Do fat women who are Body-Positive really love being fat?

[Anonymous]

My sister is overweight and has just this summer gotten comfortable enough to wear a sleeveless dress/top without a cardigan. She's 35 and has been overweight her whole life. We grew up eating the same things and playing the same sports, but she got the fat genes from my dad's side of the family, unfortunately. I've seen her struggles throughout her whole life and been there for the tears, the holding her head high when a rude comment is overheard, and having strangers use her as a learning tool for why their kids can't have soda/candy/junk. She doesn't love being fat and doesn't celebrate it. She's just come to be at peace with it and is tired of apologizing for it hiding away because of it.

She's not a rah-rah cheerleader for the movement, but if someone says something about how twisted or gross it is to see overweight women celebrating their fatness, she'll try to educate them on why for most that is not what is going on at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The average size 12, 14, and 16 woman is overweight bordering obese. It is unhealthy. Sorry snowflake, science doesn’t agree with you.

Why are some people so dense? Does anybody think this is an intelligent statement?

The average 0-6 is also not healthy.

That is why size 8 is perfect.

Also women are getting bigger. It biology. Small women marry bigger and taller men. Their daughters will be bigger.

It totally depends on body type. For me, size 6 is fat. I have no boobs and bird bones with a tiny rib cage. When I get to size 6, I have rolls of fat around my abdomen. My sister, who inherited a different set of genes, is totally healthy and curvy at size 12. When she gets up to a 16, that's too fat for her and unhealthy for her. I know other women who are really big boned for whom a size 16 might not be fat, though. The sizes, and even weights, are really meaningless because people are all built differently. I think when your weight interferes with your life (e.g.,can't walk upstairs, can't fly commercial, type 2 diabetes, etc.) that's sad and I feel bad for those individuals. Otherwise, who cares?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It's a complete fantasy that excess weight (and I mean more than 20 lbs overweight) causes zero health problems.

When you have more weight for your body to carry, it necessarily puts more pressure on your muscles and bones. At the extreme, it's harder for doctors to do surgery because they have to cut through the fat.

For some people, they can't help it, but for many it's PREVENTABLE.

That's why it's completely different from having special needs and comparing the two is offensive.

You can say the same about being xs and s or at the bottom of your BMI. It causes health related problems.

When did I say it didn't?

Jeez, it's so triggering for all of you to hear that ANYONE who is fat might bear some responsibility for it and might be suffering health consequences.

Not nearly as triggering as it is for some people to hear that there are fat people out there who still love themselves and are happy.

They can love themselves and be happy, but they're likely still suffering health consequences from it and COULD bear responsibility for gaining that much weight.

And before someone attacks me -- the same can be said for people who are too thin.

I think that the point is that with fat people, you look at them and start concern trolling about their health consequences. Do you do that for people who look very small too - immediately make judgments and opine about their health status?

Lots of things cause health related problems, but many fat people experience discrimination that meaningfully impacts quality of care due to perceptions about their weight, including providers being unwilling to address other health concerns and blaming all health difficulties on the patient's weight.

Most fat people know why they're fat.

I don't make comments about people's size - large or small. When I see someone who is alarmingly thin, yes I do get concerned (think: Dr. Dray on Youtube - homegirl looks severely anorexic and seems to flaunt it). Likewise, when I see a coworker who is severely overweight and seems to be impacted by it in their day to day life, I get concerned as well. The difference is that there are just WAY more severely overweight people than severely thin people out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The average size 12, 14, and 16 woman is overweight bordering obese. It is unhealthy. Sorry snowflake, science doesn’t agree with you.

Why are some people so dense? Does anybody think this is an intelligent statement?

The average 0-6 is also not healthy.

That is why size 8 is perfect.

Also women are getting bigger. It biology. Small women marry bigger and taller men. Their daughters will be bigger.

It totally depends on body type. For me, size 6 is fat. I have no boobs and bird bones with a tiny rib cage. When I get to size 6, I have rolls of fat around my abdomen. My sister, who inherited a different set of genes, is totally healthy and curvy at size 12. When she gets up to a 16, that's too fat for her and unhealthy for her. I know other women who are really big boned for whom a size 16 might not be fat, though. The sizes, and even weights, are really meaningless because people are all built differently. I think when your weight interferes with your life (e.g.,can't walk upstairs, can't fly commercial, type 2 diabetes, etc.) that's sad and I feel bad for those individuals. Otherwise, who cares?

Totally this. I am 5'5 and a size two. My stomach looks terrible and I just started working with a trainer who uses calipers to measure body fat. Mine is almost 30%, which is pretty unacceptable. I just have a small frame and am not meant to carry that extra weight, or rather, more of my weight should be muscle than the fat. I'd bet money Ashley Graham has a better ratio, but she is going to wear a much bigger size due to her frame. A size 0 is totally reasonable for me and was the size I wore most of my life, while yes, it would be outright impossible or very unhealthy for someone like Ashley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The average size 12, 14, and 16 woman is overweight bordering obese. It is unhealthy. Sorry snowflake, science doesn’t agree with you.

Why are some people so dense? Does anybody think this is an intelligent statement?

The average 0-6 is also not healthy.

That is why size 8 is perfect.

Also women are getting bigger. It biology. Small women marry bigger and taller men. Their daughters will be bigger.

It totally depends on body type. For me, size 6 is fat. I have no boobs and bird bones with a tiny rib cage. When I get to size 6, I have rolls of fat around my abdomen. My sister, who inherited a different set of genes, is totally healthy and curvy at size 12. When she gets up to a 16, that's too fat for her and unhealthy for her. I know other women who are really big boned for whom a size 16 might not be fat, though. The sizes, and even weights, are really meaningless because people are all built differently. I think when your weight interferes with your life (e.g.,can't walk upstairs, can't fly commercial, type 2 diabetes, etc.) that's sad and I feel bad for those individuals. Otherwise, who cares?

Have you ever been told size 6 is obese? Or big? Or insert negative comment?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I lost 60 pounds which makes me just 50 pounds overweight. I will likely never lose that other 50 pounds but I feel better, move more and look better in a smaller body. I had forgotten how it felt to try clothes on in a store and have them fit. To not feel like people were watching and judging me when I ate or tried to exercise. I did/do not love being fat. But it is unhealthy to hate my body, which gets me up every day and gets me around the world. I think the body positivity movement is about not hating your body and honoring what it can do.

This. I'm working on loving my body just so I *can* lose weight.

Body positivity is great. Healthy at every size is a fantasy. The OP asked about HAES.

I’m a registered dietitian in dc working in weight management and I think this sums it up perfectly

Maybe not every size but acting like a size 12, 14, 16 is unhealthy is incorrect.

Well that definitely depends on height...

RDN in weight management again. That is correct. i would never assume that someone is overweight simply based on their dress size. Health care professionals use real evidence, not appearances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you prefer fat or disabled people hate themselves?

Pretty sure a lot of people indeed would prefer that, probably including OP.

I didn’t get that vibe from OP. I felt like this was an “ educate me” post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To get back to the actual question - I dont know what the movement you reference is, but if you're referring to people like Ashley Graham, Tess Holliday, Lizzo etc - I think part of it is that they see themselves as ambassadors who bring positivity to the lives of people who might not always feel it, from people who look like them. And to deny that someone should do that is really pretty crappy.

Also their are certain men that prefer that body type.

Many, many men.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's a complete fantasy that excess weight (and I mean more than 20 lbs overweight) causes zero health problems.

When you have more weight for your body to carry, it necessarily puts more pressure on your muscles and bones. At the extreme, it's harder for doctors to do surgery because they have to cut through the fat.

For some people, they can't help it, but for many it's PREVENTABLE.

That's why it's completely different from having special needs and comparing the two is offensive.

Agree. Your body shape and where/how you deposit fat is genetic. Being overweight is not genetic. Addiction, just like alcoholism, can be though. People that are overweight, as are many family members, use food as a source of comfort and it is an addiction. The family culture around food: how/when/what is eaten and emotional eating are often engrained in family culture. Thin people that "eat whatever they want" have a very different view of food and eating.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Perhaps because ignorant people comment negatively and nastily on fat people's bodies and weight all. of. the. time.

Fat person here. This. All day long. I don’t love being fat, I doubt anyone does. But I am so f$#&*%g tired of being looked down on, or ignored, or treated like a second class citizen because people assume I’m lazy, or dumb or whatever else (cue the aholes who will respond to this with those exact comments). Losing weight for me is really, really hard, because I hate going to the gym, have two small children, and yes, I don’t want to spend my life starving myself and working out that I hate just to please society. And I have two young girls that I don’t want to subject to body shaming or make self conscious of their own bodies. My mother obsessed about weight and being fat her whole life, and it has imprinted itself on my brain in negative talk. I do NOT want my daughters dealing with that. So yeah, I have learned to accept my body, teach them that women are beautiful at any size, it’s what’s inside that counts, and anyone who says otherwise can go pound sand.

OP here - thanks for this response! I’m sorry people are so rude. I have a daughter too, and I would never want her to feel badly about her weight. I imagine a campaign against rudeness would make more sense to me than the whole body love movement, though.

Would you say that to people born with severe genetic deformities? Dwarfism, limb differences, twisted spines, facial deformities? What about people who have lost limbs to accidents and war? Don't try to love and accept your body, just make sure people aren't rude to you about it. Would you want your daughter to feel bad about her body if she was missing an arm or a leg?

I would like for my daughter to love her body, regardless of how it looks. I wouldn’t want her to go around campaigning how much she loves her body because it sounds insecure to me.

So if she's in an accident and loses a limb, you wouldn't support her if she started a campaign to say that people with different bodies can love them too?

Why should other people need to be convinced she loves her body? It seems like people who genuinely care about themselves don’t need others to affirm it. But maybe I‘m wrong, I have not been overweight or disabled so that’s possible.

Read the last sentence again, then consider the possibility that you know less about all this than you think.

I do know less! That’s why I asked! When someone (of any size!) starts a movement to tell everyone they love themselves, the logical conclusion is either a. they assume the public thinks they hate themselves and needs to be convinced otherwise for some reason or b. they don’t (unfortunately!) love themselves but the psychological effort helps them personally for some reason. I just assumed b. because I didn’t think fat women hated being fat until there was a big campaign to insist they don’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And yet we can't. We really can't. I've done every diet known to man and the weight always comes back.

You eat whatever you want and the weight never increases.

It's genes. Just like being left-handed.

I have two mini goldendoodles. They aren't related. They have the EXACT same lifestyle. One is skinny. The other is plump. Correct that it's genes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And yet we can't. We really can't. I've done every diet known to man and the weight always comes back.

You eat whatever you want and the weight never increases.

It's genes. Just like being left-handed.

I have two mini goldendoodles. They aren't related. They have the EXACT same lifestyle. One is skinny. The other is plump. Correct that it's genes.

It might be genes that you are a size 10 and will never be a 00. But no one is a size 16+ solely because of genes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you prefer fat or disabled people hate themselves?

Pretty sure a lot of people indeed would prefer that, probably including OP.

I didn’t get that vibe from OP. I felt like this was an “ educate me” post.

Thank you, PP! I feel badly that people took it this way!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The title of your post tells me you don't really get it. I don't think these women love "being fat". They have just learned that despite what society wants to tell them, they have a body, they are the way God or nature or whatever made them, their body is a miracle and amazing and doing what bodies are designed to do. They can embrace and accept and love themselves and even their bodies despite your disgust and that's OK.

I have some bad news for you...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a complete fantasy that excess weight (and I mean more than 20 lbs overweight) causes zero health problems.

When you have more weight for your body to carry, it necessarily puts more pressure on your muscles and bones. At the extreme, it's harder for doctors to do surgery because they have to cut through the fat.

For some people, they can't help it, but for many it's PREVENTABLE.

That's why it's completely different from having special needs and comparing the two is offensive.

You can say the same about being xs and s or at the bottom of your BMI. It causes health related problems.

When did I say it didn't?

Jeez, it's so triggering for all of you to hear that ANYONE who is fat might bear some responsibility for it and might be suffering health consequences.

Not nearly as triggering as it is for some people to hear that there are fat people out there who still love themselves and are happy.

They can love themselves and be happy, but they're likely still suffering health consequences from it and COULD bear responsibility for gaining that much weight.

And before someone attacks me -- the same can be said for people who are too thin.

I think that the point is that with fat people, you look at them and start concern trolling about their health consequences. Do you do that for people who look very small too - immediately make judgments and opine about their health status?

Lots of things cause health related problems, but many fat people experience discrimination that meaningfully impacts quality of care due to perceptions about their weight, including providers being unwilling to address other health concerns and blaming all health difficulties on the patient's weight.

Most fat people know why they're fat.

I don't make comments about people's size - large or small. When I see someone who is alarmingly thin, yes I do get concerned (think: Dr. Dray on Youtube - homegirl looks severely anorexic and seems to flaunt it). Likewise, when I see a coworker who is severely overweight and seems to be impacted by it in their day to day life, I get concerned as well. The difference is that there are just WAY more severely overweight people than severely thin people out there.

You just commented on her weight....