This shouldn't be remotely controversial but I recently got big pushback in one of my circles for taking this stance, so lemme break it down here.
Let me preface this by saying this has NOTHING to do with body image or self-love. You should strive to accept and love yourself regardless of your size or other superficial traits. As a radical feminist, I'm all too aware of the hyperfocus on body weight that goes on in the entertainment industry, causing girls & women everywhere to hate their bodies. This trickle-down extremism leads to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia and should never happen. It's highly sexist and also a first-world problem that doesn't exist in places where the Western media's ominous reach doesn't have an influence. Studies have confirmed this. The following article is NOT about beauty standards but about health, hence "HEALTHY at every size".
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| Tess Holliday in a string bikini |
Now that that's out of the way, let's get to the actual issue. The Healthy At Every Size movement (HAES for short) goes to the opposite extreme, acting as dangerous anti-science cult that tells impressionable people that their body weight has zero impact on their health status and that they can literally be "healthy at every size". Its figureheads include people like Tess Holliday (seen above), Whitney Way Thore of My Fat Fabulous Life, Ragen Chastain & nutritionist Lindo (formerly Linda) Bacon, some of whom you may have seen on TLC, Tumblr or various other not-so-reputable platforms. These folks push the idea that morbid obesity is a normal body variation that not only can't be helped, but shouldn't be, and anyone who takes issue with it is "fatphobic" or ableist (despite the fact that most of the morbidly obese do not have an actual disability). They couch this extremism as harmless 'body positivity'. This ideology has spread to people outside the HAES movement and is catshit crazy. With a C.
Wait a minute, you say! Isn't body positivity good? Aren't fat people the only group it's still okay to make fun of and discriminate against, therefore necessitating something to counter that hate? Indeed, fat people face discrimination in all parts of society. Nobody disputes that. But again, we're not talking about the social aspects of this. It's a HEALTH issue. Remember? Hence "Healthy At Every Size". Fat activists always try to steer the discussion to feelings when what we're talking about is facts. And the facts are clear: obesity carries an inherent risk of Type II diabetes, stroke, multiple types of cancer, heart disease, arthritis, sleep apnea, fatty liver disease, depression, gout... the list goes on. That's why it's cruel & deceptive to promote the lie that you can be healthy at EVERY size, including the size of some of the movement's leaders.
Even being moderately overweight comes with significant health risks, contrary to what was previously believed. "Overweight" is defined as having a Body Mass Index of 25-<30. "Obese" is a BMI of 30 or higher. Obesity is then subdivided into three categories:
- Class 1: BMI of 30 to < 35
- Class 2: BMI of 35 to < 40
- Class 3: BMI of 40 or higher. Class 3 obesity is sometimes categorized as “severe” obesity.
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| Tess Holliday claiming to be anorexic |
History of HAES
HAES started in the 1960s as a theory built on the idea that dieting rarely works in the long term (true) and that even overweight people can be healthy if they make decisions based on health rather than weight (somewhat true). Where it falls apart is that they weren't accounting for the fact that people today are not merely "hefty" but obese, morbidly obese & super morbidly obese. Yes, these are medical terms that are quantifiable.
While the HAES movement may have started with good intentions in the 1960's, our extremist society ran with it and has turned it into something else entirely: an excuse for self-destructive binge eating & sedentary habits. I'll direct your attention to the countless Mukbang videos on Youtube and the My 600 lb. Life episodes on TLC as exhibits A and B. Or you could just go outside & look around at the majority of Americans who are now far above a normal, healthy body weight. No demographic is excluded, not even children. Or pets.
Again, these are not moral judgments or an aesthetic commentary. It's a fact of life in any developed nation, and it's a public health crisis. Just as people in the 2020s would be appalled at the number of people who openly smoked cigarettes in the 1960s, people from that era would be aghast if they could see what we've become. Drug addicts are constantly berated for being in "denial" about their habits while the morbidly obese use every excuse in the book to downplay their "weight problems".
There's a community on Reddit called Fatlogic that documents this phenomenon extensively. Fatlogic refers to the total delusion some (not all) obese people exhibit; the ridiculous excuses they employ to continue living an unhealthy lifestyle rather than making any effort to change. Some examples are the delusional terms like "big-boned" people use to describe themselves when they weigh 400+ lbs. Imagine a crackhead using a term like that to describe their addiction.
Again, let me clarify that this in no way applies to all or even a majority of overweight people, many of whom genuinely want to change & have no problem acknowledging reality. And there are fat people who genuinely suffer from conditions like hypothyroidism or the rare Prader-Willi Syndrome that makes it difficult to lose weight, but that's extremely rare. The vast majority of obese people in developed nations got that way by eating too many calories per day while not moving their bodies enough. If your first inclination is to deny this, you might want to refer to /r/fatlogic because you're displaying all the symptoms.
Hate Within HAES
I was recently DM'ed on Instagram by a troll and told "I hope you get shot" over an allegedly "fatphobic" comment I made weeks earlier. The comment in question was on a post by artist Ramin Nazer, and my comment was nothing of the sort. He was accused of being fatphobic himself for his design by a bunch of followers including Whitney Way Thore(!) of My Fat Fabulous Life and I was merely defending the drawing. Alas, I triggered some basement dweller who now wants me dead. This is the level of extremism we're dealing with among people who "just want to be accepted for who they are". Remind you of anyone? Recall how JK Rowling was threatened by trans rights activists with threats of rape & murder after her extremely calm, rational essay about the erosion of women's rights. Just saying, there are parallels.
Other hypocritical, hateful & downright scandalous things seen in the Fat Acceptance/HAES community include "skinny-shaming" or attacking former members when they begin to lose weight; comparing the plight of fat people to racism, appropriation of Civil Rights & Gay Rights Movements oppression language, encouraging people to become fat in order to be an "ally" (see pic below) & so much more.
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| From "How to Become a Fat Ally" thread |
A common argument among fat activists is that opponents are trying to promote anorexia or unhealthy body image in people by encouraging healthy eating. The ironic thing about this is that binge eating IS an eating disorder. And the vast majority of people with morbid obesity, that is a BMI over 40, engage in binge eating. That's how they got that size.
If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you'll notice the theme of my articles that Americans are notoriously poor at navigating the middle ground or exhibiting moderation in ANYTHING, and that's certainly the case here. The HAES community is setting up a paper tiger of "OMG anorexia" if anyone brings up healthy eating or weight management because they don't respect the concept of moderation. They literally have no self-control with food due to Binge Eating Disorder & are in denial about this. There's a helluva lot of middle ground between binge eating and starvation. It's called a normal healthy diet.
What they're doing is bulimia without the purging, and it's going to lead them to an early grave. Fine, that's their choice but they don't have the right to lie to impressionable children & others that this is anything other than delusional & self-destructive. Not only will it shorten your lifespan, it will make your quality of life much worse while you're here (and not merely because of a lack of acceptance by your peers). There's a reason you don't see any fat activists over 50. They're all people in their 20s and 30s spewing this crap. This may work for a time but eventually the unhealthy choices catch up to you & you have to pay the piper.
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| Fuck this mentality |
In fact, we ALL pay for their choices. Obesity is the #1 driver of preventable disease in the United States; a total drain on the healthcare system. And no telling how many COVID deaths it's contributed to. People bitch and moan about free Narcan, comparing it to the price of insulin as if insulin is the "good" drug that should be free and drug users should be left to die. Indeed, Type 1 diabetes is a no-fault disease. But Type II is overwhelmingly caused by lifestyle, as are many cancers like some colorectal cancers in the obese. Yet nobody is making memes claiming we should not pay for their care. As a supporter of universal healthcare, I believe all medications and diseases should be covered--no questions asked. But it's this double standard that pisses me off. An addict is an addict whether the drug is crack, heroin, porn, booze or food.
Let's start calling a spade a spade here. Healthy At Every Size is an extremist cult with real victims.
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