Fat Acceptance/Fat Pride Movement

[ApatheticNoMore]

I think there’s a real difference between shaming somebody over their weight or crooked teeth or lack of education and being ashamed of doing something bad.

yea shame people for their moral transgressions if that's your thing (but just make sure they are actually substantial you know - if you want to use shame for social control save it for the big things). But fat isn't a moral crime, not in my universe.

as for shaming a fat person not even because it's causing them health problems (for which shame doesn't seem a good response, but which can be a concern but only in some cases aka one is prone to knee problems or had pre-diabetes etc.) but because of how they look. f off.

yea as women we know our duty is too look good for men, but we may not care about men enough to bother most of the time, because the vast majority of the time men frankly aren't worth the trouble. I've always been somewhat attractive, I've never been stunning, I've usually especially when younger when it was more necessary to do so played it down, I always loathed the fact that my worth would be judged by men judging my appearance. So that shame that just objectifies women's bodies won't work, in fact it's just as likely to make some women want to eat a whole cake! ha!

[catherine]

Shaming someone is external; feeling shame is internal.

So do we have to accept the external condition? Can someone shame us and we say, with our fingers in our ears "I don't hear you"--or even better, "F*** you and MYODB".

My grandson told me I have "weird hair" because it's gray. He's 4 years old and he said "Your hair is weird. It's grey. It should be yellow or brown" (he really said this). So did I feel ashamed of my grey hair? No. And if my client or my best friend told me I have weird hair, would that be age-shaming me? Or hair-shaming me?

Who cares. I'm not having it.


ETA: That's the joy of getting older.

[Yppej]

I didn't thin shame him, but when I went to the mechanic today he was noticeably thinner, more sallow, and had a missing tooth. It did make me think, I hope this guy doesn't have some medical issue, possibly meth addiction. But he acted normal.

[Gardenarian]

Tl;dr
I get a lot of people telling me to eat more. I'm only slightly under weight (BMI 18) and I've been the same weight for 40 years. I feel like, mind your own business!

Most people I know (40-70 years old) are a little plump, which is not unattractive - helps fill out the wrinkles. Guys usually have a belly, well, they're not 18 anymore. Who cares?

But real obesity is a disease and obviously puts great strains on the body. I don't believe in "fit at any size." I assume that most really fat people have metabolic disorders of some kind. Not judging appearance, but obesity is a disability and health risk, not a fashion statement.

[Gardenarian]

Reading through this thread - I keep wondering why people feel it necessary to comment on someone else's shape at all? Geez, they know they are fat/thin/trollish/emaciated, whatever, and we all know too well what society's ideal is.

When I describe people I use the terms "small build", "large build", "very large build."

[pinkytoe]

We all have thoughts in our head about how people look or act but commenting aloud is just plain rude. I must be hanging out with the wrong people as I have never heard anyone comment on someone's weight other than relatives who asked why DH had lost so much weight - was he ill perhaps? I am guilty of looking over people's grocery carts and making assumptions - but only in my own wicked brain.

[iris lilies]

Dog weight—is it rude to comment? Haha. Someone who comes to our house about once a year commented that my white bulldog had gained weight. That was a useful comment because I had not noticed. He is a pretty heavy dude anyway, being a big boned bulldog.

I put him on slightly reduced rations and he lost 3lbs.

[Tybee]

Dog weight—is it rude to comment? Haha. Someone who comes to our house about once a year commented that my white bulldog had gained weight. That was a useful comment because I had not noticed. He is a pretty heavy dude anyway, being a big boned bulldog.

I put him on slightly reduced rations and he lost 3lbs.

My husband's nephew's girlfriend called our golden retriever "fat."

He now thinks nephew should dump the girlfriend and doesn't want to attend functions where she is present.

Of course, she has done other rude things, but it was saying that about the dog that sealed her fate with him.

[catherine]

This all speaks to how to respond to rudeness. Can you brush it off? Do you harbor it? Like Tybee suggests, if it's a one-off, OK, you can brush it off. If someone is consistently rude, and what point do you cut them off?

I've had people call my dog fat. I've had people call my baby fat (at 4 months he was in the 98th percentile for weight. Yes. He was fat.). I've had my 4 year-old daughter call a good friend fat. Like Gardenarian, I've had people tell me I'm too skinny (not in the last decade, though .

When does a prick become "slings and arrows"?

[Tybee]

I guess for DH it was when she said, "oh look at how fat you are."

I didn't like her when we took her out to lunch and she watched the bar tv and commented to her sister about what was on television, ignoring my husband, her boyfriend, and me. They also canceled on us for a social outing that we had set up, and then showed up at our house unannounced.

I think Suzanne's point is really an important one, and I agree with Chicken Lady, that that kind of early damage does not resolve itself easily, or by the kind of things one might say or do if one had not been subjected to that kind of damage. I wish I had a good answer to Suzanne's question, and I think it's a really important question.

I'm not sure, though, why my husband reacted so strongly to the girl calling our dog fat, as she is kind of fat, but he tends to see the dogs as his children.