Big Fat Rant
I'm fat. I'm a nerd and gamer. I teach special education. I'm also a very leftist, bleeding heart pinko liberal borderline communist. So I'm big on acceptance and people speaking up for the underdog.
Discrimination = bad.
I was reading a pretty neat blog, Feminist Gamers, that I've seen before and check out from time to time. There was a recent post about a new game out call Fat Princess.
Yes, the game looks offensive and rife with misogynist ideas, shallow humor and absolutely socially damaging stereotypes. I'm not blogging about that, because plenty of other more eloquent people already have.
But in reading through comments, clicking here and there and googling, I ended up at a site I'm pretty sure I've heard of, but never read before.
Bigfatblog.com is devoted to the fat acceptance movement. It's a very serious minded site that is calling out the discrimination and hatred that's aimed at fat people in our society. Great, it's about time someone equated this sort of discrimination with racism or sexism. No one deserves to be made to feel like a lower class of person.
And yet, I've got a problem with one of the main philosophies espoused on the site. A big problem. The blog is firmly anti-dieting, and strives to present a case that all the talk of disease related to obesity is false or misleading. Is it? Maybe, I've never researched it. But it goes so far as saying that there's no reason to ever congratulate someone who's proud of losing weight. That fat celebrities who endorse weight loss programs are traitors giving conflicting messages.
But for fuck's sake, if you're all for fighting discrimination on any level, why not some support for other fat people who have have made a conscious choice to achieve something. If being comfortable with your fatness is a valid lifestyle choice as this blog contends, and I agree that is it, then why isn't it valid to decide you want to change?
You know, maybe obesity doesn't cause all the death that people have said it does. And I am 100% ready to believe that the diet industry is more about making people feel like shit than helping people, after all, repeat customers give them more money. But you know what, my knees hurt more than when I weighed less. I have less energy and it causes problems in plenty of place. It's not a store's responsibility to carry my size of clothing or airlines to have wider seats.
Yes, some people have disorders, disabilities, are on medication that causes them to gain weight. But that's not most fat people. I'm just pissed at reading this, believing for a few minutes that it was something worth while, and not just someone who feels entitled.
Update on other stuff:
Back in the spring, I started jogging and blogging it so I couldn't quit without ridicule. Well, after a month in or so I hurt my knee. It wasn't just from being fat. I'd stupidly raced my brother, pushing as hard as I could on very uneven ground and it started to hurt real bad after that. I tried jogging after that, but it wasn't really doable. Since then, it's gotten better but I've hurt my hallux (word of the day, look it up!) in a furniture collision bad enough that I'm going to get very minor surgery on it tomorrow. Once that feels better, hopefully within a week, I plan to start over on my jogging program.
Discrimination = bad.
I was reading a pretty neat blog, Feminist Gamers, that I've seen before and check out from time to time. There was a recent post about a new game out call Fat Princess.
Yes, the game looks offensive and rife with misogynist ideas, shallow humor and absolutely socially damaging stereotypes. I'm not blogging about that, because plenty of other more eloquent people already have.
But in reading through comments, clicking here and there and googling, I ended up at a site I'm pretty sure I've heard of, but never read before.
Bigfatblog.com is devoted to the fat acceptance movement. It's a very serious minded site that is calling out the discrimination and hatred that's aimed at fat people in our society. Great, it's about time someone equated this sort of discrimination with racism or sexism. No one deserves to be made to feel like a lower class of person.
And yet, I've got a problem with one of the main philosophies espoused on the site. A big problem. The blog is firmly anti-dieting, and strives to present a case that all the talk of disease related to obesity is false or misleading. Is it? Maybe, I've never researched it. But it goes so far as saying that there's no reason to ever congratulate someone who's proud of losing weight. That fat celebrities who endorse weight loss programs are traitors giving conflicting messages.
But for fuck's sake, if you're all for fighting discrimination on any level, why not some support for other fat people who have have made a conscious choice to achieve something. If being comfortable with your fatness is a valid lifestyle choice as this blog contends, and I agree that is it, then why isn't it valid to decide you want to change?
You know, maybe obesity doesn't cause all the death that people have said it does. And I am 100% ready to believe that the diet industry is more about making people feel like shit than helping people, after all, repeat customers give them more money. But you know what, my knees hurt more than when I weighed less. I have less energy and it causes problems in plenty of place. It's not a store's responsibility to carry my size of clothing or airlines to have wider seats.
Yes, some people have disorders, disabilities, are on medication that causes them to gain weight. But that's not most fat people. I'm just pissed at reading this, believing for a few minutes that it was something worth while, and not just someone who feels entitled.
Update on other stuff:
Back in the spring, I started jogging and blogging it so I couldn't quit without ridicule. Well, after a month in or so I hurt my knee. It wasn't just from being fat. I'd stupidly raced my brother, pushing as hard as I could on very uneven ground and it started to hurt real bad after that. I tried jogging after that, but it wasn't really doable. Since then, it's gotten better but I've hurt my hallux (word of the day, look it up!) in a furniture collision bad enough that I'm going to get very minor surgery on it tomorrow. Once that feels better, hopefully within a week, I plan to start over on my jogging program.