My faith has been shaken, and quite possibly damaged beyond repair. Perhaps I have a thinner skin then when I started this blog, but I can no longer stomach reading material like this article entitled "Does The Fat Acceptance Movement Glamorize An Unhealthy Lifestyle?" from The Frisky.
Correction: the article I can deal with... it's the comments section that makes me want to cry in my beer, er, large vat of M&M's that I must be imbibing day after day (because I'm fat and exercise, but don't lose much or any weight as a result). You can find my personal comment in response under the username latouff. And yes, I was pissed off when I wrote it.
I do firmly believe that fat people are one of the scapegoats of this society, and you need look no further than the title of above-mentioned blog posting for an example. I'm not quite understanding why asking for acceptance about the way one looks (identifies) constitutes "glamorizing" a lifestyle. (The writer does mention two fat women bloggers by name in the article, and perhaps they are, indeed, glamorizing their own fat lifestyles. Their. own.) That's like saying gay men who believe gay marriage should be legalized are "glamorizing" a gay lifestyle and all the unhealthy aspects - medical or otherwise - that may be associated with it.
In the end, I just don't get it. I don't get why my body size and weight is up for so much speculation in a world, in a nation, absolutely abounding in social problems. I can fully accept that my body size and associated medical maladies is one of those social problems. What I can't accept is the way people talk about this particular social problem like it isn't personal to them. You've been battling the fat on your own body for years, and view said fat as unattractive, unslightly and a giant pain in your ass? I get it! Seriously, I do. You got a mother, father, sibling, friend who is fat and has health problems as a result, and you're concerned about them? I get it! I do. I have lots of people concerned about me who are vocal about it, and I hate them for it, but I also love them for it. What I can't stand is when concern for someone who is personally in your life turns into a battle cry to "fight obesity".
Do you know how that sounds to someone who is obese, by the way? That there is a campaign by both my state and federal governments to "fight obesity"? To fight obesity is to fight me, assholes.
I'm a person, not a statistic.
I'm a person, not a population.
I'm a person, not a set of medical conditions.
If there were a way to cure obesity, then all the companies who produce diet products and diet magazines and shit like that would go out of business. There is no cure. There is no formula for making a person not fat or not obese, as much as doctors, therapists, fucked up TV shows and otherwise, would like you to believe. Reducing caloric intake and exercising are only the beginning, not the end, of the solution.
Obese people are just that: people. Imperfect. Struggling. If you want to help, then you need to figure something else out besides "fighting" our theoretical health problems and bad-mouthing what we look like in your bitter, shrill, opinionated rants on some random blog.
When I started this blog, it WAS to champion fat people and how, with a little work, they can lead normal, healthy lives in the face of a lot of people who feel otherwise. I still believe that... I just don't know that I can continue to be slapped in the face by people who think they are doing their rightful part in the "fight against obesity" by shutting down any fat person who dares to actually live a less-ashamed, less-abashed life.
