We, and the first person is used intentionally, are not
allowed to have fat as part of our identity, yet at every turn; we are reminded
that we are fat. Every day, we see and hear hundreds of negative messages about
weight in the world around us, from the news stories about the “obesity
epidemic”, magazine covers about some celebrity’s latest weight loss or gain,
advertising for weight loss products or diet foods, to public service
announcements about living a “healthy lifestyle” which always imply that
healthy equals thin.
I recently published a post about fat rolemodels, and I received lots of comments on various social media platforms, most
negative and telling me that being fat is unhealthy.
That wasn’t the point of the article, it wasn’t
a discussion about weight and health, it was a discussion about representation
and what happens when people you looked up to, turn their back on you.
But the comments I received made me really
angry.
“I think
it's really quite influential of her to get healthy and at a safe weight. I
don't think it's right to support unhealthy body images and she worked
incredibly hard to better herself. Being incredibly overweight and putting your
health at risk is just as detrimental to young women as showing overly skinny
and malnourished bodies. She's a healthy weight and no one should be bashing
her for that.”
“But it
also doesn't mean not to try and stay fat all the time”
“just
as a side note fat acceptance is terrible its making people feel ok about
gorging themselves to an early grave while getting diseases”
Why is the narrative about health? Why is
that the place these people always go? They like to feign an interest in fat people’s
health, because they look like the good people, being all concerned for me, and
I look like the bad person, because I’m fat and making people concerned (and
outright angry that I’m fat) and I’m the one who won’t change, is costing the
NHS millions, being a bad role model and basically being an irresponsible person
by loving my fat body and not being ashamed of who I am. How can it be in 2017 and people are still
harping on about health. I’m going to
drop some research here….
The results of a
study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine should not come as a shock to
most people. Being overweight doesn't necessarily make you unhealthy,
according to researchers in both the United States and Germany. The new
research confirmed this. People who are overweight have a fifty-fifty chance of
having high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or elevated blood sugar levels. In fact, fat
people live longer than thin people and are more likely to survive cardiac
events, and some studies
have shown that fat can protect against “infections,
cancer, lung disease, heart disease, osteoporosis, anemia, high blood pressure,
rheumatoid arthritis and type 2 diabetes.”
Shock horror, a lot of what they are
spouting is bullshit, yes, a fat person can be unhealthy, but so can a thin
person. You cannot determine health just by looking at someone, that is the
same as looking at a car and going yeah that looks fine but never opening the
bonnet and looking at the engine to be sure (crap analogy but you get the
point). It almost seems as if they just don’t like fat people and need an
excuse to make this hatred valid – viola health is the perfect scape goat when
it comes to fat people.
When
it fact this type of thing is what is fuelling streotypes. I’m about to drop
some more research...
Numerous studies have documented harmful weight based
stereotypes; that overweight and obese individuals are lazy, weak-willed,
physically unattractive, unsuccessful, unintelligent, less popular, lack
self-discipline, have poor willpower, and are noncompliant with weight loss
treatment (Puhl and Brownell 2001, Brownell, Puhl, Schwartz and Rudd 2005, Puhl
and Heuer 2009 Molly and Herzberger 1998; Stephens, Hill and Hanson 1994,
Wooley and Wooley 1979, Keys 1955). These stereotypes give way to stigma,
prejudice, and discrimination against obese persons in multiple domains; in
fact weight discrimination, has increased 66% in a decade in America and is now
on a par with racial discrimination. This
just reinforces that weight stigma remains a socially acceptable form of bias.
They also seem to think that fat is a choice,
that we spend our days stuffing our faces with cakes and do nothing. Again,
this couldn’t be further from the truth. Do you think many of us would chose a
life where we are judging purely on how we look, find it difficult to just exist
in the world because we take up more space, things such as flying or going out
for a meal become a mind field as you worry your body won’t fit into the
predefined space of a seat. Get treated like some sub-human because we carry more
fat on our bodies, including getting abused and harassed, get discriminated
against for jobs, get treated poorly by medical professionals (one study found
that nurses didn’t even want to touch fat people) and let actual health
problems take over our lives as anything wrong with us can be solved by losing
weight. We are human beings, with feelings and emotions and only want to be
treated as such.
I also know many active fat people; although
this opens a whole other discussion about the idea of being a good fatty and
that one must be seen to be eating healthy and exercise to reinforce the idea
to a wider audience that they aren’t the kind of fatty you have to hate because
I’m not like the stereotypical fatty.
The question I ask myself is, do these health
concern trolls, people who tell me that losing weight will change my life, I will
no longer have health problems, I will no longer be a drain on the NHS, do they
feel the same way about smokers? Are they out on the streets on a Friday night,
going from pub to pub to tell the smokers outside that they are going to die,
that they are cutting their lives short? It is a choice they are making, they
know that smoking causes cancer and other health concerns. Are they out there
telling people who drink the dangers of drinking? That one day they might need
a liver transplant? I don’t think they are, because bottom line, they actually
aren’t concerned with health, of any one. They just need to believe that fat
people are the problem, to fuel their belief that they are justified is their
hatred (back to the point I made earlier).
So in short, health concern trolls,
can kiss my fat ass.
Becky x
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