Things to stop doing in conversations unless you want to contribute to the hatred of fat people

[scullies]

TW for post and comments: fatphobia; body-shaming; discussing of diet, weight-loss, exercise.

You might have heard the terms fat-hate or fatphobia used to describe your words or what sounded to you like the reasonable words of others. Maybe you don’t hate fat people. Maybe you aren’t afraid of fat people. Maybe you aren’t less likely to hire fat

Comments

[pleasure_past]

Can you please fix your text color? I can't read this on my theme.

[scullies]

ack, I'm sorry! It's showing up as just black text on a plain background for me, let me see if I can figure out what's up.

I completely reformatted it, hoping it's better now.

[pleasure_past]

Yup! Better! Thanks.

[pleasure_past]

one of the greatest human drives is the drive to fit in. When you call out someone for doing something weird or exceptional, even just by pointing it out, you are very likely to decrease their desire to continue with that activity.

THIS, SO MUCH. I get this kind of thing sometimes from my mother, both about food/exorcize kind of things and about other things, and I've never understood before now why it always immediately kills any desire I have to continue doing the activity she's "complimenting" me on.

“How I lost 30 lbs” was followed parenthetically by “(And got my life back)”.

I've always hated this one too. I HAVE A LIFE. I have school and friends and hobbies and healthy relationships with my family and Medieval Swordfighting and I travel and get jobs when I'm not on a visa that doesn't allow it. My weight has never stopped me from doing any of these things. When people say that getting thin = getting your life back, what they mean is that getting thin = getting a life that they consider worth living. It's not a statement

[guad]

Eh, while I agree with most of that, I'm having issues here with the health topic: Overweight/Obesity IS a risk factor for a lot of things and it's no good denying it or wishwashing it only to avoid peoples feelings to get hurt. I work in a hospital and we just organized last week a conference on healhty eating, "miracle diets", overweight and its risk factors etc. and it's a serious topic. Saying that fat/overweight/obesity etc is a risk factor for several things doesn't make one a fat hater.

I recently stopped smoking, and you can be sure that nobody ever has a concern on "not saying things" to a smoker, to avoid hurting their feelings. (Not saying smoking and body shape is the same thing, but the treatment by others in regard to health is similar. And both have similar risk factors.)

Just my two cents :)

[danu_scathach]

Correlation does not equal causation.

[ragnor144]

Can I add the blanket "You've lost weight - you look good," when you don't know the circumstances, or especially when you know the circumstances are bad? My 9th grade history teacher told me that after he knew I had been vomiting for three straight days. When I came back to school I weighed 92 pounds at 5'3". A few years ago I developed a wicked case of brittle Type II diabetes from the stress of my previous pregnancies. I was verging on underweight because the cells in my body were starving, but I got the "You look great!" comment so many times. Sometimes I gently explained the situation, other times I just said, "Thanks, I;m dying by inches!" and walked away. All of this has been great for my eating disorders

[wuvvumsoc]

People have been asking me if I lost weight and that I look good even when nothing about my weight has changed at all. I've been pretty stable and staying around 200 lbs (though I haven't checked as much since I had nexplanon which some women said caused some extreme weight gain).

[solarseraphim]

I like this post. Thank you for bringing it here.