S/O Fat Acceptance

amother

↑ OP ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 5:37 pm

sushilover wrote:

You ask which is the right way. The right way is to be honest with ourselves but be kind to everyone.

The fat acceptance movement deliberately lies. They say "there is no evidence that adipose tissue is harmful to our health."
"There is no good reason to consider the general increase of fatness an epidemic. People are becoming taller too, but nobody is talks about a height epidemic." and "The people in the Western world are both fatter and healthier than ever."
They encourage doctors to never mention weight in any context. They say that ANY intentional weight loss is dangerous!
This is all from the Health At Any Size website.

On the other hand, individuals who make assumptions and comments about other people's health are so cruel!

I think we can all agree not to fall for the health at any size lies. But also agree that you have no right to comment on somebody's body unless you are their physician and have concerns. Being overweight does not automatically mean unhealthy.
Obese does not automatically mean unhealthy.
There is no one perfect beauty standard.
Loving your body, focusing on behaviors instead of numbers on the scale, and rejecting crash dieting is a wonderful thing and can lead to more weight loss than otherwise.

Love this!

Fox ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 6:20 pm

We have this dissonance in society because we don't know why people are obese. The medical establishment, especially, doesn't like to say, "We have no clue." So they blame the patient.

To those who say, "Well, people are obese because they eat too much! Stop eating too much" -- please don't embarrass yourself further by putting your ignorance on display.

That's like telling schizophrenics to just stop hallucinating.
__________________________

Thirty years ago, there was an important book written for a lay audience called Listening to Prozac. It was a description of how SSRI drugs upended much of what we thought we knew about mental illness.

No longer did psychiatrists drone on about distant mothers, smothering mothers, and all the other ppopular villains. They gave depressed or anxious patients a pill, and that was that. People who'd spent decades in psychoanalysis thanked their doctors and announced their therapy complete.

We are teetering on the verge of Listening to Ozempic.

It's becoming clearer with each passing day that obesity is connected to our brains, not our digestive systems. The fact that Ozempic helps alcoholics and gambling addicts gives us a clue to what's going on.

Obese people do not overeat because they lack willpower, are bored, are eating their emotions or any of the other nonsense used to say, "We don't know." They eat because their brains are telling them that they're hungry. Their brains are lying, but good luck arguing indefinitely with your brain.
__________________________

The fat acceptance folks are actually the most logical ones. Their position, if you boil it down, is "Be honest. Don't take medical ignorance out on us!"

And that's a good point. The current mentality is little more than believing that witches are causing the crops to fail.

But a better answer is to celebrate neither obesity nor schizophrenia, but rather aggressively look for preventions and cures for both.

amother

↑ OP ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 6:50 pm

Fox wrote:

Hmmm, I can’t agree with you this time Fox.
My mother is overweight. Not because she eats a lot, but because she gave birth to a bunch of kids and it wrecked her metabolism. She eats healthy, eats little, and exercises. She loses a pound a month if she never cheats. Considering she’s 40 lbs overweight, it’ll take her almost 4 years of crazy self control to not be overweight.

She took Ozempic, stating on the lowest dose. She was constantly nauseous and sick, but she kept going. Then she started having terrible stomach pain attacks, which landed her in the emergency room several times. Turns out the Ozempic had destroyed her stomach. Now she’s off Ozempic and the crazy attacks stopped, but she has to take ulcer medication.

Oh, and the 15 lbs she lost came right back, even though she ate healthy. Yay.

So no, I don’t think popping pills is the solution.

↑ lamplighter

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 7:06 pm

Obese people have brain messages that are different to people who do not struggle with their weight. Exactly like people with depression or bipolar. They aren't lazy and disrespected for not managing their moods. Everyone understands and accepts that it is not their fault.
Thin people aren't living healthier lifestyles per se. Ive read many threads on this site of what kinds of foods thin people eat. My thin friends have tons of diet coke or chocolate for breakfast, they have ice cream at night when they have a hard day. Fat people aren't eating to cope or eating unhealthy, they may be eating exactly the same as a thin person or healthier but their bodies are different and so fat people are judged.
Fighting against your own brain is so hard that 95-98% of people who lose weight regain it plus some within 2-5 years. People who are obese have likely done that cycle 4-10 times in their adult life. Would you work hard for months at something that has a 2% success rate? But obese people do, because they DO care and they are desperate. And they do it again and again and again. People struggling with obesity are the last people I would call lazy. They have been at this for years, every meal, every day, having to think, calculate and feel shame over everything that goes into their mouth and then judged for it either way.
Congnitive dissonance my foot.

Last edited by lamplighter on Thu, Jul 04 2024, 7:24 pm; edited 1 time in total

↑ ftm1234 ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 7:12 pm

amother OP wrote:

Except you don’t know most people well enough to know if they’re eating healthy or not. I’m willing to bet you automatically put the XXS into health category and the XL in the not healthy cat.

Go ahead and assume whatever you want.

If you want to believe that I go around disrespecting people because of their body size, by all means do so.

Fact is I actually don't care about your body at all.

And no, I don't automatically put XXS in the healthy category. Many MANY people of that size are not necessarily any healthier than people who are 3x. That's a fact.

I have a problem with the fat acceptance movement because it promotes unhealthy living. Same reason why I have a problem with sickly thin models who promote their version of an unhealthy lifestyle.

I hope this post cleared things up and I'm sorry I offended so many people in my other posts.

amother

↑ Cantaloupe ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 7:13 pm

Fox wrote:

We didn't need ozempic to tell us the compulsive eating is neurological, not emotional, psychological or moral. We've known this for a good long while. Scientists even knew it well enough to develop a drug that worked on these precise pathways. There's a whole lot more they know about why we overeat but won't say.

But that's not what the fat acceptance and HAES movement cares about. They don't want to admit that it's a disease. The opposite, they want to make it normal, healthy and perfectly acceptable.

Also, I disagree that that admitting that it's a mental health issue means we have zero control over it and the only solution is a drug. Many people have managed to reverse compulsive eating via diets, functional medicine or programs like OA.

LittleDucky

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 7:58 pm

The thing is fatness can come from a million reasons.
Just as an example... not necessarily exclusive:

- biological/slow metabolism, thyroid issues.
- laziness (yes, some people are lazy. Fast food instead of grabbing an apple or making a salad.)
- food addiction
- emotional eating (guilty of this one! Had a hard day and I ate ice cream!)
- poor health education -(I remember working in a school and saw a mom giving her kid a leben and calling it a yogurt. The kid was obese and ate leben daily... mom probably thought it was healthy!)

Each has their own causes and solutions.
We can't just decide someone fits one category and until we realize that there are different causes, we won't be able to access all the solutions.
People shouldn't shame others. But also those who face obesity shouldn't throw up their hands and give up. Keep trying to be healthy, not skinny.

↑ Fox ↓

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 12:55 am

amother OP wrote:

So no, I don’t think popping pills is the solution.

You didn't understand my post, and I'm not sure how to explain it. But I'll try.

I'm attempting to describe semaglutides and related drugs as an example of a phenomenon -- NOT a solution.

Just the same as SSRI drugs are not the answer to every mental health issue.

But in both cases, they are teaching us about conditions that we don't know enough about.

The amount of ignorance and denial around obesity is staggering, and it's on full display in our society.

Imamothers love to "raise awareness" about whatever problem is in the news. Well, here's something to be aware of: anyone who reduces obesity to a need for calorie counting or a "healthy lifestyle" is a complete lunatic who should be avoided.

↑ Fox ↓

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 1:16 am

amother Cantaloupe wrote:

Also, I disagree that that admitting that it's a mental health issue means we have zero control over it and the only solution is a drug. Many people have managed to reverse compulsive eating via diets, functional medicine or programs like OA.

You didn't understand my post. See the above clarification.

However, overeating is not a mental illness. There are a number of factors, such as plastic nanoparticles in our bodies, but it is a neurological issue at root.

"Many people" have, in fact, not been successful long term with diets. Over 90 percent of the people who lose weight regain it.

Why? For the same reason most schizophrenics are unable to dismiss hallucinations. You can only fight your brain for so long.

Again, let's "listen to Ozempic":

Do people on semiglutides stop eating too much because they no longer feel stressed, sad, bored, or any of the other reasons we've been told people eat too much?

No. In fact, most don't "diet" at all. They just don't feel as hungry as they once did. They eat one cookie. They eat a single slice of pizza.

Now, should everyone attempt to eat as healthfully as possible? Duh! There are a million good reasons for all of us to improve our diets that have nothing to do with obesity. There are a million good reasons to exercise.

Just understand that eating better and being more active aren't the solutions to obesity.

↑ Fox ↓

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 1:26 am

amother Petunia wrote:

There actually isn't sufficient evidence that being fat alone is a medical problem. There is a correlation with some medical problems, but there are fat people who are perfectly healthy, and in absence of any other symptoms or health markers, it's not a significant risk factor. This suggests that for a lot of fat people, those who do have other symptoms, being fat is part of a syndrome rather than being a disease in itself.

Absolutely true.

In fact, there is something called "the obesity paradox." Obese people are far more likely to develop certain illnesses but also far more likely to survive them.

Metabolic conditions in general are full of interesting questions.

For example, Type 2 diabetes has skyrocketed in rural China, where people eat pretty much what they've eaten for thousands of years.

What's changed? Electricity. People now can light their homes after dark and thus get a couple of hours less sleep. Sleep plays a huge role in regulating metabolism, and poor quality or inadequate sleep is an engraved invitation for diabetes.

amother

Trillium ↓

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 2:51 am

amother Moccasin wrote:

Wanting is not enough to make it happen. The cravings and urges, the feeling hungry, the cycle of willpower and bingeing and shame.....

Clearly you don't struggle with this chronic illness of obesity.

And also add to this that for those of us that struggle with obesity, loosing weight and getting into a healthy and fit lifestyle is a full time job. It takes so much willpower, energy and organization. As a working mother with a bunch of little ones, simply don’t have the time or energy for this.

renslet

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 3:03 am

There are studies done that have shown that the poor health outcomes in obese patients is very often because they are
A) scared to go to the Dr before it gets really bad because they are scared of getting dismissed or yelled at
And
B) drs dismissing symptoms because patient is fat (just lose weight) and not finding out what's wrong until much too late.

Health at any size is also the idea that at any size, a person can be expected to get good healthcare - not be told that it's all because of their weight.

It's important to look at real health markers, heart health, blood sugars, etc they often don't correlate as much as we think with a person's weight

amother

↑ Cantaloupe ↓

Fri, Jul 05 2024, 4:40 am

Fox wrote:

I understand what you're saying. I still don't think obesity is this huge mystery you're making it out to be. Sure, it's hard to reverse with willpower alone, but that's not because we don't understand it, it's because the food industry is determined to keep shoving products that override that willpower in our faces.

That tidbit about electricity in China shouldn't lead us to ozempic. It should lead us to safer artificial lighting that doesn't mess with our circadian rhythms which yes, is tightly tied to metabolism.

I get what ozempic teaches us, but we knew this all along. Guess what messes up the ozempic pathways to begin with? Processed foods! I'm so sick of big pharma being in bed with food giants creating the foods that are making us sick, and then creating the "cure". I don't believe for a second that they care about our health. Drugs are not the solution.

https://www.scientificamerican.....cess.