big fat feminist

Scroll to Info & Navigation

‹ ›

No, being fat does not automatically make you unhealthy. [giant list of articles and studies, another giant list of articles and studies, a single article]

No, unhealthy people (who are also, mind you, thin people — that’s a Venn diagram, not two separate graphs) are not less deserving of love, dignity, and acceptance than healthy people. A person with fibromyalgia is not more or less worthy of being loved and supported than a person with diabetes or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. A person with depression is not more or less worthy of being loved and supported than a person without. I’m not going to cite sources here — I just feel like that’s a really obvious thing to point out. Further, the health of an individual is between that person and their doctor.

Yes, I think promoting full-body health is a good thing. This is why I’m a proponent of HAES. However, focusing that promotion solely on fat people is ridiculous, starting that conversation with “thin = healthy and fat = unhealthy” is both counterproductive and not actually based in fact, and using shame as a motivational technique clearly doesn’t work (if it did, everyone in America, at least, would be thin).

I’m glad you’re taking steps to becoming a happier person. I genuinely am. Happiness is so important, and such a tough journey.

Seventeen Magazine is asking their teenage readers to use #AskJillian to talk to Jillian Michaels of The Biggest Loser for “health and fitness” advice. This is the same show, mind you, that purportedly abused and bullied at least one contestant to the point where she was triggered into an eating disorder, and the same magazine that signed the “Body Peace Treaty” and claimed it wants teen girls to have good body image. The hypocrisy is a teensy bit overwhelming.  Might I suggest we flood this hashtag with questions about body shaming and health?

Seventeen Magazine is asking their teenage readers to use #AskJillian to talk to Jillian Michaels of The Biggest Loser for “health and fitness” advice. This is the same show, mind you, that purportedly abused and bullied at least one contestant to the point where she was triggered into an eating disorder, and the same magazine that signed the “Body Peace Treaty” and claimed it wants teen girls to have good body image.

The hypocrisy is a teensy bit overwhelming. 

Might I suggest we flood this hashtag with questions about body shaming and health?

But what about the thin-shaming? (an thinsplaintastic ask)

thisisthinprivilege:

Oh, every scenario, eh?

So thin people are forced to buy two tickets to fly or risk getting thrown off the plane?

So thin people have a scarcity of clothing choices, and when they do have choices they tend to be several times as much as ‘average’ sizes? 

So thin people are told that they cannot get organ transplants until and unless they lose weight?

So thin people are told they can’t get chemo until and unless they lose weight?

So thin people experience mass discrimination by the healthcare field, refused care, bullied, and abused in nearly every instance, such that something like a thin-friendly list of doctors has to be kept and maintained for the reference of thin people who don’t want to be abused by healthcare professionals anymore?

So there are studies showing that more than a majority of healthcare professionals, including doctors and nurses, find their thin patients disgusting and would prefer not to touch them?

So there are lauded studies showing that thinness is contagious?

So there are lauded studies showing that thinness contributes to global warming?

So there is a national campaign run by the first lady of the US to eradicate thin children? 

So being a thin parent is being used against them in custody battles?

So magazines are full of fat people?

Son most television shows center on the lives, romances, thoughts, aspirations, struggles and success of fat people? 

So the average status-symbol woman is a ‘fat chick’ and the average status-symbol man has ‘moobs’?

So most rich thin people pay to gain weight?

So there’s a 60 billion dollar weight gain industry in the US alone?

So thin people earn less on average than fat people?

So thin people are told by many adoption agencies, private and government, that they aren’t healthy enough to adopt by virtue of their thinness?

So thin people are considered so subhuman there’s a special question just for them on dating sites to the effect of, “Would you consider dating a thin person, or would that be a dealbreaker?”

Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

(note: don’t fucking tone-police me in an ask later, either. And enjoy your weekend doing whatever the fuck you want, while fat people are treated like dogshit if they try to go to clubs or even step outside the fucking house)

(for references/citations of many of the statements alluded to above, read This is Thin Privilege)

(made rebloggable by request)

whoandwho:

moooooooose-o-lantern:

casuallyracistatthedisco:

the next disney movie needs to be like there’s a plus size princess who’s supposed to marry this prince but he doesn’t love her and she thinks it’s because of her weight so she gets all upset but at the end you find out it’s ‘cause he’s actually gay YES OR YES

Third option:  HELL YES.

#omg i like this #although there’s something irking me about the idea and i can’t put my finger on it…

I’m gonna try this. I think it might be that, while a movie like that could be good, there’s a good chance it would end up being all about the white (‘cuz it would be white) gay guy, and he gets his happy ending (even though he was probably a douche to her) but she doesn’t get hers. Because she’s just so happy for him that she doesn’t even need her own happy ending. Because fat people - no, lbr, fat women - aren’t supposed to expect love, and as soon as she isn’t the love interest she would fade into the background. Because the white gay movement finds it really hard to fight heterosexism without being as misogynistic as fuck.

Yeah this is kind of a shitty idea tbqh for all of the above reasons; also, I’m so done with narratives where fat women don’t get happy endings or, if they do, it’s because they’ve lost a lot of weight or because some guy had to be tricked into seeing her for her ~personality and inner beauty~. Either way those narratives get co-opted by the other person, and become more about pleasing them/their transformation than they are about the fat woman, no matter how integral to the story she may be.

(via shorm)

songsforthesiren: stophatingyourbody: You can be fat and healthy, actually. Here are  a ton of links and studies and  people to prove it. But the most important part is: Not your body? Not your business. Shame doesn’t help anyone. Stigma doesn’t help anyone. Vague future health threats don’t help anyone. But if the only places that you hear that fat is always unhealthy are from mass media, which helps the diet industry make $40 BILLION (or more) profit per year, or from the medical community which is more interested in making money off prescribing pills and bariatric surgery, you might want to consider that you’ve been fooled. Also keep in mind that the government and medical community immediately throws out/stops funding any studies that prove that fat is not unhealthy. This is not the place to be asking such questions. This blog is not about health. This blog is about self esteem. This blog promotes POSITIVE self-esteem regardless of weight, health, or any other physical factors. We’re not here to argue about it. ~Amber The best part about that question was that the person who answered said: You may feel fine, and your doctor may tell you you’re fine, and medical tests may say you’re fine BUT YOU’RE NOT.  I loled. 

songsforthesiren:

stophatingyourbody:

You can be fat and healthy, actually.

But the most important part is: Not your body? Not your business. Shame doesn’t help anyone. Stigma doesn’t help anyone. Vague future health threats don’t help anyone.

But if the only places that you hear that fat is always unhealthy are from mass media, which helps the diet industry make $40 BILLION (or more) profit per year, or from the medical community which is more interested in making money off prescribing pills and bariatric surgery, you might want to consider that you’ve been fooled. Also keep in mind that the government and medical community immediately throws out/stops funding any studies that prove that fat is not unhealthy.

This is not the place to be asking such questions. This blog is not about health. This blog is about self esteem. This blog promotes POSITIVE self-esteem regardless of weight, health, or any other physical factors. We’re not here to argue about it.

~Amber

The best part about that question was that the person who answered said: You may feel fine, and your doctor may tell you you’re fine, and medical tests may say you’re fine BUT YOU’RE NOT. 

I loled. 

(via redefiningbodyimage)

feminismisprettycool: donttellmewahttodo: Ah there it is. My comment, of course, isn’t there because she so graciously deleted it. I basically told her to stop judging and let them dress how they want. HOW DARE I.  Things like this are the things that remind me how much I fucking just hate people. Not only do we have a shitton of self righteous fatphobia, we’ve also got some great slut shaming going on: “The more you see the easier you look.” Well guess what? My cellulite-ridden ass hanging out of my gold sequined hot pants may make it look like I’m “easy” to you, but you won’t be getting any of it.

feminismisprettycool:

donttellmewahttodo:

Ah there it is. My comment, of course, isn’t there because she so graciously deleted it. I basically told her to stop judging and let them dress how they want. HOW DARE I. 

Things like this are the things that remind me how much I fucking just hate people.

Not only do we have a shitton of self righteous fatphobia, we’ve also got some great slut shaming going on: “The more you see the easier you look.”

Well guess what? My cellulite-ridden ass hanging out of my gold sequined hot pants may make it look like I’m “easy” to you, but you won’t be getting any of it.

(via fatbodypolitics)

Fat privilege

thisisthinprivilege:

(oh, another troll submission! The hills are aliiiive with the sound of trolls…. As usual, my responses are in bold)

Fat privilege is blaming your weight on genetics.

Hate is ignoring whatever facts you need to so you can keep on stewing and spewing and basking in unearned social superiority.

Genetics controls where your muscle insertions are, and how easily you put on fat/muscle. Even with the worst genetics, you can get in shape.

Muscle insertions? Are those like the insertions I put in my bra sometimes? No, wait, forget I said that!

So I’m confused…are you say weight is or is not influenced by genetics? (it is, of course)

As long as calories in > calories out, you WILL lose weight. You WILL feel better. You WILL only need one airline ticket.

Except that the body as a Bunsen burner model (which is the calories in / calories out equation you cite) violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In other words: PHYSICS PWN!

As for airline tickets, if they keep getting smaller and the pitch keeps decreasing fewer and fewer people will fit into plane seats. The airlines control the seat size and whether or not someone can fit into the seat, not the person purchasing the seat. Duh.

Stop thinking that you can be fat and healthy. You can’t.

W R O N G.

Stop making excuses for the way you are. You’re fat because you eat shit and don’t exercise.

Assumptions make an ass out of you and…actually, just you.

(original troll post submitted by spessmerhenn)

(via fattyforever)

“

Here’s a good way to ruin your afternoon. Go on the Internet and find any discussion thread that brings up overweight people (like this or this one). Stand back and watch as a crowd absolutely rants about how incredibly easy it is to lose weight, and how incredibly lazy you have to be to get fat. The conclusion will be that being fat is literally a moral failing and the sign of a bad, disgusting human being. It’s to the point of actual anger and violence directed toward the overweight in real life — the fat are one of the last groups people can openly hate.

But now take any of those people and try using the same logic with their weaknesses:

“You’re struggling to get by on your income? I can’t imagine how lazy a person would have to be to not be wealthy. Just go out there and make money! Duh!”

“You don’t have a girlfriend? I can’t imagine how much of an antisocial dick you have to be to not get a beautiful woman to love you. How hard is it to get off your ass and be a dynamic, sexy, personable human being?”

“You drink alcohol? Or smoke cigarettes? Or smoke pot? Why don’t you try not doing those things?”

“You suffer from depression or anxiety? Uh, have you tried not?”

Now watch as they rattle off ten thousand extenuating circumstances for their embarrassing problem (the economy is bad, women are bitches, I have an addiction) while completely rejecting all of the similar causes of obesity.

The Science:

It’s called the fundamental attribution error.

It’s a universal thought process that says when other people screw up, it’s because they’re stupid or evil. But when we screw up, it’s totally circumstantial. Like if you notice a coworker showing up to work high on mescaline, it’s because he’s an out-of-control peyote hound. But if you show up at work high on mescaline, it’s because you had a flat tire and you needed the distraction.

The process feels so obvious when explained — we simply lack information about the context in which the other person screwed up, and so we fill it in with our own. If we’ve never been fat, then we assume the fat guy feels the exact same level of hunger as we do, that his metabolism is the same, that his upbringing is the same, that the spare time and energy he can devote to exercise is the same as ours. We think that both of us faced the exact same fork in the road and only one of us chose to eat churros.

The reality is, of course, that you were on completely different roads. The assumption that everyone’s circumstances are identical is so plainly wrong as to be borderline insane, but everyone does it. Pundits and politicians alike mock the unemployed as lazy, even though their own data shows that for every five unemployed people, there is only one open job. “I don’t understand, can’t you all just become radio talk show hosts like me?”

”

5 Logical Fallacies That Make You Wrong More Than You Think

By:

(via desadesfatgirl)

(via shorm)

“

Obesity is not a cost that can be calculated

Obesity is a body size, there are healthy and unhealthy fat people just like there are healthy and unhealthy thin people. The current state of oppression, stigma and shame around obesity means that any calculation of the cost of obesity is impossible to separate from the cost of that oppression, stigma and shame.

Obesity is correlated to a number of diseases so it is considered a “risk factor” although the term is used loosely since there is no proof of causality of risk, it’s as if they found out that short people get a certain disease more often but they have no idea why so they say that shortness is a “risk factor”. At any rate, a family history of heart disease is also considered a risk factor. The calculations that are commonly used to show the “cost of obesity” are often based on the assumption that obese people will get every disease for which they have a risk factor, or that every disease they get is caused by their fat. This is exactly the same as if we calculated the cost of people with a family history of heart disease based on the assumption that they are all going to get heart disease, or that any heart disease they get is caused by their family history. It’s just poor research.

Besides which, an attempt to calculate the cost of a group of people based on how they look in order to make a decision to eradicate that population because they’ve been deemed to expensive is clearly dangerous and wrong.

”

Things Obesity is Not by Ragen Chastain (via redefiningbodyimage)

(via redefiningbodyimage)

nenona:

juicyjacqulyn:

shakethecobwebs:

thenewavengers:

A third of the world is obese.

A third of the world is starving.

The other third is floating around, being average, up and down, you know.

Doesn’t that speak volumes about the human race, that a third of us will sit on mountains of food and leave nothing but scraps for other members of the same species.

How the people at the top, with so much food, and so much selfishness, will be so complacent that they will view their obesity as okay.

That’s my problem right there.

The people at the top.

If that were true, you would be pissed off that we live in a country that mass produces unhealthy food for cheaper than it produces healthy food.

If that were true, you would be critiquing businesses, not people who are affected by them. 

Do you seriously think fat people just hoard food? That we literally sit atop mountains of burgers and shakes and laugh at those who don’t have food?

Did you know that obesity is found more often in impoverished areas because there is little to no access to healthy foods, gyms, parks, and transportation needed to get to good grocery stores?

Or maybe the fact that these poor people have to feed entire families and work two jobs to support everyone and don’t have time to make fucking brown rice and broccoli every night?

You’re being intellectually dishonest when you say that you’re “mad at the people at the top” whilst blaming fat people for not “putting down the burgers.”

Here’s a fucking hint: People have to eat to survive. And if a large fry gets someone through the day, so fucking be it. Furthermore, if people can eat junk food all day long and never exercise and remain thin, is it that fucking hard to believe that people can eat healthy, exercise, and remain fat?

If you’re going to be a dick, at least put forth some fucking effort, bro.

I’m curious to see what CAPTAIN SAVE THE PLANET FROM OBESITY has done to help those with less food. A nice list of all the donations they’ve made, how many hours of volunteering to make food readily available to those who are starving, and some stats on how effective their uneducated rantings have been in actually doing something about this problem they seem so worked up about….

OH WAIT….. haha

As for everything Taylor said, as usual, 100% spot on. It’s easier for people considered poor or the working poor to make a $1 box of mac n cheese than it is for them to make chicken and potatoes and veggies (for way more than $1). 

OP…Stop acting like “the obesity epidemic” is something that moves you and needs to be changed. Just tell the truth. You have been trained like a lap dog to hate fat people, and so you spew ignorant filth in order to shame and belittle people because you’re too lazy to actually put forth the effort to educate yourself, and find out where the real problem lies. Hint #1… it lies in people like you.

Yes, people who survive off of cheap food and prepackaged food because they can’t afford anything else=sitting on mountains of food.

I just….It’s like these people have never -actually- been poor or had to live off of $1 a day to eat!

Excellent commentary. OP is being a douche.

(via shorm)