Fat attitude

In the Fatosphere, Big Is in, or at Least Accepted:

Blogs written by fat people -- and it's fine to use the word, they say -- have multiplied in recent months, filling a virtual soapbox known as the fatosphere, where bloggers calling for fat acceptance challenge just about everything conventional medical wisdom has to say about obesity.

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Ultimately, these bloggers argue, being skinny may have far more to do with the luck of the genetic draw than with lifestyle choices.

When I was visiting Bangladesh in 2004 I noticed that peasants in the rural areas were shorter, wirier and "tighter" in their physique than many people in Dhaka. Though Dhaka residents weren't tall, they did strike me as taller, and a substantial subset were endowed with a plump visage which one rarely saw among rural peasants. Dhaka is a mega-city which has grown by orders of magnitude over the past few generations. In other words, very few people living there are natives for whom Dhaka is an ancestral home; over 9/10th are 1st, 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants.

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I understand that blogs for obese persons might help them to connect with others who are experiencing the same feelings. However, I find it sad to think that a person who is obese has to make fun of themselves and others. Isn't that a sign of low self-esteem? Anyway, lifestyle changes are the key to staying "healthy", not "thin". I don't think thin is appropriate or achievable for everyone, certainly not for myself. Exercising and eating healthy can give someone a long and fulfilling life, no matter what the scales read!

As a former obese person, lifestyle was THE driving variable. I ate fast food 5-10x a week. Lots of coke and sweets, zero fruits. Time spent exercising, none. My caloric intake was well over 3000 cals per day. Reached 290lbs, with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I was turned away from a blood drive due to high blood pressure, which was an eye opener.

Change for good back in 2000. No carbonated soda drinks at all. No fast food, never. Switched to whole grains, and greater consumption of fruits and veggies. Workout 5-7X a week for at least an hour. Current weight is 200lbs. By no stretch of the imagination I'm thin, nor I care to be thin. Yet, my blood pressure is 115/74, my resting heart rate is 46, and my cholesterol is 178.

Lifestyle change is the one and only true solution.

By TrekJunkie (not verified) on 22 Jan 2008 #permalink

When I was young, at school in the 1940's there were very very few fat boys.We all played sport,some more reluctantly. Now all my fat friends eat at least twice as much as I do and never exercise,while I can still cycle up to 100ks a week.

While obesity is a major health issue, there is stills omething to be said for a blog that encourages you to actually like yourself. Telling people that lifestyle change will fix everything is ridiculous and hopefully you know that. I've been on a 1500 (max, usually less) calorie diet, no soda, excercise 45 minutes+ every day for several years and have lost a grand total of 7lbs. I am and always will be pudgy and I truly resent the implication that it means I am lazy and not trying.

Perhaps you should listen a little to what those bloggers are saying and think about what it means about how all of us pudgy people feel about ourselves. Regardless of the science, encouraging self-hatred is not the way to deal with obesity.

acceptance is indeed important, and being stigmatised as fat and having no will power is no fun, but i'm worried by this movement.

if someone goes as far as denying the health risks of more-than-moderate obesity, the blogger in question isn't much better than those who were joining in the pro-ana (pro-anorexia) web movement a few years back, and those sites got closed down by the hour back then - how come that propagating false health claims is 'okay' for fat people and not for thin ones if both are just as dangerous?