My take on "fat acceptance"

TL;DR - The fat acceptance movement is detrimental to everyone involved, and their kids.

To me, the whole concept of "fat acceptance" is completely insane because I find it absolutely fascinating that we've reached a point in time where people's feelings take prescience over their health. We're living in a time where a morbidly obese tub of shit who will likely die in the near future if she doesn't change her lifestyle is perfectly content with herself as long as she has enough people saying "Fuck the haters. You go girl!". I often wonder what it'll take for these detrimental feelings-saving campaigns to cease so we can have a real honest conversation about what it means to be healthy, rather than unhealthy+happy.

The first thing I've gathered from this movement is that it involves a serious lack of agency on the part of the people who want to be accepted for being fat.

Feeling beautiful has replaced being/feeling healthy

I've come to the conclusion that if we all woke up tomorrow and unanimously accepted all these people begging for acceptance for their unhealthy choices, which they are way more often than not in COMPLETE control of changing, that they would not ever make the effort to improve themselves. With that being said, I believe the prime motivator for these people is how the world perceives them, rather than their own self perception or even their own health. Who cares if you take up multiple seats on an airline or eat a large bag of doritos and a super-sized coke for a "light snack"? You're beautiful just the way you are! Don't let anyone tell you differently! #fuckthehaters

The way I see it, they have 2 choices:

1) Make an effort to improve themselves - eat better, exercise, lift, and make some real positive changes in their life - all of which will improve their health and life expectancy.

2) Sit around and blame the world for not accepting them as they are, because god forbid anybody tries to school them on their life choices.

Of course the noble members of the fat acceptance movement have gone with option 2, choosing to not take personal responsibility and agency for their life choices or making any effort to improve themselves - instead telling the world "you should accept my unhealthy choices and if you don't, it's your fault for being intolerant!"

The fat acceptance movement makes itself out to be some noble, righteous cause dedicated to creating self acceptance among those who feel insecure, who have suffered ridicule for their bodies and don't fit the traditional mold of "beautiful". I call bullshit. In my humble opinion, this movement was created for people who don't want to accept any fault or responsibility for themselves or their lives, but who still want to get all the praise and love that people in better shape get for "being themselves" and "not caving to society's standards of beauty".

How many inspiring posts are there on the fitness sub, or on the internet in general about guys and girls losing huge amounts of weight and looking like Gods afterwards? A shitload. So we've established that it's possible to shed all that weight and double your life expectancy with a little hard work. If you're unhappy with your body, you should be actively working to fix it. You will see results both inside and outside yourself and be a better person for it.

You know what I'd do if I woke up tomorrow and I was 350 pounds? I'd make meal plans, go to the gym and get to work, rather than sit around woe-is-me my life away while hoping that everyone ignores the elephant in the room that is my fat bloated ass.

Also, the fat acceptance movement doesn't just affect the people currently wanting acceptance. It hurts the people around them too. Unhealthy lifestyles are infectious, especially when a parent is obese. This rubs off on the child, not just genetically, but the child's lifestyle is also shaped to emulate that of the parent, for the most part. If the parents are fat, the kid will be fat unless an extra effort is made by the kid to be different. I for one 100% believe that letting your child balloon into obesity should be categorized as child abuse, and punished accordingly.

What if the fat acceptance movement wins? What are they actually working towards?

• Decreased life expectancy

• Unhealthy lifestyles which will pass down to the next generation, and so on

• Beauty standards will be adjusted and people will be discouraged to work hard on themselves because the bar has been shifted to a point where staying above the curve will become more simple than ever.

The whole psychology aspect of the fat acceptance movement is what gets me though. As I said above, people who are driven by others opinions will:

1) stop improving when they feel accepted, and

2) use other people's perceptions as a bar to which to live up to - they will do the minimum required to gain acceptance, and with the fat acceptance movement shifting the standard of "normal" the wrong way, it will become more and more socially acceptable to be fat as hell but still feel good about yourself, since everyone around you will laud you for not giving into society's "unrealistic (lol) standards" It's gone so far as to have people morons saying that you can be healthy at any weight, which is obviously a lie. But people are stupid, and stupid people will buy into that myth just as they buy into any other myth put out their by their favorite news source or celebrity.

What if we didn't accept this as a society?

I don't see why focusing on laying down the hammer with regards to health and why trying to shift the standard to which people judge themselves while addressing unhealthy lifestyles is such a big issue. Why is there such a focus on accepting fat people rather than motivating them to make lifestyle changes that will not only improve their lives, health wise, but also make them feel a lot better about themselves, and be a lot happier in general.

You know who actually needs acceptance?

• People with serious mental illnesses that they cannot control

• Men who need support but won't ask for help because of the stigma of looking "weak"

• Anybody actually ASKING for help and actively making an effort towards their goals.

..but fat people who want to remain fat? gtfo.

Fuck all of this coddling of the oversensitive.

Lessons Learned:

• Fat acceptance is complete bullshit and is extremely detrimental the people involved, their kids, and to society as a whole.

• Fat acceptance was created to absolve the unhealthy of any personal responsibility for not only their lifestyle but their unwillingness to change.

• From beauty standards, to self acceptance, to the motivation to work on oneself - everything is relative to these people and dependent on external factors (other people's opinions, how high the bar for beauty is set, etc).