Correct, I did say that, and I’m not taking it back. Actually being healthy is better than pretending it’s fine to be fat. If everywhere you go, people tolerate your lard, you’ll forget the increased issues that come along with being overweight.
you know something interesting? your way is the norm. most fat people are ashamed all the time. the fat acceptance movement is not about saying it’s fine to be fat, it’s about saying that you, fat person, are not less of a human being for being overweight. the movement exists because the bullying is the default, and it is driving people into depression.
As a fat person I was able to live 99% of my life never thinking about or realizing I was fat. Able to live in denial, I always thought I was just “chubby” despite being 75 pounds too heavy for my health.
So I don’t buy that yours is a generalization one can safely make. You are arguing in defense of the fat acceptance movement here by pointing out that it’s not an absolutist thing, so you ought to also understand that despite someone using a word like “bully” it doesn’t mean everyone not supporting that movement wants actual bullying to occur. I certainly read what they wrote more tongue in cheek. I lived a decade as a fat person without even knowing it. A lot of people probably are in the same boat. When I visit family everyone looks fat AF to me but if I’d never moved away I certainly would see them and myself differently. I suspect most of those folks think they are “chubby” and are usually able to avoid feeling shame about it.
It would be nice if the conversation could be about feeling better, instead of shame about aesthetics… If I realized I could feel MUCH better 24/7 for years I would’ve lived my twenties very differently. And obviously shame wouldn’t have been helpful or necessary to get me to see that.
just so we’re not having two conversations on the same topic, i believe my other response to you to be relevant here as well.
this is an interesting perspective though, and one i hadn’t considered simply because i’ve never seen a community of only overweight people.
i am used to seeing a lot of pushback to the fat acceptance movement from people who do not read past the headline, and that’s understandable because the initial read is provocative, probably intentionally so. but what else can i read into “bullying”?
remember my situation here, every overweight person i know is painfully aware of their weight, and i believe that if bullying worked they would no longer be overweight. same thing with motivational stuff. imo what these people need is acceptance, because society assigns them lower self-worth so they don’t feel like it’s worth it for them to take care of themselves.
in the situation you describe though? it sounds like the external factors affect the entire community. the obesity goes up not because mental health declines, but because the norm changes. it certainly sounds unusual. i think societal pressure at that point would also lead to othering, since you’re then declaring that a particular geographic area is doing something wrong… i’m reminded of the tooth thing from an earlier comment again.
Thanks for the response and sorry for the dual reply. What part of the world are you from? I’m American and we’re mostly obese here. My experience is that in cities probably 30% of people are noticeably overweight but anywhere outside a city is more like 75%, no joke. It’s gotten worse since I was a kid for sure.
The kind of “bullying” that is never okay is making people (especially children) feel bad for something they never chose. The “good” “bullying” would be better feedback at doctor visits and things like these floor signs. It’s obviously a touchy subject and a difficult thing to address so I’m not flush with examples.
Mainly I just wish my doctors had seemed concerned before I had “elevated” blood pressure at age 30. And mind you, even then the only reason I got the message was mention of possible medication for it. I know for sure in a lot of American families, such medication is seen as normal and not concerning. It is in my family, I just go against the grain in a lot of ways so for me that was a wakeup call.
I was directly shamed for being fat so infrequently that I cannot even think of a specific example. I think I wrote it off as people just being mean. Being male, I know I’d naturally get less of that, but still. I marvel to this day how I could’ve looked and felt like that and still thought “meh, eventually I’d like to lose 15 pounds” when I truly needed to lose 65 minimum.
i assumed american, partly from the .world and partly from the difference in experience. i’m from rural scandinavia, basically in the mid-point of the peninsula. we are also “dealing” with what doctors are calling an obesity epidemic, as is most of europe. in quotes because what’s being suggested is basically that sign.
i am also a much larger than the average individual, not quite to the point that i hit my head on doorjambs but my hairline definitely suggests some scraping has taken place. when i was in school in the 90s, the teachers were so worried about some of us being obese that me and a few others got “extra motor training”, which basically boiled down to an extra PE session every week. my parents tried to get me to start every hobby under the sun, so to speak, and me being interested in “indoor activities” made them feel like they failed, which of course spilled over onto me. so i’ve always been big, and i’ve always been made aware of this fact.
now, in regards to bullying, i’m going to drop a word, and depending on your degree of redditorness you may or may not disappear like a staked vampire:
brace...
microaggression
still with me? ok, so.
a doctor saying “you should try to lose weight” is not helpful. it is a statement of fact, yes, but it gives no information. a doctor running tests and saying “these things are off-balance it your body, here’s something we/you can try to fix them” is useful. a doctor not wanting to do those tests because it is clear that the patient needs to lose weight is actively harmful. doctors have missed acute heart problems and cancers because of that. and yet it is common. this is is usually what’s sloppily referred to as a microagression: a (possibly subconscious) act that from one perspective may seem neutral or even helpful, but from the other is detrimental to mental health. the floor sign seems like a good idea if you have the sensibility that “obese people are lazy and showing them this will motivate them”, but with the mindset “obese people are trying already and always telling them that they are not doing enough will ruin them in the long run” it’s just yet another thing on the pile of othering and self-loathing. when that is done consistently towards a group of people, i would classify that the same as the sort of bullying that children do.
now, what our conversation here has shown is that both of these things can be true at once, and that one strategy or the other isn’t the “right” one. asia in general and korea in particular (again, if this is korea) also has a huuuuge thing about normative culture and othering. so while this may wake some people up in your community, i think the effect over there is that it would do more harm than good.
as for the tooth thing, i brought it up in another comment thread about the source of the obesity epidemic. basically when the number of affected people starts getting too big, individual choice can no longer explain the statistic. my example was the discovery of flouride’s effect on dental health, which was due to research on the teeth of a community in rural colorado which had, much much better dental health than the rest of the country. turns out, lots of fluoride in the ground there. if only a few people have good teeth, they are probably careful about their teeth. if most of them do, it’s most likely out of their hands.
I appreciate and understand your response. Before you wrote this, I would’ve assumed people from your part of the world would be pretty happy with how your countries handle public health issues in general, because all the data I’m aware of indicates that whatever you are doing is working better than what we are doing. Admittedly I haven’t seen recent obesity numbers though. And now I’m seeing the cost that measures like you described can have, and it’s probably not even fair to assume those measures deserve credit for the relative skinniness of Scandinavia. I gotta admit it is tempting to think your society is as close to utopia as exists, but there’s clearly a lot I don’t know.
In America, I think the shame and hate against fat people is often more… subtle? I say that because I had multiple doctors say literally nothing about my weight when I know they should’ve, and I’m getting a lot of indicators from my rural family and friends that they don’t get much of that feedback either. I think in America, most fat people just look around and see media representations of very skinny attractive people and feel bad. Some of us don’t get a lot of direct criticism (constructive or otherwise), to the point that I find it harmful. I’m not sure how to strike the right balance there.
I agree. I used to live in the south and knew I was chubby but had no idea I was fat until I lost weight and moved away (not a coincidence).
We need less coddling of fat people. I know most fat people are aware they are, but if you think your concern level should be a 3 when your doctor thinks it’s an 8, that’s a huge fucking problem.
I know people in their thirties who aren’t concerned that they’re obese and diabetic from their diet decisions which could be reversed if they just realized the severity of their circumstance. They just live in a world where it’s rare to get any feedback about it, and sadly a lot of doctors don’t even say that much to them about it from I can tell.
The idea that there are people advocating against extremely fat people having to pay for two seats on planes is a batshit example of the direction we need to go essentially opposite of.
We literally let kids be traumatized for life by bullies and do not much to stop it, yet somehow full-grown adults are so fragile they supposedly cannot handle any subtle implication that they are fat and need to live healthier…
We literally let kids be traumatized for life by bullies and do not much to stop it, yet somehow full-grown adults are so fragile they supposedly cannot handle any subtle implication that they are fat and need to live healthier…
i think those two things may be more closely related that you think…
you’re right, i should have. i hate when people do that, don’t know why i decided to be cryptic.
if we ignore for a second the role of industry in this whole thing, which is significant, people don’t just “become” sedentary and obese. eating can become a coping mechanism to deal with external trauma, and the way to regulate coping mechanisms is not to add more trauma. getting people to a healthier mental state is a good way to get them to care more about their bodies.
The “bullying” being advocated for here, to me, meant “not coddling anymore”. I’m not advocating for actually bullying anyone. I probably read the comment this way because I’ve known people to use the word in a more lighthearted way, such as “I bullied you into giving me a ride” meaning “I asked you last minute and you felt obligated (sorry)”.
In the context of this floor marking, I thought the idea was to not shy fully away from ever mentioning the topic. I am certainly not advocating for actual bullying. What I was getting at was that children develop hangups for life due to school bullies and practically no one cares. My teachers and bus drivers did little to stop me from getting bullied. That feels weird coming from the same society that is now so afraid an adult might feel fat sometimes, that they rarely talk about it. I know that some fat people get a ton of flak over a lifetime and that’s shitty, but I don’t think this floor signage is even close to that flak.
as mentioned elsewhere, i think this floor thing may be from a different sort of world than the one you grew up in. it would certainly explain the wide difference in opinions in the comments.
Sorry to come back around, I agree with this. One thing I didn’t say in our earlier conversation was that this is presented as Korean, which may have a different cultural interpretation for Korean readers (and us) - I don’t know.
If it helps contextualize my opinion from earlier, I’m Canadian and may have a similar cultural understanding to TrickDacy (though I won’t drag them into my opinion either lol).
Either way, enjoyed reading your (plural) conversation!
i’m sorry did you say bullied into a lifestyle that promotes physical and mental health?
Correct, I did say that, and I’m not taking it back. Actually being healthy is better than pretending it’s fine to be fat. If everywhere you go, people tolerate your lard, you’ll forget the increased issues that come along with being overweight.
you know something interesting? your way is the norm. most fat people are ashamed all the time. the fat acceptance movement is not about saying it’s fine to be fat, it’s about saying that you, fat person, are not less of a human being for being overweight. the movement exists because the bullying is the default, and it is driving people into depression.
As a fat person I was able to live 99% of my life never thinking about or realizing I was fat. Able to live in denial, I always thought I was just “chubby” despite being 75 pounds too heavy for my health.
So I don’t buy that yours is a generalization one can safely make. You are arguing in defense of the fat acceptance movement here by pointing out that it’s not an absolutist thing, so you ought to also understand that despite someone using a word like “bully” it doesn’t mean everyone not supporting that movement wants actual bullying to occur. I certainly read what they wrote more tongue in cheek. I lived a decade as a fat person without even knowing it. A lot of people probably are in the same boat. When I visit family everyone looks fat AF to me but if I’d never moved away I certainly would see them and myself differently. I suspect most of those folks think they are “chubby” and are usually able to avoid feeling shame about it.
It would be nice if the conversation could be about feeling better, instead of shame about aesthetics… If I realized I could feel MUCH better 24/7 for years I would’ve lived my twenties very differently. And obviously shame wouldn’t have been helpful or necessary to get me to see that.
just so we’re not having two conversations on the same topic, i believe my other response to you to be relevant here as well.
this is an interesting perspective though, and one i hadn’t considered simply because i’ve never seen a community of only overweight people.
i am used to seeing a lot of pushback to the fat acceptance movement from people who do not read past the headline, and that’s understandable because the initial read is provocative, probably intentionally so. but what else can i read into “bullying”?
remember my situation here, every overweight person i know is painfully aware of their weight, and i believe that if bullying worked they would no longer be overweight. same thing with motivational stuff. imo what these people need is acceptance, because society assigns them lower self-worth so they don’t feel like it’s worth it for them to take care of themselves.
in the situation you describe though? it sounds like the external factors affect the entire community. the obesity goes up not because mental health declines, but because the norm changes. it certainly sounds unusual. i think societal pressure at that point would also lead to othering, since you’re then declaring that a particular geographic area is doing something wrong… i’m reminded of the tooth thing from an earlier comment again.
Thanks for the response and sorry for the dual reply. What part of the world are you from? I’m American and we’re mostly obese here. My experience is that in cities probably 30% of people are noticeably overweight but anywhere outside a city is more like 75%, no joke. It’s gotten worse since I was a kid for sure.
The kind of “bullying” that is never okay is making people (especially children) feel bad for something they never chose. The “good” “bullying” would be better feedback at doctor visits and things like these floor signs. It’s obviously a touchy subject and a difficult thing to address so I’m not flush with examples.
Mainly I just wish my doctors had seemed concerned before I had “elevated” blood pressure at age 30. And mind you, even then the only reason I got the message was mention of possible medication for it. I know for sure in a lot of American families, such medication is seen as normal and not concerning. It is in my family, I just go against the grain in a lot of ways so for me that was a wakeup call.
I was directly shamed for being fat so infrequently that I cannot even think of a specific example. I think I wrote it off as people just being mean. Being male, I know I’d naturally get less of that, but still. I marvel to this day how I could’ve looked and felt like that and still thought “meh, eventually I’d like to lose 15 pounds” when I truly needed to lose 65 minimum.
Edit: meant to ask-- what tooth thing?
i assumed american, partly from the .world and partly from the difference in experience. i’m from rural scandinavia, basically in the mid-point of the peninsula. we are also “dealing” with what doctors are calling an obesity epidemic, as is most of europe. in quotes because what’s being suggested is basically that sign.
i am also a much larger than the average individual, not quite to the point that i hit my head on doorjambs but my hairline definitely suggests some scraping has taken place. when i was in school in the 90s, the teachers were so worried about some of us being obese that me and a few others got “extra motor training”, which basically boiled down to an extra PE session every week. my parents tried to get me to start every hobby under the sun, so to speak, and me being interested in “indoor activities” made them feel like they failed, which of course spilled over onto me. so i’ve always been big, and i’ve always been made aware of this fact.
now, in regards to bullying, i’m going to drop a word, and depending on your degree of redditorness you may or may not disappear like a staked vampire:
brace...
microaggression
still with me? ok, so.
a doctor saying “you should try to lose weight” is not helpful. it is a statement of fact, yes, but it gives no information. a doctor running tests and saying “these things are off-balance it your body, here’s something we/you can try to fix them” is useful. a doctor not wanting to do those tests because it is clear that the patient needs to lose weight is actively harmful. doctors have missed acute heart problems and cancers because of that. and yet it is common. this is is usually what’s sloppily referred to as a microagression: a (possibly subconscious) act that from one perspective may seem neutral or even helpful, but from the other is detrimental to mental health. the floor sign seems like a good idea if you have the sensibility that “obese people are lazy and showing them this will motivate them”, but with the mindset “obese people are trying already and always telling them that they are not doing enough will ruin them in the long run” it’s just yet another thing on the pile of othering and self-loathing. when that is done consistently towards a group of people, i would classify that the same as the sort of bullying that children do.
now, what our conversation here has shown is that both of these things can be true at once, and that one strategy or the other isn’t the “right” one. asia in general and korea in particular (again, if this is korea) also has a huuuuge thing about normative culture and othering. so while this may wake some people up in your community, i think the effect over there is that it would do more harm than good.
as for the tooth thing, i brought it up in another comment thread about the source of the obesity epidemic. basically when the number of affected people starts getting too big, individual choice can no longer explain the statistic. my example was the discovery of flouride’s effect on dental health, which was due to research on the teeth of a community in rural colorado which had, much much better dental health than the rest of the country. turns out, lots of fluoride in the ground there. if only a few people have good teeth, they are probably careful about their teeth. if most of them do, it’s most likely out of their hands.
sorry that got really long…
I appreciate and understand your response. Before you wrote this, I would’ve assumed people from your part of the world would be pretty happy with how your countries handle public health issues in general, because all the data I’m aware of indicates that whatever you are doing is working better than what we are doing. Admittedly I haven’t seen recent obesity numbers though. And now I’m seeing the cost that measures like you described can have, and it’s probably not even fair to assume those measures deserve credit for the relative skinniness of Scandinavia. I gotta admit it is tempting to think your society is as close to utopia as exists, but there’s clearly a lot I don’t know.
In America, I think the shame and hate against fat people is often more… subtle? I say that because I had multiple doctors say literally nothing about my weight when I know they should’ve, and I’m getting a lot of indicators from my rural family and friends that they don’t get much of that feedback either. I think in America, most fat people just look around and see media representations of very skinny attractive people and feel bad. Some of us don’t get a lot of direct criticism (constructive or otherwise), to the point that I find it harmful. I’m not sure how to strike the right balance there.
I agree. I used to live in the south and knew I was chubby but had no idea I was fat until I lost weight and moved away (not a coincidence).
We need less coddling of fat people. I know most fat people are aware they are, but if you think your concern level should be a 3 when your doctor thinks it’s an 8, that’s a huge fucking problem.
I know people in their thirties who aren’t concerned that they’re obese and diabetic from their diet decisions which could be reversed if they just realized the severity of their circumstance. They just live in a world where it’s rare to get any feedback about it, and sadly a lot of doctors don’t even say that much to them about it from I can tell.
The idea that there are people advocating against extremely fat people having to pay for two seats on planes is a batshit example of the direction we need to go essentially opposite of.
We literally let kids be traumatized for life by bullies and do not much to stop it, yet somehow full-grown adults are so fragile they supposedly cannot handle any subtle implication that they are fat and need to live healthier…
i think those two things may be more closely related that you think…
Why not say what you mean? I’m guessing your point is that bullying makes people more fragile but that’s just a guess.
you’re right, i should have. i hate when people do that, don’t know why i decided to be cryptic.
if we ignore for a second the role of industry in this whole thing, which is significant, people don’t just “become” sedentary and obese. eating can become a coping mechanism to deal with external trauma, and the way to regulate coping mechanisms is not to add more trauma. getting people to a healthier mental state is a good way to get them to care more about their bodies.
The “bullying” being advocated for here, to me, meant “not coddling anymore”. I’m not advocating for actually bullying anyone. I probably read the comment this way because I’ve known people to use the word in a more lighthearted way, such as “I bullied you into giving me a ride” meaning “I asked you last minute and you felt obligated (sorry)”.
In the context of this floor marking, I thought the idea was to not shy fully away from ever mentioning the topic. I am certainly not advocating for actual bullying. What I was getting at was that children develop hangups for life due to school bullies and practically no one cares. My teachers and bus drivers did little to stop me from getting bullied. That feels weird coming from the same society that is now so afraid an adult might feel fat sometimes, that they rarely talk about it. I know that some fat people get a ton of flak over a lifetime and that’s shitty, but I don’t think this floor signage is even close to that flak.
as mentioned elsewhere, i think this floor thing may be from a different sort of world than the one you grew up in. it would certainly explain the wide difference in opinions in the comments.
Sorry to come back around, I agree with this. One thing I didn’t say in our earlier conversation was that this is presented as Korean, which may have a different cultural interpretation for Korean readers (and us) - I don’t know.
If it helps contextualize my opinion from earlier, I’m Canadian and may have a similar cultural understanding to TrickDacy (though I won’t drag them into my opinion either lol).
Either way, enjoyed reading your (plural) conversation!