Weight. An emotional issue.
Over the last few days we have seen an almighty twitter explosion of debate about fatness. The debate was stimulated by the return of Channel 10′s Biggest Loser, but I think it is a debate that has been a long time coming.
The debate, for the most part, has been deeply personal. That is because, for the vast majority of people, weight is a deeply personal issue. It has an emotive charge unlike many other health issues we have ever seen. There are many different reasons for that. Part of it is being part of a culture which values and respects thinness as an ideal – both medically and aesthetically.
All sorts of people have jumped into the fray. People sharing their “I was once a fatty”, “I am a fatty”, “I have never been a fatty” stories. Part of the problem when emotions and reputations (and at time finances) get wrapped up in these types of debates, is that often cold hard facts are thrown out of the window. Gross generalisations based on an n=1 experience or what people might have read in the paper, become ‘gospel’.
That is not to say that these personal experiences are not valid. They are extremely important. So when people have written about being fat, ‘taking responsibility’ and losing a few kilo’s – that is a real experience. It is a valid one. And it is true. FOR THEM. It does not mean that is is applicable to the rest of the population. It does not mean that all of us should be rushing out to join up to whatever so called weight loss plan worked for them. Nor does it mean that it will be representative of what they will experience in the weeks, months and years to come. However, maybe it will.
Likewise, when people who are fat confront the ‘fat is unhealthy’ mantra with “I am morbidly obese but all of my health indicators are the best my doctor has ever seen in a patient” – that is also true. BUT it does not mean that those experiences will hold true for all other people who are morbidly obese. It does not mean that overweight wont impact on some peoples physical or mental health. And it does not mean that those experiences will remain true for the rest of their lives. However, maybe they will.
People find different pathways to help them with their own health and wellbeing. Don’t forget that health is a really complex issue. It comprises our mental wellbeing. Our physical wellbeing. And some would argue our spiritual wellbeing. Health is more than just a number on a scale, or a BMI. I have written about this numerous times before, but the factor that has the most impact on our health and wellbeing is actually social isolation. Health inequalities also play a massive role in health outcomes. But I guess loneliness isn’t really a great headline grabber. I can’t really see the same sort of headlines selling papers like they do for fatness. “A TSUNAMI OF LONELINESS” “Australia’s Nobody Will Be Friends With Me Epidemic” doesn’t really have the same ring to it.
With regard to weight, some people think that commercial diet plans are the best thing they can do for their health. Based on my interpretation of scientific evidence (including the many studies I have published about this) about the long term emotional and physical consequences of ‘diets’ I would argue that they are not particularly helpful. BUT – if people want to go and spend money on that and want to go down that pathway to somehow transform themselves, then knock your socks off. But please don’t belittle other peoples negative experiences of the weight loss industry as being their own fault. We know that it is generally the diet at fault not the person. So that sort of criticism just isn’t that helpful.
Other people have found other ways of thinking about their health and wellbeing. Health at Every Size is getting a bit of a run in popularity at the moment. And while I think that HAES provides an excellent framework for exploring an alternative way of thinking about health and weight, I do not promote it because I don’t know enough about it to say that it is helpful for everyone. Further research by Prof Linda Bacon and her colleagues will surely provide us with more conclusive evidence over time about how helpful this model is for individuals of all shapes and sizes (or not), and how it might be improved.
There also seems to be an assumption that Fat Acceptance and HAES go hand in hand. In my opinion, they don’t. They are not the same thing. People also seem to think that FA and HAES promote obesity, and argue that obesity has no impact on health. Personally I have never heard anyone in the FA movement say that severe obesity does not negatively impact health for some people (either emotionally or physically). But I do hear lots of talk in the FA movement about how damaging the constant effort to try and become a ‘normal’ weight (whatever that is) is. Part of this, I think, is because we have convinced people – I would argue through the weight loss industry, and through popular rhetoric about responsibility – that weight loss is easy and achievable for everyone.
That is not true.
Obesity is complex. It is caused by a complex range of social, biological, environmental and cultural factors. We can present a million different statistics about whether rates of obesity have gone up, down, or sideways. Whether they have impacted on some groups more than others. Whether BMI is accurate, or whether weight circumference is a better indicator of health risk. Or whether both are completely useless. We can also present a million different statistics about the impact of obesity on health and social outcomes. We can jump up and down and scream about how much money fatties are costing the economy. We can debate till we are blue in the face about whether we should focus on prevention, promotion, management or cure. Whether surgery, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen, the Biggest Loser, HAES, more parks, less transfats, less junkfood advertising, banning MacDonalds, more accessible fresh foods, making public transport free, soda tax, traffic light labelling, funding personal trainers, ramping up tough love social marketing campaigns, regulation etc etc etc will help with the obesity ‘epidemic’.
But here is what is certain. No one single intervention is going to suddenly cure the world of obesity. And anyone who claims that they have the ‘only’ or ‘the best’ solution – on either side of the debate – is quite frankly out to make money, or has rocks in their head. Because you don’t solve complex issues with simplistic solutions.
And in the case of obesity, what on earth are we trying to ‘solve’ anyway? The number on the scale?
But here is one thing I think we need to start doing. We need to get some balance into the debate. We need to listen to experiences. We need to be able to share those experiences without feeling like people are going to jump down our throats or make fun of us (on either side of the fence – including those who sit in the middle). We need to acknowledge that there are alternative ways of thinking about things. Name calling and fighting – and spreading inaccurate information – is not going to create further understanding.
Thanks for listening.
PS: Last time I blogged, someone wrote to me saying that my horrible use of apostrophes and terrible spelling was letting down women, and our need to be taken seriously. Sorry about that. I’m not perfect 
.
Themocracy
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Love this – this is exactly the message that people need to hear. Everyone has their own story – everyone’s story is valid – but it is not valid for everyone.
The comparisons that we make against each other are damaging in the long run.
What I got really upset about during the recent John Birmingham dispute was that there is this perception that if you just buck up, eat ‘well’ (whatever that means) and exercise more, you will lose weight. This is simply not true for me, because I am on medication that prevents that occurring. So while I do my best to stay healthy, being in the ‘normal’ BMI range is probably never going to be possible for me.
So while yes, for others a lifestyle change IS enough for them to lose weight, for others it is not, and you can’t impose your experience on me and expect it to stick.
Thanks for writing this – I think it will be a useful post to refer people to.
Please be perfect at everything you do. Never make a spelling mistake or grammar mistake. You must be perfect or you are letting down your entire gender. Derp derp.
I’m singing this in my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eDsRWubPV4&feature=related
Ah, another movie to add to the list of movies I have to watch this year.
This is a beautifully nuanced take on the situation – thanks so much for writing it. The point about social isolation being a key negative indicator for health really resonated with me.
Great post Samantha! I can understand how a lot of people view being fat as unhealthy, and really, in some circumstances it CAN be. But what I don’t understand is why people are so…vicious about their opinions on fat people.
Seriously, these days in every article about weight/obesity/etc you get about 3 comments down and its like the people commenting have devolved back into their teenage selves, chanting “fatty fatty boombatty” and sticking Kick Me signs on the backs of every fat person in the world. Why are people so horrible to each other these days? Where has compassion gone? Why do people have to be so awful to each other?
I’m sorry, thats probably not a really constructive comment but at the moment I’ve just run out of words, and energy, to contribute something more worthwhile. This issue has really got me down the last couple of days.
I think you are right. Some of the attacks on people have been absolutely vicious. And uniformed. The trolling has been phenomenal.
For me, the critique is part of what I do. I didn’t take Johns post negatively (apart from him describing my expertise incorrectly). Academics should be open to having their work, ideas and opinions critiqued and debated. In academia we constantly have robust conversations where we totally disagree, but it isn’t personal. And I thought I had a good exchange of thoughts with him on Twitter. I may not have agreed with him, but the discussion was fine.
The last week has been an incredible insight into the deeply held prejudices people have towards fat people.
It is about time we all started listening. We are never going to get anywhere until we do. Sometimes I think people are just looking for an excuse to have a go at people, but I think in fatness there is an extra dimension to this.
I just wish JB hadn’t decided to set his troll army on me. It really hurts.
I know Nat. And I’m really sorry you had those experiences.
I actually think it’s appalling. He said himself in his original article that it is not acceptable to vilify people for their size, just as it would not be acceptable to vilify them for their race or sexuality. And then, he openly vilified you and Nick and he openly incited his followers to do the same. He hosted comments on his blog that were deeply offensive to me and no doubt to you. He allowed downright wrong commentary (that another poster was really you) etc. to stand on his blog. Not everyone moderates in the same way, but tolerating outright trolling and hate speech is really low. And then he had the audacity to imply that he has been ‘attacked’ by fat acceptance advocates – as if he doesn’t have the luxury of hiding behind his very popular and mainstream opinions on weight. I’m sorry to drag all of this commentary here to this thread but I am seriously disturbed by some of the bullying behaviour that has sprung from this and John Birmingham needs to be called on it, as does any other high profile person who engages in the same disgusting behaviour.
I am a reasonable person and I believe I am generally reasonable on Twitter and on my blog but there is a time and a place for reason and there is a time to be, quite rightly, angry.
[...] Excerpt from: Weight. An emotional issue. | DISCOURSE [...]
Thanks, Samantha. This debate is so emotional because when people talk about ‘fat’, they are talking about ‘fat people’. There’s no getting away from that. Many of us are approaching one point from very different directions, and we all have different histories and different relationships to our bodies and health. If it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that my story is mine…and that’s it.
(PS. On behalf of all women, great job with the apostrophes.)
I think this is a really insightful and balanced post. I completely agree that health/well-being and weight is a deeply personal thing, and while there are a lot of us now heavily invested in the studies that show diets don’t work for the ‘majority’ of people, and have decided that not actively trying to be thin is the best thing for us health-wise, there are still many people that would be amazing allies to the Body Acceptance movement if they didn’t feel alienated by the fact that they would like to lose weight and feel like their ambitions and views are under attack.
It is as simple as this: you worry about your individual health and I’ll worry about mine.
I have no right to tell you not to diet, not to try and be thin, not to try to be healthy through dieting
You have no right to tell me my being fat is unhealthy and will kill me and I am making poor choices
All experience is subjective, and rather that preaching things like ‘it’s so simple just eat less and exercise’ or the opposite ‘you shouldn’t diet it is unhealthy and you should just be healthy at the weight you are now’ is not constructive
The real fight is bodily autonomy and body diversity. We need to open up a dialogue and speak on neutral ground, we all need to get an understanding of the fact that not two bodies are alike and at the end of the day, some one else’s body is none of your business, some one’s health is none of your business and everyone deserves to be happy and not to be made to feel like they as less than some one else because of the choices they make.
As Dr Sam states; not one single intervention is going to cure the world of obesity, and it’s true. There will always be obese people, there will always be thin people, there will be obese people that were once thin and there will be thin people that were once obese.
Whatever your story you have the right to be respected and accepted because you are a human being and it is as simple as that, you should never ever have to justify your existence to some one else. Ever.
Dr Sam, you have a strong point in saying that weight and health are very emotional and thus make people very passionate about their own subjective experiences. This is part of the problem, we need to make weight and diet talk value free, we need to take the gospel out of it and concentrate more on listening to other people and respecting their autonomy.
If there is one thing that I have learnt through my own research career it is that it is impossible to know the other. The only thing you can ever be certain of is your own experience and what it means for you.
Great post, agree wholeheartedly. I am all for people having their own ideas about what constitutes a healthy lifestyle, and even blogging about/sharing those ideas freely, but when it comes wrapped up in prescriptive and judgemental language, I don’t think it’s useful.
As you mentioned, people want to share their own story and most have entrenched beliefs in relation to what it means to be fat (one way or another); and I have no problem discussing this either – but I do have a problem when a certain lifestyle choice is then correlated with fatness (ie, this is why people didn’t used to be fat; this is what you need to do to avoid being fat, etc) and used to support a particular argument for ‘health’. I think the two need to be unlinked in people’s minds. It’s not that there is not a crossover, it’s just that the fat/health thing (as you point out) is nowhere near as black and white as many seem to think. And even if it WAS, what gives any one the right to judge another person’s body?
My sister is, and always has been, much larger than me. We ate the same foods as kids. People have ALWAYS passed comment and compared us. It is humiliating for both of us, and has affected our relationship (I hate society for that!)
I think you do a great job in presenting a balanced argument with the judgement withheld.
The way I’ve tried to explain diets to people recently (I guess I connect everything to everything, for better or worse), after a rash of robberies on my street an in my neighborhood, is like this:
Person A calls the police, and the police respond quickly and resolve the problem. Even if Person A never has to call the police again, they are likely to remember that positive experience. Person B calls the police, and the police take an hour to arrive on the scene. Person B, whose situation was just as serious as Person A’s, does not have that same positive experience, although zie called the same police department. Person B is probably not as likely to trust the police again.
Likewise, some folks diet, and the diet works (or seems to for about 2-5 years, anyway) and so they never question the “rightness” of dieting. Even when they have to go back to dieting, they see the weight fall off again (maybe), and so they trust the diet. Other folks diet, and don’t lose weight, or lose weight but feel terrible, or a whole host of other possibilities. Some people have absolutely no positive experiences with dieting.
So you have Person A (or the pro-diet), who does not understand why Person B (the hesitant-to-trust-diets) would distrust the police. After all, aren’t the police are there to serve and protect (as the diet is supposedly there to do its job, lose the weight)?
What I find really weird is the idea that there is ANYTHING that “works for everyone”. I mean, if that was the case, there’d only be one kind of blood pressure tablet, one kind of antidepressant, one kind of antihistamine… But no, even though everyone’s bodies are basically similar, we are not the same.
Exactly! That is a good analogy actually, the medication one. I will remember it
Ah yes!! That is a terrific point. I’m going to use that too if that is okay?
Thanks for writing this Sam. I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, trying to get some balance from my obvious anger and frustration at the topic after I bowed out of the JB debacle.
Much as my thinking is addled by the heat, I have come up with these two main problems.
1. When “normal” weight range is defined, so a supposedly defective “other” is created. Where there is white, there is non-white. Where there is religious, there is non-religious. In the case of weight, the “other” is defined as something that individuals have the power to change, leading me to #2, and if they haven’t changed it then they are to blame. It’s like racism or bigotry, but with so-called medical/scientific/health-based righteousness on side.
2. The assumption that weight is something an individual can control with “healthydietandmoderateexercise” – in other words, IT MUST BE YOUR FAULT, GET OFF YOUR FAT #$@$E YOU FATTY FAT FAT! – is just so entrenched, it’s like a huuuuuge pile of clean laundry that’s just so epic I don’t know what angle to start attacking it from.
Consider this. The “Measure Up” campaign says women’s waists should be under 80cm I think. When I was at my healthiest, I mean super fit, butt-kicking tae kwon do champion, exercising at least an hour every day and having the advantage of being very young, my waist was about 85-88cm. At my healthiest, I am a size 14.
If the campaign even made a NOD towards addressing “maybe you are healthy at a different size”, I’d not mind. Say for example the ad that tells you to eat healthier, or go for a walk. If it even hinted at “maybe you already do this. If your health indicators are good, then size might not be an issue for you.” or “Some people require a lot of conditioning to be [this] measurement. You could be healthy and be above it.” I’d not have such a problem.
BUT IT DOESN’T. It assumes you’re a dumb fatty as well as a lazy one who hasn’t even CONTEMPLATED that stuffing high fat high salt food in your mouth might be a concern NOT ONLY TO YOUR WAISTLINE, but to your overall health and wellbeing? By wellbeing I mean how you FEEL. If your mind is stable. If you get up in the morning without asking yourself if you should bother. If you have energy.
Other health problems transcend our control. From the smallest things that impact you in the biggest ways – I’ve had undiagnosed foot pain, IBS, myriad digestive problems due to eating disorder recovery, lower back pain, fainting and dizziness that all impact on my ability not only to exercise, but to feel adequate and whole as a person day to day, and to even function.
Basically, if people stopped presenting weight loss as so simplistic, and made it a more wholistic HEALTH concern (not faux-health), I’d not be so angry.
Even doctors. Every doctor who has checked my health and proceeded to lecture me about all the things I’m already doing – exercise, healthy eating, blah friggin blah – has eventually lost interest – they assume I simply MUST be lying, BECAUSE the healthydietandexercisewillmakeyouthinner mantra is so ingrained. They don’t even bother checking deeper on the offchance that maybe, just MAYBE, I’m telling them the truth and I’m simply desperate to know why it isn’t working on my exhausted exercise-ravaged body.
And then they wonder why I end up back there getting a mental health referral.
Jo – yep, and I had a waist under 80cm at 135kg and more, because that’s just not where I carry my weight! Any single, external measure – from BMI to waist size to weight – doesn’t give an adequate picture of anyone’s health. It just gives ammunition for attacks.
Yeah, this kinda crap drives me up the wall. Weight should be about FEELING healthy, not looking like one of those stick-like super models. Weight loss programs and stereotypes seem to think “OH IF YOU ALL DID HEALTHY CRAP YOU’D ALL HAVE THE SAME ROCK HARD BOD AND NO ONE WOULD BOTHER YOU ANYMORE.” and it’s just /so/ rediculus. It’s the same as someone making a commercial about skincare products. What do they do, take a picture of an average person with some freckles, photoshop them so they look unrealistic and say “YOU COULD LOOK LIKE THIS?” I could say we live in a world of purple rainbows and lime green bunny rabbits that we mount up and ride to the wizarding land of oz and it’d make more sense, when really thought about.
It’s like the whole world is racing toward the ideal, when half the time that ideal is either a serious minority, unhealthy, or doesn’t EXIST.
People shouldn’t bother anyone that’s truly living their best and having a good life. It’s not about “being 80 cm” it’s about feeling confident, healthy, and ready to tackle the day. Hell, I’d be perfectly happy at a jean size 16 if I hit a plateau in my weight loss and felt like I could take on the world. Now, I’m not a man. But in my opinion, that’s a whole lot more attractive than fussing over that ever-escaping number anyway.
If I had a doctor that treated me that way, I’d find a new one. >.> That’s stupid. What the hell did medical school teach him? He should be an expert, not an uneducated generalizing herp. I’m worried about the health care of today if he really can’t fathom that kind of common sense. No offense to him, or anyone that’s like that but they really should know these things if they go into that field.
Thank you so much, Samantha, for this piece. I truly hope it is well-read and in much rotation.
Yes, personal experiences are not universal! Thank you for making that point so clearly Samantha.
This is an emotional issue because it concerns our bodies and, as Carmel pointed out, it concerns human beings. But I hesitate to characterise it as an ‘emotional debate’, particularly the events of the last week or so. I am sure there are people who are very invested in their own weight loss efforts who feel that fat acceptance is dismissive of them, or who have their personal reasons for feeling that it is harmful. And I think that fat acceptance and individuals who promote it can not be considered above reproach. If we err it’s okay to point that out. But – and it’s a big but (no pun intended!) – I think that this is not a ‘debate’ in the traditional sense. What I have seen lately is people with marginalised bodies being attacked and vilified by people who either have socially acceptable bodies or who have internalised self-loathing of their marginalised bodies. I – with my fat body and my lack of a lucrative book deal – am not really in a position to ‘debate’ with Michelle Bridges. Other fellow activists are not always able to protect themselves from trolls who come anonymously on blogs or on Twitter, spreading hate and misinformation. As we saw on Bri’s blog this week, we can’t even protect ourselves from them yelling at us out of car windows. We can switch off Twitter, sure, but the trolling doesn’t stop (not even when we go to the doctor sometimes!)
I wouldn’t call trolling (in the traditional sense or in the sanctioned ‘I’m going to write a column for the Brisbane Times and shit-stir about fat acceptance’ sense) “emotional” in the same way that I would call someone defending their right to live happily in their body “emotional”. Tomorrow when I wake up I will still have a fat body and I may still face situations where I basically have to defend my right to exist. I think sometimes being angry or emotional is the only logical response to that situation. Marginalised people — and I don’t claim to be marginalised in the way that many others are marginalised by race or sexuality or social class but still, my body is not considered acceptable — shouldn’t have to be the reasonable and balanced ones. And yet it always seems to fall on us (I would love a dollar for every time I’ve been told to calm down about fat acceptance and I’m not even an ‘angry fatty’ by most measures!)
It’s the people who mock, judge and vilify others who are just trying to live our lives freely who need to learn to be reasonable. Or actually, they need to learn to shut the hell up and listen for a change, as you so rightly point out in your post.
I agree. There are people who want to push buttons for whatever reasons. Someone once said (I can remember who – maybe it was you or maybe it was Kath?) that hatred towards another person because of their size shape race etc is actually a sign of hatred towards themselves.
I have been absolutely stunned, baffled, etc etc by the amount of hatred that was stirred up because of that post – and I think it is a good lesson in being aware of the consequences of what you write for the people that your are writing about. I argue the same with public health campaigns, and it is why I do not believe that fat shaming campaigns are helpful. Because our studies show that they do create stigma, discrimination and self-loathing for people who are already fat.
I don’t know what motivated John to write that column. But what I do know is that it stirred a lot of hatred. That is a shame, because a column like that could have lead to a really important discussion – which was what he called for.
That is a real shame.
Samantha,
I came across your blog through a Google Alert on HAES(SM). You mentioned you cannot promote HAES(SM) because you don’t know much about it. I would like to invite you to explore HAES(SM) more. I think it is something you will find lines up with much of your approach to weight, size discrimination and health. We have a lot of terrific resources on our website and we also have several members from your part of the globe that I would be happy to introduce you to if you are interested. HAES(SM) does not seek to “cure” anything, but provides a path to health and wellness that allows us to live peacefully in our bodies.
Thank you for your thoughtful and nuanced discourse on the subject.
Deb Lemire, President
Association for Size Diversity and Health
http://www.sizediversityandhealth.org
Thanks Deb,
I will do that.
My good friend Lily O’Hara is part of ASDAH. I read a blog post recently where the person spouted all sort of angry misinformation and then held up HAES (which she profits from in her private practice) as the ‘cure’. I felt extremely uncomfortable about that. I swore I would not promote HAES until I was better informed about it. So I will now go away and do my research.
Thanks for dropping by!
S
Sorry…just in case there was confusion Lily didn’t write the blog!!
I know to always expect thoughtful writing from you, Samantha. Good to see this discussion. I was glad that ASDAH president Deb Lemire directed you to ASDAH to learn more about HAES; lots of great resources within the organization and on their website (www.sizediversityandhealth.org). I also wanted to alert you to a scientific review that I just published, which I think provides a good primer on HAES. It’s called Weight Science: Examining the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift: http://www.nutritionj.com/content/10/1/9. All best, Linda
Hi Linda!
How wonderful to hear from you. Thanks so much for dropping by and sharing that link. Congrats on the publication. Will look forward to reading it.
Samantha xx
I really have no words except wonderful, wonderful post!
Thank you!
A really terrific read Samantha. One only has to read the comments all over your blog to see that you are exactly spot on when highlighting the multifascetted nature of this issue, in particular how deeply emotional health plays a role. And furthermore that proper acknowledgement of this is flagrantly missing from the ‘solutions’ to ‘attaining your ideal weight’ we see promoted day in and day out.
I’m new to the FA & HAES discussions, and have the lucky luxury (as I’m increasingly seeing it!) of coming to them from a position of sociological interest, rather than any personal battle with my weight. It’s an eye-opening conversation to become familiar with for anyone with even a modicum of empathy for their fellow human beings.
Every single thing I’ve read about the stigma that ‘fat people’ face in daily life, I’ve always known to be completely true at a visceral level, but bringing that to the forefront of my consciousness has quite an emotional impact. I can not even begin to know how it must feel to think you are loathed by your community every time you step out the door, based upon the simple fact of something you couldn’t change over-night no matter how hard you tried. It makes me teary to think about it.
And the more I’ve looked, the more I see the hypocritical extremes we go to in society to drive this message home. The Biggest Loser is a perfect example of this. The catastrophising is obscene, with people sobbing into the camera ‘I don’t want to die’, but not a shred of evidence given that that person is suffering from anything other than being fat. Compound this with the fact that the trainers involved are hardly the pinnacle of ‘normal sized’ people themselves & the whole thing is verging on high farce.
Michelle Bridges standing up there last week saying she no longer respected herself because she’d gained 5.8kgs (tipping her only slightly further into the ‘healthy weight’ range I’m guessing) was appalling. Perhaps we should have a discussion about body dismophia while were here?
Here’s a news flash world. The trainers on Biggest Loser no more represent the average ‘normal sized’ person in the way they think, what they do & how they eat, than a morbidly obese who hasn’t left their house for 15 years & is fed junk food all day long by an enabler represents the average ‘fat’ person! And yet, the freakish way people like the BL trainers live their lives is lauded by society as being something worth aspiring to! Really, being a slave to your body is something to be proud of? Obsessively building your life around one aspect of who you are (as long as you are uber skinny/muscled)is healthy? The phsychology of this is fascinating & very very weird indeed. At its most simple its just an exercise in contrasting the two outlier ends of a spectrum.
I hope this hasn’t been tl;dr (& sadly I think I could go on for pages more! LOL), but I am really just beginning to form these insights & haven’t got them as conscise yet as I hope they’ll be in months/years to come. And I’m grateful to people like Dr Sam & MyMilkSpilt & Nicholosohpy et al for helping to focus these thoughts.
Nice insight and my thoughts exactly. The trainers drive me nuts with their ultra disciplined lifestyles as the pinnacle of health (swearing deleted) – works for them and they obviosuly get a buzz from it. But that does mean the rest of us should be held to ransom and made to follow suit. Pursuing passions, enjoying life and making connections with others can take many forms, why not try some more during our journey of life. Personally eating way does not suit me, neither does obsessive or no exercise. How I choose to incorporate these choices into my life constantly changes and I am the best decider of what is working. I love teaching others to take back that privilege.
Glad to see more thinkers evaluating this material and joining us in discussions.
Doh – apparently I can’t spell dismorphia! And probably a number of other words in the above. Sorry for letting down ‘teh wiminz’; I’ll come stand in the corner with you Samantha!
[...] Weight. An emotional issue. at Discourse A balanced post, calling for both sides of the obesity debate to respect the experiences of others. [...]
Thanks Sam bravely sticking your head above the papapet and saying what needs to be said. Thank you for your great interest in such a worldwide problem. If only we had more like minded souls such as yourself. Intelligent, open minded, supportive and inclusive.
I am feeling tired and worn out from the constant fat bashing, but know the the cause must continue, not just for this generation but the ones that follow.
I love reading all the posts here, even ones that align with my beliefs. That way I can either consolidate my beliefs or consider that anothers may fit me better.
I don’t know if I am making sense, been up all night worrying about my baby girl going out on the town. LOL
This is such a brilliant post, Sam.
Thanks
Thanks for the link at Corpulent too. (for those of you who haven’t visited Corpulent is it a great blog – corpulent.wordpress.com)
Another great post that I just got around to reading. I think you have hit the nail on the head. There is no one solution, and who decided there was a problem? Words mean different things to different people so whatever way takes you on the path to being happier and healthier is right for you, but no necessarily going to do the same for everyone else. Personally I love the HAES philosophy because it allows for variety and difference, and now I’ve ead this; a variety of words too. I work with others to get them to find what works for them, this is my interpretation of HAES.
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