Why does everyone suddenly seem to think it’s ok to say the R word again? I feel like I hadn’t heard it in years and suddenly everyone around me is using it, and I see it on Reddit all the time. Am I imagining it? Is anyone seeing this? I don’t even know what to say when it’s suddenly just everyone in a group and everyone acts like it’s normal.
Fat shaming is likely to be the most difficult to combat, because it’s based on an unhealthy condition anyone can slip into, so it has a warning component similar to drunk-driving shaming, the Darwin awards, various “fails”, etc. where people suffer the consequences of their own choices.
I am not saying this is what you believe, but you’re right that people for sure over simplify it into that, and say things like “just eat less and exercise more.” The truth is much more complicated. There are a ton of factors involved and often people have unrelated conditions they can’t get help with because doctors will just say “you just need to lose weight.”
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107166691/medical-bias-against-obesity-is-preventing-patients-from-receiving-proper-care
That and a lot of “overweight” people are not unhealthy.
https://www.science.org/content/article/obesity-doesn-t-always-mean-ill-health-here-s-what-scientists-are-learning
As usual, the truth is far less cut and dry as people think, and should just stop shaming people for it.
When I say “based on”, I mean that there are some cases where overweight is actually unhealthy, and some otherwise healthy people can, for a series of reasons, become unhealthy.
The problem about shaming above-average BMI people, is that it has two extremes:
What I believe, is that the shaming itself is a bigoted take on a warning against the latter. My point was that it’s going to take extra effort to remove the bigoted behavior, when there is a valid reason to have a warning.
Ideally, we should get to a point where the root cause of unhealthy behaviors could be addressed directly, but we’re like two or three layers away from that.