The fat acceptance movement is not a big deal. Too many people are obsessed with hating it.

pentatonicartichoke · 2025-02-14T08:26:37+00:00

Americans are set up to fail, so it doesn't make sense to be surprised when they do.

As a European, and spesifically a norwegian, I have a lot of advantages over the average American.

1. I live in a walkable and bikeable city.

2. We learn basic nutrition, about whole foods, that highly processed food should be a rare exception, about how the body responds to various types of food such as simple versus complex carbohydrates etc.

3. We cook at home It saves money and we avoid accidentally eating more fat, salt and sugar that is often present in restaurant meals.

4. Fresh food is affordable and easily available. So called food deserts do not exist. Fast food is not the cheaper option.

5. We have a culture of movement. All though 1st to 6th grade, an entire day every week was "nature day". We would hike into the woods and mountains and spend the day outside regardless of the weather. We learned to get comfortable being uncomfortable and the joy of movement. This doesn't just make people move more as adults, but it also makes us mindful that how we eat affects how we can move, in the short and long run.

6. EU regulation plus national regulation protects us from a lot of crap that is legally added to food in the US.

I strongly sympathise with Americans struggling. I was given better cards from day one and that isn't fair.

leosandlattes · 2025-02-14T04:34:08+00:00

There's lots of coping from fat women on social media like "Only a real man could handle all this" which is just effing lol. But I mean, sometimes delulu is the solulu, it makes them feel sexy and confident so who cares. It's also a minority of fat women who do this.

Your post also assumes only men hate the fat acceptance movement, but lots of women do too. They genuinely do not understand why fat needs to be accepted, though I understand the general idea behind this is more of a "body neutrality" thing. That people should find happiness in whatever body is comfortable to them.

reallinustorvalds · 2025-02-14T08:47:24+00:00

America is fat because many of us are childish gluttons that lack self control. This entire post is based on a false premise.

MaxDureza · 2025-02-14T04:55:48+00:00

It IS a big deal (literally) when 80% of Americans are overweight and 40%+ are obese. Everyone can say they support body positivity but then secretly try to lose weight in private or take Ozempic. As they said in a South Park episode, "Body positivity is for poor people, rich people take Ozempic".

If OP grew up in the US (which is my guess) then you have no idea what you are talking about. Come to Korea or Japan (2 and 4% obesity rate) the difference is night and day.

mrcs84usn · 2025-02-14T04:17:45+00:00

You realize there’s more to it than just being unsightly to look at right? Look at obesity-related health problems, and how much of a drain it is on our healthcare system and insurance.

The number one injuries in hospitals is nurses trying to lift patients. Have you ever given a 300+ lbs person a bed bath? Or roll them so you can clean their sores?

Have you ever had to sit next to one on a plane and they’re spilling over into your seat?

Have you seen the mountain of misinformation that these people are putting in social media about “healthy at any size” and how diet and exercise doesn’t work?

It’s also funny how saying “no fat chicks,” regardless of how tactfully you say it, is misogynistic and/or fat phobic, but we already know that men are much more likely to be rejected for their size than women.

PurplePillDebate-ModTeam · 2025-02-14T04:45:40+00:00

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PuffStyle · 2025-02-14T04:28:55+00:00

Your reasons are bad:

1 & 3 are completely up to the person buying the food. Make better choices.

This is the most overused excuse and it holds no water. EVERY adult knows you eat chicken and broccoli to lose weight, not chocolate, donuts, cheeseburgers, and pizza. Education is NOT the issue.

Fat acceptance is one of the dumbest movements there is. It's bad for the person and society on every possible level.

Opie67 · 2025-02-14T04:57:22+00:00

In the early 2000's the obesity epidemic was being discussed by the public constantly. Documentaries, news specials, etc. It was at the forefront of people's minds. Somewhere along the way we decided that's just the way things are now, and now we have to pretend that coexisting with a bunch of hamplanets is normal and okay. Fat acceptance is a problem, and obesity is a public health crisis

AidsVictim · 2025-02-14T04:58:59+00:00

It's basically irrelevant and post facto to the obesity epidemic (i.e. the obesity rate would be just as high without it) but nevertheless I have no problem with people criticizing it because it's pushing acceptance of conditions that are physically harmful to people and probably psychologically as well. It's not something that should be normalized regardless of any social connotations about being attractive.

Government lied about nutrition for decades (food pyramid).

I don't see anything particularly bad about the classical food pyramid. It makes some basic sense for previous generations where calories efficiency was more important (i.e. for people doing physical labour there's nothing wrong with getting the majority of your calories from non sugary carb sources).

Bad education on nutrition.

Most people are aware the stuff they eat is not healthy. They do it because they're habituated to certain diets/lifestyles not because they're clueless that eating fastfood or gas station junk is bad for them.

ViolentShallot · 2025-02-14T16:39:52+00:00

Saying people shouldn't hate the fat acceptance movement because it's not a main cause of obesity is like saying they shouln't hate serial killers because they're not a main cause of death.

Large_Wishbone4652 · 2025-02-14T05:22:53+00:00

No it isn't. Just buy ingredients and make your own food.
If you were to follow the fold pyramid then you would be eating pasta, bread, then fruits and veggies, then meat, eggs and dairy and a little bit of sweets.

Seems like an okay diet. Food pyramid doesn't say "eat s lot of donuts and chips and dump it down with soda"

That's when you eat out. Don't eat out and cook at home. Americans are whining thus they are poor for some reason so stop eating out.
Right cause you don't have stuff at your fingertips. You think other countries have an extensive education about nutrition?

Fat shaming is good because it forces the person out of the fairy tale that everything is good.

Yes, ignoring a growing problem until it becomes large enough. No, you cut problems early on so that they don't become worse.

Fat acceptance movement is a bigger problem than you want to admit. Quite literally as well.

SnowySummerDreaming · 2025-02-14T15:06:23+00:00

IMHO Lilith is right for the wrong reasons.

first, as a gal who has always been athletic and active but also fought the battle of the bulge, I promise you, women KNOW being fat is not attractive. Like the reason you have the healthy at any size movement is BECAUSE society tells us from the time we are little fat is unattractive. Men have gotten the message too.
second, it isn’t just that Americans are lazy. Our entire system is set up to be really really toxic to us. And any other countries that adopt our system have the same problem with fatness. Take a look at Scotland man. Also take a look at NYC. Everyone walks. Just like the EU. It’s a systemic problem that must be addressed at the social level. Japan started getting fat and then they implemented all these social steps like specialized school lunches to stop it. The US bites at that.
third, this is a major problem. It’s destroying our military readiness. And yes it’s making our society worse off in myriad ways. But as soon as anyone talks about taking away Big Gulps out come the “conservatives” to scream “big government.” The Obama’s tried it. NYC tried it.
fourth, shaming doesn’t do shit so hyperventilating over the “fat acceptance movement” won’t make it better and will make it worse. We know. We’ve tried the shaming shit for YEARS. We screamed and did news reports and we all got fatter. Fat is HARD to get off. It is not, as people like to claim, calories in and calories out. And when fat people are shamed, they don’t go to the doctor, they don’t go to the gym, they don’t get help. Because shame SUCKs. And then depression lack of sleep makes people want to eat more and exercise less and…. See what happens?
the “health at any size” movement is about getting out there and getting healthier even if you are obese. It’s better to have someone lose 25 lbs than none. Exercise will make them feel better (I exercise for anxiety control) even if they don’t lose a ton of weight.

The problem is our lifestyles and it is a society wide problem and must be addressed nationally. Individual discipline while we are awash in food that has been specifically engineered to be addictive (mmm Doritos) won’t cut it.

Even if you made the fat acceptance movement go away tomorrow, the US wouldn’t get slimmer. In fact, it will go the other way.

Three examples.

https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/fat-shaming-wont-solve-obesity-science-might

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/eat.23583

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/fat-shaming-makes-things-worse

And before anyone gets on me - I’m not over weight.

S0yslut · 2025-02-14T15:30:43+00:00

1 It’s not just sugar it is that Americans live off of processed foods that have actual toxins in them. Almost all the food we eat, including our meats, wheat and processed foods are illegal in other countries and anyone who doesn’t know why should absolutely look it up. Health is part of the reason I went vegan. With more people abandoning home making skills and farming more people are forced to rely on processed foods.

2 The government still lies. You always have to take what your politicians say with a grain of salt even if they are saying something that seems obvious, fact checking should always be done. You can’t trust someone who profits/benefits off of your beliefs.

4 I took some nutrition classes in college you wouldn’t be properly educated even now. Adequate nutrition education is not something that has ever existed systematically. For example I was taught it is never recommended for people to ingest more than 300mg of cholesterol per day. In the same class, I was also taught an egg has 187mg. Dont believe me, then look up nutrition facts. That means even 2 eggs exceeds our cholesterol intake that is recommended. This class was very contradictory in its teachings and is when I really started to question the system. Why was 2 eggs a day being described as healthy, when we know that’s more cholesterol than we need in a day? The scarier part of this all? There’s cholesterol in all animals and their by-products. Which means they should have never been a large or even good portion of my diet. You could probably relate to livestock in that you are milked for what value you can offer to someone more privileged than yourself. The food industry funds nutrition “research” and “education” it will never be trustworthy.

In conclusion I will not partake in any sort of fat acceptance. Being fat is more dangerous than being a couple pounds underweight and it kills more people (and animals). I will not delude people into believing they are mentally healthy when they are not physically healthy. If name calling is the only thing that motivates someone to get healthy that’s better than the alternative. Complacency kills. Also the body positivity movement was supposed to be for athletic women feeling masculine in their body’s and was completely taken over by obese women who wanted to feel sexy without putting in any work. It doesn’t seek to empower women, it empowers whichever women the majority of women want. Leaving some women behind, rightfully, did not sit well with those women.

Tylikcat · 2025-02-14T18:46:17+00:00

It's also pretty likely that part of it is the widespread release hormone mimics (frequently in plasticizers, though in plenty of other things.)

Livid-Log7463 · 2025-02-14T20:23:33+00:00

Men have always and will always find many more women attractive than the other way around fat women included, so a movement makes little difference.

Outside_Memory5703 · 2025-02-14T05:50:36+00:00

It is when the purpose of women is to please men

I’ve had men straight up tell me this

And it is supported by their actions and attitudes

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Jake0024 · 2025-02-14T04:25:40+00:00

I don't really know that this is on topic here, but in general I agree, it's not a big deal, and I barely ever hear people talking about it (which seems like the appropriate amount of attention)

Leinadro · 2025-02-14T05:43:39+00:00

I guess I'm aging myself but I'll say that the fat acceptance movement isn't as big of a deal as it used to be. About 10 to 15 years ago the concept was more wide spread and more commonly talked about.

Also, it seems to be part of the complaint from guys that "You cant criticize women for anything". Thing is, men have always been able to criticize women, even in the current year, you just cant be a misogynist about it.

Yeah I've been around long enough to have heard that too many times. Folks say, "...just don't be a misogynist about it..." then all of a sudden the definition of misogynist becomes overbroad to point that it ends up meaning "someone that said something a woman doesn't like".

Muscletov · 2025-02-14T07:12:01+00:00

Overall, the wider "beauty standards movement" has been incredibly successful. People are way more tolerant and considerate towards overweight (and otherwise flawed) women than in the 90s or 00s. Modern media is also not nearly as dominated by thin, perfect women as back then.

Just because the more ridiculous parts of the movement are still mocked doesn't mean it hasn't been successful.

DankuTwo · 2025-02-14T08:44:36+00:00

The activist wing of fat acceptance is small, yes….but the generalised, population-level acceptance of fatness is off the charts, at least in America.

All of the excuses you list are just that: excuses. People eat too much, and move too little. It’s that simple. There’s no conspiracy that made it happen, Americans are just dumb and lazy. In Europe we did not need government to tell us that eating vegetables is good for us….thousands of years of culture do that far better than any government could.

Americans’ weight problems are primarily cultural, not structural. My American dad, as a man in his 60s, still basically refuses to eat green vegetables. This is not uncommon, even among educated men in America, and it is not a fault of the government or corporations.

Master-Watercress567 · 2025-02-14T09:04:53+00:00

Correct

Boniface222 · 2025-02-14T10:18:10+00:00

men have always been able to criticize women, even in the current year, you just cant be a misogynist about it.

The problem is there are no rules to deciding what is misogynistic or not. It's just, if someone labels it misogynistic, it is considered misogynistic.

So, let's say woman A accepts criticism, and woman B doesn't accept criticisim.

You can give the same critique to both women. woman A will be ok with the criticism, woman B will call it misogyny.

It's just a random subjective label.

John_Oakman · 2025-02-14T11:08:48+00:00

So the obesity problem of the American population is caused by external social economic factors in which the individuals within have little to no influence or control, their personal efforts meaningless in the face of forces beyond their comprehension...

... yet the relationship issues facing those same populations are exclusively the result of a lack of personal moral virtues among the males on an individual level, with external social economic factors playing little to no relevant part.

Fair-Bus-4017 · 2025-02-14T11:39:16+00:00

It has always been rude to call someone a land whale and stuff like it. The fat acceptance movement is truly shit and it taking over the body positivity movement is truly shameful.

No, you shouldn't be a cunt to people who are fat. You shouldn't be a cunt to anyone who isn't doing anything socially unacceptable or harmful to others.

But trying to shift public perception on abnormal bodies isn't right. There is nothing wrong with having a little bit of extra weight. But there is a point where people are going too far. And they shouldn't be bothered because of it, but it shouldn't be twisted either. What they are doing isn't healthy. And very much bad, we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Kanenas_T_Potas · 2025-02-14T12:51:42+00:00

The reason why the Fat Acceptance movement is a big deal and should not be validated is because of their tents and unscientific claims. Name calling fat people is wrong and harassing them is wrong too, but misleading them into believing things that are just... Anti-scientific is not good either.

A good example is this one: www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/17/obesity-health-no-such-thing

A portion of the movement, that claimed one can be "fat and fit", was rebuked by a scientific study that showed people who take a run but are overweight are more likely to suffer from health conditions.

Besides, the rhetoric they use, is similar to the one used by civil rights activists on racism. This is a problem because in contrast to race, being overweight is not something that you cannot change and it has severe impacts on your health.

The kind of rethoric I'm talking about can be seen in this article: https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2019/06/24/fat-acceptance-movement

Now, you do give a set of good reasons for the obesity epidemic in the US, namely:

Sugar is dumped into everything. Government lied about nutrition for decades (food pyramid). Massive portions served. Bad education on nutrition.

But these are policy problems that should be addressed rather than things we should helplessly accept. Properly informing consumers about the health risks that consuming certain foods entail, encouraging dietary changes and encouraging people to work out is part of the duty of the state to counter a matter of public health.

Normalizing plus-size is not going to improve the public health problems and most physicians would agree than giving them the public spotlight would actually encourage rather than discourage obesity.

I think, this other article from the guardian hits the nail on what people who are genuinely concerned about it believe:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/10/fat-pride-obesity-public-health-warnings-dangerous-weight-levels

James_M_Croft · 2025-02-14T14:18:24+00:00

They put a big fat targets (heh) in their own backs by being so obnoxious while clearly only being tolerated instead of liked.

None had issues with them until they demanded everyone to do their bidding. Same applies to vegans, crossfit people, LGBT, liberals and all other "annoying people none likes but refuse to shut up and leave others alone".

EetinAintCheetin · 2025-02-14T16:36:56+00:00

Be fat and be proud of it.

AlmostKindaGreat · 2025-02-14T21:27:56+00:00

Are you for personal responsibility or not?

Every day you come on here and argue that men who struggle in their romantic lives are completely to blame for their own problems.

Then you make this post where you say that fat Americans are not to blame for their weight problems.

Two groups, both with challenges which they are failing to overcome. For the first group you assign all the blame to them, for their poor character. For the second, you characterize them as helpless victims of their circumstances and environment.

I extend empathy to both of groups because I view their problems as legitimate, even if I believe they are ultimately responsible for their outcomes in most cases.

What I definitely don't do is excoriate one group and excuse the other. That's bullshit.

Werevulvi · 2025-02-15T15:19:45+00:00

While it may not be very constructive to just hyperfocus on how fat people look, most of the criticism I see towards the "fat acceptance" movement is using that as a way to talk about the wider issue of the obesity epidemic and people not taking responsibility for their own declining health, sugar addiction and lack of knowledge. Most people have an internet connection. Finding educational material is not hard.

Yes, learning how to cook healthy foods, and figuring out ways to access healthy foods can be hard, same with exercising regularly, etc. But no one is saying it's not hard. What people are saying is that it's possible. And that's enough for it to be in your control. You can't blame your personal dietary choices as an adult entirely on too many fast food restaurants, too much processed food being popular, or having been raised on the idea that cereal is a healthy breakfast staple.

And I say that as someone who is overweight and addicted to sugar and who sucks at cooking. It is hard to change these habits, demonstrably. But that doesn't excuse not trying, and keep trying. Because it is possible. And we owe it to ourselves, our own health and happiness. Not just with dating but life overall.

Logos1789 · 2025-02-15T17:54:12+00:00

Even though the root cause of obesity isn’t the fat acceptance movement/body positivity movement, it definitely doesn’t make unhealthy people want to get healthier, which means it has a net negative impact on obesity rates.

Anyone gaining clout for being fat or telling fat people (let’s face it, this is about women, not men) that they’re beautiful and sexy to most normal people should be criticized.

addings0 · 2025-02-18T02:06:11+00:00

Government lied about nutrition for decades (food pyramid).

Gov't doesn't know what to tell you, so they tell you anything. Made a process based on what they already saw, not what had to be learned. And if they don't know what to tell you, they ask agriculture lobbyists before any unbiased researcher. It's not as if they're plans are well thought out. It's about who gets to be heard.

SkookumTree · 2025-02-21T17:21:34+00:00

This is just the backlash from heroin chic.

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Goonerlouie · 2025-02-14T08:01:46+00:00

Had a quick glance at the responses and no one has touched on my idea yet.

People are obsessed with hating the fat acceptance movement because there is a continuously growing malaise around the establishment and also woke/progressive ideas being “shoved down peoples throats”.

Men, probably politically right leaning, want to bring back the “say what’s on my mind” political incorrectness.

It’s a rebellion to woke/progressive ideas.
It explains why celebrities are being called mid now.
It’s linked with the troll/edgy mentality people have online.
It explains growing anti semitism because of “jews running the world”
It explains Trump
It explains pronoun hating

Also, are these fat acceptance haters hating on people like lizzo or the 600lb people? Theres a difference in my eyes.

People like this hate others who stand out, or like I said, shoved down their throats

No-Rough-7390 · 2025-02-14T12:05:27+00:00

I’m good with the movement because, as a large, muscular dude, it makes my life infinitely easier and I get treated as an outlier.

So please, have another doughnut.

Title	The fat acceptance movement is not a big deal. Too many people are obsessed with hating it.
Author	LillthOfBabylon
Upvotes	0
Comments	161
Date	February 14, 2025 4:02 AM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1ip21zf/the_fat_acceptance_movement_is_not_a_big_deal_too/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/the-fat-acceptance-movement-is-not-a-big-deal-too.1543827 https://theredarchive.com/post/1543827

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