FULL-FAT HUMANITY
Not any kind of fat.
People say, oh, you fat people are so confident (or arrogant). The subtext being, they’re so afraid of putting on any weight, they trace a line in anxiety upwards from themselves to us.
Not noticing many of us have been burning up with shame on a permanent basis. To the extent some of us developed conditions from that unyielding intensity.
Existing in pronounced states of discomfort-sometimes with additional reasons-meant, when we stopped co-operating with fat shaming, feelings of reticence were new only in terms of why, not in the intensity of feeling.
It’s contrivance and bullshit masquerading as science.
Can we do the same with outer hate?
![jennylewren:
Well aren’t you a piece of work. I have been following TiTP for several months now and I’ve never seen any of the moderators or submitters ever suggest that sick people should not get help.
What I have seen in the past week or so however is a lot of people picking through their posts and then reblogging things completely out of context and in many cases focusing on only one sentence instead of reading their entire post.
Health is a very complex thing. I worked in a hospital and in a pharmacy for the better part of a decade and it was part of my job to understand what makes a person healthy and unhealthy. To say that they posted blatant lies about health is a blatant lie itself. The blog simply states that fat people need to be treated like people and not like shit. The blog simply states that health is not a qualifying factor in being treated like a person. That healthy or unhealthy fat people are still people and deserved to be treated with dignity and respect. That goes for anyone. Health is not a measure of one’s worth.
But let’s admit it. You don’t care about our health. You don’t care about my health or the health of any random stranger on the internet. You might be concerned about your thin compatriots, but you certainly do not care about fat teens. Because if you did, you would understand that the societal attitude towards fat people is unacceptably cruel. When fat people do fall ill, we receive blame and not compassion. We receive punishment and not help. Belief that fat is some sort of disease or health problem and that getting rid of it is the “cure” is really just a way for people to mask their own fat hate. That when a fat person makes a submission stating that they received subpar health care due to their weight, they are not lying about it. That there is clear and consistent stigmatization, and in some cases discrimination, that can be documented in three important areas of living: employment, education, and health care. Among the findings are that 28% of teachers in one study said that becoming obese is the worst thing that can happen to a person; 24% of nurses said that they are “repulsed” by obese persons; and, controlling for income and grades, parents provide less college support for their overweight than for their thin children.
If you cared about the health of fat people you would have already looked into this and understood that when healthcare professionals are “disgusted” by fat bodies they are less likely to treat them with the same standard care as everyone else. Instead you’re crusading against a blog that attempts to point out these injustices.
As far as giving people who read the blog the idea that every problem they face is because of their weight is actually kind of laughable. Society blames fat people like me for all of it’s problems.
Society tells me that all of my problems are because I’m fat. Society airbrushes it’s figureheads into perfection and tells me that if I don’t strive towards that goal I’m not worthy of being treated as a person. Society tells me that fat bodies like mine are an eyesore and a blight on the landscape. And society tells me that bodies like mine are a joke. Oh and society tells me that because I’m fat, I’m unfit to be an employee, even if I’m completely healthy. Society also tells me that because I’m fat, I deserve a considerably lower salary. A large portion of medical professionals dismiss our symptoms or overlook them on purpose because we’re fat. Drug companies intentionally alter facts about fat bodies and health in order to make money. That’s right, there is a multi billion dollar industry in place that crucifies bodies like mine to scare bodies of all sizes into spending money.
I’m sorry, I can go on and on but lets move on, shall we?
The message is simple and plain as day and is as follows:
Being fat is okay.
You can’t tell how healthy someone is just by looking at them.
You can’t tell how much someone eats or exercises just by looking at them.
Even if you could, it’s none of your business anyway.
The only thing you can tell for sure by looking at a fat person is the degree of your own bias against fat people.
Spaces like this blog and TiTP exist because I and people like me desperately need them to. And they discuss concepts that I need to reclaim so that I can talk about my body, my health and and myself in positive ways. So maybe next time instead of taking things out of context and throwing a hissy fit because spaces like this exist for fat people, just keep moving. What you’re really doing is saying that it doesn’t matter what I go through, because if I manage to scrape together some space of solidarity and acceptance for people like me, it’s still yours to take over whenever you like, because your faux health concerns for fat people are more important than giving some space to people who are ostracized, criticized, hated, marginalized, erased, ignored, pushed out, pushed away, and constantly berated.
If you want to spew your fat hate go right on ahead and do it. But go out and make your own fate hate spaces and don’t inundate us with your bile because you saw something you didn’t agree with and it made you feel uncomfortable . Because it’s less important to you that fat people have ONE GODDAMN PLACE to talk about our bodies, our health and our struggles than for you to have everything in the whole world when you already do.
rebloggable by request
That OP’s messed up, which is their prerogative. As long as they don’t expect to impose their messed up mindset on others. ‘obesity’ is a term that claims weight is illness. Most if not all people disagree with that.
It’s no different to saying that because plenty of thin/slim people get sick, that thin/slimness is illness. And that thin/slimness is the cause of something called “thin/slim related disease”. Weight is not illness-that’s called a disagreement. As for ‘medical help’ so far as I know, that consists of accepting that calorie restriction is not a viable solution and has done palpable harm to those who tried in on any long term basis. Many doctors are not ready to acknowledge this. Everyone is entitled as a free person to refuse their advice to do something you know has harmed you. That is the basis of the doctor patient relationship, consensual treatment. [No one would claim weight loss diets as medical treatment.] That includes the right to refuse advice that you know to be harmful change and seek alternatives such as dietary modification, exercise, meditation, healing and therapeutic exercise,etc.,
We are ultimately responsible for knowing ourselves. Despite the desire of others to keep us in ignorance of ourselves and how our bodies really work.
Which is shown in this person doesn’t seem to think fat people can think for themselves. That’s exactly the way want it to be, which is their real complaint. That fat people are thinking for themselves and not continuing to passively allow our health to be undermined or wrecked by those who wish us ill.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/1c6bb2b27073c098301a4e3b84b022f9/tumblr_mifdowEZOc1r5m70do1_500.png)
Well aren’t you a piece of work. I have been following TiTP for several months now and I’ve never seen any of the moderators or submitters ever suggest that sick people should not get help.
What I have seen in the past week or so however is a lot of people picking through their posts and then reblogging things completely out of context and in many cases focusing on only one sentence instead of reading their entire post.
Health is a very complex thing. I worked in a hospital and in a pharmacy for the better part of a decade and it was part of my job to understand what makes a person healthy and unhealthy. To say that they posted blatant lies about health is a blatant lie itself. The blog simply states that fat people need to be treated like people and not like shit. The blog simply states that health is not a qualifying factor in being treated like a person. That healthy or unhealthy fat people are still people and deserved to be treated with dignity and respect. That goes for anyone. Health is not a measure of one’s worth.
But let’s admit it. You don’t care about our health. You don’t care about my health or the health of any random stranger on the internet. You might be concerned about your thin compatriots, but you certainly do not care about fat teens. Because if you did, you would understand that the societal attitude towards fat people is unacceptably cruel. When fat people do fall ill, we receive blame and not compassion. We receive punishment and not help. Belief that fat is some sort of disease or health problem and that getting rid of it is the “cure” is really just a way for people to mask their own fat hate. That when a fat person makes a submission stating that they received subpar health care due to their weight, they are not lying about it. That there is clear and consistent stigmatization, and in some cases discrimination, that can be documented in three important areas of living: employment, education, and health care. Among the findings are that 28% of teachers in one study said that becoming obese is the worst thing that can happen to a person; 24% of nurses said that they are “repulsed” by obese persons; and, controlling for income and grades, parents provide less college support for their overweight than for their thin children.
If you cared about the health of fat people you would have already looked into this and understood that when healthcare professionals are “disgusted” by fat bodies they are less likely to treat them with the same standard care as everyone else. Instead you’re crusading against a blog that attempts to point out these injustices.
As far as giving people who read the blog the idea that every problem they face is because of their weight is actually kind of laughable. Society blames fat people like me for all of it’s problems.
Society tells me that all of my problems are because I’m fat. Society airbrushes it’s figureheads into perfection and tells me that if I don’t strive towards that goal I’m not worthy of being treated as a person. Society tells me that fat bodies like mine are an eyesore and a blight on the landscape. And society tells me that bodies like mine are a joke. Oh and society tells me that because I’m fat, I’m unfit to be an employee, even if I’m completely healthy. Society also tells me that because I’m fat, I deserve a considerably lower salary. A large portion of medical professionals dismiss our symptoms or overlook them on purpose because we’re fat. Drug companies intentionally alter facts about fat bodies and health in order to make money. That’s right, there is a multi billion dollar industry in place that crucifies bodies like mine to scare bodies of all sizes into spending money.
I’m sorry, I can go on and on but lets move on, shall we?
The message is simple and plain as day and is as follows:
- Being fat is okay.
- You can’t tell how healthy someone is just by looking at them.
- You can’t tell how much someone eats or exercises just by looking at them.
- Even if you could, it’s none of your business anyway.
- The only thing you can tell for sure by looking at a fat person is the degree of your own bias against fat people.
Spaces like this blog and TiTP exist because I and people like me desperately need them to. And they discuss concepts that I need to reclaim so that I can talk about my body, my health and and myself in positive ways. So maybe next time instead of taking things out of context and throwing a hissy fit because spaces like this exist for fat people, just keep moving. What you’re really doing is saying that it doesn’t matter what I go through, because if I manage to scrape together some space of solidarity and acceptance for people like me, it’s still yours to take over whenever you like, because your faux health concerns for fat people are more important than giving some space to people who are ostracized, criticized, hated, marginalized, erased, ignored, pushed out, pushed away, and constantly berated.
If you want to spew your fat hate go right on ahead and do it. But go out and make your own fate hate spaces and don’t inundate us with your bile because you saw something you didn’t agree with and it made you feel uncomfortable . Because it’s less important to you that fat people have ONE GODDAMN PLACE to talk about our bodies, our health and our struggles than for you to have everything in the whole world when you already do.
rebloggable by request
That OP’s messed up, which is their prerogative. As long as they don’t expect to impose their messed up mindset on others.
‘obesity’ is a term that claims weight is illness. Most if not all people disagree with that.
It’s no different to saying that because plenty of thin/slim people get sick, that thin/slimness is illness. And that thin/slimness is the cause of something called “thin/slim related disease”.
Weight is not illness-that’s called a disagreement.
As for ‘medical help’ so far as I know, that consists of accepting that calorie restriction is not a viable solution and has done palpable harm to those who tried in on any long term basis.
Many doctors are not ready to acknowledge this. Everyone is entitled as a free person to refuse their advice to do something you know has harmed you.
That is the basis of the doctor patient relationship, consensual treatment. [No one would claim weight loss diets as medical treatment.] That includes the right to refuse advice that you know to be harmful change and seek alternatives such as dietary modification, exercise, meditation, healing and therapeutic exercise,etc.,
We are ultimately responsible for knowing ourselves. Despite the desire of others to keep us in ignorance of ourselves and how our bodies really work.
Which is shown in this person doesn’t seem to think fat people can think for themselves. That’s exactly the way want it to be, which is their real complaint. That fat people are thinking for themselves and not continuing to passively allow our health to be undermined or wrecked by those who wish us ill.
(via bilt2tumble)
Fatties Gonna Fat
I actually like this. It’s about time fat people who feel this way felt able to acknowledge it without being shamed into “confessing” a love for food they do not feel.
I thought that this might be of interest to several of this blogs followers, and many in the fat acceptance/body positivity communities. There’s a new show that started on British television on 14th January at 10pm called My Mad Fat Diary: “It features a 16 stone 16 year old who has just left psychiatric hospital, where she had been for four months. She is looking for love - but worries if she will be too big for the world, or if the world is too big for her.”
It just shows the amount of thin privilege and discrimination against not only fat people, but those with mental health issues. Most of the responses to an advert for the show on Facebook were loaded with fat hate and discrimination. Sometimes the bubble of safety and inclusion Tumblr creates is suddenly popped when I stray too far into wider society, or even social networking sites and I forget that a lot of people are still denying fat people the right to the same life experiences as their thin counterparts. There were those willing to defend the fat girl who plays the protagonist, and fat people in general, but they were few and far between and heavily criticised for it. This isn’t just damaging to fat people, but to any person who has BDD or negative views about their body in general. Spreading the body positivity message on Tumblr is one thing, but it needs to reach so much further. We might be winning the small battles but there is still one hell of a war out there that needs vocal body positive warriors to join the cause.
TLDR; Thin privilege means your body type can be the focus of a television show and not receive venomous hate purely because of their body type. Thin privilege is being represented and having your life experiences validated. Thin privilege is having mental health problems and it being taken seriously.
(mod note: obviously there’s intersection with other privileges there, too. Any member of a group that gets constantly stereotyped in movies and TV will have a hard time finding a format that validates their experiences. -ATL)
This for me epitomizes the kind of thing that can have a formative effect on fat people. The way fatness trumps everything and anything that’s going on with you. Yes, it can be very painful and damaging.
However, it also inadvertently leaves room for different reactions, responses and interpretation of issues. Ones that differ from the default of slimz or the mainstream in general. I think it’s important to say that fat people are not in the waiting room of become slim in body or conditioning. We have different perspective and cannot be assumed to always come to the same conclusions.
What I’m saying is, we need to explore what we’ve learned, not just have another fantasy of slim where it’s assumed slimz/mainstream has all the answers.
If that was the case, why they after us like they are?
For most of my life, I was under the impression that I rather hated exercise.
There are numerous reasons why, mostly boiling down to people making me self-conscious about my body and abilities, and thus self-conscious about attempting exercise…. which turned into a defiant “well fuck you all and…
I found myself… actively WANTING to go to the gym. My body wanted the exercise.
It does happen this way, which is great, but sometimes it needs to be helped along. By making a consistent effort to soften and uplift your view of your own physical capacities.
To not only reverse the negative conditioning about the potential of fat bodies, in motion and not. But also learning to become open minded about it.
Learning to let your body show you want it can (and can’t) do. Suspending judgement on it. This goes for slim people to some of whom are also quite negative/have very low expectations and prejudices about their body’s potential.
Healthy.
Those of us used to being held accountable for how we feel know this.
One of the things that most informs my view of fat consciousness/acceptance is that I as a fat person and I believe fat people overall, have had different conditioning to thin and slim people overall.
The above video from HuffPo is all about how to approach someone if you have concerns about their weight. Jenn Leyva, one of the participants, is someone I really admire in the fat acceptance community. I know she feels like she didn’t get to share as much of her point of view as she…
When it comes to weight, people need to grasp that they’ve blown it. That’s called consequence, it’s to be taken into account when you decide to trap people in a permanent state of acute and intense judgement. It’s the price you pay when you decide to crank up their response beyond most people’s endurance. You exhaust them.
And you need to back off until that goes away.
