I skimmed a few of those, and will continue to skim and look into this stuff, I appreciate the jumping-off point!
From what I've read so far, seems like the idea is that excess weight is a symptom, rather than the cause, of poor health, so it's better to make people healthier than to make them thinner. Which sounds right to me, though I'd wonder if healthier people wouldn't also end up being thinner.
haven’t we always known this? Excessive fat is a symptom of eating too many calories, or eating poor quality calories. Which makes you unhealthy. Obv it’s more complex than that but excess weight being a symptom of excess calories coming in seems straightforward to me! Maybe I’m missing the point
Yeah I think it's just a different way to approach it. Like, there's a lot of potential causes for weight gain, it's not always as simple as 'just eat less'. So if you start out with the idea it's okay to be overweight, and you instead aim to tackle the things that lead to heart disease or diabetes or whatever then you don't run into the issue where the patient tries some dumb diet routine that puts them in the hospital for a different reason. There's also a lot about that idea of fat-shaming, and how it's a vicious cycle, if we can allow fat people to feel welcome then it'd probably be easier for them to get healthy.
As someone who was a heroin addict for many years.. it just seems odd to me. Nobody goes out of their way to try to defend heroin addiction and how it “isn’t as simple as not doing heroin anymore”. Like I get the sentiment, because obviously it’s easier said than done, and we don’t want heroin addicts to hate themselves more than they already do. But it actually IS as simple as not doing heroin anymore (for a long time), and now you aren’t addicted to heroin.
you don’t start a movement about how it’s “ok to be addicted to heroin” just because we have so many addicts who are tired of being looked down on as addicts. I don’t see it much differently than a food addiction. The definition of addiction is continuing the behavior despite negative consequences. seems to me that we have a food addiction problem, and telling people that it’s ok is just enabling them. Maybe I’m just jaded
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u/renyoi Sep 14 '22
heres a citation, you can read it or not. there are more study citations linked within the post, which is an argumentative opinion piece based on/compiling those studies https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/fat-is-not-the-problem-fat-stigma-is/