#Fat Activism

[hopefulproblem]

From the zine “Fat Is Beautiful” by Crystal Hartman

[fatliberation]

anti-fatness is not just body shaming.

anti-fatness is discrimination. anti-fatness is having next to no legal protections for being discriminated against. anti-fatness is being denied housing, jobs, receiving less pay and promotions (legally) because of your size. anti-fatness is being denied access to clothing, seating, transportation, and other human rights because infrastructure has been designed to exclude you. anti-fatness is less likelihood of receiving a fair trial. anti-fatness is dehumanization. anti-fatness is being denied necessary surgeries, but not surgery that amputates the digestive tract with the intent to starve and shrink you (it doesn’t work either). anti-fatness is mutilation. anti-fatness is being subject to torture devices that bolt your mouth shut. anti-fatness is being told by close friends, family, and professionals that you are better off living with an eating disorder or other life-threatening illness. anti-fatness sells you starvation as a guaranteed opt-out of oppression, but doesn’t tell you that bodies will always regain weight to survive. anti-fatness blames and punishes you for failing at an achievement that is quite literally impossible. anti-fatness is a $90 billion dollar industry. anti-fatness is being denied gender-affirming care. anti-fatness is being barred from in vitro fertilization and reproductive healthcare. anti-fatness is being barred from adopting children. anti-fatness is being removed from your loving parents because they couldn’t make you thin. anti-fatness is intentionally starving your own baby so they won’t get fat. anti-fatness is disproportionately high suicide rates. anti-fatness is being killed at the hands of medical neglect and mistreatment. anti-fatness is the world preferring a dead body over a fat one.

[softestjilly]

the fact that fat people are made to feel bad about everything down to how loud or hard they are breathing says a lot about this society

[karis-the-fangirl]

Fat bodies are mentioned most often in terms of the negative space left behind by the pounds lost, the dress sizes dropped, the inches shrunk—fat bodies are only valued for their absence.

There's a phrase you may have heard, that 'inside every fat person, there's a thin person waiting to get out'. It makes fat bodies sound like a prison, like the grotesque carapace of Kafka's beetle, with the real self like a trapped and frightened Gregor Samsa inside. Society is deeply permeated with the idea that my fat body isn't my 'real' body, and that I need to dig and excavate and starve out my true self, rescuing my inner thin princess from the imprisoning tower of my body.

This idea taught me not to feel fully connected to my body—after all, so much of my body is dead weight, it's not really me, my fatness isn't who I am, so why bother fully inhabiting it?

For years I didn't embrace my body. I was like someone squatting in a few rooms of a mansion, pretending that I was living in a condo and ignoring the three wings, twenty-four bedrooms, ballroom, bowling alley, and the entire library from Disney's Beauty and the Beast that make up my body.

—‘Where Are the Fat Girls? The Absence of Plus-Size Characters in Fantasy Literature’ by Charis M. Ellison [video]

[brytning]

Everyone knows it's that time of year when many people feel compelled to set goals to alter their body and restrict their food. The pressure to be thin is everywhere---it's the water we swim in. If you want to take care of your body, I hope this is the year you learn more about weight-neutral approaches to health! The Health At Every Size movement and books by fat activist Aubrey Gordon are great places to start!

[doublequaterpounder]

Hey You reading this!

check yourself and see if your sucking in your tummy

if you are let it go, release that tension! LET THAT TUMMY OUT💕

unlearn hiding yourself!

if your already letting it go, carry on, continue scrolling you’re good to go!

[lukesfatties]

Everyone go support notyourfeedee on curvage 🥵

[transfaguette]

I've seen the use of the "crazy sjw feminist" stereotype from gamergate days die down a little but one thing that remains ever present is the way fat activists are treated. Anything they say is dismissed and ridiculed, they have insults hurled at them with so much cruelty and disdain. The moment a fat person asks any group of people to change their worldview on fatness, it's immediate insults and brick walls. This includes left leaning people. Everyone loves to gang up on fat people, it hasn't changed a bit.

[fatandlikeitlikethat]

💜💙💜

Follow her on tiktok

[fatliberationdamnit]

Daily reminder that there is no wrong way to have a body. There is no configuration of physical features that is “bad” or “wrong”. You are allowed to exist just as you are.

[testosteronetempation]

fat people don't need excuses to be fat. we don't need to be on a diet or in between diets. we don't need to have a condition that makes us fat. we don't need to have too much going on in our lives to work out. we don't need to be "otherwise healthy." it's not a crime to be fat.

[fatliberation]

they have a point though. you wouldn't need everyone to accommodate you if you just lost weight, but you're too lazy to stick to a healthy diet and exercise. it's that simple. I'd like to see you back up your claims, but you have no proof. you have got to stop lying to yourselves and face the facts

Must I go through this again? Fine. FINE. You guys are working my nerves today. You want to talk about facing the facts? Let's face the fucking facts.

In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2]. 

In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to be valued at $405.4 billion [2]. If diets really worked, this industry would fall overnight. 

1. LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. 2. Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. 3. LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog.

Over 50 years of research conclusively demonstrates that virtually everyone who intentionally loses weight by manipulating their eating and exercise habits will regain the weight they lost within 3-5 years. And 75% will actually regain more weight than they lost [4].

4. Mann, T., Tomiyama, A.J., Westling, E., Lew, A.M., Samuels, B., Chatman, J. (2007). "Medicare’s Search For Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not The Answer." The American Psychologist, 62, 220-233. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2007.

The annual odds of a fat person attaining a so-called “normal” weight and maintaining that for 5 years is approximately 1 in 1000 [5].

5. Fildes, A., Charlton, J., Rudisill, C., Littlejohns, P., Prevost, A.T., & Gulliford, M.C. (2015). “Probability of an Obese Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records.” American Journal of Public Health, July 16, 2015: e1–e6.

Doctors became so desperate that they resorted to amputating parts of the digestive tract (bariatric surgery) in the hopes that it might finally result in long-term weight-loss. Except that doesn’t work either. [6] And it turns out it causes death [7],  addiction [8], malnutrition [9], and suicide [7].

6. Magro, Daniéla Oliviera, et al. “Long-Term Weight Regain after Gastric Bypass: A 5-Year Prospective Study - Obesity Surgery.” SpringerLink, 8 Apr. 2008. 7. Omalu, Bennet I, et al. “Death Rates and Causes of Death After Bariatric Surgery for Pennsylvania Residents, 1995 to 2004.” Jama Network, 1 Oct. 2007.  8. King, Wendy C., et al. “Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders Before and After Bariatric Surgery.” Jama Network, 20 June 2012.  9. Gletsu-Miller, Nana, and Breanne N. Wright. “Mineral Malnutrition Following Bariatric Surgery.” Advances In Nutrition: An International Review Journal, Sept. 2013.

Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function [10].

10. Tomiyama, A Janet, et al. “Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 July 2017.

Prescribed weight loss is the leading predictor of eating disorders [11].

11. Patton, GC, et al. “Onset of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Population Based Cohort Study over 3 Years.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 20 Mar. 1999.

The idea that “obesity” is unhealthy and can cause or exacerbate illnesses is a biased misrepresentation of the scientific literature that is informed more by bigotry than credible science [12]. 

12. Medvedyuk, Stella, et al. “Ideology, Obesity and the Social Determinants of Health: A Critical Analysis of the Obesity and Health Relationship” Taylor & Francis Online, 7 June 2017.

“Obesity” has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition [13, 14] and its appearance may be a protective response to the onset of numerous chronic conditions generated from currently unknown causes [15, 16, 17, 18].

13. Kahn, BB, and JS Flier. “Obesity and Insulin Resistance.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Aug. 2000. 14. Cofield, Stacey S, et al. “Use of Causal Language in Observational Studies of Obesity and Nutrition.” Obesity Facts, 3 Dec. 2010.  15. Lavie, Carl J, et al. “Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease: Risk Factor, Paradox, and Impact of Weight Loss.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 26 May 2009.  16. Uretsky, Seth, et al. “Obesity Paradox in Patients with Hypertension and Coronary Artery Disease.” The American Journal of Medicine, Oct. 2007.  17. Mullen, John T, et al. “The Obesity Paradox: Body Mass Index and Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Nonbariatric General Surgery.” Annals of Surgery, July 2005. 18. Tseng, Chin-Hsiao. “Obesity Paradox: Differential Effects on Cancer and Noncancer Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” Atherosclerosis, Jan. 2013.

Fatness was associated with only 1/3 the associated deaths that previous research estimated and being “overweight” conferred no increased risk at all, and may even be a protective factor against all-causes mortality relative to lower weight categories [19].

19. Flegal, Katherine M. “The Obesity Wars and the Education of a Researcher: A Personal Account.” Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 15 June 2021.

Studies have observed that about 30% of so-called “normal weight” people are “unhealthy” whereas about 50% of so-called “overweight” people are “healthy”. Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health results in the misclassification of some 75 million people in the United States alone [20]. 

20. Rey-López, JP, et al. “The Prevalence of Metabolically Healthy Obesity: A Systematic Review and Critical Evaluation of the Definitions Used.” Obesity Reviews : An Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 15 Oct. 2014.

While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates (nearly 35% for adults and 18% for kids), the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—branding roughly 29 million Americans as fat overnight—to match international guidelines. But critics noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs [21].

21. Butler, Kiera. “Why BMI Is a Big Fat Scam.” Mother Jones, 25 Aug. 2014. 

Body size is largely determined by genetics [22].

22. Wardle, J. Carnell, C. Haworth, R. Plomin. “Evidence for a strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environment” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 87, No. 2, Pages 398-404, February 2008.

Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index [23].  

23. Matheson, Eric M, et al. “Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals.” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 Feb. 2012.

Weight stigma itself is deadly. Research shows that weight-based discrimination increases risk of death by 60% [24].

24. Sutin, Angela R., et al. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality .” Association for Psychological Science, 25 Sept. 2015.

Fat stigma in the medical establishment [25] and society at large arguably [26] kills more fat people than fat does [27, 28, 29].

25. Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Bronwell. “Bias, Discrimination, and Obesity.” Obesity Research, 6 Sept. 2012. 26. Engber, Daniel. “Glutton Intolerance: What If a War on Obesity Only Makes the Problem Worse?” Slate, 5 Oct. 2009.  27. Teachman, B. A., Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., Rawlins, M., & Jeyaram, S. (2003). Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: The impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychology, 22(1), 68–78. 28. Chastain, Ragen. “So My Doctor Tried to Kill Me.” Dances With Fat, 15 Dec. 2009. 29. Sutin, Angelina R, Yannick Stephan, and Antonio Terraciano. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality.” Psychological Science, 26 Nov. 2015.

There's my "proof." Where is yours?

[softestjilly]

our love story. 💍🩷🌈✨

fat people get engaged.

fat people get married.

fat people are loved, desired, needed, and wanted.

[purgatory2]

non fat people will take a post about fatphobia and view it as a personal attack or find an excuse to shift the focus on themselves instead

"i got told to eat a burger!!" "skinny people have body dysmorphia too" "i got called a skeleton"

i got told to killmyself for wearing a bathing suit, to cutdeep for standing up for someone being bullied for being fat, and very often i am being told to starve myself simply for existing as a fat person.

not uncommon experiences either, quite often for me actually! and im not even considered to be that big compared to other fat people.

fatphobia kills, through either fatphobia in medical spaces leading to medical neglect, to starving to death from an encouraged eating disorder, to committingsuicide over taught self hatred and shame, to being fatally attacked in a hate crime.

i'd never diminish someone else's eating disorder or bullying history, but if the topic is fatphobia and fatness and you aren't personally affected by fatphobia... it's not about you. move on, make your own space!

[doublequaterpounder]

YOU ARE ALLOWED TO EXIST IN CLOTHES

you do not need to pull at clothing that cling to your tummy

you don’t need to hide yourself in baggy clothes

you don’t need to pull out your clothes to stretch them to avoid it from touching your body!

you can be fat and wear clothes that highlight your body, that touch your body, fat people deserve form fitting

i spent far to long stressing that people can perceive my body in clothes, so take it from me and stop that shit!

[feedists4fat-lib]

💛Happy Fat Liberation Month from FFL!💛

All this month we will be sharing fun facts and information specifically about Fat Liberation, its history, as well as information on how to combat Anti-Fat Bias and its origins. We'll touch on the Medical Industrial Complex, the intersection of LGBTQIA2S+ identities and fatness, and the Anti-Black Origins of fatphobia. And of course, it wouldn't be FFL without some food recommendations -- this time from Black Owned Businesses!

We are now diving into the topic on the Anti-Black origins of Fatphobia. Be sure to check out the sources listed for a deeper dive on the history and origins of fatphobia!