I think lots of hexbears could use reading this article. If you’ve ever thought about or have gone on a diet to lose weight, you should read this article. If you’ve ever encouraged someone else to go on a diet, you especially should read this article.
Sadly I’ve even seen my fellow trans comrades pushing this white supremacist line on here many times, which has been very disheartening…
Thank you for this article!! I wish my wife could see herself the way I see her.
CW internalised fatphobia
She once showed me videos of women three times her weight to tell me that this is how she sees herself and why she’s grossed out by her body, but when I asked her if she thinks those women are gross she said no.
She has been dieting hardcore now, for months, lost so much weight with the goal of getting into double digits. This is against her binge-eating to cope with trauma, her PCOS, her having little time to cook healthy and all her quirks around what she cannot eat, or what makes something inedible for her.
I pray it brings her relief.
I wish my wife could see herself the way I see her.
I hope you tell her that often! I’ve found incessant compliments somewhat effective, but different people might react to that differently.
Good article. I’m lucky to have avoided this in my childhood despite being noticeably overweight for most of it. Kids’ bodies are still growing and they all grow in all different ways and they should be taught early that all human shapes are beautiful.
As a health crisis, fatness is the perfect encapsulation of Calvinist brain worms. Because we have a phenomenon that cuts through our entire society, effects literally the majority of people, and instead of looking at societal factors (like relentless food advertisement, increased portion sizes, dumping sugar into everything, creation of food deserts, and so on) we blame the people it effects and call it a personal problem.
Almost everyone in our society is eating the same slop day in and day out, and the people who are just genetically predisposed not to hang onto fat or to not get hungry as often or whatever else get to act like they’ve figured out some kind of secret. It’s the same phenomenon that causes rich failsons to assume that they’re just harder workers than everyone around them, a modern version of Predestination.
This is why i never encouraged my brother to go through a restrictive diet. We just did more gym and ate more fruits and veggies (that we liked).
Thank you for sharing this here.
Gina, who had been part of a camp run and operated by military veterans,
Troops not beating the allegations.
Main.
i’m very glad you shared this
Maybe a content warning for
spoiler
Child Death
Edit:
This is definitely something we talk about in our house from time to time. My SO found a program that provided her with access to a nutritionist and nurse, as well as Ozempic. She said it was one of the most validating experiences she’s ever had. They told her that the science is becoming very clear, that for many there is a genetic component to being obese. They told her about a concept called “Food Noise” which is a kind of mental trigger that causes you to feel the need to be eating almost all the time, it also can make you feel like you need to eat as fast as you can, and eat everything presented to you. She was skeptical at first, but after taking Ozempic, she no longer feels this desire to always be snacking, and will often eat until she’s full and actually feel compelled to stop eating.
All the negativity around Ozempic, and the idea that it’s a kind of bourgeois dieting fad, rings very hollow for me after seeing what it has done for her. Some people, from my understanding, either achieve their goals and come off Ozempic keeping the weight off, others unfortunately see a return of Food Noise and begin gaining it back. She said if she is in the latter category, she would want to keep taking it, since it’s the only thing that has worked for her. Losing the weight for her is about reducing risk factors she’s already predisposed to.
Unfortunately, we are the benefactors of our position in life. This use case is currently off script, and if anyone was seeking to use Ozempic for weight loss, you would pay up to or over $1000 a month. This program she’s in is only available to us as a result of the incredible state insurance she is provided by her job, we pay nothing as a result. The reality is, Ozempic doesn’t solve the cultural and systemic nature of obesity in the US by a long shot. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the living conditions the underclass is exposed to in this country is causing an epigenetic response and creating a population predisposed to weight issues. Unless those conditions are changed, then the medical-industrial system will continue to produce band-aids that keep profits up and keep people unhealthy.
but the point of the article is that fatness isn’t inherently unhealthy
The article is saying that punishing kids for their bodies is a form of abuse, it’s saying that capitalism is not here to provide real “solutions” for “weight loss” (Diet Culture and Weight Loss Programs are a scam) and it’s saying that Fitness =/= Weight Loss. It’s also saying that we have developed a culture that equates healthiness with skinniness, which is just wrong. This culture is so pervasive that doctors will do nothing to identify whether your weight is tied to your lifestyle, genetics, some form of neurodivergent tendency, or whether it’s even causing health issues for you. BMI is the physician’s little trick they use to get out of doing the actual work of seeing if your weight is bad for you.
Measuring your “wellness” by the number on a scale is bad and not an accurate reflection of your health. My SO’s specific situation necessitates weight loss because it compounds her already preexisting health issues. Her efforts of being active and trying to eat better have not yielded the same results Ozempic has. The author points out that their fatness was not a result of a lack of activity either:
Football, baseball, basketball, soccer, golf. If you name it, I have likely played it—even if it was not coached by him. And as anyone in the US public school system knows, in elementary school, they kept us very active; from field days, to PE tests, to a daily required recess. But because of my various illnesses, and the harm I was experiencing by my doctors, my mom worried.
My SO was also very active growing up, she also played every sport under the sun, and throughout high school was a member of their volley ball team. She always struggled with her weight and body image. Meanwhile, as a contrast, I grew up hating activity. I wanted nothing more than to sit at my computer or in front of a game console. I, for my entire life, until I hit 30, weighed at most 150lbs. Ironically enough, I also struggled with my weight and body image issues.
I agree with what is being said in the article. We have a culture of shame that extends all the way down to kids when it comes to “health”. We have, as a culture, closely tied one’s physical size to their “healthiness”. This is all an extension of the capitalist ideology we all live under. Your socioeconomic situation is yours to improve, capitalist society provides you with endless opportunities to improve your socioeconomic condition, and thus, if you are not taking advantage of these opportunities, then you must like being poor or are to lazy to actually improve your life and yourself. The same can be said for your “Health” as well. You’re fat because you choose to be fat, and you are provided endless opportunities to improve your “Health” (read, get skinny/yoked). If you fail to improve your health or your wealth, you are a moral failure not just for yourself, but for your family as well.
These ideas are reinforced through all forms of media. Reality shows like “The Biggest Loser”, endless Men’s and Women’s magazines touting magical weight loss programs on the covers, TV and Movies placing the fat one at the center of all comic relief. Capitalist society doesn’t want to cleanly identify between the two forms of fatness, either. BMI is the PERFECT tool for maintaining this fuzzy definition. It only takes your height and weight into account, and nothing else. We know that depending on where fat is stored on your body, your risk factors for things like premature cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and death change. We know that your weight is mostly made up of muscle mass, and your BMI can be really fucked if you’ve been putting on a lot of muscle or are naturally more muscular. Furthermore, we also know that it’s much more important to avoid low activity than being fat. Your Ethnicity can play a factor in a high BMI as well.
But none of this is shouted from the mountain tops, or drilled into society, like weight loss is. Associating “High Weight” with “Unhealthy” and positioning “diet and exercise” as the only path forward keeps the dollars flowing. The real contradiction at play here is that your income is a larger predictor of your risk factors for premature cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and death than anything else. Your ability to afford both the time and the money to maintain regular healthy activity is limited by your income. It is more likely a person falls into the obese category as a result of their socioeconomic conditions. You’ll also have less access to medical care or seek medical care less often as a result of your poor economic conditions. Because of the mythos of capitalist society, you will not be provided with the information or tools to actually determine whether your size is a real issue or not, most doctors you see will dismiss any other issues you have so long as you are “over weight” or god forbid “obese”, and if your weight is causing health issues, you won’t be able to afford the treatment anyway.
When I was younger, and couldn’t seem to put on weight, I was told constantly that I was too skinny, that I should bulk up somehow. It fucked me up. It made me feel like there was something wrong with me. So, I don’t fault anyone who wants to have their body without shame. We should be ready to combat anyone deriving someone’s worth from their size.
GOOD post
Nice to see you go in on BMI. More people need to delete that shit from their minds.
Edit: and I added CWs, thanks for the reminder
What’s so frustrating about BMI too is how many places use it as a metric for “rates of obesity” when it’s such an awful metric to use for obesity. Capitalism loves science and medicine, and it loves it more when it gets something wrong in ways that it can use to turn a profit.
Absolutely spot on
Da’Shaun Harrison is great, they have some really interesting writings about the queerness of fat and Black bodies that are fantastic for understanding the way normative gender is constructed through white supremacism.
Thanks for posting <3
<3
