Over at “The Frisky”, the question is posed: does the “fat acceptance movement” glamorize unhealthy living?
America’s in a weird situation. On the one hand, we overly glamorize people who are WAY too thin to be healthy. On the other hand, the “average American” is definitely heavier than they should be and the trend’s been going upwards.
As far as my weight goes, I’m not dissatisfied. The woman I have been dating recently finds me attractive. I find her attractive (she’s not stick-thin, which I would hate, but definitely does not resemble Mr. Stay-Puft either). I could do to lose ~15-20 pounds, but the methodology by which I would do so is partially related to necessary changes to my lifestyle (a shorter commute, adjustment to my work environment to allow more standing and moving around) that are currently “in process.”
In the Colosse area, we have quite a few (mostly Latino/Black, indicating perhaps a cultural thing) women who walk around in spandex or revealing dresses while retaining body shapes more suited for the aforementioned Marshmallow Person. A fair number of them seem to believe that they are (despite a physical shape indicating extreme unhealth) the epitome of attractiveness.
As one commenter points out, a normal person doesn’t get to 300 pounds on a single bowl of cereal and a sub sandwich each day, unless the “bowl” is a punch bowl and the “sandwich” is one of those party-size setups. If you somehow do manage to get to that size without such, you have a serious medical condition - such as insulin resistance, or PCOS, or some other major hormonal/metabolic/digestive imbalance - that you should be seeing a doctor about quite regularly. And I can’t quite condone the idea that people should simply “accept” these medical problems, and leave them untreated, either - there are simply too many related risks down the road.
I also suspect that much of the supposed self-confidence of the “fat acceptance movement”, much like the (slightly more underground or at least less vocal, though I have seen it through the lens of an anorexic friend who thankfully got help) pro-anorexia movement, is more bravado to hide deep-seated mental issues than anything else. Anorexics don’t try to tell people “I don’t eat”, they try to avoid those social situations or try to appear to have eaten. Bulemics eat, and then try to reverse the process in secret. Likewise, the “fat acceptance” types are probably engaging in a number of lies or even self-hurting tactics (eating in secret, or redefining mentally what a “portion” means, which is an ongoing problem in a culture where “fast food” comes in ever-larger burgers and 42-oz helpings of HFCS that won’t set off the body’s chemical saitety triggers).
There was a time when I would have rolled my eyes at the Fat Acceptance folks. Over the last year or two, I’ve considered:
(1) The monumental failure of fat-stigma to make people more thin.
(2) The monumental statistical failure rates of dieting.
(3) The very real threats that yo-yo dieting pose
(4) The not-insignificant imperfection of the correlation between obesity and poor health.
(5) The very significant environmental and genetic factors in play
and (6) The importance of mental health overall…
… and am coming around to the notion that maybe allowing the 95% of overweight people who are incapable of doing anything about it as much of their dignity as we can is more important than applying pressure to get the remaining 5% to either lose (significant) weight (and keep it off) and holding everybody accountable for their dietary sins.
I appreciate what you’re saying about making sure that obese people go to the doctor and find out what they can do to minimize their risks, lower their blood pressure, and so on. Using weight as a proxy for these issues is more likely than not setting them up for failure. The focus on poundage turns it less into the health problem it maybe should be approached as and and more into a moral failing or weakness of will.
Those are my thoughts for the moment, anyway.
Comment by trumwill — August 21, 2009 @ 7:58 am
I see both the “Fat Acceptance” and “Pro-Ana” folks as two sides of the same coin. Both are engaged in, essentially, promoting unhealthy lifestyle choices. Both are engaged in trying to redefine what is healthy and not.
(1) The monumental failure of fat-stigma to make people more thin.
(2) The monumental statistical failure rates of dieting.
(3) The very real threats that yo-yo dieting pose
These three appear to be very much sides of the same coin. The unfortunate problem, societally, is that people are being promised the moon and thinking they can get it.
For example, most diets promise quick results with zero-to-minimal lifestyle changes. So do most exercise programs (”Five minute abs”, etc). Truth-in-advertising laws ought to prevent this, but the government is incredibly lax about enforcement in the “health food”, “natural food”, “alternative medicine”, and “weight loss” industries and has been for some time. I’m not saying that there are not products out there that work, or even that work only for some people, but I’m saying that the vast majority of them are simply scams.
The other problem is that “fat-stigma” would work far better if people were educated, early on in life, on how NOT to be a tub of lard. It’s my firm belief that all schoolchildren (EARLY on, grade school and up, repeatedly) should be educated in nutrition, the value of exercise, how to measure exercise, and basic life skills (cooking a healthy meal, cleaning up after themselves, etc). Instead, what have we found? Exercise programs in schools are at an all-time low. Kids are getting conditioned to sit on their butts in school all day as recess is robbed for more “class time”, nutritious foods in the cafeteria have given way to soda machines and vending machines and “food service” companies that normally push unhealthy product at places like sports stadiums.
The most common reaction from people who have “fat stigma”, and realize they are fat, is not “oh my god I need to fix this”, it’s saying “I don’t know what to do.” That right there is a major problem.
(4) The not-insignificant imperfection of the correlation between obesity and poor health.
Actually, the research is very solid on this one. While I agree that some of the particular measures we use (BMI, for example) are lousy approximations, actual studies done on specifics (using real weight/fat ratio measurements, measurements of fat placement in certain known trouble areas such as the abdomen) are quite clear on the increased risk of a number of major diseases from maintaining an unhealthy weight.
Does this mean that everyone who is carrying lots of fat is going to keel over tomorrow? No. Will some of them, statistical outliers, live to be 90 or even 100? Quite possibly. Some smokers have managed to do so as well. The fact remains that the vast majority do not, and that the negative effect not just on lifespan, but life quality, is severe.
(5) The very significant environmental and genetic factors in play
and (6) The importance of mental health overall…
Again, this is why I state: if someone is having trouble with weight, and cannot lose it, they should be seeing a doctor. There are serious diseases that can cause this and that also present risk factors (insulin resistance for instance, which not only causes increased weight and fat production but also serves as a precursor to diabetes) in other areas. Also, if someone has a mental problem - such as low self-esteem/self-worth - and is using food as a dodge for this, getting to the root cause will not only help them with the weight issue, but also with other quality-of-life issues.
and am coming around to the notion that maybe allowing the 95% of overweight people who are incapable of doing anything about it as much of their dignity as we can is more important than applying pressure to get the remaining 5% to either lose (significant) weight (and keep it off) and holding everybody accountable for their dietary sins.
I’m not with you on the idea that there exists a “95% of overweight people who are incapable of doing anythign about it.” I’ll agree that there are a significant number of people who currently do not know how to go about it. I’ll agree that there are another significant portion who are insufficiently motivated to make the needed changes in their lifestyle (such as reducing their intake of high-fat, high-calorie foods, their caloric intake in general, or increasing their exercise per week). I’ll even agree that there are a certain portion who are probably this way because they suffer from Iatrophobia (fear of doctors).
I can’t say that the first group are “incapable”, nor the second, and I’m certainly not willing to concede that a supposed “95%” of obese people are “incapable” of addressing the issue, especially with obesity rates rising sharply in the past two decades.
Using weight as a proxy for these issues is more likely than not setting them up for failure. The focus on poundage turns it less into the health problem it maybe should be approached as and and more into a moral failing or weakness of will.
If someone has something they do that is causing a recurring health problem, doctors (and people in general) are not normally unwilling to mention it. I avoid certain foods because I am allergic to them. I try to find ways to exercise that I enjoy.
We should be willing to say the following things:
- Sitting/lying around all day is unhealthy.
- Eating too much is unhealthy.
- Eating/behaving in an imbalanced manner (and thus falling prey to diseases related to vitamin deficiencies) is unhealthy.
Focusing on the weight itself isn’t bad. Carrying around a gross weight itself is the major, outward symptom of unhealth. Someone who gets into that condition is (usually) lacking in muscle tone, deficient in Calcium (a major problem for women, especially older women), deficient in other vitamins, getting less sun exposure (see: Vitamin D deficiency) and generally less outdoor time (which usually correlates to exercise). Yes, there are “overweight” individuals who are all muscle, but they know who they are, their doctors know who they are, and everyone else can tell at a glance the difference between someone who is carrying a sizable amount of reasonably-toned muscle mass and someone who resembles the Michelin Man instead.
And I want to be clear here: I’m not talking about people who are carrying around an extra 15-20 pounds due to a sedentary job or never-lost baby weight or something similar. I’m speaking of people who are very, obviously, clearly, medically able to be put into the category of weight usually referred to as morbidly obese, because these are the people that the “Fat Acceptance Movement” types are targeting and trying to convince that they are “healthy.”
Comment by web — August 21, 2009 @ 10:31 am
The other problem is that “fat-stigma” would work far better if people were educated, early on in life, on how NOT to be a tub of lard.
Encouraging young people to eat healthy is indeed a lofty goal. No argument there. But I was educated in the ways that you refer to. So were my peers. And despite being upper-middle class (and higher) in SES, it still didn’t take for a whole lot of my peers.
The most common reaction from people who have “fat stigma”, and realize they are fat, is not “oh my god I need to fix this”, it’s saying “I don’t know what to do.” That right there is a major problem.
Not true. The vast majority of obese people know the basics. Eat less, exercise more. To the extent that there is ignorance, it’s lack-of-knowledge of what they’re consuming. People know in a vague way that Big Macs aren’t healthy, but they don’t necessarily know how remarkably unhealthy they are.
But as with the case of youthful intervention, getting overweight is not like picking up that first cigarette. It’s not typically a conscious decision. It’s something that people notice only after it’s happened. This is particularly a problem when you’re young and know that the form you have now is not necessarily the form you’ll have when you’re an adult. My BMI, for instance, altered more during growth spurts than it did depending on what I ate. And beyond all this, (a) social stigma on excess weight is stronger in one’s younger years than it will ever be, (b) even in the second grade everybody knew what “going on a diet” meant, (c) it still didn’t help a lot of these kids despite their financial position.
Actually, the research is very solid on this one.
Not entirely. According to the Archives of Internal Medicine, over 50% of overweight Americans and nearly a third of obese Americans have “mostly normal cholesterol, bloog sugar, blood pressure, and other measures of good health. Statistics culled from the January 2009 issue of Reader’s Digest, which I happened to read a couple weeks ago.
Again, this is why I state: if someone is having trouble with weight, and cannot lose it, they should be seeing a doctor.
Yes they should, but if the doctor cannot help them lose weight. Then what? With the exception of gastric bypass, the ability to get people to lose weight is exceptionally low.
I’m not with you on the idea that there exists a “95% of overweight people who are incapable of doing anythign about it.”
Check the research of the 5-year success rates of clinically-controlled dieting. The results are monumentally depressing. These are people that are expressly told how to lose weight. Many of them do! But despite education and for some the euphoria of having lost the weight… it comes back on.
To the extent that it’s true that these people fail because they lose the weight too quickly, that’s precisely what focusing on weight does. Someone that weighs 400 pounds and spends two years losing 50 of those pounds through moderate but sustainable changes in habit will still be made to feel a failure. Which brings me to…
Focusing on the weight itself isn’t bad.
This is where we seem to disagree the most. Focusing on weight sets people up for failure. Moderate exercise is healthy but ultimately not very conducive to weight loss. So someone starts going to the gym, fails to lose weight, says “screw it” and stops. Someone cuts back on sugar but doesn’t lose weight, they say “screw it” and start eating sugar again putting themselves back at greater risk for diabetes.
It would be wonderful if we could say “If you do the right things, you will lose weight.” The problem is this is frequently not the case. They are simply incapable of doing all that needs to be done. Or they do it but their metabolism is completely shot and their body compensates.
When we reach the point where we can reliably get overweight people to lose weight and keep it off, I’ll be more open to coming down a little harder on the overweight. But we’re not there. So in the meantime, I think that there is a much better argument to be made for concentrating on the more specific problems such as bloog pressure, diabetes, and so on. Sometimes trying to tackle these problems will result in weight loss and sometimes not. Hanging failure or success on weight loss turns it into an all-or-nothing enterprise in which many people will settle for nothing.
And I want to be clear here: I’m not talking about people who are carrying around an extra 15-20 pounds due to a sedentary job or never-lost baby weight or something similar.
Here’s the problem with that. Even if one is intentionally targetting the morbidly obese, a War on Fat includes a lot of people in the overweight and nominally obese categories. It’s easier to delineate between the thin and the fat than it is between the obese and the morbidly obese. I would go a step further and say that it ultimately ends up pushing these people up the BMI charts because they already view themselves as fat.
In the abstract, you’re right that society should not just completely overlook the dangers of obesity just as we should not be too weight-obsessed. These may be two sides of the same coin in your view, but ultimately it’s a tug-of-war between the two. One side of this battle is winning at almost every turn. The Fat Acceptance people are nearly irrelevant despite having some valid points about the counterproductivity of weight-obsession. The pendulum of weight-as-a-symbol-of-health has shifted so far in one direction beyond the point of helplessness.
Again, these are my views at the moment. They’re subject to change. My thoughts have been pretty heavily influenced by a number of posts from Megan McArdle. I was all ready to do a strong rebuttle, but the more I investigated and thought about it, the more I determined that she made some points about the intractability of obesity that I couldn’t refute on much of any basis except “That’s just not right!” which is not a really good response. And on thinking about it further, if there really isn’t much that we can do about obesity on a social level with stigma and government policy then maybe our attempts are better at producing misery than weight loss.
Some of the posts that I read:
Comment by trumwill — August 21, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
This “movement” is too absurd to even acknowledge, except that it’s so typical of the lunacy that is engulfing our country. Most people don’t care about their “health” nearly as much as worrywart journalists and politicians wish they would, so I don’t care if it’s promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. I’m more concerned that we’re all turning into whiny crybabies who can’t stand the thought that someone out there doesn’t like us.
I’m not in favor of stick figures, either, but I don’t think anybody is except for the fags who run the fashion industry. This porker claims that her “daily diet usually consists of a bowl of cereal for breakfast and a submarine sandwich for lunch”. She left out the cheesecake that she binge-eats while she’s crying into her goblet of boxed wine alone every night. She also left out the fact that she spends 99% of her time horizontal on the couch (she says on her blog that she’s unemployed).
To the extent that some people “can’t” lose weight, I’d say this: Not everyone can be skinny, but almost no one except an NFL lineman needs to be 300 pounds. To the extent that some morbidly obese people “can’t” lose weight, it’s because that’s not their number one priority. Which is fine, as long as they don’t try to make me feel bad about finding them unappealing.
Comment by john — August 22, 2009 @ 5:43 am
Discussed this on my blog awhile back. Yet another example of identity politics:
Rock Bottom of Identity Politics
Comment by OneSTDV — August 22, 2009 @ 7:26 am
John,
When confronted with people “whining” about this or that, the main question I ask is what it is that they want from the rest of us. In this case, it’s primarily to lay off and not be a jerk. That doesn’t strike me as being particularly unreasonable. It gets dicier when we start talking about policy changes like airline seats (though I have to confess I am now wholly unsympathetic as I swear my shoulder width was larger than the space alotted on my recent flights).
It’s not that “some” morbidly obese people can’t lose weight (and keep it off). When a percentage reaches a point in excess of 95% (which it appears to be), I don’t think “Well they’re just not really trying” is a sufficient response. The human body seems extremely resistant to losing large amounts of weight, at least once you pass a certain (relatively low) age. Once we have a reliable way in which a significant portion of people can lose weight and keep it off, I’ll be much more welcome to re-introduce the moral/disciplinary component of a failure to shed significant poundage.
Comment by trumwill — August 22, 2009 @ 10:18 am
STDV,
I actually have a stub of a post coming up entitled “Fat Women Don’t Attract Me”, which should be pretty self-explanatory. When I put a stub into place, the chances that I will actually write the post are about 50/50, so we’ll see if I get it written.
Dating and sexual attraction are two of the few areas where discrimination by any basis is pretty much allowed. Sometimes it’s counterproductive, though. I know a lot of fat people who contort their reasoning a great deal to justify not dating another fat person. Such is their right, but I am not too sympathetic to their loneliness.
Comment by trumwill — August 22, 2009 @ 10:21 am
“I know a lot of fat people who contort their reasoning a great deal to justify not dating another fat person. Such is their right, but I am not too sympathetic to their loneliness.”
Typical american beta thinking. you seem to think that men have to date a woman or can´t be happy. But in reality, it’s much better to be alone than do date a middleaged, fat or ugly woman than to be alone. Hookers are also always a good deal.
Comment by Gannon — August 27, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
You don’t have to date a woman to be happy. If you choose not to date women because the ones you want are out of your league but you would rather be alone than date the ones in your league, I am now wholly sympathetic to your inability to find someone.
Comment by trumwill — August 27, 2009 @ 5:24 pm
Trying to shame overweight people into losing weight is like shaming active drug addicts and alcoholics to sober up. It’s worse than evil: it’s ineffective.
Arguably, hassling fat people is counterproductive. Whether or not a fat person thinks fat is healthy or not, they know they’re fat. You(generic) aren’t giving them new information. But shaming does keep overweight people from exercising and eating moderately but reasonably in public.
Many overweight people are addicted to food or specific types of foods. Compared to what we’re evolved for, some modern foods are closer to being drugs than foods.
Overeaters show every addict behavior.
They minimize: I only have a couple drinks a day. I only eat a bowl of cereal and a sandwich.
They binge: I just snorted more than I meant too. I ate a cake at midnight.
They (claim to) self-medicate: Pot makes me feel less depressed. I was sad, so I ate a couple candy bars.
etc.
On a personal note, I’m a (recovering) addict. Listening to my mom talk about food. “It calls to me” “I can’t resist what’s around”…sounds exactly how I feel/felt about drugs.
On an impersonal note, a big chunk of people who get gastic bypass surgery become problem drinkers. They substitute one drug for another.
Overeaters Anonymous works on the addiction and recovery model. It seems to work, at least for some people for years.
I haven’t read it, but “The End of Overeating” looks like an interesting book.
Comment by rob — September 1, 2009 @ 7:31 pm