Crosspost "The fat-positive movement ruined my life and now I'm paying the price" from /r/TrueOffMyChest:

EDIT: Damn you can really tell who's been in the 'movement' and managed to leave, and who's still stuck in/not seen the damage it can do. Movements can and do destroy lives, that's why cults are a thing. Going to mute this for my own mental health now but thank you for the mostly positive responses :-)

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After childhood trauma, an abusive relationship and a miscarriage I latched onto food. I was hugely vulnerable, very mentally ill and honestly completely all over the place. As I got fatter and fatter, I found the fat positivity movement.

Here was a movement of people who looked like me but were happy and so I convinced myself that fatness = happy and that everyone thinner was miserable. My binge eating disorder completely took hold and I followed no one but fat influencers on social media, thought that people who wanted to lose weight were automatically fatphobic and generally thought everyone was, for the tiniest things. I ate nothing but takeaways and toast for years.

Just as I began to fight against it, I had a major accident that landed me in bed for 6 months. In that time I gained two stone (which I've now lost, thankfully). But here I am, 23 years old, 21 stone, and I've just been diagnosed with prediabetes.

I am responsible for my own actions, but I hate that a movement caught me at my lowest point and made me think that this was a good idea, and for me to do anything than embrace my fat body would be fatphobic and awful. I wish I had gotten help sooner, had a dietician to support me to eat healthily, invested in a personal trainer and done all the things the fat positivity movement taught me would be terrible.

I'm absolutely terrified of my future and I'm fighting back as much as I can but I have wrecked this body and the impact and outcome has been devastating.

Posted by pepperpix123 | 7 July 2022 | Link