There’s an ongoing cultural movement to convince fat people that they are healthy and beautiful just the way they are. They don’t have to live up to some unspoken social standard of health and body shape. There’s no need to change their lifestyle, no need to learn to eat healthy and get some regular exercise. They should accept themselves just the way they are and anyone who tells them differently is being offensive and ‘fat shaming’. They are being glamorized on magazine covers and television talk shows. The issue has been politicized to enable people’s bad habits and punish those who aren’t politically correct.
The potential health risks associated with being overweight are well known and doctors have a duty to point them out to patients. That’s why the first thing a doctor does when you go for a checkup is check your height and weight. Those risks include high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, sleep apnea, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver diseases, osteoarthritis, gall bladder disease, back and joint pain to make a short list. It’s irresponsible and mean to try and convince someone who’s fat that they’re healthy rather than addressing the potential risks.
Are fat people beautiful? Are thin people beautiful? Is anyone beautiful? Beauty is not an objective measure, it’s in the eye of the beholder, so to tell people they are objectively beautiful just because they are fat is also mean and misleading. It can lead to unrealistic expectations that society can never live up to. They’ll expect everyone to find them beautiful and when they don’t it can lead to frustration, anger, anxiety and depression. It can strain and damage personal relationships leading to social isolation and psychological issues that fuel the bad habits that led to the situation in the first place.
Regardless of the narrative, the truth is that nobody likes being fat irrespective what they say or what they might have been conditioned to believe. Not because they are shamed by others for not adhering to a social standard but because even the most mundane daily activities are hard when you’re overweight – depending on how much. Simple things like walking any prolonged distance, climbing flights of stairs, getting in and out of a car, getting up off a sofa, social activities with friends like going on hikes, playing sports, summer and winter activities like skiing, skating, dancing, buying clothes, fitting in an airplane seat, buckling a seat belt, sex! Some even have difficulty wiping their backside because they just can’t reach, they have to use a specially made device.
Some circumstances can be humiliating like the unusual shortness of breath or excess perspiration. Not being able to find clothing that fits so they have to wear stretchable shirts and sweatpants and shoes without laces because they can’t bend over to tie them. Or like when the woman was told she couldn’t go horseback riding because she was too heavy for the horse. So they end up sitting on the sidelines watching others enjoy life because they are physically unable to participate. That has to be sad, it has to have a psychological effect on anyone.
That’s why they’ve tried many times to lose weight, and sometimes succeeded, but they’ve never been able to keep the weight off. They’ve disappointed themselves over and over again with their failure to change. Now people are telling them that the solution is to stop trying, there’s no need to disappoint themselves anymore because there’s nothing wrong. It takes caring about someone enough to risk them being mad at you for being honest with them. Most people care more about what others think of them to risk someone being mad at them so they enable the bad habits and perpetuate the problem. And now it’s considered socially unacceptable to be honest, so people lie and pat themselves on the back for being so virtuous, a cultural hero regardless of the consequences to others. That’s politics for you.
I fat shamed a ‘friend’s’ kid ’cause he was borderline obese and the gal had the nerve to block my phone number. Some people just can’t handle the truth and say shit like, ‘he is just 9 years old,’ or ‘he is thick bonned, leave him,’ and then wonder why their children grow fat and never mature. I can see him being diagnosed with ‘ADHD,’ ‘Anxiety,’ or ‘Depression,’ in the near future!