is also difficult for many people to afford access to or time to practice. There are systematic and institutional causes behind America's weight problem that must be addressed; treating it merely as a problem of personal choices is harmful and won't solve the problem. All it does is lead to the growth of exploitative and harmful industries seeking to profit off false promises of weight loss, and make people feel worse about a situation they hardly have the power to change. Empty calories are cheaper and easier to obtain than healthy calories; that's what needs to be fixed.

[America Needs R'hllor]

I support it to an extent. The kind that you commonly see on Tumblr is pretty absurd and even dangerous. Overweight and obesity is commonly associated with numerous elevated health risks. It can also pose a problem to one's mental health due to poor self-image. For those reasons, it's not smart to treat being overweight as a good thing. However, the social shaming, intolerance, and dehumanization of persons based on their physical appearance that commonly occurs is awful as well. You can promote healthiness without making people feel bad about themselves for being outside of socially constructed body expectations.

Not to mention how the media, Hollywood, and the beauty industry promotes rather unrealistic beauty standards, such as nearly anorexic women and overly muscular men, which deviate substantially from the human norm. It does have affects on people, especially young people, and should be addressed. It also tends to ignore the reality that the majority of Americans are overweight and does not even remotely represent the American body, which isn't good either. So, there is a balance that must be struck between promoting healthy living and socially shaming people for their bodies.

Another issue that is often ignored is the underlying cause of rampant overweight and obesity in America. It stems primarily from the cost imbalance between cheap junk food and expensive healthy food, countless food deserts that make access to healthy food difficult, and lack of time (particularly among working class families) to make homemade food. That has resulted in a disproportionate number of lower income Americans being overweight, and the rate of obesity to decline as one moves up the income scale. Exercise is also difficult for many people to afford access to or time to practice. There are systematic and institutional causes behind America's weight problem that must be addressed; treating it merely as a problem of personal choices is harmful and won't solve the problem. All it does is lead to the growth of exploitative and harmful industries seeking to profit off false promises of weight loss, and make people feel worse about a situation they hardly have the power to change. Empty calories are cheaper and easier to obtain than healthy calories; that's what needs to be fixed.

I absolutely agree with this, especially the last part. There is a very clear disparity between obesity rates among the richer parts of the population and the poorer part, stemming from the reasons you mentioned- lack of time to make food at home and how cheap junk food is compared to healthy food. From personal experience, if one walks around Manhattan, or the center of Washington D.C. or Boston, he'd not see a lot of obese people. That's because most people who go there are in a pretty good economic situation. In poorer areas, you'd see a lot more obesity. And that, I think, is a very big problem that needs to be addressed. I'm not sure if it's a feasible solution, but one could start by taxing junk food while considerably lowering the taxes of healthy food, or giving tax breaks to businesses who sell it cheaper.

[AN63093]

Well I grew up in Manhattan, Parrotguy, and take it from me, there are plenty of obese people as well.  Sure, it may not be at Mississippi levels or anything, but as someone who's also lived in Europe for almost 5 years, let's just say this is an issue that is pretty widespread among the US.

On an unrelated note, the whole "cheap junk food" vs. "healthy expensive food" is a complete canard and rather silly, which is quite obvious if one takes just a few minutes to actually think about it.  (Jacobin American, I don't mean this by way of insult, you do make several other fair points).

Healthy eating does not require money.  You don't have to go and shop at Whole Foods for everything to eat healthily.  It does require effort, education, time (to cook, etc), willpower, patience, good habits (many of which need to start in childhood) and a bunch of other things, but it certainly does not require money.

When I was still living in Brooklyn Heights, this was over 5 years ago mind you, but all the relevant places are still there (except the KFC, it looks like it's gone now), you had a KFC, a Popeyes, a Checkers, a McDonalds and some other places all within 5 min walking of a Key Food supermarket.  That's 5 min walking slowly by the way.  A Gristedes within a 10 min walk.  And let me tell you something, that Popeyes was full like 90% of the time I walked past it.  Almost always at least 4-5 people in line, sometimes going out the building.  You think that Key Food was ever quite as full?  Sometimes.  Not always.  I just checked the weekly newspaper circular online and they got plenty of good stuff on sale.  It may not be super duper organic hipster paradise grass fed dry aged kobe beef caviar, but based off of the current weekend's sales, I could put together a decent dinner/desserts of some chicken breasts, vegetables, and seasonal fruits for about the same price as a Popeye's chicken tenders meal.  And I'm not a particularly great cook.

Does it take effort?  Time?  Willpower?  Yes, all those things.  But money is a bit of a canard IMO, distracting from the real issue and with dubious basis in reality.

Yes, I know this is NYC, but it's not exactly a different case across the country.  Fast food restaurants, where are they often located?  Frequently, if not a majority of the time, adjoining a larger parking lot that contains a supermarket or big box store.  It's probably not a Whole Foods, maybe it's a Kroger, or a Wal-Mart Supercenter, or something like that, but you can 100% find healthy stuff there, and it's pretty cheap too.  If you don't believe me, I can pull up Wal-Mart's most recent circular and we can start putting together a meal and doing the calculations, dollars and cents, if you'd like.  I guarantee you it will be relatively simple and certainly won't taste as good as a Popeyes 5 Tenders meal (as someone partial to these tenders, I can tell you that as a fact), but it'll be cheap and healthy, now that I can guarantee you.


Yes, food deserts exist, but their impact is grossly exaggerated.  I was recently driving through the Deep South, through some of the poorest areas of LA.  Wal-Mart and other grocery stories are not a particular rarity there.  Sometimes, it appeared like it was actually the biggest (and only) thing going on in town.  I stopped at Wal-Mart to get some groceries and snacks; saw plenty of people going through the checkout lines with loads upon loads of junk.  The store had lean chicken breasts, fresh vegetables, and everything else you could ask for in the store too; it was cheap (in fact they had a great sale on cherries at the time) and it wasn't exactly hidden.  It sure as hell wasn't filling up people's shopping carts either.

[AN63093]

Anyways, back to the original post- I vote neutral.

People oughta be concerned about their own personal health and so on, and to say that certain body shapes are typically seen as more attractive by most people, is just reality.  No matter how much someone says it, an overweight person is generally not going to be seen as very attractive (at least by most people) and that's just how it is.  That being said, when talking to other people.. well, call me old fashioned, but I do still believe strongly in something called tact and manners, which is often lost on people these days, especially when acting in public, and so I would never go so far as to shame someone- it's none of my business.  So in that sense, the self-righteous attitude that comes from the "moralizing" bunch is often rather tiresome to me, and quite often they are also hypocrites too.  That bothers me more than the actual moralizing itself.

The better way to put it is just to quote Reason Magazine's Jacob Sullum here:

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[Middle-aged Europe]

No one should be mocked or ridiculed for being fat (with a few exceptions like Kim Jong-un or Steve Bannon), but there's nothing wrong with telling people that if you eat healthier or do more sport, you're gonna live longer.

[Coraxion]

Oppose. Overweight people don't face any discrimination from the government, and while I don't think that bullying people for being overweight is okay, the fact is that there's a public health crisis due to the American diet of processed food.

[thumb21]

I oppose it. Both bullying fat people and pretending that there aren't massive problems with obesity are counter productive responses. I think we have to tackle the issue of obesity not through shaming but providing more incentives for people to eat more healthily such as subsidising healthy food because as has been mentioned, there is a massive class issue here where healthy food is unaffordable.

Another issue I have is the whole idea of an "acceptance" movement as a whole. Focusing on what society thinks of fat people and trying to change it thus trying to change it is unpractical and less effective. People are always going to aim for a certain body standard, fat people will almost always be considered by most people as less attractive and bullying will always continue even if societal attitudes improve. The emphasis should be on building self-confidence among fat people and make them more resistant to the bullying as well as helping them find ways to lose weight.

[Santander]

Undesirable behavior should be called out when it is seen. Smokers are shamed, criminals are shamed, long-time welfare recipients are shamed, sociology majors are shamed, Gary Johnson voters are shamed.

Obesity should not be accepted. (and neither should marijuana smoking)

[AN63093]

The problem with that, Santander, is that is precisely the same justification and reasoning used by the SJW-types and the more 'moralizing' leftists (or whom I describe as neo-puritans) to brow-beat people that don't conform with the prevailing dogma; violators of such, being subject to public shaming, ostracizing, and in some cases (depending on degree, e.g., if you politically donate), is a fire-able offense from your job.

An excess of heavy-handed puritanism can be just as vulgar and rube-like as a lack of civilized and sober behavior.

[Higgins]

Oppose. We should neither encourage, nor shame overweight people, but we should shrive to have a physically healthy society.

[Mr. Reactionary]

The real question is whether rationing medical care for fatties like NHS does, is the best solution.

[Lambsbread]

Obviously oppose. I've been overweight for most of my life and I've never once felt that it was an acceptable or praiseworthy trait.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I have always supported liberating not-hard-enough-working Americans from their fat. Acceptance, not so much.

[HisGrace]

Oppose. We should neither encourage, nor shame overweight people, but we should shrive to have a physically healthy society.

Pretty much what I think about it. I'm not going to tell someone to lose weight because it's none of my business, but on the other hand it isn't a good lifestyle choice and shouldn't be promoted in any way.

Then there's the romantic angle, which is pretty much like the "nice guys" thing you see with MRA's. People have every right to not date you for whatever reason they want. Saying otherwise is just entitlement.