tobeabatman - Tumblr blog

[tobeabatman]

annoying

Whenever there’s new research that proves our old ideas of weight-loss and fat bodies wrong, healthcare workers do their best to either ignore it completely, or they acknowledge it and then go on to still spread the same harmful sh*t they did before.

”Most diets fail? Then you should exercise and eat well for weight loss.”

”Genes massively affect our ability to lose weight? Well, that’s no excuse!”

”80% of people regain weight 5 years after weight loss? You should still try!”

”You have PCOS? You still need to lose weight.” (A cardiologist to my mom with heart problems caused by long covid)

I have a ton more examples I could think of. The fact is: healthcare providers and researchers ignore new knowledge for old biases. They ignore us and our needs because they are taught that fat is the enemy.

Even though my mom’s heart problems were caused by long covid, even though 80% of us will regain weight we previously lost in 5 years, even though she has diagnosed PCOS (and undiagnosed endometriosis), even though we know fatphobia affects individuals’ cardiomuscular health negatively, even though she is active and eats less than she probably should, and even though she is near burn-out and stressed because of her toxic workplace and workplace bullying; her doctor can ignore every other aspect of her health and tell her that being fat is her problem, and losing weight is the key to managing her long covid-caused heart problems.

I’ve said this once and I’ll say this again: I’ve seen too many cases when fat people die to medical mistreatment. I’ve heard of fat patients with endometriosis who suffer due to medical mistreatment, I’ve heard of fat people who’ve died due to doctors not believing them or treating them properly. I’ve heard of emergency room stories where fat patients almost died due to medical mistreatment.

Be a good healthcare professional and work towards undoing your biases in your practice. Because if you haven’t done that already, you absolutely do believe in some fatphobic sh*t: healthcare is full of fatphobic biases. And you not educating yourself on them, directly affects your patients

[tobeabatman]

long-term weight-loss is a fantasy for most

In a meta-analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies, 80% of people regained previously lost weight in 5 years. 5 YEARS!! Can you imagine how much higher that number could be in a couple more years, or even 10 years?

Whether it’s exercise, diets, supplements, whatever: there is no natural long-term weight-loss for most of us. Even if that was just because we lack the willpower: it is still not our fault. We humans aren’t built to have strong motivation for years. Nor are our bodies built for weight loss.

80% failure rate is too large to be the fault of us individuals. Medicine and healthcare need to listen up.

[tobeabatman]

fat people in fiction

Isn’t it crazy how writers just… erase our (fat people’s) existence in their fiction?

How in comics there are no characters, even backgroud ones, that are fat. How almost all books and series only have thin characters. How theatre only has a couple characters for fat actors.

A third of our world’s population just… vanishes in the stories of most creators. We aren’t worth anything: our bodies can be erased from existence.

Of course this problem isn’t exclusive to fat people. But fat people are such a large percentage of our world population (and the large population is distributed pretty equally among at least the Western world) that excluding us is not just a coincidence, and the lack of fat characters is very noticeable (when you stop equating thin people with the only possible form that a human can take: the “normal human”).

And of course most creators don’t make the active choice to exclude us. But the fact that they forget about us, to the point where they don’t even notice excluding us, speaks on implicit bias against fat people. You would notice the lack of fat characters, if you truly cared about fat people and recognized our struggles.

And of course I’m not mad at a specific creator for this. But it gets tiring to see thin people only, when fat people make such a large part of our world. And then it makes me sad, because why is our existence so meaningless, that it can just be wiped?

[tobeabatman]

It’s also okay to gain weight without struggling :)

Also, I like the fact that the writer of this post is Finnish. I’m Finnish too haha. Torilla tavataan!

(And if you guys know any Finnish anti-fatphobia/fat-liberation communities, then please tell me. I’m so desperate that I almost feel like I should start my own organization against fatphobia in Finland, and I don’t know how to operate an organization💀)

It is okay to get fatter because of disability. You are not "downgrading" or "deteriorating" and you still deserve accommodation no matter how fat you are. Fat disabled people are treated like shit - if you were already fat, people don't believe you or think you inflicted your disability on yourself by being fat and therefore it's your fault and you should lose weight before getting help. And if you weren't fat but became fat due to your disabilities you're seen as a lazy slob who's not trying hard enough to help themselves.

You deserve better. It's okay to be fat and disabled. It's okay to gain weight while struggling.

[tobeabatman]

trolls

I can’t believe my short book recommendation on Kate Manne’s Unshrinking has been reblogged my two fatphobic troll already (maybe the same person) lmao. Like just read the book or go cry about fat people in a corner. It’s pathetic to dedicate whole ass accounts to just reblogging fat people’s posts without you guys actually saying anything original. At least I’m putting myself out here properly: you guys just reblog stuff with maybe 2 tags or one sentence added that says nothing original💀

[tobeabatman]

Weight loss is bs

Trigger for discussing weight-loss, mentions of surgery, fad diets, disordered eating.

People who have always been skinny, act like fat people becoming thin and sustaining that weight loss is achievable.

But can you give me even one method of weight loss that has made most (over 50%) of fat people thin, for even 5 years (excluding surgery)?

People often acknowledge that fad diets don’t work, but still act as if there was another, feasible, way for sustained weight loss. They might give very basic tips such as more exercise or a healthier diet, but those aren’t weight loss strategies: you can be fat even if you exercise and eat well.

My school health textbook mentioned intuitive eating as a weight loss stragedy. But intuitive eating is more of a recovery diet for those with disordered eating: not a weight-loss stragedy. You can be fat and still eat intuitively.

So my question is: can you give me a diet or method for fat people to become thin, that has been researched to work for most people for even 5 years, preferably 10 years or more? Genuinely, if you can, I’d be willing to go over the research and other research that backs up the same method.

But if none of us can find a method like that (and I have yet to hear of such a method) then maybe we should be ready to accept that fatness isn’t a choice than can be reversed with a mystery method of weight loss (excluding surgery, because that is not feasible for many, or a natural way of weight loss) that no one can even name, or back up with research.

(Of course, if you guys happen to know of such a mystery method, I’d be happy to go through the research paper (and most likely see that you misunderstood the point of the study, or that the researchers didn’t conduct the research properly. Which is quite common for everything related to weight loss).

And please understand that someone not being able to sustain such a method doesn’t mean that the fault is in the people. It means that the method itself was not feasible to begin with (over 50% of people just lacking willpower seems like an overstatement). Stuff like fad diets don’t work because our bodies are not even meant for fad diets: our bodies bounce back, usually larger than ever, from those.

[tobeabatman]

even if being fat was unhealthy, you dont mistreat someone for smoking, drinking beer, vaping...

my dad takes MORE of 4 beers A DAY, i haven't seen a soul tell him to worry about his health, when he gets sick no one says is cause he drinks beer either, but when i feel sick is magically cause im fat, even tho im naturally fat all most of my family also is.

it was never about health, y'all dont worry about our health.

[tobeabatman]

Fatness and research

Currently, in the world we live in, research on fat bodies is an ethically loaded field.

People associate fatness with poor health, and every study making a claim to one end or the other, is not really about health. It’s about proving whether fat people deserve to be treated the same way thin people do.

And research on fat bodies is incredibly biased. Most research on fat bodies is focused on proving us unhealthy, instead of actually coming up with ways to help us in a anti-fat society. The same researchers forget to take into account the various different social struggles fat people face (lack of access to healthcare, housing, jobs, increase in poverty and both stress caused either directly (e.g weight-based bullying, microagressions, etc.) or more indirectly (homelessness, poverty, etc.) because of fatphobia. Also mental health conditions such as binge eating disorder, depression, social anxiety, etc.).

This research is almost never completely without explicit biases in the research report. Terms such as ”obesity epidemic” are far too often used by researchers, alongside with using terms such as ”a problem” to refer to fatness. These terms are loaded with anti-fat bias. The term obesity epidemic compares fat bodies to disease. And I feel like everyone understands why calling some types of bodies a ”problem” is problematic, especially in an academic setting. But I’ve heard fatness being referred to as a problem even in my school health textbook.

Research on fat bodies being unhealthy, is seen as a justification to deny us things, mostly basic human respect and healthcare. No research on fat bodies exists in a vacuum: it will ultimately affect the care we get at the doctor’s office, or the treatment we get from other people. This is what makes bad research on fat bodies being proven unhealthy, especially dangerous.

But the thing is, researchers also don’t live in a vacuum. Fatphobia is everywhere in our world, from children’s books and TV shows, to elementary school classes and school nurses, to academics. Fatphobia became quickly popular in the 19th century, because of a bunch of eugenicist French biologists decided to publish articles on how fatness was a trait of African and Chinese women.

Science has always represented the biases of the people living at the time. Researchers sure as heck can’t clearly insult fat people in their works, but they can loudly criticize research proving their biases wrong. They can also massively influence the way we see fat bodies, by affirming our old biases with research that doesn’t even take into account that fat people are a marginalized group that faces obstacles to health just from our marginalization.

On the other hand, I wish that we didn’t live in a world where we fat people had to prove our humanity with research that proposes alternative views to whether fat is unhealthy. Studies on fat bodies should not be a way to either justify fatphobia or a way to argue against it. Studies on fat bodies should just exist. At most they should be a way to offer healthcare workers and us fat people a better understanding on how our bodies work.

But we unfortunately don’t live in a world where this is the case. We live in a world where research on fat bodies most often stems from biases, and finding a way to prove those biases right. Research proving fat bodies unhealthy is never unbiased, in a world where fatphobia started because of eugenicist scientists to begin with. You can’t create a problem and then spend a couple hundred years trying to prove it.

Anyway. Please remember that I’m not a researcher myself, and can only provide a way to look at fat studies from the perspective of someone with lived experiences of being fat. I didn’t proofread this post. I hope you guys have a lovely day!

[tobeabatman]

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?

[tobeabatman]

We are not thin souls with fat bodies

When you think of humans, you think of thin people. We associate thinness with humanity. Therefore you have to conseputalize fat people as ”thin souls with fat bodies” to recognize our humanity.

(Whether a ”soul” actually exists is questionable, but you get the point). Or you think of us as thin-to-be. Or dead-to-be. We are never just humans who deserve care and respect for and regardless of they way our bodies currently are.

Our society pretends to be progressive while encouraging bullying towards fat people. Bullying that happens regardless of what spaces we are in, regardless of what we do or say.

But the trolling is definitely the worst when we actually talk back against fatphobia: then they’ll reply to the post, seemingly concerned about health and people promoting what they view as unhealthy. But what they really care about is just the looks. They want to fuck with us, and at the same time they want to appear concerned just so that they have plausible deniability, and they can attract other fatphobes. They don’t care about health, or else they’d be trolling all kinds of cigarette, vape, and zyn users too.

[tobeabatman]

”stop glorifying obesity”

I say ”anti-fatphobia” you say ”stop glorifying obesity”.

I say ”I deserve basic respect because I am also a human” you say ”stop glorifying obesity”.

I say ”My health professionals all agree that there is nothing wrong with my health” you say ”stop glorifying obesity”.

Like at this point just insult me an move on, you one-trick ponies💀

[tobeabatman]

The research part is so real! I’ve for example noticed that almost all studies relating to fat bodies forget to take into consideration the fact that we are a marginalized identity of people who are often left to die from health complications that would have been treated if we were skinny!

That’s a major ass overlook on the part of researchers, among with how fat people are harassed at e.g gyms and discouraged from exercising, how shame affects our motivation to exercise, etc., how stress (caused by fatphobia) affects our weight and eating habits, how we are more likely to be unemployed, poor, homeless, etc.

All of these things need to be ruled out in research on the health of fat people! You can’t just rule out stuff like smoking, and call it a day! It’s shameful how many researchers don’t conduct weight-related research properly, and it’s also shameful how so many researchers put down all research stating that health and fatness are more complicated than they think! Anyway.

People say weight loss is for sure possible...but no one agrees on how to do it.

Dieting works...but there's now an "ob*sity epidemic" despite people lining the pockets of weight loss corporations more than ever.

Weight loss products work...but weight loss corporations are making the Exact. Same. Claims. about their products that they did in 1910 with the products that were sold and then discontinued over a century ago.

Humans are all meant to be thin...but there are families of fat people who stay fat no matter how much "willpower" they muster and have fat ancestors going back generations.

It's about health and not looks...but people who are losing weight due to smoking, cancer, illness, mental disorders, and other health conditions are praised for their weight loss and told to keep going.

Fat people aren't oppressed...but fat people have no positive representation, no proper access to clothing, face a wage gap, endure deadly medical neglect and abuse, have their deaths by police brutality excused with their fatness, and countless other aspects of oppression that they deal with every single day.

Fat people are all fat because they overeat...but you can point to any fat person on the sidewalk and there's an extreme likelihood that they're on their 30th diet attempt in the past 10 years while there's thin people who eat whatever they want, however much they want, and don't exercise yet never gain a single pound.

Fat people are privileged because they gorge on unnecessary food...but fat people are overwhelmingly living in poverty, are not paid the same amount of money for the same work as their thin peers, are not chosen for promotions, are turned away from jobs that an employer wants more than a "pretty face" for, are at major risk of workplace harassment, and endure oppression even beyond just that.

Fat people aren't treated badly...but people use the word "fat" as a metaphor and synonym for "ugly," "unlovable," and "unworthy," while at the same time believing "fat," the most basic term for a specific body type, is a dirty, taboo insult you should never allow to leave your lips.

Professionals agree that fatness is inherently bad...but almost any weight-related research study that people, especially weight loss corporations, use to justify demonizing fat people has the worst methodology imaginable with validity errors and logical fallacies galore as well as conflicts of interest due to how many of these studies just happen to be funded by the corporations that make millions and billions of dollars off of the demonization these studies promote.

All health conditions a fat person has are caused by their fatness...but there is not a single health condition that only fat people obtain, many fat people developed the health condition in question when they were thin or thinner, weight gain is often a symptom of said health conditions, fat people are not given the same amount or quality of healthcare as thin people, and repeated starvation attempts (also known as "yo-yo dieting") have been shown to worsen a person's health.

Fat people can't have eating disorders...but fat people are the group encouraged to partake in disordered eating by this fatphobic world the most and then are not given any support to recover.

Thin privilege doesn't exist...but thin people who see the way fat people are treated in society do their absolute damndest and take whatever drastic measures they have to in order to prevent themselves from ever becoming one of "Them."

Fit and fat are mutually exclusive...but there are fat athletes as far up as even the Olympics, and sports are intentionally made inaccessible to fat people to the point of fat children even being turned away when trying to join a sports team.

Fat people are ugly...but all we grow up ever seeing in media are thin, conventionally attractive people painted with layers of makeup next to fat characters who were intentionally designed with an ill-fitting outfit, matted hair, and all other traits that fit the "ugly" stereotype that the character designer could manage to slap onto a single person.

Fat people are big, bad bullies...but studies show that weight is the number one excuse that children use to bully their peers, outcompeting a multitude of other oppressed identities considered.

Fat women are just men and vice versa...but sometimes they're androgynous, and sometimes they're basically nonbinary, and sometimes they're just things, and sometimes they're nothing at all depending on what labels a fatphobe decides will hurt a fat person most that day.

Fat people are subhuman...but fat people deserve the same love, respect, compassion, and support that all people are born inherently deserving.

Fatphobia isn't real, but—

-Mod Worthy

[tobeabatman]

Let's pretend for a second that fatness is always and inherently unhealthy (it isn't) and sustained weightloss is always possible (it's not). Let's say your desire for every person in the world to be thin is genuinely in those people's best interest.

... shaming fat people does nothing in service of that. Shame does not motivate people. Fat shaming does not increase the chance of someone losing weight. The research consistently proves this. And if your goal was actually to help people by motivating them to lose weight, you would know that and act accordingly. This information is totally available.

There is no helpful bullying. You're showing your ass when you claim to be shaming someone out of kindness. You have no facts or morality to back you up, just prejudice.

[tobeabatman]

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.

[tobeabatman]

Just the fact that so many people talk about "feeling fat" and "looking fat" despite not actually being fat, betrays that it's fucking not all about health. People fear even this perceived proximity to fatness. "I feel fat today" means "I feel ugly and therefore some kind of unworthy". "I look fat in that picture" means "I appear uglier than I consider myself to officially be". Neither of them means "I feel compelled to check my cholesterol" or whatever

[tobeabatman]

Fat people and life expectancy

This post is an extract from my post ”fatness and health”.

If you ask me, I believe a massive part of why we fat people die faster isn’t our fatness: it’s medical mistreatment, unemployment, homelessness, and poverty, all of which are more prevelent among fat people.

I know of too many fat people who have died because of medical professionals not taking them or their health seriously: my ”obese” grandpa actually died in surgery in which not all safety protocols were followed. This isn’t necessarily proof of medical mistreatment because of fatness, but he was a 70 year old ”obese” man with type 2 diabetes, BED, and sleep apnea. This make him at least an example of a fat person who died not because of his fatness, or other conditions that are correlated with fatness. My other, skinny, grandpa (with heart disease, that likely developed partly because of his alcoholism) died 7 years earlier than my fat grandpa with diabetes and sleep apnea.

And I know that some troll will likely reblog this as well: someone even reblogged my book recommendation on a book that debunks parts of fatphobia. You guys are literally broken records that dedicate their entire accounts on reblogging fat people’s content as a way to get back at them… Kinda pathetic and useless: you guys think you can say anything more hurtful about my weight than my own literal mom said to me at 9? You’re most likely grown ass adults: go do something else instead of scrolling tags related to fatness and reblogging every single post with the same talking points.

[tobeabatman]

fatness and health

Being fat means that people call me unhealthy even though I’ve been to all possible blood tests and I’ve been described as ”healthy” by all the health professionals I’ve met… And there’s no reason they would believe otherwise besides my weight.

And so what if I will become sick in the future? I probably will: my family already has all sorts of conditions that me, and my skinny siblings alike, will most likely develop in the future. You too, will become sick at some point, regardless of how good you think your health is. You might also get into an accident and die any day.

You see, if fatness was as unhealthy as you think, fatphobia would have started as an actual medical concern, and not as eugenicist propaganda. I’m not saying that fatness and certain conditions have no correlation: we know that they do. However, this doesn’t mean that fatness causes those conditions: researchers and doctors have kind of just assumed that it does, and further research is still ongoing.

We also have research stating that ”obesity paradox” exists. And there is research claiming that slightly overweight people (BMI under 30) live even longer than skinny people.

And whether that or any research is true or not, it doesn’t change the fact that fat people don’t need to change their bodies. Heavy smokers can die even 12-13 years earlier than non-smokers, but heavy smokers still do not owe you smoking cessation. We fat people also don’t owe you weight-loss, just because some research states that people with a BMI higher than 30 die about 4-6 years earlier than people with a ”normal” BMI (BMI is not accurate, but it is also what most weight-related research uses).

(…Even just an every-day (non-heavy) smoker can lose 8 years of their lifetime: if you cared about our health and lives so much, then you’d also go harass skinny cigarette users about their health (I’m not advocating for it, but I recognize that there is a clear difference in how much shit we fat people get for our health vs skinny smokers). And for stuff like vapes, we don’t even know what they do to our bodies in a long term, yet! But I digress.)

Whether you think that we are ”glorifying obesity” or whatever, it doesn’t change the fact that we are human. We are not a type of subhumans you can bully or joke about. If we say we deserve respect, you should realize that that is a basic ass human right, and not a reason to whine about ”glorifying obesity”.

Especially if you are a part of another marginalized group, then it’s about time you educate yourself on fat experiences. I for sure want the queer community to accept my body the way it is.

We just don’t owe you weight-loss, we don’t owe you our health history, we shouldn’t have to listen to any bullshit on how we are a burden on society. The point of society is to take care of the people who need care!!

If you ask me, I believe a massive part of why we fat people die faster isn’t our fatness: it’s medical mistreatment, unemployment, homelessness, and poverty, all of which are more prevelent among fat people.

I know of too many fat people who have died because of medical professionals not taking them or their health seriously: my ”obese” grandpa actually died in surgery in which not all safety protocols were followed. This isn’t necessarily proof of medical mistreatment because of fatness, but he was a 70 year old ”obese” man with type 2 diabetes, BED, and sleep apnea. This make him at least an example of a fat person who died not because of his fatness, or other conditions that are correlated with fatness. My other, skinny, grandpa died 7 years earlier than my fat grandpa with diabetes and sleep apnea.

And I know that some troll will likely reblog this as well: someone even reblogged my book recommendation on a book that debunks parts of fatphobia. You guys are literally broken records that dedicate their entire accounts on reblogging fat people’s content as a way to get back at them… Kinda pathetic and useless: you guys think you can say anything more hurtful about my weight than my own literal mom said to me at 9? You’re most likely grown ass adults: go do something else instead of scrolling tags related to fatness and reblogging every single post with the same talking points.