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Response: Being Anti "Fat Acceptance" Hurts People Too!

Let’s face it: the starting point of what the majority of society seems to view as fat isn't even overweight at all. Obviously, being obese is very unhealthy (and clearly visible), but there are many people who view slender and toned as the only healthy body type. This sets up people with healthy pudge (that their doctors could care less about) to be put into the “fat” category as well, which can compromise their mental health and put them at risk for taking unhealthy measures (crash diets, excessive exercise) to obtain what society believes is a “healthy” body.

Underweight/thin people have been criticized, even falsely accused of having eating disorders, which is hurtful and wrong as well. However, the fact of the matter remains that being underweight is glamorized while being even slightly overweight is considered wrong. As Coke0@xanga stated, “I've never seen an ad saying ‘Too skinny? Try this supplement!’ But there are ads EVERYWHERE stressing the importance of thinness through gyms, diet pills, meal plans, etc. Being fat is not a death sentence. There is less panic about skinniness, and if there is some great concern about skinny people not eating enough, it's reserved for the people who are clearly emaciated or close to it. The "obesity epidemic" and "fat is unhealthy" hysteria often includes people who are in the middle range BMI wise, who are thought of as fat or chubby even though they're not even close, and who are therefore given the "unhealthy" stamp”.

Also take into account how many underweight girls on xanga respond to these posts saying that regardless of their weight, they are perfectly healthy, and yet being overweight is unhealthy. So I ask you this: If it is possible for an underweight person to have a well functioning body is it not also possible for a slightly overweight person to be just as healthy? Check out these examples, complete with a BMI summary, and decide for yourselves.

If your BMI is under 18.5 you are underweight, and you should talk to a doctor about whether or not you should consider gaining weight. If your weight is negatively effecting your health, consider gaining weight. If not, be proud and rock what you got!

If your BMI is between 18.6 and 24.9, you're at a healthy weight. You/society may think you're a little too skinny/pudgy. If someone has a problem with it, it’s likely because they have confidence issues of their own. Love yourself, and remember you have the right to defend yourself (as respectfully as possible). No one ever changed the world by keeping quiet. *Note: The second model from the left represents a thin but healthy BMI, while the other models represent a curvy but healthy BMI.

If your BMI is between 25 and 29.9, you're clinically considered overweight. Keep in mind, the vast majority of those in the overweight category are only at risk for health problems, meaning that the vast majority do not have health problems associated with their weight. If you live on junk food and refuse to exercise, you're at risk for the health problems associated with your possible future obesity. There are, however, many "overweight" people who stay active, eat healthy, and have well functioning (aka healthy) bodies that are horribly criticized every day because they don't fit into the stereotype of what "healthy" looks like. Why should their confidence be compromised because of others’ ignorance?

If your BMI is over 30 you are obese, and you need to talk to your doctor about possible lifestyle changes. Being obese can seriously effect your health, and if your weight is putting your life in danger, it's time to make a change. You are more important than a number on a scale, but it’s important to be healthy enough to show the world how much you have to offer as a human being.

Learning to accept those with a curvier body type should not be considered "fat acceptance"; it only furthers the stereotype that they are fat. I personally believe the word "fat" should be banished. There are those that have well functioning bodies, and those people deserve to be happy with themselves and happy in life. And guess what? Overweight and obese people deserve to be happy with themselves too, and they deserve to have people that care about them as who they are so that they have support in making the lifestyle changes needed to live a happy, healthy life.

Do you believe there is a double standard regarding weight? [How] has this affected/changed your views on what it means to be at a healthy weight?

The Truth About Life

You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you care about people, you're bound to get stepped on. If you put your own needs first, you're considered a bad person. It's so hard to figure out who's really fighting against the fucked up shit in this world, and who's just acting like they are for the glory. Lets face it: being dirty keeps us clean. Our wars, our freedom, were won bloody. No one that fights for the good of mankind is innocent. The evil in this world won't allow us to be pristine.

I know two things: Firstly, I am a damn good person to those I care about, those that are worthy of caring about. I am the person they call at 6 a.m. while they're sitting with a tourniquet around their arm, or a blade to their wrist. I am also the person hatred is brought upon when they are not ready to admit their faults, when they are so lost that they can't see how far they have fallen. I'm expected to allow them to spread their lies, I am expected to be weak. But God forbid I am strong enough to stand alone and fight for what I believe in, and I'm in the wrong, because they think they have rights but I don't. Secondly, I can, and will be, a straight up cunt when someone fucks with me, or the people I love. This is the world we live in: every one is out for themselves, compassion is seldom found, the truth is twisted into fiction for peace of mind, and people build strength off of others' weaknesses. This is what makes the line between right and wrong so blurry; how do we overcome those that hurt us and the people around us without hurting them back? How do we fight when we're told that what's right is wrong?

Two wrongs don't make a right

Let bygones be bygones

An eye for an eye

No one really knows true right from true wrong, and none of us can truly be saved if we're not strong enough to confess. It will never be right, it will never be fair. But we fight, if only for those few moments in between the pain, because the smiles we share and the opportunities we have to love, are worth it.

This is life. Fight for what you believe, help who you can, and let the rest burn to ashes. It's the only way to survive. Because the truth is,  if nothing matters, then everything matters.

 "In the end, life can be seen to be inconsequential, in the way that nothing matters on some vast evolutionary scale. But everything matters, and we know that most when life seems most horrific, when at each instant of time, all the space around us is everything there is."

If I knew then what I know now

I'd slap all of you. I'd slap myself. I'd realize that an eating disorder is a living thing, with a life and mind of it's own, and wants nothing more than to take your life. It becomes a love affair with death, it's the abusive boyfriend you love too much to get rid of, who tells you he loves you after every time he hits you but always ends up beating you again.

It begins as a harmless little habit; what female in america hasn't at least somewhat dabbled in our behaviors while still being considered normal? But then the harmless habits transform, too slowly to notice, into roots burried so deeply that should you wish to cut down the tree, there's always those remaining bits under the dirt that can never be unearthed. I've been 130 pounds, I spent months hovering in the 90's, until one day I got to 88. And magically, not even realizing how I got there, I made it to 77. How could I not realize it? Simple, really, in retrospect, to figure out that once you have an eating disorder it never really leaves, that even when you think you're eating normally your addiction is controlling you. And then the body, malnourished, flips a switch and makes you binge so much you feel like the binging will never stop.

For months, it doesn't. You will alternate between days of binging and purging, and days of telling yourself "It's ok if I don't purge just this once, you've suffered this long and you deserve a day off". And the weight piles on, the spine hides away along with the tendons in the backs of your knees, the ribs disappear one by one, the hipbones drown in the flesh of the abdomen, the collarbone is the last to go. I have been bulimic since age 15, finally fit the clinical criteria for anorexia by age 18. I am now 19 years old, 4'6, and 106 pounds. And even though I want the fight to be over, even though I wish I could give this up, I'm on the merry-go-round once again, spinning so fast the colors of the world around me blend and distort into a different world, the world we've all created for ourselves inside our heads.

If you're strong enough, get off the ride now, before it starts spinning so fast that you're chained to it forever; that hell that so many of us have shackeled ourselves to and have finally realized that there is no letting go.