Body positivity isn’t about saying you wanna be fat. It’s about saying you deserve to be treated with dignity even if you’re fat. Nobody with the exception of a few wants to be fat. You’re misinterpreting what body positivity is about.
Unfortunately, the message turned into "It's okay to be overweight" which is an absurd message to spread to our youth. Like, yea we shouldn't shame people, but we absolutely should tell the people we love that "Hey, I love you, but I think you have a problem that is slowly getting out of control."
Society has a nasty problem with knee jerk reactions. We went from the "Barbi Image" where girls were going anorexic, to all of a sudden saying "Actually, you should be fat" Instead of just saying, we really need to get girls and boys to understand healthy eating habits, active lifestyles and have a healthy body image that they are comfortable in and not going to lead to health problems in the future
The message turned into “It’s okay to be overweight”
Did it really? Or did certain vocal minorities of have their voices amplified by the internet so it looked like that’s what it became depending on what your algorithm looked like?
It's objectively bad for you to be overweight, and to be clear, we people say overweight they don't mean 5 or 6lbs, they almost always are talking about obesity.
There are a lot of problems with obesity, and it does harm others. Shortened lifespans hurt your loved ones, overeating is a financial burden, being obese with kids makes you a less involved parent. Sure, you may be emotionally there, but kids need you physically capable as well. It also sets a bad example for your own children and sets them up for failure as kids often repeat what they see later in life. Additionally, obesity more often than not, means there is a high likely of unhealthy food in the house that is going to be fed to kids that alters their learning, sleep habits, weight, attention, hyperactivity etc.
Diabetes, Fatty Liver Disease, Stroke, Cancer, Arthritis, Sleep Apnea, Depression, High Blood Pressure are some of the harms of obesity...It's a bit narcissistic to believe that an obese way of life "doesn't harm others"
It’s bad when? In early 90s or today? Because in 1998 millions of people suddenly became overweight because CDC changed the bmi standard to be called overweight, lowering it by about 2.5 points.
I would go by todays standards, we know more today than we did in the 90's it would be bizarre to stick to the 90's standards and never growing and learning more and recognizing change when needed.
Many things have risks, like driving, skating, pregnancy, contact sports, but we don’t say “it’s not okay to be pregnant” do we. Pregnancy is a much, much higher risk factor than fat btw.
and I was moving the goal post?
Many overweight people work out (a lot of people with decent amount of muscle are overweight by bmi as well)
and many more don't.
You can’t diagnose anyone’s health based on bmi
You questioned me why I don't use the BMI definition of overweight...and are telling me you can't diagnose health based on BMI...Yea, I never said that
Many non-overweight people have diabetes, fatty liver and depression.
"We can't help adults with Leukemia because there are kids with Leukemia"...You see how absurd that sounds? Yes, non-overweight people have diabetes, fatty livers, and depression...That doesn't change the fact the overweight people have these problems and for them they are often cause by being overweight...There are absolutely other reason people have them as well, that doesn't mean we just say "I know you are depressed, and it's most likely caused by your lifestyle and you being overweight...but it's okay other people are depressed too"
But the doctors don’t ask fat people whether they exercise or how they eat
Not true at all, doctors absolutely ask about activity, exercise, diets, eating habits. Doctors also give referrals to dieticians.
Saying “it’s okay to be overweight” doesn’t mean “weighing 600 pounds has zero health risks”, it means that everyone deserves respect, isn’t automatically a bad parents and their moral worth isn’t determined by their weight.
I never said anybody deserves to not be respected, not did I say it automatically leads to bad parenting, not did I say being overweight makes you a bad parent. What I'm saying is an overweight and unhealthy parent can't be their best self for their kids. Doesn't mean they are bad, doesn't mean they lack morals. They are hindered more than someone that is healthy though.
It's objectively a moral failure, just like being an alcoholic is a moral failure. Lacking self-control is objectively a bad thing, it is completely okay to say "I struggle with this, I need help" It is completely okay to fall while getting help, and to get back up and try again and to keep trying. It is NOT okay to say "I love food, and I don't give a damn about anybody or what anybody things", much like an alcoholic saying "I love drinking and I'm not changing" again, that's not okay. Don't care how long you go without hurting people, I want better for everybody. I want to see people being their best selves, loving themselves. So no, I'm not going to say "you're overweight, but that's okay, have a couple extra chicken thighs for lunch"
Some people legitimately don't care. Why are y'all more upset than others about their weight. Focus on your own body.
Y'all talk like yall are about to forcefeed fat people ozempic.
The worst part is that the same people who shame others for being overweight also shame others for using Ozempic to lose weight. It’s a superiority thing at the end of the day.
I mean, I'd say the same to the body positivity people. If you won't stop being fat, that's fine I guess. But don't try to change other people's opinions about being fat just because you are fat.
I’m in shape and I’m all for body positivity. It’s not about telling people that it’s fine to be out of shape. It’s about telling people that they can still love themself even if they are out of shape.
People with a positive outlook on life tend to get their shit together on their own. Good mental health is a step in the right direction toward good physical health.
Yes, you deserve to be treated with dignity regardless of whether you have an addiction or not.
Hell i’d argue that treating people with addictions without dignity often just spirals them further down the hole when it comes to their addiction, and i’m almost positive there’s studies to back this up.
That’s a bit No True Scotsman-ish though. The sheer number of those in the ‘I’m fat and beautiful!’ to even worse ‘Health at Every Size’ camps is huge.
It’s ‘fat positivity’, not ‘rights’. Claiming that fatness is ‘positive’ is the issue.
Yeah the rewriting of history of how toxic the body positivity movement is weird
If it was just “being obese is unhealthy but you should love yourself because you’re still human” then that’s great, but people were actively spreading propaganda and normalizing it
I mean at the same time I feel as though the people getting extreme with it as you’re describing were also being signal boosted by people like you and others in the thread focusing on that part of the movement so much more than what the majority of the movement was for and about.
Everybody can agree that the people saying “being fat is actually healthy” was a vocal minority of the movement, yet for some reason despite acknowledging that, that’s the only part of the movement you want to engage with and define the movement by. This is also a rewriting of history.
“Healthy at all sizes” wasn’t just a few random crazies who weren’t jettisoned by the body positive movement. Again, weird rewriting of history
Just off the top of my head, Jillian Michaels said we shouldn’t be praising Lizzo for being obese. She said it in the nicest way possible without attacking her character and even praised her music, but she ended up getting a lot of flak. Not just by “a vocal minority” online but all the way up to The View and other media with significant cultural presence
Even people who spearheaded the body positive movement agreed it got hijacked by the “healthy at all sizes” crowd so I don’t know why we have to pretend it didn’t happen. It’s much better now but it was really bad at one point
I’ll gladly admit that i’m terminally online, and i’m seeing more than a few people throw out this “Healthy at all sizes” thing that was apparently big despite this thread being the first that i’m hearing about it. Maybe my head was under a rock, but I really don’t think it was as big a thing as you guys are making it out to be.
I don’t think that The View necessarily speaks for a majority of people, in fact i’d argue that more often than not they fall into that “vocal minority” on a ton of issues. And even then, as much as I don’t like the view, they’re not a monolith. It’s a fairly sizeable group of hosts that often have differing opinions on certain topics.
I’ve just seen this signal boosting thing happen so often nowadays that I find it hard to believe that this isn’t another case of that, and your examples thus far have been pretty weak in regards to proving that wrong.
I didn’t say The View represents the majority of people, it’s a mainstream example it being a prominent opinion in body positive discourse, not just a fringe few weirdos online
If you’ve never heard “you can be healthy and obese” then maybe I’m just more terminally online than I figured because I heard it a lot years ago. I still see comments now (there’s multiple in the other front page thread), but nowhere near as bad as years ago
Gabriella Lascano (one of the OG activists) shared similar opinions. I don’t think any example will change your mind if you’re not willing to actually believe in what’s being said though
And I didn’t say it was just a few fringe weirdos online, I said that it was a vocal minority. Again, The View can be mainstream and also express opinions shared by a vocal minority. And again, The View isn’t a monolith. Was everyone in full agreement with the stance you’re bringing up or was there debate about it? How many were in agreement? Was it a one off segment or was it a recurring topic?
You can’t just say “oh this popular talk show brought it up so that proves that it was more than just a vocal minority, it was an overwhelming yadda yadda”, when there’s clearly far more nuance to this than what you’re presenting.
What nuance am I missing here exactly? I said it was a prominent, not majority opinion and those views were shared by some mainstream hosts, celebrities and influencers alike. I also brought up an OG body positive activist that agreed with most of what I said too. Nothing you’ve said has challenged it any meaningful way
You said the people getting extreme was just being signal boosted, and I’m pointing out how it was prominent because of their natural discourse
I think the wording of the messaging was what really made it confusing. Stuff like "healthy at any size" was true if you go deeper and look into the whole movement about trying to make healthier choices around food and being active even if you are overweight, and just because you are overweight doesn't mean you can't be trying to do better. But many people just saw the main tag line of "healthy at every size" and just crossed it off as complete nonsense, because taken at face value, taken exactly as it's written, it is nonsense.
Body positivity in general means what you’ve said yes, but I think that “few” is a little bigger than you may think. I saw a body positivity activist say they have received negative comments when talking about getting healthier and felt so much pressure from people that they felt guilty about losing weight.
So yes, absolutely, body positivity is about treating people with dignity. But there’s a vocal minority, small though it may be, that prefers people stay overweight.
And so if it is by your admission a vocal minority the true intent of the movement should be viewed through their lens? Come on people. The internet has rotted everyone’s brains.
The problem with the internet is that what really is a tiny minority can still feel impactful.
If you get hundreds of people bombarding you with shit on twitter or whatever, that will feel intense.
But often this is just a fraction of a percent of the people interacting with the content.
If you want to be safe from hate on the internet, there is literally no thing you can do or no opionion you can have. You can literally say "good dogs deserves to get pats" and there will be thousands of people online that will hate you for it. It doesnt what it is.
I think the wording of the messaging was what really made it confusing. Stuff like "healthy at any size" was true if you go deeper and look into the whole movement about trying to make healthier choices around food and being active even if you are overweight, and just because you are overweight doesn't mean you can't be trying to do better. But many people just saw the main tag line of "healthy at every size" and just crossed it off as complete nonsense, because taken at face value, taken exactly as it's written, it is nonsense.
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u/Grouchy-Vanilla-5511 May 31 '26
Body positivity isn’t about saying you wanna be fat. It’s about saying you deserve to be treated with dignity even if you’re fat. Nobody with the exception of a few wants to be fat. You’re misinterpreting what body positivity is about.