How do you feel about the 'Fat Acceptance' movement?

I think the whole "if you're happy then who cares what anyone else thinks" attitude needs to stop it gives them an easy way out of losing weight. IMO that kind of attitude should be reserved for if you get a slightly obscure pair of shoes.

Telling someone they are overweight is a bit of a taboo. At work i've overheard someone say "have you ever thought of giving up smoking? you sound like you've got a nasty cough" yet to the morbidly obese person no one has said "have you considered eating less, you spent 5 months in hospital where you flatlined twice (costing us sick pay) and we've had to put a special mat down so your chair doesnt **** up the carpet and yet you still eat tons"


I think there also needs to be a campaign that gets the message across that XYZ condition is only responsibile for a small minority of overweight people.



Dieting i've found is discouraged. I've always been really skinny but over xmas i put on close to 10lb, I wasn't overweight (bmi hit 24.9) but i was starting to get a bit of podge, so since new years i've started exercising and cutting the crap out of my diet as well as reducing calories i've heard so much "you don't need to lose any weight" "don't be silly why are you dieting". It's stupid because why not lose a few pounds now instead of getting to the stage where i'd need to lose a couple of stone to be my healthy weight.

I don't know what needs to be done as such but being overweight should be something you are ashamed of which it isnt anymore.

If I were fat, I wouldn't seek to end 'fat shaming' by criticising 'fat shamers', I'd try to get fit.

I saw that Katie Hopkins programme, and some lefty psychologist told her she may as well be trying to create the Aryan race by telling fatties they should be fitter. This is the kind of stupidity ubiquitous to the fat acceptance movement.

If they can summon enough energy to create a 'movement', I bet they can summon enough to start 'moving'.

Tbh I ride a motorbike and someone once told me to be careful because I cost their NHS money. I replied that obese people like him cost the NHS orders of magnitude more every year and at the time mine was not optional and his was.

Yea, I've heard the same crap about eating healthily. And then after this they'll tell you you're so lucky that you find losing weight easy. I reply. It's not easy, I'm always hungry and it's hard work but it's worth it.

Posted from TSR Mobile

yeah that's the line that gets me. I came into the office one day with a footlong subway and a packet of crisps then someone was sharing biscuits round so i had a couple and from the fatty I got "That's so unfair you can eat anything and stay thin". I replied with " I ran 10 miles last night I've got a half marathon at the weekend and i'll do some runs in between" I stopped myself there but wanted to continue with "You've eaten the same as me and will probably ask me to go to the stationery cupboard in 5mins because you can't get up 2 flights of stairs and unless you need a crap that will stink out the whole building you won't get out of your chair till home time when your taxi (free taxi paid for by the tax payer because shes classed as disabled) pulls up right at the front door whilst one of us has to carry your bag down stairs"

Got a link to the Katie hopkins programme?

I've not seen it. Thanks.

I think it's bad. It encourages that it is ok to live an unhealthy life style that costs the NHS billions.
It also promotes that it is ok to skinny shame and fit shame. The idea that it's ok to shame HEALTHY people to empower unhealthy ones is ridiculous! And as for "skinny doesn't mean healthy", new flash, it's a hell of a lot healthier to be skinny than fat. Far more people are dying from obesity related deaths than from eating disorders such as anorexia. Basically this is because there are a lot more obese people than those with eating disorders. The majority of thin people don't have eating disorders, they just live as humans were supposed to or just have a fast metabolism.

I do not support being mean to fat people because they are fat and do not dislike fat people. They should be encouraged to lose weight yes but yelling "fat bastard!" from across the street is hurtful.

Not supporting obesity is like not supporting cancer. You don't hate the cancer patients!

How do you honestly feel about the "Fat Acceptance" movement?

Do you think it is healthy, or is it doing more harm than good?

On one hand people should not be bullied for being fat but people encouraging others to not lose weight and skinny shaming is even worse.

As with everything, you need to have a balance.

That's assuming you see obesity as a disease. Cancer is a horrible disease which you don't have a choice in getting. Obesity is imo just a complete lack of self control.

That's assuming you see obesity as a disease. Cancer is a horrible disease which you don't have a choice in getting. Obesity is imo just a complete lack of self control.

What did she reply to that?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Are you aware of how difficult it is for some people to lose weight? Literally billions of years have gone into forging an organism whose primary goal is to reproduce, and whose secondary goal is to eat as much as possible. There are some pretty powerful mechanisms in place to make it really hard to lose weight. Yes, it's a "self-control problem" if you insist on phrasing it like that, but it requires a close-to-inhuman amount of self-control to overcome it if you're one of the unlucky ones (see paragraph 3).

Imagine a world in which humans live to 100 if they don't drink any liquids, and only to 20 if they drink more than a litre of liquid in any given year. (Yes, that's not a thing, but imagine we're in that world.) Then try and give up drinking water. I imagine the biological mechanisms which lead us to crave water would start kicking in pretty rapidly, and after seven days of intolerable thirst, you'd drink. Repeat for the next week. And the next. And the next. Look who's ended up costing the NHS huge sums of money to keep them alive past 20 when "it's just a self-control problem!"

Additionally, some people are simply less prone to addiction of all kinds than others. Some people just get addicted to things at the drop of a hat - they got unlucky in the dopamine-receptors draw when the sperm met the egg. Consider that maybe you are one of the lucky ones, either on the addiction front or on the desire-for-food front.

Isolating people who eat because they feel isolated won't help anything.

It comes down to how you can teach someone self-discipline. Do you support and encourage them, or not? Some ideas:

1. Force them to do it when young. I mean the British public school type physical education. This is free, and there is no reason why it shouldn't be implemented in state schools. At the very least, all children without medical conditions should be made to run regularly.
2. I wouldn't mind health warnings on junk food. Anyone who wants to eat it still can, but even skinny people could benefit from knowing what it's doing to their heart.
3. Books and TV programmes already 'teach' us about how we are supposed to behave (sometimes patronisingly). There's a propaganda machine already in place - why not put in some motivational and realistic stories about kids / adults transforming their lives? It could be simple (Tim the bullied fat boy trains in secret until he's really fit and gets a girlfriend) or something like the Karate Kid, but more achievable. Instead of having magically skinny celebrities, advertise what they do to keep fit.
4. Make 5k races etc less of a 'niche' thing. As well as the London marathon, have small races that everyone can enjoy, and publicise them as things you can take your children to.
5. 'Healthy' fast food. I don't mean carrots and lettuce, I mean pasta bake, homemade curry and soup. Decent, filling food that has a couple of nutrients in it somewhere. I would actually choose to buy that over chips, and it's so cheap to make.

I do find the recent surge of 'what's your excuse?' fitspo to make you feel WORSE, I mean no one should be made to feel lesser because they don't look like Jennifer Nicole Lee...but proper obese acceptance hamstering has got to stop.

I HATE skinny shaming.


The awks when your dad is pro HAES because his gf is kinda overweight...buuut she takes care of herself eats well mostly and exercises so can't really attack her? I mean just a few nights ago she made us a quorn and feta pasta salad.

And Dad specifically attacks celebrity culture promoting unrealistic physique expectations,
which is not the same as weight.


This debate will never go down in my family coming from someone with a recovering ED

Fat acceptance.

"We know we are fat and we know it's unhealthy, but we don't want to change our lifestyle so, society, if you'd be so kind, just accept that we're fat."

I'll be honest, I don't think anybody should be forced to lose weight. Should society shame them for being fat? Well, society will always shame them no matter what. I don't think it's a good thing. But by shaming fat people is a form of criticism and losing weight takes effort. The default, self-defensive response from fat people? "F off, there's nothing wrong with being fat."

Being fat is an issue for both the society and the individual (mostly). If as a society we want people to lose weight, shaming them isn't the answer. Understanding them, educating them and encouraging and enabling them to lose weight seems to me the only way real change will happen. Shaming is just the easiest thing to do. Lazy and hurtful.