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.
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?
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.