#fat discrimination

[a-totally-reasonable-username]

Being underweight and malnourished, suffering from malnutrition is a hundred times more medically dangerous than being fat is. Especially for children.

Discrimination against fat people kills more often than actual diseases caused by overeating do.

I was a severely underweight and malnourished teenager suffering from constant headaches, migraines, dizziness, nausea, stomach pain. I was constantly out of breath and too weak and fatigued to stand up.

I was in the hospital, saying i couldn't keep any food down, i only managed to eat maybe a single piece of toast a day and a bit of drinkfood. The doctors and nurses were all annoyed at me complaining so much about it because i was still eating right? They said my symptoms were a mystery.

Fatphobia is so fucking stupid. It shouldn't be as common as it is. It shouldn't be the fucking norm. Discriminating against fat people to the point of murder should not be seen as normal.

I work at a daycare with infants.

One of our baby girls is fat, in the 99th percentile for her age. She is super cute and sweet. Lately, she has been sick with various breathing issues, so she has been reluctant to take her bottles. Normally, she’ll take 4 ounces of formula at lunch and 8 ounces in the afternoon. Today, I was lucky to get to her take 5 all day.

There was a substitute covering a lunch break in my classroom today. We emphasized to her that we need to keep trying to get the baby to drink her bottle until she finished it. She said, “Why are you guys so worried about taking her bottle?”

My coworker replied, “That’s where all her nutrients are. She needs the nutrients and the water.”

To which the substitute replied, “But she’s so fat. She doesn’t need it.”

Thin privilege is a small, pretty baby getting better childcare because the caretaker doesn’t think she’s too fat to be allowed to eat.

[boyfailurr]

‘we support all people with disabilities’ are you normal about people being disabled because of being fat

[chubbymuffinclub]

curvysurfergirl

It’s easier for some people to believe my surfing is photoshopped than to accept I can surf.

There are very few things that people can write in the comment section that bother me at this point.

Almost everyday on one platform or another I hear:

• “you're fat” • if you lost weight you’d (fill in the blank) • You’re too skinny to be curvy or plus size • you look like a whale/ island/ hippo / cow • she has diabetes or will • Now that you’re done surfing go get your McDonald’s

But the one that never ceases to amaze me is when people say my surfing videos are faked…

Like oh yea let me just spend a cool several thousand dollars to go through a Hollywood production to fake I can surf…

It blows my mind that people would rather accuse someone of faking surfing than to accept that a woman with my body type or bigger can surf.

While these comments baffle me more than they cause any actual harm to me, I take heart knowing we are actually making change.

I’m rather certain for the better part of the last several decades people used hurtful words like these to exclude women like us from surfing in surf breaks around the world.

But here and now we continue to show we are strong enough to rise above those spiteful words through our passion and self acceptance.

[none-prob]

"Fat people aren't oppressed"

Meanwhile airplane industries:

[living400lbs]

"While both men and women experience greater discrimination if they are fat, women suffer more for failing to be thin enough. Study after study shows that overweight women are more likely to be unemployed than their thinner counterparts. When they are employed, larger women earn less, with smaller penalties for Black and Hispanic women, who already earn less, on average. Overweight white and Asian women experience the labor market discrimination that Black and Hispanic women already do.

Outside of the workplace, the trend of educational and economic elites marrying, befriending and socializing with one another — assortative matching and mating — is also a marked characteristic of our time. Elite homogeneity has a look and the look is thin. So when women say that it is better to be sick and thin than healthy and fat, they are perfectly rational."

- Tressie McMillan Cottom

[fatphobiabusters]

Mod squirrel:

I wanted to share this episode of the Church of the larger fellowship of Universal Universalist about fat liberation.

I'm exploring the UU framework so I'm super excited that they are hosting this conversation.

Topics include but not in high detail, and not limited to: accessibility, airplanes, clothing access, Job discrimination, healthism, fat as gender, medical fatphobia, eating food in public, fat Reclaiming, o word vs fat (they use the word and mock it).

Sadly they don't use the term fatphobia and minor warning for Christian refrences as UU borrows from everywhere as you can be any religion but gather in UU churches. Also I think the UU started as a Christian branch but has diverted far since. Anyway if terms related to Christianity bother you I just wanted to warn for it. Even if it was divorced now.

[thisisthinprivilege]

Thin privilege is saving money, or even being able to access air travel at all, by being able to relatively comfortably book middle seats and tight-pitch seats on budget airlines.

Thin privilege is that last-minute $100 round trip.

Thin privilege is being able to afford to visit a dying relative, or being able to afford to be there for a milestone family occasion, or being able to interview outside of the local job market.

[beckywtghmai]

The Best Example

Sometimes I think about All the years of work I’ve done towards losing weight And all of the denial and gaslighting and abuse I’ve received Instead of respect Because I don’t look like The best example of what they know And somehow it’s always, always and forever My problem. Not y’all’s.

[thisisthinprivilege]

Thin privilege is having a normal partner.

No fat person in a healthy relationship has a normal partner. Our partners have to have reflected upon and grappled with the cultural stigma against fatness, particularly in beauty standards, and somehow overcome it.

Our partners have to have rejected the constant messaging that fat people are physically and emotionally and mentally less-than everyone else, or have some kind of giant personality flaw, or have some dark hidden trauma that "caused" us to become fat.

Our partners have to have rejected the constant messaging that fat people make worse partners and parents, that we are socially contagious, that we unwittingly/uncaringly contribute to climate change, that we exemplify excessive materialism.

Our partners have to have rejected the media that has equated people with our body types as pathetic, as jokes, as villains.

The partners of fat people are exceptional.

Thin privilege is having a huge dating pool because you don't need an exceptional partner to be treated with basic respect and dignity, as you already have it by default.

[hatchedbirb]

Creating clothing without pockets should be illegal.

[gor3sigil]

Me, at the doctor's office: Yeah so I've been having these issues-

Doctors: You're fat. And an alcoholic.

Me: -since I was about 13-

Doctors: You're fat. And an alcoholic.

Me: ... I started drinking at 17 and I wasn't overweight-

Doctors: You're fat. And an alcoholic. And *check notes* TRANS ? It's the HRT. And your fat ass. And the alcohol. Get your shit together and THEN come back, kay ? Xoxo

[neuroticboyfriend]

thanks to ableism, heightism, and fatphobia, almost nothing is made to fit or work for my body ever. mobility aids. furniture. clothes. shoes. cars. etc. etc. if any of these do work out for me, they're usually expensive and i have a much more limited selection than abled, average height, straight sized people.

this isn't just inconvenience, either. things like furniture and shoes not being made for me causes me pain and takes a toll on my body, because i physically cant use them properly. making things fit me takes energy and money that i cant afford, but sometimes have to spend anyway. the safety measures in things like cars could injure or even kill me if i were to get in a bad accident.

being short, fat, and disabled in this society is so much harder than it has to be. it's unfair and downright dangerous that our bodies aren't being taken into account when designing almost everything around us. disabled people deserve better. fat people deserve better. people with short and tall stature deserve better.

we're just as much part of this world as everyone else, and we deserve to live in a world that acts like we exist.

[not-gray-politics]

I find it fascinating how many people can acknowledge on some level that the bmi is bad, outdated, inaccurate, wasn't made for individual use, and isn't even useful on a broader scale... but will still use terminology that comes directly from it and won't bat an eye at the fact that it's still in doctors' offices. So, just a reminder for folks who don't know:

"Obese" and "Overweight" are both terms that come directly from the BMI, and are both inaccurate and harmful.

The BMI itself was invented by a eugenicist who believed that all people should strive for the population average of his time period and only conducted research on white men. Women, poc, disabled people, and many other demographics were intentionally left out. It provides no meaningful information on the health or wellbeing of those who use it, but simply stacks them up to an outdated population average. Nothing more, nothing less. Using the terminology that comes from it is reductive and does damage to the scientific community. It has done irreversible damage to marginalized people and the culture as a whole, and is often used to dismiss the health concerns of fat patients. This can and has lead to many people's deaths and is an issue that should not be taken lightly. It has also been used to insult and dehumanize fat people for generations and could be considered a slur under those contexts. Stop using eugenicist language. Be mindful and be kind.

[thisisthinprivilege]

Just in case any of you forget.

Fatphobia isn't about health concern.

It never was.

All you "body positive" folks out there who still feel justified in meddling with your friends, family and coworkers who are fat "because you are concerned about their health" are puppets in a grand morality play where fat people are forced into the role of helping thinner people feel morally superior and higher-status for the non-act of existing in thinner bodies.

Whole industries have been set up for the purpose of collecting the fines fat people pay for the moral crime of being fat: big bucks spent on diet after diet, personal trainers and chefs, cosmetic and bariatric surgeons.

Fat people are also expected to pay their moral fines with a lower quality of life as they starve through their days, can no longer participate in food-related social activities, and use a big chunk of their free time on weight loss activities. This half-life, where fat people aren't granted full social status until they suffer and pay enough, is seen as deserved by the thin actors in this morality play. Good for them, even. It's just deserts for the moral crime of being fat.

The truth is that you can't be "body positive" and still enjoy moral superiority and higher status for being thinner (or suffering more on some weight loss journey) than other people. You either reject your part in the morality play that is oppressing fat people, or you don't. You can't have it both ways.

-ArteToLife

People who lose weight because they're sick receive compliments.

People are afraid to quit smoking because it may cause them to gain weight.

Society's hatred of fat people has nothing to do with promoting health. It's not even close.

[thisisthinprivilege]

I don't remember if I ever said it here but - fat discrimination is going to the ER for something completely unrelated to weight and having the doctor write down "mild abdominal obesity" in your report. as if it was somehow relevant, worth noting, or had ANYTHING to do with why I was in the ER. thin people don't have to put up with it.

[thisisthinprivilege]

I find that left-leaning people almost always justify their fat bigotry in science-y terms (not actual science on fatness, which they never know anything about when questioned), and right-leaning people in terms of character traits they believe are associated with fatness.

To me, it's all excuses to keep enjoying higher social status and apparent moral superiority for the non-act of existing in a thin(ner) body, or having lost weight. In other words, people are addicted to their thin privilege and are not about to let reason stand in the way of their enjoyment of said thin privilege.

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.