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.
Something I’m not sure I’ve seen talked about yet is all the sugar and generally unhealthy food that is readily available. Especially in food deserts where the only food for 10 miles is ultra processed and unhealthy, not to mention expensive.
And the time, energy, storage, etc it takes to prepare healthy meals vs swinging by McDonald’s in 5 minutes.
Sugar is also addictive, and food companies know and exploit that fact. The amount of sugar in single can of Coke is like double the recommended daily total.
Edit: this is not the appropriate time or place to discuss these things, I apologize.
It goes so much deeper than that. Have a look at this fascinating NYT article about Ozempic and its effect on the food-industrial complex: https://archive.is/QkKbv
(Incidentally, the article also challenges much of the conventional wisdom around weight loss, which I personally found rather validating.)
ooh boy I hate this
It's been talked about but the comments are getting deleted. You're right.
And as a result, this dis-proportionally affects exactly who you'd expect anything bad to affect. The obesity rate among African-American women is 57 percent and 46 percent among Hispanic women. You go to the doctor as a fat woman with a health issue, and they tell you to lose weight and don't actually treat you. They're doing genocide and getting away with it because they're not actively pouring high fructose corn syrup down anyone's throat and the rare fine barely puts a dent in the bottom line.
It's been talked about because someone brings it up every time someone rightfully complains about fatphobia on Hexbear, it is not the time nor place to do so.
Do you have any alternative sites to recommend discussions of how capitalism is actively harming poor people and manipulating them into blaming each other then, if Hexbear is not the place to do so?
I think the right place to talk about capitalism causing obesity is not a thread centering people experiencing fatphobia and negativity around fatness from other Hexbear posters
You’re right, I’ll leave what I said up for context but I realize most people here are already aware of these things and this wasn’t the place to talk about. Apologies.
The issue is framing it around fatness instead of actual illness like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc. Fatness is not about health, it's about appearance.
This is not a discussion about that, but resources have been posted here that you could read. But honestly you are probably cabable of finding such a place of discussion yourself if this discussion is so important to you right now when we are talking about anti-fatness.
I mean, fatness is truly the last thing standing on things that people are socially allowed to be shitty about. The fact that so many in this discussion demand receipts and resources from those who are the ones getting harmed is next level.
Here is a really good blog post about exactly this: https://www.marquiselemercedes.com/read/food-deserts