Reading a fat acceptance blog for the first time, especially an overweight female, can seem like an epiphany, “Yes, finally someone who understands!”
Quickly devouring more and more, a freshly exposed convert finds out that he or she was never meant to be at a healthy weight, and that all diets are destined to failure. Dieting and exercise are gateway drugs to the world of anorexia. Why not believe it? After all everyone on these sites was anorexic at one time, exercising 6 hours a day, and only eating lettuce for sustenance. Even with those extreme measures THEY COULDN’T LOSE THE WEIGHT!
But, what is the alternative? Well little Ms. Kate Harding and her Fat Acceptance imitators have a solution.
One should start by practicing “Intuitive Eating”, which means, listening to your body, it knows what it really needs. When you want carrots, your body needs the nutrients from carrots. If you want some donuts then get some donuts. Your body must need the sugar and carbohydrates.
When practicing intuitive eating you may at first encounter some weight gain. Don’t fret it! Soon enough your body will reach its’ “Genetic Set Point.” This means the body weight your genetics intended you to be at. The extra weight may not make you fit the Hollywood ideal for beauty, but avoidance of “Yo Yo Dieting” will actually be better for your long term health. One can be both Fat and Fit. We all know that many skinny people eat crap and don’t exercise! There is no connection between fatness and health. At this point our fat blogger, who is often in her late 20’s, will relate how she is extremely overweight, but never felt better.
This package of ideas is a very appealing message, except that it’s total BULLSHIT! Intuitive eating is a hair brained idea with scant research backing it up. There is not one shred of evidence demonstrating that a genetic set point exists for humans. In fact it seems to be a complete fabrication of the fat acceptance movement. Finally the promoters of this pseudo religion have no medical training what so ever that would give them any authority to promote or to critique experts and physicians in the fields of obesity, diet, and exercise.
Let us begin with intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is a good idea for a book. Ironically, it really is a fad diet plan of sorts. It is appealing because it suggests that you eat as your body wants and you can still lose weight. Yes, you can have your cake and eat it too, but only if your body really wants to have cake. Very little serious research has been conducted on intuitive eating. Most of the few studies I have found about intuitive eating seemed to have been conducted by advocates of intuitive eating, which makes the results fairly dubious. All the studies seem to lack statistical soundness, the most recent study I found involved a mere 32 women.
After hours of research on the internet I can’t find any scientific basis for genetically predetermined body weight set points. With the exception of fat acceptance blogs no other dialogue can be found on this subject. Genetic body weight set points are a total fictional creation of the online fat acceptance movement.
The list of hallucinations doesn’t stop there. Lacking any real evidence the HAES (Health at Every Size) movement, asserts that trying to lose weight may cause anorexia. Anorexia is the favorite bugaboo of the FA sisterhood. According to the World Health Organization, anorexia claims about 200 lives a year in the United States, close examination reveals that it is almost exclusively a white rich girl disease. There is no indication that a healthy weight loss effort that includes sound nutrition and exercise will result in a body dimorphic condition such as anorexia, in a person with sound mental health.
The interests of brevity do not allow me to continue on and elaborate on other wacky assertions of this delusional cyber/pseudo feminist movement. What must be said however is that fat acceptance blogs and their authors are not just theorizing and debating about this bullshit, they are enthusiastically and unapologetically handing out their quack advice to their readers. The total lack of scientific and medical backing does not prevent them from telling people to ignore their physician’s advice to lose weight, and instead eat what they feel like. Remember that many of these people are suffering from type 2 diabetes, and or joint issues that are aggravated and perhaps caused by their weight.
It takes a special kind of arrogance to boldly tell obese people to ignore their doctor. Let’s explore just who some of these people are, my source is their own bios contained on their blogs.
Kate Harding (Shapely Prose):
“… humorless feminist, aspiring yoga teacher, recovering grad student…”
Sweet Machine (Shapely Prose):
“…a twenty something queer grad student in Chicagoland…”
Mopie (Big Fat Deal Blog):
“…She is an advertising minion and an English professor with an MFA in poetry…”
Rachel (The F Word):
“…a 28-year-old writer and journalist… received her bachelor’s degree in history and is continuing her graduate work…”
These are great qualifications to be a writer. I wish I had their writing skills and training. These women are all good writers. They are certainly educated in the skills of rhetoric. But I can find nothing that makes them qualified to offer medical opinions to people about diet and exercise. A fanaticism is at work here that won’t allow them to waiver a bit, even if it means giving crazy dietary advice to people who already have health risks.
A great number of the more prominent Fat Acceptance bloggers are in their 20’s and early 30’s. They don’t hesitate to use their own personal healthiness as proof that their doctrine is sound. Believing that they will stay in this condition as they age into their 40’s and 50’s is a fairly tale.
This dangerous charade should be exposed, or at least covered by the mainstream media as it heaps praise on the movement. Fat acceptance promotes a dangerous politically motivated lifestyle that has no medical basis. It is understandable how the “girl power” message is interesting to publishers like Redbook and The New York Times, but in the public interest these institutions are irresponsible not to cover the more jeopardous ideas promoted by Fat Acceptance as well.
The fat acceptance- and fatosphere feminists seem to operate under the belief that women today are universally weak-minded, impressionable and unintelligent. Supposedly a skinny model on a magazine cover throws us into self-loathing and despair, and we cannot be trusted with the task of distinguishing between healthy weight-loss and an anorexic eating disorder. The self-discipline that is required to achieve and sustain a slim body is so overpowering that it will inevitably turn into a dangerous obsession. As for exercise, anyhting more strenuous than a brisk walk is too much for the female body and mind.
Thank you very much, but I for my part beg to be excused from this kind of “feminism”! I don’t need protection from thin celebrities, I know and recognize the difference between maintaining a healthy weight and anorexia, and I’m perfectly capable of doing both high-intensity cardio and weight-lifting several times a week without turning into an obsessive wreck. In fact I’ve been living this lifestyle for the past 15 years, ie since I successfully lost my excess weight, and am both thin, fit and strong and in excellent health for my 45 years.
Ummmm, I hate to tell you this, but I’ve been “morbidly obese” for at least 30 years (I’m 54) and my blood sugar has ALWAYS been normal, as has my cholesterol and blood pressure. Yes, I have arthritis in my knees, but it’s not from being fat (at least 3/4 of my family on both sides have arthritis), it’s from numerous injuries to my knees when I was younger and roller skated 12 to 16 hours a week. I have back problems too, from when I got hit by a car and it fractured my pelvis in 3 places. So for those women who are fat in their 20’s and 30’s , there’s no guarantee that their fat is going to cause them problems in their 40’s and 50’s (all of my grandparents were fat and lived well into their 80’s and 90’s).
I can guarantee you that I can lose 20 or 30 lbs, and that’s it, I can’t lose any more, been there done that and I’m tired of yo-yo-ing. I don’t sit on my fat ass feeding my face all day long, I do housework and other exercise, but I’m going to be fat the rest of my life. Expecting someone to be able to lose more than 100/200 lbs just by diet and exercise is unrealistic (why do you think WW/JC/Nutrasystem have to say “results not typical” in their ads? Because 95% of people who lose weight won’t keep it off forever). If you’re in the 5% that lost a massive amount of weight and have kept it off more than 5 years, good for you. But it isn’t going to happen for the majority of people without starving themselves and exercising like hamsters on speed for the rest of their lives.
Sorry, I’ll live fat and happy. And no, I’m not delusional, I’m living a realistic life, not a fantasy of being thin that is never going to happen for me.
I’m very sorry indeed about your disability and ill health, Vesta44. As I’m not a medical professional I’ll refrain from giving an opinion as to whether your arthritis- and back pain could in fact be lessened if you changed your mind and lost your excess weight.
You state that for those women who are fat in their 20s and 30s there is no guarantee that their fat is going to cause them problems later in life. Very well, but do you and the rest of the fatosphere-bloggers have a guarantee that it will NOT cause them health-problems later then? For your own peace of mind I certainly hope that you do, because should you happen to be wrong in your assumption that obesity does not cause ill health you might find yourselves in a somewhat difficult position 10-20 years from now.
I’m under the impression that one of your fellow bloggers Ms Harding recently started an advice-section called “Aunt Fattie”. Her first “client” seemed to be a 14 year old obese girl, who’s mother was concerned about her daughter’s weight. The girl stated that she is a follower of the fat acceptance teachings, but because of her mother’s insistence she is sometimes “tempted to give in” and start losing weight. I would very much want to know how Aunt Fattie can guarantee that this girl will not be severely disabled as a result of her obesity 20-30 years hence.
I’m unfortunately prevented form presenting these questions directly to Aunt Fattie on Shapely Prose as the blogger(s) doesn’t allow for any dissenting opinions in her blog – another thing that raises some concerns. She is, after all, addressing health issues without any medical qualifications whatsoever.
I think people who have fantastic health in spite of their weight are the “genetic freaks.” These are people who are so healthy their body somehow adapts no matter what abuse they throw at it. I am a little skeptical though that Vesta44’s blood sugar is PERFECT, or blood pressure for that matter. I’d ask to see the numbers specifically. Many doctors say your blood sugar is normal when you’re just a couple of points away from pre-diabetes, and that’s far from “perfect health.”
After gaining weight I went to my doctor and had blood work done for some hormone difficulties and they tested my blood sugar. When I called for my results, they were like: “Oh, they’re normal” So I asked for the ACTUAL number, and my fasting glucose was 2 points away from being pre-diabetes. That’s not actually “normal.’ That’s an early warning light indicator of a problem.
In addition, the body cannot properly absorb vitamin D with too much fat. Vitamin D deficiency is responsible for a giant list of problems.
Weight loss can be difficult if you’ve dieted before. Most people don’t include strength training in their plan, and they also cut too many calories. Vesta claims she is only able to lose 20 or 30 pounds and then it just stops. This is called a plateau, not a genetic setpoint.
In all likelihood (since she considers housework a form of exercise), she cut her calories WAY too low to start losing weight. Someone of the weight Vesta44 is, would need MORE THAN 2000 calories to start losing weight. Probably quite a bit more. As well as a sound exercise program that involved strength training. You want to speed your metabolism, not slow it down.
Dieting for too long lengths of time, can slow your metabolism down, even if you’re losing gradually. It’s good to work on losing for about 12 weeks, then take a full week break and eat YOUR maintenance calories. No book can tell you personally how many calories you burn, because it’s all based on averages and everybody’s metabolism is different. But all metabolisms can be changed. Metabolism isn’t a one way street.
WHAT someone eats matters too. 2000 calories of crap makes it more likely that most of those calories will be turned into fat.
Arthritis is not always a weight related issue, BUT, it is a fact that each pound of weight you have adds a certain amount of pressure to your knees. That added pressure is not good for them. It may not cause arthritis but I will GUARANTEE you it exacerbates it.
Arthritis IS sometimes associated with low vitamin D, and obese people can’t absorb it properly. So…if you aren’t getting a crapload of sunlight, you’re not helping yourself.
In addition, I find it unwise for someone like Vesta44 to hold herself up as the picture of health to prove that fat has nothing to do with health. That’s like a 90 year old who smokes 3 packs a day holding himself up as a picture of health just because he had some magic freak genetics that prevented him from getting lung cancer.
I’m as skeptical as the next person about Big Pharma and conventional western medicine in general. But just because they aren’t right about everything, doesnt’ mean they aren’t right about SOME things.
I don’t take all the points of ANYONE as fact. Because all human beings are fallible. But the evidence is just too great that weight does have an impact on health. And that most overweight and obese people aren’t eating right or exercising (I know, i was very overweight at one point and I know how I got there. Everyone I’ve ever met who is obese, I’ve never seen them eat one healthy thing, their grocery carts are piled high withprocessed junk. It’s also a documented fact that most human beings over estimate the amount of exercise they get and underestimate what they eat. That’s everybody, not just fat people not just thin people, everybody.)
In order to believe weight has no bearing on health and fitness, you have to be a conspiracy theorist. You probably also doubt we landed on the moon. These sorts of ideas are fun to play around with in a… “Wouldn’t it be weird if…” but when applied to real life, they are foolish to say the least.
I don’t agree with you Vesta, but as you notice no one has called you a “troll”, “douchehound”, or a “fucktard”.
I think some healthy dissent and discussion can be good.
I think if fat acceptance really wants to be accepted by the mainstream it is going have to be more open to criticism, and answer a critic or a tough question once in a while.
Ahem, I will very gently point you down the path of what is part of the workthe fat acceptance is basing their philosophy on – Dr. Jules Hirsh work at Rockefeller University. Here is one of the salient paragraphs:
“Before the diet began, the fat subjects’ metabolism was normal — the number of calories burned per square meter of body surface was no different from that of people who had never been fat. But when they lost weight, they were burning as much as 24 percent fewer calories per square meter of their surface area than the calories consumed by those who were naturally thin.”
“The Rockefeller subjects also had a psychiatric syndrome, called semi-starvation neurosis, which had been noticed before in people of normal weight who had been starved. They dreamed of food, they fantasized about food or about breaking their diet. They were anxious and depressed; some had thoughts of suicide. They secreted food in their rooms. And they binged.”
And this is Dr. Ethan Sims work on what happens when slender people are put on a diet to make them gain weight:
“His subjects were prisoners at a nearby state prison who volunteered to gain weight. With great difficulty, they succeeded, increasing their weight by 20 percent to 25 percent. But it took them four to six months, eating as much as they could every day. Some consumed 10,000 calories a day, an amount so incredible that it would be hard to believe, were it not for the fact that there were attendants present at each meal who dutifully recorded everything the men ate.”
“Once the men were fat, their metabolisms increased by 50 percent. They needed more than 2,700 calories per square meter of their body surface to stay fat but needed just 1,800 calories per square meter to maintain their normal weight.”
“When the study ended, the prisoners had no trouble losing weight. Within months, they were back to normal and effortlessly stayed there.”
so, yes, there is a tremendous amount of data supporting the notion of set points.
Somewhere around 75% of weight is genetically determined. We know this from studies of children who were surrendered for adoption. Regardless of how the adoptive ate and exercised, around 80% of children had weight that correlated to their biological parents’ weight – not their adoptive parents.
You should read Rethinking Thin by the ever-slender marathon runner Gina Kolata – head science writer for the NY Times. She runs down all the data.
Fewer than 5% of people who attempt to lose weight through diet and exercise manage to keep the weight off. The reasons for that are not slovenliness or gluttony, but the body’s determination to rest at a genetically established set point.
So, yes, there is a lot of science behind the fat acceptance movement. And you might want to lay off the misogyny. It obscures your message.
And here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/08fat.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Lori,
Let me remind you that no fat acceptance blog allows any real dialogue in the comments section. Generally different opinions are deleted and attributed to trolls.
At best one would expect a long stream of obscene adjectives such as “douchehound” or “fucktard” as the main intellectual retort.
Everyone on myfatspouse.com is familiar with the ancient study that you cut and pasted so lengthily into your comment. I find it rather telling that the scientific study that is the lynch pin of the fat acceptance movement, is a study that is 50 years old, that includes STARVATION methodology, and NO EXERCISE.
Additionally can not address the HUGE increase in obesity seen in the last 30 years. Our genetics have not changed in that short of a time frame, genetics can not be blamed for the substantial shift in BMI.
The concept of a genetic weight set point is a wishful fiction dreamed up by fat acceptance. This applies for intuitive eating as well. There are no serious medical professionals who are recommending intuitive eating to obese people.
The fat bloggers are not medical professionals, and by them giving out advice that is dangerous and is not advocated by the medical community makes them irresponsible.
Lori, answer this question are there any obese people who are fat merely from eating to much and being inactive? Not a single one?
As for misogyny, stop with the delusions of persecution. You just had to find some “-ist” adjective to attack me with. Racist (no), Facist (no), Sexist (yea…he’s a boy and we are girls, if he disagrees with us he must be a SEXIST!)
It’s just not me (the mean man) claiming that FA is hiding behind the banner of feminism, but many other women who think of themselves as feminist are annoyed by this claimed association as well.
The easy ride is over for Fat Acceptance. Legitimate and justified scrutiny is on the way, get ready for it, all 12,435 blogs and counting.
So, does this mean you have current studies that prove that metabolisms don’t drop after a diet? Because if you don’t have any of those, then we’re back to my studies. The point is that Jules Hirsh work is at the basis of the scientific studies are being done now. Medical science think he and Ethan Sims got it right.
Here’s a study that came out a few months concluding that genetics are responsible for about 78% of obesity.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7230065.stm
BTW, my comment to you was polite. Perhaps you could rethink how you relate to people. That’s probably why your comments get deleted.
Well said. The lazy approach Americans take to things bugs me no end sometimes. Don’t want to lose weight, cool, no skin off my ass, but trying to redefine obesity as perfectly healthy? It’s the same mentality where we embrace mediocrity so people don’t feel bad, but I don’t want to digress too far. Anyway, when I was 22 I got sick of being out of shape so I worked out and ate healthy and got into excellent condition. Five years later, I’ve let myself go a bit so I’m doing the same. I’m sure it would be easier to just say ‘Fuck it, the size I’m at it perfectly healthy and the fact that I got fat again just proves that you can’t stay un-obese’, but I’d know I was lying to myself. I am totally against shaming fat people or treating women disrespectfully because of extra weight or unhealthy fixations on thinness at any cost; but you can be against all of that AND against bullshit ideas about how being fat is healthy. The “Fat Acceptance” movement is harmful and unhealthy and you’ve demonstrated that very well with a minimum of invective and a surplus of reason. Hats off to you, sir.
I don’t comment on fat blogs, I don’t molest them, but others have that regularly post on myfatspouse.com have. BTW most of them were female, perhaps they were behaving misogynistic too.
You have to be living in la la land if you don’t realize that dissent isn’t allowed on FA forums.
I don’t disagree with anything in that article about that study…especially this quote from the study’s leader.
“These results do not mean that a child with a high complement of susceptibility genes will inevitably become overweight, but that their genetic endowment gives them a stronger predisposition.”
Here is a particularly interesting article that addresses the very study you are waving around and asserts like I do that the dynamic of genetics vs. environment are rarely simple.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-saletan_30edi.ART.State.Edition1.46af628.html
The fat acceptance movement is very adept at cherry picking the facts they need and ignoring the ones they don’t care for. A predisposition is not inevitable destiny.
There is no doubt that metabolism and obesity have genetics tendencies involved. Me claiming genetics play NO role is as silly as you claiming that they are an insurmountable obstacle.
Proving that genetics play a role is not proof that everyone should just give up! If Fat Acceptance people want to tell themselves, that they just can’t win and give up…Have at it…surrender.
Why have genetics made people SUDDENLY so fat, but only in the west, particularly the US? How come as access to crappy American food becomes more prevelant to other nations they suddenly become fat too, genetics?
Do you believe that there is one obese person who is obese by inactivity and poor eating?
I’m not going to stop criticizing the Fat Acceptance movement for giving dangerous advice to vulnerable people like 14 year old girls, who probably should be listening to their parents and medical professionals, not some angry online defeatists.
Please I would like to see some scientific information about some other crazy/dangerous fat acceptance claims.
For example, Claiming that type 2 diabetes has nothing to do with someone being overweight. Another one is the assertion that being obese is not hard on joints particularly the knees?
I have another question for you. Can anyone be too fat? So fat that losing weight should be a good idea? Give me an idea 300lbs, 400lbs, 1000lbs?
BTW…I’m not going to answer any more of your posts tonight…but thanks for getting me all pumped up for my work out. I got 24 sets done while typing out my replies.
Here we go again. Diets , diets ,diets, starvation, starvation, starvation. Studies that show starvation, and no muscle building.
Putting on muscle is how to burn bodyfat rather then cutting the calories down to zero. There is no new study here we havn’t seen a zillion times.
The reason so many people ‘gain it back’ is because of the fad diets and programmes that prescribe no exercise (so muscles don’t build) or too much exercise (so muscles don’t build as they have no time to recover), and eating habits that can’t be sustained.
Not people who pick up some good sized weights and incorporate 30 – 45 mins of that into their lives, the same they do with work, and going out.
But thats too much hard work, and doesn’t sound as flashy as ‘gain the perfect body in a week’ diets.
There are no miracles when it comes to losing bodyfat.
Its like getting an education, a long drawn out process, thats taken bit by bit, 1 pound at a time.
‘But screw that…….this one says i can do it in a week’.
The exact problems with the fat acceptance movments views on wehtloss have been shown so well even though there are only 11 or so comments so far.
The studies that have been held up, and the methods that have been mentioned to describe how weightloss ‘doesn’t work’, have all been ones that are exactly how not to do it.
The problem with the term ‘exercise’ is that its so broad. Saying get some exercise can mean anything.
But walking is no form of exercise for healthy weightloss compared to lifting weights and resistance training.
It’s more often then not very easy to see how people have failed in weightloss when they actually say what they have been doing.
People say they exercise…well how? Because often it’s doing cardio, going for a walk , water aerobicsor doing yoga that are the ones that get mentioned.
A good start for a beginner but not progressive enough to keep improving once a person is no longer so.
And you can’t progressivley build muscle with them either (for the ladies, this doesn’t mean bulging biceips and such. The full phrase for ‘tone’ is ‘muscle tone’). Muscle shapes our bodies, keeps the metabolism running and also means you need to eat to sustain it.
People keep mistaking the ‘eat less’ or ‘drop your calories’ lines for meaning ‘get them as low as possible’.
That just causs you to lose muscle, not gain it. Thats why metabolisms slow.
To little food and no exercise, exercise but not enough to build muscle, or too much exercise so muscles can’t recover are the ’sensible recommendations’ that fad diets and mainstream articles pull out of their hat.
But too little food means your body has nothing to build muscles with, and this is also why metabolisms slow, yet people keep on the chrash dieting course, hoping that ‘this one WILL work, it has too, after all it IS in Heat magazine’.
A simple question is ‘why would a persons metabolism be moving if they have given it nothing to burn?’
And i know there are spelling mistakes, but this is a blog comment section, not an essay for harvard. Just for any of those clever clogs who like to pull out the ‘you can’t spell’ thing.
There certainly are some studies that seem to indicate that obesity is genetic, fat is not unhealthy etc, but on the other hand there are several studies that seem to prove the very opposite. The majority of the medical experts today do in fact agree that obesity is a major health-risk and is linked to several very serious diseases.
The fat acceptance movement has chosen to very carefully cherry-pick the studies and opinions that support their agenda and to equally carefully ignore all the rest. For my part I find this approach reckless and irresponsible beyond belief. What the fatosphere-bloggers are doing in a nutshell is medical cherry-picking on an ideological basis without any qualifications whatsoever. What’s even more alarming is that this is going on in a blog-culture with very strict censorship and absolutely no critical debate. This is a recipie for disaster if there ever was one!
Over at http://www.myfatspouse.com we have been astonished to notice that the heavyweight-bloggers (Shapely Prose, The Rotund etc) privately seem to agree that dieting and weight-loss can indeed be justified for health reasons in some cases. For the sake of the ideology they do however feel that it would be politically incorrect to openly admit this. What follows is that Aunt Fattie in her role as health advisor obviously can’t tell her clients to go on a diet even if it would be the only medically sound thing to do, because it might be ideologically incorrect.
We cannot help but conclude that what we are seeing here is a very nasty and potentially dangerous little cult-in-the-making.
“What follows is that Aunt Fattie in her role as health advisor obviously can’t tell her clients to go on a diet even if it would be the only medically sound thing to do, because it might be ideologically incorrect.”
This showed through in the worst way in that part we talked about, when she told that women who’s weight was going to confine her to a wheelchair if she didn’t do something about it, that rather then lose weight she should instead ‘get over her fear of being disabled’.
That certainly shows commitment to a radical ideology when you will allow a women to end up disabling herself, just to avoid saying ‘lose some weight’.
I am the new face of fat acceptance. biggerfatterblog is not the same fat apologists that you underweight people enjoy bashing. It is time that fat acceptance admits what it is really all about that that is promoting obesity, gluttony and normalizing obesity.
In spite of the many problems with the current movement fat acceptance has made great strides but now we need to stop playing the role of the tragic victims of an uncaring society because we now are society and we have have normalized gluttony and morbid obesity. Yes folks we are now the majority and we are large and in charge. Deal with it all you fat phobics!
http://biggerfatterblog.blogspot.com/
Hey fatter bastard!
At first I thought you were pulling my leg. But I read your first blog entry and I think you are legit.
If anything your honesty should be rewarded. I would have a lot less to gripe about if you Fat Acceptance people would stop challenging people credulity when they claim they only eat carrots, and exercise all the time.
I’m leaving your link up and putting it up on the forum at http://www.myfatspouse.com
It’s a fact America is becoming a nation of unabashed gluttons. I share your feelings about the current state of fat acceptance. Everyone of them is a food slut but the try to pretend they are not. They whine about fat women being ashamed of their bodies but that song and dance is getting old. Fat women flaunt their bodies all the time. Just do Google image search and type in BBW and all you will see is page after page of fat scandalous sluts and that is a good thing. Men love fat women now because obese is the new normal.
Skinny women are prudes but that is no surprise. They are such goody two shoes. Think about it. You hardly ever see any fat nuns. on the other hand fat women are pleasure seeking hedonistic sex and food craving sluts. What man would not want that.
NAAFA has outlived its usefulness. When they claimed they were not a pro feederism org they lost all credibility. NAAFA conventions are feeder fests. The new grass roots Fat Acceptance make no apologies for the gluttonous and hedonistic way of fat people. Food is our God. It’s time we drop the charade and admit that.
The sticks make the argument that we will die sooner and retards like Paul Campos and Marylin Wann will make the pathetic argument that we don’t die sooner but that one does not even pass the giggle test. We die about 15 years sooner but we have a lot more pleasure while me are here. We smoke, drink and eat what ever the hell we want. That’s livin! What else is life for but pleasure?
“You hardly ever see any fat nuns. ”
Clearly you did not go to Catholic school.
Could one be hyptnoptized into thinking fat is hot and sexy? If so there would be a lot of hot avaliable women.
“NAAFA has outlived its usefulness. When they claimed they were not a pro feederism org they lost all credibility.”
I’m very much anti – fat acceptance and I can’t agree with the NAAFA ideology. One very good and decent thing they did however was to openly cut all ties to feederism.
Btw, I would very much like to know why the feederists at “Dimensions” keep insisting that this form of fat fetish is “only a fantasy” or only about the feedee gaining a very insignificant amount of weight in the relationship, if you at the same time proclaim that there should be no limits whatsoever to your particular form of “pleasure”. Would you care to explain yourself on this point, which way is it then?
Okay, so for arguments sake, lets say that losing weight does indeed improve one’s health. I mean, that’s what the “doctors” all say, right?
What about the 98% of those who will gain it back? What about the effects of yo-yo dieting, which is the same as the risks of actually being fat?
But, losing weight makes one healthier, right?…
For my part I very much question this “98% gain it all back” -mantra. After all I lost my own excess some 15 years ago without any heroic efforts and it shows no signs of reappearing so far. I’m pretty certain that my weight loss has not been recorded in any official statistics anywhere. There might very well be studies that show a high failure-rate, but it seems that these results have taken a life of their own. No-one dares question how these studies were conducted and what kind of dieting techniques were used.
As for the effects of yo-yo dieting, there are also studies that indicate that the negative effects are not as harmful as obesity – but again it has become almost sacreligious to question the yo-yo’ing is harmful -teachings.
For my part I maintain that – although you might not get diabetes, cancer or heart-disease – being obese later in life will render you disabled and severely restrict your mobility, which will have a very negative effect on the quality of your life.
My greatest criticism against the fat acceptance is that it muddles with health and medicine on ideological grounds and without adequate qualifications, and furthermore goes to great lengths to hinder an open and fair debate on the health effects of obesity.
“I have arthritis in my knees, but it’s not from being fat…”
you could gain a considerable amount of relief for the arthritic pain in your knees simply by losing weight. Exercise can make a big difference here as well keep it up. Losing twenty or thirty pounds and keeping it off would be more than enough to make a big difference for most people and then they could make a decision to work harder or go further. Attitude counts for something and I’m sorry, but your attitude sucks. Do you really think 100 pounds is crazy? Is 2 pounds a month crazy? Do the math! 2 pounds a month is 24 pounds a year and let’s say each year you get one month where you have to loose 3 pounds. In four years you loose 100 pounds. You’d only be 58 years old, Vesta and probably add quite a few good years to your life. There are any number of programs you could use to achieve a slow and sensible weight loss like this. WW and TOPS come to mind. If losing two pounds a month is too much for you well then I guess I understand your position.
“Okay, so for arguments sake, lets say that losing weight does indeed improve one’s health. I mean, that’s what the “doctors” all say, right?”
Um, yes. Yes, it is. If by “doctors” you mean “qualified health professionals who studied the workings of the human body intensively for the better part of a decade to get their jobs”, then yes, they do say that keeping one’s weight in a fairly narrow range is a much healthier way to live. But I suppose a few selectively quoted studies hyped by womens’ studies majors trumps that?
There’s something I’ve been wondering about for a couple of years since I first read about the Hirsh study. Why does it use calories per square meter of surface area as a measurement? Obviously, if obese people burn 76 percent as many calories per unit of surface area as thin people, the total calories they burn is higher than the total calories a thin person burns. At the end of the study, the most obese subjects still had a lot of surface area.
Oh thank God.
Seriously, the Fat Acceptance movement scares me as much as the Pro-Anorexia movement. They’re two sides of the same coin, promoting equally dangerous lifestyles and duping people who already have low self-steem into harming themselves further.
And I say this as an overweight woman, by the by. I want to lose weight, and I know I should, but unlike everyone in the fatosphere, I acknowledge that I don’t like exercising and that my weight is MY problem, not society’s.
But then, “personal responsibility” is a dirty phrase these days.
I’m in two minds about your post.
On the one hand, it’s clear that you are dismissing the concept of fat acceptance, I most certainly do not.
However, I cannot agree with so much of what is said on the mostly US based fatosphere, that it’s possible that you have more points of agreement with them, than I do.
Greis – I would guess that they use calories per square meter because that was a direct instantaneous measurement they could make. Calories are just a measurement of energy (ie heat). Why they then didn’t sum over total surface area to calculate total energy flow I don’t know, but I would have to guess that they had no way to find the total area.
We at http://www.biggerfatterblog(.)blogspot(.)com are the voice of the new fat acceptance. We admit that obesity is unhealthy and that all fat people are gluttons. We just think that gluttony is good.
The problem with the old NAAFA style fat acceptance is it is run by stupid jealous stinky fat girls.
We at BFB represent the vast majority of fat people. Crazy womyn like Kate Hardon have made fat acceptance laughable even to most fat people.
Fat people are lazy greedy gluttons. Why should we fatlings deny that? True fat acceptors accept the joys of gluttony and sloth and the dangers.
I have made reference to your blog in my blog. I think you made good points.
http://www.scientificblogging.com/quantum_gravity/blog/fat_studies_it_about_body_acceptance_and_self_esteem_or_jealousy
I really do sense jealousy. I was never really fat, but I have been clinically overweight BMI wise. Now I am size 6 and I feel it. Thankyou for saying what no one dares.
All people have a right to feel comfortable in their own skin. It seems to some insecure people fat and thin that has to come at the cost of another person.