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Red Piller: Fellas! It’s your sacred duty “to make fat women ashamed of themselves again”

Some of the evil pro-fat-lady propaganda filling contemporary media if by contemporary you mean maybe 75 years ago

By David Futrelle

It’s tough to be a man in the year of our lord 2018. It’s legal for women to say no to sex, even if you’re married to them. Many women have jobs, and if you politely ask them, say, if the carpet matches the drapes they complain to HR instead of answering your simple query.

Men only hold 95% of the CEO jobs in Fortune 500 companies, and only 80% of those in the congress and Senate are men — and most of the women who’ve taken men’s jobs in politics and the business world are post-wall hags anyway. Even video games have female characters in them now —  and not all of them are skinny hotties with massive gravity-resistant bazongas that bounce up and down when they move.

Even worse, when you leave the house, roughly HALF of all those you’re likely to encounter are female. Even worser than worse, many of these women are FAT.

I recently ran across one brave soul in the Red Pill subreddit who is standing up against this final injustice, the worst of them all. In a post titled “Women are getting fatter because no one calls them out on it,” this internet hero launched a scathing attack on the women ruining his life by being fat in his immediate vicinity.

I recently spent 5 days in New Orleans. … I’m well aware of America’s current obesity crisis, but I was still shocked at how many fat women I saw. They were everywhere, and I can confidently say that they outnumbered fat men. 

Actually, the percentage of American women classified as obese (40%) isn’t that much greater than the percentage of men (35%), but, who knows, maybe New Orleans generates some sort of fat-lady-attracting magnetic field.

I saw countless couples where the woman was fatter than the man. It was practically the norm.

A skinny woman with a fat guy? Good for him. A skinny man with a fat women? HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION. WAR CRIME.

At every restaurant I would see 5’5” women putting away just as much food as their 6’ boyfriend/husband. At every bar I would see these seemingly genderless, shrieking blobs guzzling sugary cocktails. On every block I would see overweight bachelorette parties stumbling down the street wearing revealing clothes … .

Woah. I just got chills. It;s just like that famous monologue from Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, if everything he had mentioned in it had been fat. I wonder what that might have sounded like.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Fatties eating hot wings off the shoulder of Orion. I watched hamplanets glitter in the dark near the TGIFridays. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in a carton of ice cream. Time to diet.

But back to our internet hero and his rant.

Based on my observations, I can conclude that the main problem is there is no taboo against being a fat chick in America anymore.

It’s true. These days fat women never face any sort of criticism for their weight. Sure, the pressure to be thin leads countless teenage girls to develop eating disorders. Sure, when a woman turns down a sexual advance from a man, the spurned would-be lover might loudly inform her she’s just a “fat bitch” anyway. And sure, when fat women post selfies on social media, they might get hundreds of replies from angry dudes accusing them of being ugly fatties who are “glorifying obesity” by existing in public.

But that’s all in good fun! No harm, no foul!

I think a lot of men just accept it now- after all, society is constantly telling us that men and women are exactly the same. Women can (and should) eat just as much food as men, and to say otherwise is offensive and old-fashioned.

Yes, that’s right. The relentless message we get from the media and society in general is that men and women are exactly the same and should eat exactly the same things. Those stock photos of women laughing alone with salad? All in your head (well, except for these).

Nowadays, it’s very common to hear guys say shit like, “I hate when women only order salad at dinner” and then be applauded for saying it. I think that’s nonsense- when ordering just a salad, she’s trying to signal to you that she has self control and is unlikely to get fat later in the relationship. This is a good thing, and should be encouraged.

Also, she should force herself to hold in her farts every minute she is with you, because that means she’s trying to signal to you that WOMEN DON’T POOP.

Women tend to be gullible, so they easily buy into media messages telling them that “all women are beautiful.” If one of their friends gains weight, they will reassure her and tell her she still looks hot. In fact, I bet most fat chicks nowadays can go their whole lives without anyone saying, “You are fat, and this is not okay” to their face.

Dude, I think you may have used a wrong word here. When you said “go their whole lives” did you mean “go a whole hour,” because otherwise I’m pretty sure you’re making a sucker bet.

If you appreciate female beauty and femininity, it is up to you to help make fat women be ashamed of themselves again.

There’s nothing healthier than tearing down someone else’s self-esteem because for some reason you assume how they look is any of your business.

Don’t think of it as being mean- think of it as tough love.

If by “love” you mean “hate.”

The only negative reinforcement that most women respond to is the threat of social ostracization.

Well, that is sort of a classic move. There’s just one flaw in your plan, dude, which is that most women wouldn’t actually be terribly hurt if you left them alone and went off by yourself forever.

If there is a fat chick in your social circle, pay as little attention to her as possible. If a fat woman tries to give you a hug, you should recoil a bit and make a “yeesh” face. You should talk about how disgusting fat people are when they are within earshot (thin women may pretend to be offended by this, but trust me it’s mostly an act). If you bump into a woman you haven’t seen since college and she’s gained weight, pretend to not recognize her at first. If a drunk fat woman tries to hit on you, tell her sorry but you aren’t attracted to big women.

Yes, spend your whole life actively trying to make other people feel bad about themselves for how they look. Nothing weird or creepy or fucking pathological about this.

If a fat woman in your office is talking to you, make a point to glance at her stomach every few seconds … .

If you get called in by HR for creating a hostile work environment just because you are in fact trying to create a hostile work environment, well, I’m sure Fox News and Breitbart and Jordan Peterson would be happy to take up your cause.

Let me just skip the part where he gloats about how cool it is to “make some fat chicks cry themselves to sleep at night” and brags about saving an alcoholic friend of his by being a dick to him.

I’m typing this on my phone, so I’m going to end my rant now. If you have any other fat shaming suggestions, please share them. And if you’re a fat guy reading this, I hope I hurt your feelings. Stop being so fat, you fucking fat fuck.

As it turns out, I am a fat guy reading this. You didn’t hurt my feelings. You just made yourself look like an insecure asshole who tries to distract himself from his insecurities by attacking other people for things that aren’t any of your fucking business. Shut your fucking face, you fucking fuck.

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Dvärghundspossen
6 years ago

@Weirwoodtreehugger:

It is the norm. It’s the norm now. It was the norm back in whatever time period you think was better. It’s the norm everywhere. That’s because AFAB people naturally have higher body fat than AMAB people. I know manospherians suck at science and think thinner = more fertile or whatever, but the higher fat is actually beneficial for pregnancy and nursing.

No, this varies from country to country. In Sweden, 42 % of women have an BMI above 25 and the same goes for 58 % of the men. So men here are fatter than women on average. (Also, people are most fertile when they’re at some kind of medium weight – fertility goes down both as people go skinnier and as they go fatter.)

BUUUUT what’s fun to me is that Sweden is supposed to be this feminist hell, so if feminism made women go fatter than men in the US, how can Swedish women be thinner than men?

Lukas Xavier
Lukas Xavier
6 years ago

@MissEB47
Sorry about your family. That’s really shitty behavior.

MissEB47 (Resident Rainbow Lorikeet and Beak Typist)
MissEB47 (Resident Rainbow Lorikeet and Beak Typist)
6 years ago

Thanks Lukas. 😀 Yep, they suck. But at least I don’t live with them anymore. 😛 😀

Skylalalalalalala
Skylalalalalalala
6 years ago

issEB47 (Resident Rainbow Lorikeet and Beak Typist)
August 12, 2018 at 3:40 am
Fuck this guy. I was fat shamed and made to hate my body from age 9/10, long before I was actually overweight. I look at pictures of 10 year old me and wonder what the hell these people (both family and friends. It was very hurtful) were going on about. I was actually quite slim. In fact I was the PEFECT weight for my age.

Same here. I remember weighing 105lbs in grade 7. I haven’t grown (height) since I was in grade 6, and I’m 5′, so I was literally a perfect weight then. And I was completely convinced I was ….well, the size I actually am now.

My bullies were other kids, although my family did kind of encourage me to lose weight – they were all quite thin & fit & I wasn’t (I’m adopted – I look a lot like my paternal aunt). They never bullied me themselves, they just sometimes weren’t very compassionate about how upset I was. The thing is, I was a perfectly healthy weight & reasonably fit, and until a couple years before the worst of the bullying I was in acrobatics, ballet, swimming & tap, although not all at the same time. And I rode bikes a lot and ran around a lot. The bullying made me start hiding out in my house and then the weight started coming. Even then, though, I was only 130 through most of high school. It was the birth control pill & hypothyroidism as an adult that made me actually become as fat as I always believed I was.

dust bunny
August 12, 2018 at 3:46 am
*I’d be willing to bet money that a huge majority of the negative health effects of fat are actually way more about the stress and not the fat. It’s just not easy to study them separately, and scientists are biased against fat people just like everybody else.

I would not bet against you. In fact, I’ve long said that the bias against fat people has led them to ignore the highly likely possibility that fat is a symptom, not a cause. Likely a symptom of a number of different things, but a symptom nonetheless.

I just finished reading the book The Obesity Paradox and, while trying to make the point that being fat isn’t as bad as we’ve been told and bringing up the multitude of studies (many of which he conducted) showing that the healthiest weight range is actually the “overweight” one, as well as promoting fitness over thinness, the author’s bias is readily apparent and detracts from his message.

Dvärghundspossen
6 years ago

MissEB47: Yeah that’s absolutely horrible. I’m so sorry for you.

Dvärghundspossen
6 years ago

@Bina:

Nowadays, it’s very common to hear guys say shit like, “I hate when women only order salad at dinner” and then be applauded for saying it.

It is? Where?

Well, I think it is pretty common to shame women for eating what’s considered diet food, but it’s part of this “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” thing where women are also shamed if they gain weight… Basically, lots of guys have this idea that a woman ought to be naturally thin, and eat big meals with abandon while never gaining a pound. It’s part of this larger ideal where women are just supposed to be naturally beautiful (as in conforming to common beauty standards) in all respects while never caring about the way they look and never putting any actual time or effort into looking good. Because, you know, women who do are vain and shallow and high-maintenance and what-not.

I remember even reading this in some horrible women’s magazine on a page with horrible dating advice: when out at a restaurant, you should go like “oh, those deep-fried ribs look super-tasty” or whatever, and then if you’re actually on a diet or actually a vegetarian you should… somehow… uh… get out of this situation somehow? That part was really unclear.

the real cie
6 years ago

There are hamplanets glittering by the TGI Friday’s? Wow! Cool! I’ll have to drive by the TGI Friday’s and see if there are any hamplanets there. I’ve heard of these hamplanets, but I’ve never seen one. If they’re glittery, that must be extra special.
I developed an eating disorder when I was 12 years old because I was so paranoid about getting fat. It wasn’t because I thought that fat people were bad, it was seeing how fat people were treated. I didn’t want to be treated like that. I spent 33 years trying to yo-yo diet myself into a size that my body didn’t want to be. Given that my endocrine system is a dumpster fire, it’s highly unlikely that I’d ever become thin unless I became critically ill, and maybe not even then. So, I learned to accept my body as it is.
Unfortunately, our awful medical system doesn’t want to allow me to just be as I am, they want to force more diets (which didn’t work for 33 years, so I don’t know how they’re supposed to work now) or stomach amputation on me. This makes for uncomfortable and enraging doctor’s appointments, not compassionate medical care. I would never go to a doctor if it weren’t for this dumpster fire of an endocrine system.
That being said, I don’t have a problem with my weight. For some reason, other people take it upon themselves to have a problem with my weight.
The only way I’d ever be truly ashamed of myself again is if I let one of these douchebros into my pants. And at that point, the shame wouldn’t be because of my weight, it would be because I had been incredibly disrespectful of myself and should certainly know better.

Buttercup Q. Skullpants

I like Drew Barrymore’s response to fat shamers: “I don’t have room in my life for the neurosis of other people’s expectations”.

Bullying strangers for not being attractive enough isn’t some sort of public service. It’s douche signalling for the approval of other douches. It’s whiny middle-school insecurity, broadcast through a megaphone. It’s the mistaken idea that because his approval is scarce, it’s valuable, and women will degrade and starve themselves for it. Guys like this have an overinflated sense of how much the world cares about their opinions.

At least this “modest proposal” will help women identify and reject him faster.

Buttercup Q. Skullpants

I mean, this

when ordering just a salad, she’s trying to signal to you that she has self control and is unlikely to get fat later in the relationship.

is signalling that he’s likely to police your body throughout the relationship. He’s going to hyperventilate over every single thing you eat, because your health and comfort are less important than what some imaginary alpha Chad might think of him.

Hard pass.

kupo
kupo
6 years ago

@Wetherby

My wife once failed to recognise her ex-husband when they bumped into each other by chance, a good twenty years after their divorce. He recognised her immediately, but apparently he’d changed appearance quite drastically and in multiple and not especially flattering ways.

Judging by the text you quoted, the “not especially flattering ways” are fat ways, are they not? What’s so unflattering about being fat? Please do tell.

Mikey
Mikey
6 years ago

I’m a short, fat male and, being in Oz, when walking have had bogans call me a fat lady part as they drove past in their car in which they were seated and not walking.

As a child I had my dad weigh me naked in unisex changing areas and make sad noises at my body.

Once, when I came “home” from the town I now lived, after he hugged me he asked when I was expecting.

It took me a long time to accept my body and the skeletal deformity that caused it; others never could.

I even got a lapband and it’s still in me but I had it drained because the pain when food got stuck was mind melting.

I’m always glad when people with normal bodies hang poo on me for my body even though I didn’t choose it. Wait, I’m not, it makes me sad. There is nothing like being paraded in front of an entire school to have your flaws pointed out; that actually happened to me, the audience about 700.

Being a fat man sucks; getting gender slammed as a woman for being fat and therefore failing society by not being beddable to some is just hideous. Then there’s phone posting heroes out there making themselves feel great because they won biology. Well done, your body, for not being fat. I’m sure genetics and no body fails were mostly responsible. Your behaviour online however is all you.

I don’t like wishing ill on people but it would be delish if Mr New Orleans gets a reverse Nutty Professor such as say an injury or medical condish where meds also add to weight gain, and he cannot skip through life slinging mud at the fat for being one too.

That and get the drive-by abuse when walking while fat. Again, I’m the one doing the exercise but then people who yell abuse from passing cars are generally not friends with logic—or salad.

Victorious Parasol
Victorious Parasol
6 years ago

Heck, my next-younger sister fat-shamed me when I was 12. All couched in a framing of “just trying to HELP,” of course. And she wondered why I didn’t like her.

I am losing weight these days, but it’s the effect of following a type 2 diabetic diet plus exercise, which I’m doing to keep my A1c as low as possible for as long as possible. I like my feet the way they are – free of gangrene and diabetic neuropathy – and the same goes for my eyes and kidneys.

Cyborgette
Cyborgette
6 years ago

I’m chubby and it helps me give amazing hugs, so yeah fuck this noise. 🙂

@MissEB47: OMG I’m sorry you went through that 🙁 Undermining behavior from family is the worst.

@various

Not only endocrine stuff, also medication side effects. Psychiatric meds especially have weight gain side effects in a lot of people, and between the levels of trauma that women deal with and the extent to which our whole existence is pathologized, a lot of us are on those.

(And my own experience in the US mental healthcare system has shown me that women are often put on higher doses vs. body mass than men, and medicated to fully suppress symptoms rather than restore day to day functionality. And that’s when deliberate abuse is *not* occurring. The whole thing is a nightmare.)

So yeah TL;DR fuck fat shamers, they are gross and callous and don’t know shit.

Catalpa
Catalpa
6 years ago

That’s because AFAB people naturally have higher body fat than AMAB people.

No, this varies from country to country. In Sweden, 42 % of women have an BMI above 25 and the same goes for 58 % of the men.

WWTH is referring to body fat percentage, not BMI. On average, AFAB people’s bodies have a total fat percentage that is 8% higher than AMAB bodies. Generally because of breasts and other AFAB-specific endocrine requirements.

BMI only calculates weight divided by height, and has nothing directly to do with fat. (Muscle is more dense than fat, for example.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage (I don’t recommend visiting this page if you are vulnerable to disordered eating that might be triggered by this kind of thing.)

weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee

Dvarg,

It’s very well established that generally women have a higher body fat percentage than men. As far as I’ve read, this is cross cultural. BMI just addresses how much someone weighs, not how much of that weight is fat. IIRC, female bodied people have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% more body fat than male bodied people.

Point is, it’s a little ridiculous to expect women to have a very low level of body fat when for most of us, that would actually be very unhealthy. But that’s what’s expected of us.

I tend to think most health and fitness standards are derived from studies on men and just extrapolated to women. So, even beauty standards aside, there’s increased fat shaming from the health and medical side of things on women too. Given that fat is seen as diseased, almost evil, women are just naturally more evil.

I’m probably rambling now, but anyway, yeah, women are fatter overall and contrary to popular belief it’s not a bad a thing or a sign of weakness. It’s just biology.

Dvärghundspossen
6 years ago

Yeah good point, yeah women have a higher percentage body fat than men, but I guess that when these guys check out fat women with slightly less fat men they’re not somehow measuring how much of their bodies consist of fat. They’re just noting that there are bigger women with slightly slimmer men out there. And whether that’s generally so or the other way around varies between countries. Although I have no idea why.

Bina
Bina
6 years ago

@Wetherby:

My wife once failed to recognise her ex-husband when they bumped into each other by chance, a good twenty years after their divorce. He recognised her immediately, but apparently he’d changed appearance quite drastically and in multiple and not especially flattering ways.

Yeah, douchebaggery will do that to a person. Someone who starts out reasonably good-looking when they’re young, but is a jerk to others, will end up with the face they deserve by middle age. Maybe even well before that, like my fat-shamey ex. His mother was a hospital dietitian, and when I met him, he was 21, still relying on her careful food prep and that youthful metabolism (and soccer, which his dad coached) to keep his legs looking good in those uniform shorts. And he had the audacity to tell me food was my “enemy”, when his own mom could have told him loud and clear that it didn’t work that way. Even did it on dates, thus ruining all the fun. Yup, he was a douchebag…and while I don’t laugh at fat people in general, I do laugh about him, not because he got fat but because he found out the hard karmic way what he hadn’t had a clue about when he was young and dumb and full of notions. He seriously thought that food was the enemy, but only for women. And in the end, when he got out from under his mom’s roof (and dietary supervision), shit happened. He wasn’t even 30 when I saw him again, but he looked closer to 50. (Thinning hair and a prematurely grizzled beard were also partly why I didn’t recognize him; he had a full head and was clean-shaven when we were a thing.) He looked older, not in the “wiser and more mature” way, but in the “holy shit, what happened to YOU” kind of way.

That’s why I held my laughter in until I got out of sight and earshot. Truth be told, I felt sorry for him…but not sorry enough to forget how awful and mistrustful of myself he’d made me feel under claims that he was only doing it because he “loved” me. I had to laugh, because if I didn’t, I’d surely have cried.

@Dvärghundspossen:

Well, I think it is pretty common to shame women for eating what’s considered diet food, but it’s part of this “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” thing where women are also shamed if they gain weight… Basically, lots of guys have this idea that a woman ought to be naturally thin, and eat big meals with abandon while never gaining a pound. It’s part of this larger ideal where women are just supposed to be naturally beautiful (as in conforming to common beauty standards) in all respects while never caring about the way they look and never putting any actual time or effort into looking good. Because, you know, women who do are vain and shallow and high-maintenance and what-not.

That makes sense…in a terrible way. And it really puts the lie to the idea that men are “logical”. These guys think women should be naturally this and naturally that, while holding the most unnatural standard of what we should be.

And yet, a lot of the guys who have these bizarre notions of what a woman’s nature “should” be, are a walking mass of contradictions themselves. I can’t count the number of guys I’ve seen who’ve harshly criticized the smallest “flaws” on otherwise lovely women, but were no Calvin Klein underwear models themselves. You’d think their own flaws would give them pause and make them a bit more tolerant, but no.

Projection, I think, plays a huge role in all this. As does the arch-sexist idea that men should be considered perfect no matter how imperfect they are, while a woman, no matter how perfect, is never perfect enough. There’s always someone “better”…but once they “upgrade” to that “better” person, they start nagging and nitpicking on her, too. All while doing nothing about their own glaring shortcomings (and not just the physical ones, although those are there too). Picking on someone else saves them having to work on what’s the matter with THEM.

I remember even reading this in some horrible women’s magazine on a page with horrible dating advice: when out at a restaurant, you should go like “oh, those deep-fried ribs look super-tasty” or whatever, and then if you’re actually on a diet or actually a vegetarian you should… somehow… uh… get out of this situation somehow? That part was really unclear.

Heh…I remember something like that, too! It was in Cosmopolitan, sometime in the early-mid ’80s, if memory serves. A whole pull-out supplement on how to be on a diet without anyone else knowing it. The advice ranged from marginally acceptable (“Raw oysters are full of protein and minerals, and low on calories to boot”) to nutritionally ignorant (“Never, EVER put your hand in the nut bowl!”) to downright depressing (“Don’t just sit there with your hands in your lap while your adored Mr. Right is filling his face with pasta puttanesca — order a salad!”) I can almost recite that whole stupid thing from memory, that’s how farcical it was.

And the sad part is, this silly advice was considered “sensible” at the time…and this while the back pages were still full of ads for amphetamine-based diet pills and other, even dodgier quack remedies for imaginary physical faults, like too-big hips or too-small boobs. I was a reasonably skeptical teenager when I read those, and knew a scam when I saw it, but still impressionable and self-hating enough at times to almost want to consider sending away for that crap that I knew better than to buy. The content throughout the rest of the mag was practically calculated to make one feel so awful by the end that the shit in those ads looked downright tempting.

kupo
kupo
6 years ago

Yeah good point, yeah women have a higher percentage body fat than men, but I guess that when these guys check out fat women with slightly less fat men they’re not somehow measuring how much of their bodies consist of fat. They’re just noting that there are bigger women with slightly slimmer men out there.

But often boobs = fat. Women are deemed “too fat” for having *any* visible fat on them. These guys are not in any way, shape, or form objective in their assessment of which partner is fatter.

Scildfreja Unnyðnes
Scildfreja Unnyðnes
6 years ago

@Bina!

As does the arch-sexist idea that men should be considered perfect no matter how imperfect they are, while a woman, no matter how perfect, is never perfect enough. There’s always someone “better”…but once they “upgrade” to that “better” person, they start nagging and nitpicking on her, too.

A-are you suggesting…

that men

are hypergamous???

comment image

Wetherby
Wetherby
6 years ago

@kupo

Judging by the text you quoted, the “not especially flattering ways” are fat ways, are they not? What’s so unflattering about being fat? Please do tell.

I can’t, because I wasn’t there. And since I have no idea what he looked like twenty years earlier, for all I know he’d become alarmingly thin instead, although I don’t actually think she mentioned his body shape at all. I believe substantial hair loss was a factor, and there were other clear signs that he was still fond of the odd tipple or several (the major reason why they divorced, I understand), but that’s all that I recall.

Incidentally, if you think for one millisecond that I’m in any way prejudiced about people’s size, I’m very happily married to someone that Alexander McCall Smith would describe as “traditionally built”, she’s been that shape for as long as I’ve known her, and I have never once suggested that she change it.

Nanny Oggs Busom
Nanny Oggs Busom
6 years ago

I am and always have been fat. Legs like tree trunks since I was a baby. Big appetite. And all that.

I was also bullied terribly by kids at school and teased by family for not being thin like my sisters. I had mental health issues from early teens. And comfort ate. Might have something to do with undiagnosed autism, that.

I was dieting as a teenager, the school nurse used to interrogate me about what I was eating, and the kids used to bully me. I’ve been back and forth to weight loss groups and had limited success because I get obsessed, which isn’t good for my mental health either. Those groups are toxic, and encourage disordered eating and attitudes to food. They set people up to fail by putting them under pressure in the knowledge that once you get to your ‘ideal weigh’ you have to keep obsessing over food and paying to be weighed or you’ll put the weight back on in the next 5 years (95% of people regain their lost weight and a bit more once they stop attending meetings). The pressure to lose as much weight as possible is ridiculous, with prizes for ‘the biggest loser’ of the week and teasing of anyone who struggles by the group leaders. And the NHS would give you 12 weeks of vouchers to be treat like that, because ‘it’s good for you’. I refuse to have anything to do with them because it’s not good for me to get obsessed by food and exercise. Although my sisters are losing weight wit Weight Watchers and I keep getting ‘hints’ from Dad that I should go with them. And the doctor occasionally asks if I’ve tried it, and looks sceptical when I explain that it leads to obsession and my weight yo-yoing.

I worked with people who told me walking daily, gardening an allotment 5 days a week and going to archery four times a week wasn’t real exercise because it didn’t happen in a gym and I should go to exercise classes instead. Because it’s totally fine to give unwanted exercise advice to work colleagues apparently. I’ve had people complain about my low fat home made chilli and jacket spud as fattening, while they’re scoffing fish and chips followed by a couple of chocolate bars. Because I’m fat so of course everything I eat is open to discussion and questioning. I’ve been shouted at for having the temerity to wear shorts and a vest top in 28°C heat, when other people are wearing less. But I’m fat so I should suffer. I’ve had people complain that I’m too big and in the way, even if I’m doing my best not to take up space, because I’ve learnt I’m not allowed to take up space in this world, because I’m fat. I also have issues with body awareness that comes from my autism and people assume it’s the fat that’s the problem.

I’m comfortable in my body. I can still walk, swim and garden, although a back injury that had nothing to do with my weight and everything to do with a dangerous work environment, limits me to gentle exercise these days. I eat when I’m hungry, I have a varied diet, I drink plenty of fluids, and I’m quite capable of deciding for my self what is best for me.

So yeah, I’m a big woman, traditionally built. People have spent thirty years telling me this makes me bad in some way. These plonkers can go do one.

Nanny Oggs Busom
Nanny Oggs Busom
6 years ago

Also, randomly, between dissertation writing and reviewing books, I’ve been studying with open learn, a course about nutrition. And guess what they keep banging on about? The terrible obesity epidemic and how we’re all going to die from heart disease and diabetes *eye roll* except that I already knew everything on the first 7 weeks of an eight week course, when are they going to tell me something I haven’t heard a million times before from other people insistent that I’m going to die of heart disease or diabetes? I’ve had doctors insist I must be diabetic, have really high cholesterol levels and blood pressure problems, and disbelieve me when tell them about my balanced, low meat, high fish and veg diet.

I might get any or all of these ‘obesity’ diseases, there is family history to think about. My grandad was a thin as a lathe, and died from his third heart attack, and my dad and one of his brothers has diabetes. Not my ‘big’ uncle though, who lives on pork pies and gingernuts, the two drinkers. My ‘big’ grandad died from a burst stomach ulcer that went bad (I think), that had been neglected because his doctor wasn’t listening and assumed it was indigestion or his ulcerative colitis playing up. His son, my thin, ultra healthy, ultra active uncle, had a heart attack at fifty. No one thought he could possibly have a heart attack because he’s so fit and healthy. His sister, my mum, is a big woman, had been for 25 years, terrible diet at times, her weight has yoyoed all over the place. No diabetes, no blood pressure problems, bit of arthritis in her hands and shoulders, as well as her hips, just like her smaller mother.

So, yeah, some of it is environmental, some of it is genetic, if my experience is anything to go by, so I refuse, now, to be bullied by the ignorant. However, I don’t think it’s inevitable that I will get diabetes and die of a heart attack just because I’m fat.

Ohlmann
Ohlmann
6 years ago

I don’t know how I would deal if I got too fat for my self image (which I think would be if I felt unable to run because of my weight). Based on the fact I never shown my legs in public in the last ten year because of them being visibly hairy point toward “no terribly well”. I am pretty thankful for genetic to have given me a body that don’t store fat too easily !

On that part, the society have rather terrible standard. Not only fat shaming is mostly an accepted practice, but it’s still seen at large as something most people can do something about, which is pretty much wrong. (the posts of Nanny Oggs Busom show how bad it can get)

Now, I have seen time and again proven before me how most people find extremely important to have standard tastes over their own tastes. I have seen that most typically about skin color and (of course) weight, with people admitting after the fact they could not be seen liking a “non-standard” beauty. Given that “standard” beauty is a shortcut for “look like the nazi ideal”, that sadden me a great deal. Even if I do tend to find people becoming less attractive if they gain too much weight, because there is often a difference between one’s gut reaction and its rational thoughts.

Robert
Robert
6 years ago

OT – I’m still reading “Sinfest”, more out of habit than anything else. The creator, Tatsuya Ishida, has created a second forum for those who ‘support the message’ of the strip. Specifically, radical feminism, anti-porn, anti-prostitution. It’s a safe space for TERF/SWERF do-bees to congratulate each other on being right, while the don’t-bees on the original forum ask each other why they’re still reading it.

I’m tempted to register to ask how gay porn hurts women, but I could probably slam my hand in a drawer while shouting at the wall and get much the same results.

Regarding the OP, I recently started therapy. The therapist is a fat woman, who is a LMFT with ten years experience; it occurred to me how often she has had to deal with this kind of garbage thinking.

kupo
kupo
6 years ago

I believe substantial hair loss was a factor, and there were other clear signs that he was still fond of the odd tipple or several (the major reason why they divorced, I understand), but that’s all that I recall.

Ah, so we’re shaming people for their hair follicles and their drinking habits instead of their weight. Charming.

Incidentally, if you think for one millisecond that I’m in any way prejudiced about people’s size, I’m very happily married to someone that Alexander McCall Smith would describe as “traditionally built”, she’s been that shape for as long as I’ve known her, and I have never once suggested that she change it.

Just because you’re married to a fat person doesn’t mean you haven’t internalized the sa.e anti-fat propaganda we’ve all been subjected to and all have internalized at least part of at some point in our lives. That you think you have no prejudice shows that you likely do, in fact. I’m a fat activist and still know that i have biases I was raised to have (not just by family but by society as well) and i know that i have to actively work against them. You think that you don’t, so any you do have are not being actively addressed.