Fat, Pt. 2

In the last post, I made an introduction to the topic of fatness and a criticism of pervasive fatphobia. In this post I'm going to take on an equal and opposite problem: the Fat Acceptance movement.

Fat Acceptance, despite its desire to combat the unhealthy thinking and behavior that accompanies fatphobia, is not an appropriate option. The majority of people involved in the fat acceptance movement are obese or overweight people who have had little to no success controlling their weight through the diet methods prescribed by conventional wisdom. They can shed the weight, sure (or some of it, anyway) but as soon as they get tired of starving it comes back.

Frustrated - and rightly so - they've given up. Instead of fighting their fatness, they've decided to embrace it, and tell the rest of the world that it's time to do so to.

So what's the problem?

Firstly, fat acceptance places a false dichotomy on the entire health/diet issue. Either you follow Conventional Wisdom's starvation model or you live with being obese your entire life. Either you have no willpower (which simply isn't true for many of these people) or your genes are wired to keep you from slimming down. This either/or declaration completely ignores the many other options there are available - including alternative diets, which are not only sustainable when done correctly but have proven effective in many cases where the conventional diet has failed.

(Full confession: I subscribe to one of these "alternative" diets. As I have said, I am a caveman. I haven't lost weight in years - in fact, I've gained a lot recently due to exercise - but I have successfully ended the fat-building cycle while managing to eat the foods I want and stay fully nourished.)

Secondly, fat acceptance push several other notions that are contrary to reality: the "healthy at any size" philosophy, which flouts such facts as internal fatty buildup, skeletal strain, and correlation to a number of illnesses to proclaim that obesity has no impact on a person's health; the "fat is normal" philosophy, which ignores the inherent suddenness of this rise of overweight people; the "beautiful at any size" philosophy, which will optimistically describe the fattest bodies as "curvy;" and the associated "everyone is fatphobic" idea, which insists that if we could all get over our societal hang-ups we could learn to love fleshy blobs that barely resemble human beings.

If I have offended anyone or caused them to cry, I sincerely apologize for hurting your feelings, but I stand by this: As the saying goes (credit to Krishnamurti), "it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." The reason fat bodies are not the standard is not because they are not the social ideal, but because they are not the ideal for good health or functionality. Obesity cripples the body, limiting one's strength and stamina. The types of diets which are known to cause or reinforce it are equally as harmful, crippling the immune system and throwing the body's functions out of whack, leaving it vulnerable to stroke, heart disease, and diabetes - three of the greatest killers in the modern era. Occasionally, you will come upon someone who is truly obese in spite of the best health care conditions, or someone who eats a poorer diet but survives free of the typical killers, but these are rare occasions. For every obese person you know who lives to a healthy old age, there will doubtless be five or more who have suffered from heart problems, or else are afflicted by diabetes or mobility problems. Some of these problems are doubtless brought on by age, but it is not practical to dismiss obesity and diet simply because one is frustrated with one's own inability to lose weight.

This is not a one-size-fits-all assessment, of course. Much of it is based on my own experiences and family, but plenty of it is based on interpersonal stories from others on the Internet and my own experience with the fat acceptance community. Yo-yo dieting is not the answer, but treading carefully into a new lifestyle with your eyes wide open and plenty of knowledge at hand cannot be more dangerous than giving up and letting the pounds pile on.

But if I do not agree with either of these camps, where then do I stand? I am not instantly critical of someone just for being overweight. It makes them appear less healthy, and therefore attractive, in my eyes, because extra weight is a common indicator of poor diet or other problems that can result in weakness or early death. But I cannot criticize someone simply for having that body - not when I have been completely unsuccessful in curing my own weight problems. The greatest hurdle, I believe, is in overcoming my eating disorder; it is true that weight loss can be prevented or even reversed through the consumption of excess calories. The second hurdle is in mustering up the strength to say "no" - to fight the societal pressures to consume certain foods, and also my own senseless urges as they crop up. I will not say that I am perfect or that my experiences speak for everyone, but this is your world as I see it.