Fat, fat, fat

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Fat-shaming is always bullshit and there's no excuse for it. I do agree with Alty that it makes it even harder for people to lose weight, and what's more, it makes it even harder for family members to even express concern about weight issues because societal fat-shaming has laden fat with all these value judgements, and that, honestly, SUCKS. I don't EVER mention my daughter's weight, because she is all too aware. I work hard to frame every suggestion as positive encouragement, and not as negative shaming.

The issues I had with Alty's OP in this thread were not that he was saying that fat-shaming is bad. The issues I had were the combination of the broad and aggressive brush with which he painted everyone, announced that none of us know what we're talking about or even have a place to speak, informed us that we're doing more harm than good by considering obesity unhealthy, and chastised us about dealing with our own shame about our fat bodies. But all of those things, as unnecessarily offensive as they are, would be more easily overlooked if he had a dog in this race, if this righteous indignation he was pouring over his dear readers was actually over an issue that he owns and struggles with, and not one that he is simply coming to be the champion of, which is, you know, kind of vaguely patronizing in the same way Mr. Language's Championing of the Hispanics was.

I am not Forever Mad at Alty or anything like that. Alty, if you're reading, I think I understand where you were coming from. The problem is, it's more complex an issue than you make it out to be, and being a massage therapist does not qualify you to dictate to everyone else how to think or feel about obesity. If you respect other people, you might want that respect to show in the way you address them, because you can't reasonably expect everyone who you consider an exception to your sweeping statements to assume you don't mean them, any more than someone can, say, make disparaging comments about religious people and then think it fixes everything to say "Well I didn't mean YOU".

[Reginald Ret]

Well said.