Took a little break from the internet and touched some grass and it was great. Wander back in here after my hiatus and what do I find? Just a thread with a bunch of fatphobia.
Cute.
For a community that is incredibly careful about protecting its users from the -phobias and the -isms, there sure is a hell of a lot of unchecked fatphobia here basically any time fatness gets brought up.
It’s something I’ve noticed on the left in general as well. The leftist org I’m in has almost no fat people in it and something tells me that’s not because there aren’t any fat leftists out there.
Fatphobia is rooted in anti-Blackness and ableism.
I’d highly recommend the “Maintenance Phase” podcast with Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon, as well as Aubrey Gordon’s books “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat” and “You Just Need To Lose Weight.”
TL;DR: There’s mounting evidence that anti-fat bias in medicine is more to blame for poor medical outcomes in fat people rather than just the fat itself.
Diet and exercise don’t result in long-term weight loss for something like 95% of people. As a leftist, are you really gonna sit here and blame this on individual choices rather than systemic issues? Are you really gonna try to convince us that 95% of people are just lacking willpower?
Please note that this thread is not an invitation to convince me I’m wrong or share your own personal anecdotal story of successful long-term weight loss with the implication that others can do it because you did it. This post is a request that any thin person (or thin-adjacent person) reading this who wants to argue about how being fat is bad for your health do some research and some self-crit. This post is a request that this community rethink the way it engages with discussions about fatness, diet, fatphobia, and anti-fat bias.
Anti-fat bias literally kills people.
Fat comrades, I have a question to ask: I have so far left up the fatphobic comments because I thought that it might be useful for uninformed people to see these arguments get debunked and to see exactly what our counterarguments are addressing. However I also realize that this is much more distressing for you all than it is for me and I recognize I have thin privilege here. Please let me know if you believe we should take the comments down and if you have ideas for any other mod actions you think we should take to combat the pervasive anti-fatness issue on hexbear.
I'm not sure what to say, but for one this isn't currently a very fruitful discussion because the comments that are made are exactly the same tired ones that are always made everywhere and have been adressed a million times over. Sadly this is what these discussions always tend to turn into.
The issue I suppose is that the othering of fat bodies is seen as a valid opinion and it is so deeply ingrained in our culture that this discussion always ends up going in circles around itself. There is very little empathy towards fat people and concern trolling is the norm. The way people refuse to engage in investigating this in themselves is hard to combat. The way fat people are dismissed is visible even in this thread imo.
If people can't see how relevant the issue of body size is to the issues of gender, norms, capitalist control, I don't know what good it does to read the endless debatelord comments about deficits, habits or whatever people think it is about. It also puts us fat people in positions where we have to justify ourselves existing in our bodies over and over and I hate how even I justified my fatness as the good kind by stating how much I exercise.
The thing is that every human has the same value, this includes fat people who do nothing at all to fit into norms. It is a norm at the end of the day. The discussion around this should be a lot deeper then what someone does or doesn't eat. This goes so much deeper into everything and would require the kind of educational discussion where people are ready to listen and take on board the experiences of those who are harmed. First people would need to see that harm is being done and without solidarity this is very hard.
I am sorry I don't have any good answers, but the thread is nonetheless currently very painfull.
Thank you very much for this. This thread is indeed painful and I regret posting it already.