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> Many people (will only speak to America), view being fat as a literal moral failing. Gluttony or overeating are not the sin, but being fat. As an American wi
by stronglikedan 1y ago
> Many people (will only speak to America), view being fat as a literal moral failing. Gluttony or overeating are not the sin, but being fat.
As an American with a sister with thyroid issues, I can say that is absolutely not true for the majority of Americans. People are mostly sympathetic to those who are not obvious slobs.
- drowsspa 1y agoPeople are mostly sympathetic when it's physical issues. Psychological issues are treated as diseases of the soul that you only need God or willpower or whatever to fix. And most fat people are fat because of the incentives in our society, but admitting that also goes against certain political ideologies...
- jfim 1y agoWhat are the incentives for people to be fat, out of curiosity? Do you mean farm subsidies for corn, for example?
- const_cast 1y agoAt a low level, yes, corn, but at a high level: more consumption = more money. Everyone benefits from you being fat. Your doctors, your car manufacturer, food manufacturers, everyone. Except maybe health insurance. But they're not hurt too too much.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- XorNot 1y agoThere is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". There's plenty of doctors and surgeons who wish there were less fat people, because they enormously complicate doing surgery on and managing in hospitals.
- const_cast 1y ago> There is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". I agree, but this isn't how incentives work. Ultimately, there are billions of dollars at play here that rely directly on obesity. The mechanisms of the market and human behavior transcend moral judgement.
- koolba 1y ago> There is no doctor on Earth who goes to work and thinks "thank god for fat people or I wouldn't have a business". What about everybody that works in liposuction?
- KPGv2 1y agoYou mean the job that makes an irreversible removal of fat from your body? Repeat liposuction is considered unsafe, so you will find very, very few people who want to predate on someone via lipo. They want to "fix you," too.
- SchemaLoad 1y agoIt's not that there are incentives for you to be fat, but there are incentives for things which happen to cause you to be fat. The car industry is a huge one. Making people drive everywhere means more car sales, more fuel sales, more infrastructure built for more cars. And it also makes you fat as a side effect.
- guizadillas 1y agoHow would you even know the cause of obesity of a stranger? This is why viewing being fat as a moral failing is mistake regardless of the cause. I'm pretty sure a lot of people view your sister the same way just because they have no idea she has thyroid issues
- jvanderbot 1y agoWith respect, neither of you are qualified to speak for majority of Americans, but given the amount of effort, money, ink, and television dedicated to looking better and losing weight combined with the fact that there's even a thing called fat phobic that even requires definition just to push back on all that... I think there's sufficient reason to believe that "Overweight = bad" is a common standard that at least people hold themselves to.
- blitzar 1y agoWe must live on different timelines. Pre ozempic America was the proudest nation of fat people I have ever encountered (excluding the costal elites of course).
- jvanderbot 1y agoIt's weird because I agree with you, but also have to acknowledge that the "pushback against fat phobia" was for some reason a thing.
- davorak 1y agoThird American here, and the push for fat acceptance was so little of my media consumption that it surprised me so many people spent so much time and energy on the topic.
- cortesoft 1y ago> People are mostly sympathetic to those who are not obvious slobs. Maybe once they hear the story, but most people assume every fat person they see is a slob