Thread: Fat Shaming

But it is a hard road. As pointed out there are legitimate reasons to be overweight~medications, medical issues etc. It still stinks but it's not because that person is eating 1500 calories a meal plus snacks.

What we need is an overhaul of our farming system to get affordable, not modified in any way, with added sugars, dyes etc. foods into our stores and into our homes without having to take out a second mortgage. Subsidizing these types of food instead of corn in order to make high fructose corn syrup is better. Getting people access to health care (we are pretty much there!) so they have routine physicals and have coverage to visit nutritionists to help them learn to eat properly. Bringing home ec back into schools for all students so they can learn how to prepare healthy meals and not rely on packaged crap. It's a whole system.

What is different with food is that we HAVE to eat. We don't HAVE to smoke.

Originally Posted by Alissa_Sal

I find I take much better care of the things I love than the things I hate.

There's something profoundly true about that last statement. I struggle with weight and health as well, I lost 40 pounds and incorporated exercise into my life, and since then (when the stress set in when my Mom got sick) I have gained almost half of it back and struggled, struggled, struggled. And the times when I win my battle with overeating is when I have compassion and love for my struggle and myself and not shame. The shame leads me back to dark corners and secret eating.

But I'd like to see the junk food stigmatized, not the people. I go in Pinterest and there are dozens of recipes for cakes with (packaged) cookies stuffed into them. It just doesn't make sense that we're creating things like this. I also see recipes for "low fat" things that are filled with preservatives, Cool Whip, etc. So we really have to change the way we view "healthy" and not just see it as "low fat" which often means preservatives and chemicals and non-food products being put into food.

I keep having a hard time replying to this one, because I both agree and disagree with him and its hard to wrap my mind around my own feelings on this issue

I agree with what Kim is saying, but also agree with the notion of overweight people knowing they are overweight and have or are probably trying to lose the weight, usually unsuccessfully. There is a reason that the diet industry is a bagillion dollar industry, and it isn't because it works. I get so frustrated at the amount of weird things people do to lose weight (shakes, eliminating entire food groups etc) in ways that are not sustainable and just set them up for failure. I think that some of the shaming should be directed at the bullcrap industry that sets people up for failure.

And LAurie, OMG those cakes and whatnot on pinterest ~ they blow my MIND!!!! Cake with candybars and whatnot, its gross!!!!! I then see some friends pinning "thinspiration" pictures and its equally gross, but in an entirely different way.

I don't know. I know that studies have shown that if you have overweight friends you are more likely to be overweight. I do think that there is a component of "I'm not as big as XYZ person so I'm fine". I see it in the conversations around Lena Dunham all the time ~

All in all I don't know. I guess that stigmitazation already exists ~ and this idea of fat shaming could go horribly horribly wrong. At the same time, the figures are truly staggering ~ something has to change.

I think Laurie's right in that part of it has to come in the form of a real education about what truly is healthy and what truly is not. I can tell you that I grew up eating mostly crap, and it has taken me years to educate myself about healthier options. I'm sure that there is still stuff that I eat that I don't realize quite how bad it is for me. Cool Whip is a good example; I don't eat it, but I'm of the impression that it is relatively low cal and low fat, so I'm sure that a lot of people think it's not too bad for you, while ignoring the fact that...well....I'm not even sure what that stuff is....it's not dairy, so what the heck is it?

I honest to god can't remember EVER eating any fresh veggies or fruits in my parents house growing up, except bagged salad. A normal breakfast was sugary cereal (until I got old enough that my mom apparently stopped caring whether I ate breakfast), normal lunch was a lunch meat sandwich and potato chips, or like a frozen burrito or pizza rolls or something like that, and dinner was some piece of meat, a prepackaged carb like mac and cheese or instant potatoes, and a can of either peas, corn, or green beans. And I hated green beans and my brother hated peas, so we usually didn't have those, usually it was corn. And that's it. Soda and chips and packaged cookies were always around, fresh fruits and veggies were not. I remember being at a friend's house one time and seeing her mom steaming a vegetable in a steam basket and thinking it was weird and terrible. When that's the way you're used to eating, you grow up calling corn and potatoes "vegetables." (Which, thy may be vegetables from a botany perspective, IDK, but I no longer really think of them as vegetables from a nutrition standpoint.) Remember the "is ketchup a vegetable?" debate on here? Some people think they are "eating plenty of vegetables" while eating nothing but corn and potatoes and ketchup.

My point is that I totally agree that people may not even realize how unhealthy some of this stuff is, or what healthy eating really looks like, and THAT is what I would like to see more focus on too.

Cool Whip -- A delicious blend of sugar, wax, and condom lube.
Wired Magazine: Cool Whip

LOL That's pretty disgusting. LOL

Originally Posted by Potter75

At the same time, the figures are truly staggering ~ something has to change.

Maybe the fat shaming has to stop? I think that's the first step.

I agree with the junk food having a stigma and not the overweight person. And definitely with the fact that more education is needed to help people get passed all the conflicting messages we are shown everyday.
My MIL is a great example, she is an educated woman, almost 70 and is in really good shape. But she knows nothing about nutrition. She eats and feeds my kids so much stuff with chemicals. She eats everything in the "Low fat" version, even though I have said numerous times that low fat should just be substituted with chemical **** storm. I think that because she is thin she thinks the way she eats is acceptable.

Originally Posted by blather

Maybe the fat shaming has to stop? I think that's the first step.

A "fat is awesome" campaign? I think that the shame aspect is something that individuals choose to participate in or not, really. Maybe I'm wrong- could you explain more?

I don't think there is any choosing about it. I'm certainly not talking about a "fat is awesome" campaign either. But their needs to be much more emphasis on health than on body size. I don't think there needs to be a war on obesity. Fat shaming, doctors who buy into societal messages rather than looking at medical facts and studies, almost everything that is printed about the show Girls, and a million other societal messages that makes even small children think about their weight rather than their health are not okay. They make everyone have lower self-esteem, and more susceptible to dieting. Dieting has been proved to hurt metabolism, proved to increase weight, increase rates of osteoporosis, and so many other diseases. I believe that most diseases associated with obesity are actually related to crash dieting, and I am not alone.

There are so many better strategies- like getting kids to walk to school, putting money into public transportation, putting money into education budgets so that gym teachers have time with their kids. Why does making people feel worse about themselves or their friends have to come into it?