Despite popular believe, people doesnât and canât suddenly turn black as they pleased, while body weight is something you can at least control through dedication.
Until next time á( á )á
I think thereâs a danger in oversimplifying.
On the one end, some people do have a hard time or maybe even actually impossible time to fight their obesity.
On the other end, a lot of people are dismissive of trying to lose weight and hide behind âbody positivityâ and âobese people canât help itâ when they could really get a lot of results if they actually took it seriously. A relative of mine has been obese for decades, even as the diabetes came on the general take away they had was âapply medicine, keep living how I likeâ. Then when their liver started failing due to the fat and got the prognosis that they were probably going to die in a matter of months, they found the motivation to lose 40 pounds, in the goal of extending their life a little. Now they have what is, by all appearances, a healthy liver again. They also have much better mobility, reduced joint pain, blood sugar that doesnât need medication anymore. Though they are still stuck with a lot of the damage already done, losing weight has been a great boon to their life, and something they always had dismissed as being something other people could do but they were just stuck that way.
Well weâve had fat hate for much much longer and most attitude about fat by most people is still hate, especially by fat people themselves and that has never helped decreasing obesity.
In your example, it took clear evidence of imminent death to find the motivation to lose the weight.
I would posit that the public hate and self hate about being fat is not helping. And whenever I hear complaints about body posivity around fatness, what I think Iâm hearing is the fat hate enforcers being upset at being denied. I imagine they quite like being able to hate freely and feel superior âfor a good causeâ.
I suspect that fat hate has never helped anyone, and probably made things worse.
I think framework of being is a personal moral failing, just doesnât work and perpetuates the problem. Like many other âforever problemsâ like drug use and homelessness.
I think itâs safe to assume that problem that persist through entire lifetimes simply are bno ever going to spontaneously resolve themselves through sheer will power, especially not today where it is being sapped away by commercial interests.
Yep, the same way people can take full control of their depression, alcoholism or other psycological issues. Itâs all about just rolling up those sleeves and deciding not to have the issues. So we can safely assume that all heavier people are a result of them actively choosing to become heavy, so we should always treat them as such.
At the end of the day, alcoholism, depression, and obesity, they are unhealthy states of being.
They are not something people choose, and while there are treatments, itâs not something everyone can control.
That doesnât mean we should simply accept this state of being. People living with depression deserve better, people living with alcoholism deserve better than for us to say âitâs out of their control, they canât help it, so we shouldnât judge, let them beâ when what they need is better support and better treatment options.
Likewise, obese people deserve better than âeat less, move more, fatty!â but they also deserve more than âall bodies are beautiful, just let us beâ
I say this as someone who was a fat kid, and a fat teen, and a fat adult. I had a BMI of 50 for a most of my life. In my mid 30s, I got it down to 28, and still going.
So I say all of this is as someone else who was fat, obese, and morbidly obese. Obesity should be viewed the same way we view depression and anxiety, though depression and anxiety also need some better PR.
Being obese may not not always be a choice, but the the ultimate end goal of how we view obesity as a state of being is to find ways we can all manage our weight. Because obesity is not healthy, for those who canât easily control their weight, life sucks, they are patients in need of treatment, not morally failing people, but also not âperfect plus sized activists who are healthy at every sizeâ
Because while bodies and sizes vary and we can do healthy things at every size. Obesity is inherently unhealthy. Obviously being bullied wonât solve anything, but neither will society politely ignoring how hard it is to live a full life while suffering from obesity.
Being black isnât an inherent health issue. It genuinely is just a different state of being. 99% of problems unique to black people are social issues, not medical issues⌠So the comparison between obesity and substance abuse issues is more helpful than trying to compare being obese to being BIPOC.
Congrats on your weight loss journey! May I ask if there was a specific thing that motivated you to start and keep going? And how did you turn your mindset around?
Are you claiming that depression, alcoholism, and other psychological issue cannot be treated? Are you saying that to someone who went through severe depression period twice in his life and on his path to recovery for the second period only recently? Or are you saying people will become severely obese even when eating the same healthy amount of healthy food as other non-obese people?
Just because something is hard doesnât mean your out of control. And I know hard - nothing comes easyâŚ
There are a variety of reasons, and of course there exists people who are in full control of their weight, but decide to not do anything about it. What Iâm hinting at is that there are also a lot of people who suffer with deeper psycological issues. We donât really tease depressed people with nick names and expect them to just snap out of it at any time. Hence I feel like we should generally treat heavier people with respect instead of assuming that itâs their active choice.
MJ turning white is because of Vitiligo, he use makeup to cover up the skin condition.
Also heâs black by birth, not a choice he made either.
And even on his level, he had to deal with systemic racism. It took two years for MTV to start broadcasting videos with black people in them, including videos already made by Michael Jackson (although itâs not true that Billie Jean was the first video by a black artist on MTV. That honor went a couple of weeks earlier to Pass the Dutchie by Musical Youth).
while body weight is something you can at least control through dedication.
Generally not.
There are quite a lot of disorders affecting eating habits, and there are quite a lot of conditions that mean that even on something like a keto diet youâll get obese (or extremely thin).
So no, if you are not obese, you most likely are not more âdedicatedâ than some person you know who is. You are just healthier. Most likely since birth, and thereâs nothing theyâve done wrong.
Obviously itâs still bad to be obese.
Try staying fat while eating nothing.
Try staying thin while eating a whole cow each day and injecting fat into your veins.
If both are impossible, then you can control your weight.
