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"People no longer feel obliged to pretend there’s something shameful about wanting to be thinner." Or the notion that being morbidly obese is healthy.

gadders 9mo ago
I didn't mind "body positivity" too much, it was more "healthy at any size" that I found objectionable. If you as an adult want to eat to excess (or drink, or smoke), feel free (within reason - don't encroach on my economy airline seat) and happily accepts that they might shorten their life by doing so, then have at it. Just don't pretend it's a healthy lifestyle choice.
- mikkupikku 9mo ago
  Even body positivity goes way too far for me. If it were only adults in play that would be different, but the rise of "body positivity" coincided with a massive increase in child obesity, and there's a strong connection between the eating/health habits of parents and the health outcomes of their children.
  - martythemaniak 9mo ago
    body positivity was a very much needed reaction to the mass media starvation-chic obsession of the 2000s. Kate Winslet in Titanic, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears in the mid 2000s were all widely mocked and panned for being fat whales despite being completely normal looking.
    - spiderfarmer 9mo ago
      Exactly. It was never about 200-400 pound behemoths guilt tripping you for having an opinion about the health of their diets.
    - mikkupikku 9mo ago
      I don't think there is continuity there. Body positivity was a movement of extremely obese people trying to normalize obesity, not a movement of healthy people trying to denormalized anorexia.
      - Izkata 9mo ago
        The very earliest versions weren't like that. For example, "healthy at every size" was originally "health at every size" - it was supposed to be encouragement that you are succeeding in improving your health by eating better and exercising even if you don't lose weight.
  - TimorousBestie 9mo ago
    > the rise of "body positivity" coincided with a massive increase in child obesity The obesity epidemic is yet another instance of “What changed in America in 1971?” that can’t be attributed to body positivity, a movement that didn’t really get nationwide traction until the 90s. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10815706/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10815706/
- nijave 9mo ago
  >If you as an adult want to eat to excess In fairness, there are plenty of conditions and imbalances that can cause weight gain besides "eating in excess" >don't encroach on my economy airline seat The things are so damn small that's going to happen regardless. They're not designed for big people (even healthy weighted ones)
  - lagniappe 9mo ago
    Thermodynamics is undefeated, people cannot just manifest mass. It must enter through the mouth.
    - javcasas 9mo ago
      The mouth. That magical orifice where the cake enters and the excuses exit.
      - ceejayoz 9mo ago
        Believe it or not, it's also largely where the weight exits, as the C part in CO2. Something like 85% of it.
        javcasas 9mo ago
        > An adult typically removes approximately 0.8 to 0.9 kilograms (840 to 900 grams) of CO2 from the body each day. https://biologyinsights.com/how-much-carbon-dioxide-do-we-exhale/ https://biologyinsights.com/how-much-carbon-dioxide-do-we-ex... Ok, that is way more than the dozen grams per day I thought it was.
        phantasmish 9mo ago
        It's one of those initially unintuitive things that makes perfect sense when you consider that "burning calories" is... pretty literally burning calories. Of course CO2 is how most of the mass goes away. Similar to the "trees are mostly made from air" thing.
- smeej 9mo ago
  What got to me was when my own doctor was telling me I was "healthy at any size" when I was telling her about things like plantar fasciitis in my feet that clearly got worse as I gained weight. Like, it would be one thing if I told her I felt like a million bucks and my labs were excellent and I was a little bit big. But I was in there explicitly telling her that I was NOT healthy at my size. I eventually got a better doctor and a dietitian and lost 50 lbs by changing my macros to focus on getting enough protein, fat, and fiber, which finally curbed my hunger, and wouldn't you know it, my feet feel better.
thisisauserid 9mo ago
The cynic in me can imagine that the body positivity "movement" was secretly funded by the ABCD* companies. How about "Plant Based!" Let's get some more grain into soup and milk! I'm honestly surprised that sawdust is so far only in shredded cheese. No "tree milk" yet for my coffee? * ADM Bunge Cargill Dreyfus

gadders 9mo ago

I didn't mind "body positivity" too much, it was more "healthy at any size" that I found objectionable. If you as an adult want to eat to excess (or drink, or smoke), feel free (within reason - don't encroach on my economy airline seat) and happily accepts that they might shorten their life by doing so, then have at it. Just don't pretend it's a healthy lifestyle choice.

mikkupikku 9mo ago
Even body positivity goes way too far for me. If it were only adults in play that would be different, but the rise of "body positivity" coincided with a massive increase in child obesity, and there's a strong connection between the eating/health habits of parents and the health outcomes of their children.
- martythemaniak 9mo ago
  body positivity was a very much needed reaction to the mass media starvation-chic obsession of the 2000s. Kate Winslet in Titanic, Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears in the mid 2000s were all widely mocked and panned for being fat whales despite being completely normal looking.
  - spiderfarmer 9mo ago
    Exactly. It was never about 200-400 pound behemoths guilt tripping you for having an opinion about the health of their diets.
  - mikkupikku 9mo ago
    I don't think there is continuity there. Body positivity was a movement of extremely obese people trying to normalize obesity, not a movement of healthy people trying to denormalized anorexia.
    - Izkata 9mo ago
      The very earliest versions weren't like that. For example, "healthy at every size" was originally "health at every size" - it was supposed to be encouragement that you are succeeding in improving your health by eating better and exercising even if you don't lose weight.
- TimorousBestie 9mo ago
  > the rise of "body positivity" coincided with a massive increase in child obesity The obesity epidemic is yet another instance of “What changed in America in 1971?” that can’t be attributed to body positivity, a movement that didn’t really get nationwide traction until the 90s. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10815706/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10815706/
nijave 9mo ago
>If you as an adult want to eat to excess In fairness, there are plenty of conditions and imbalances that can cause weight gain besides "eating in excess" >don't encroach on my economy airline seat The things are so damn small that's going to happen regardless. They're not designed for big people (even healthy weighted ones)
- lagniappe 9mo ago
  Thermodynamics is undefeated, people cannot just manifest mass. It must enter through the mouth.
  - javcasas 9mo ago
    The mouth. That magical orifice where the cake enters and the excuses exit.
    - ceejayoz 9mo ago
      Believe it or not, it's also largely where the weight exits, as the C part in CO2. Something like 85% of it.
      - javcasas 9mo ago
        > An adult typically removes approximately 0.8 to 0.9 kilograms (840 to 900 grams) of CO2 from the body each day. https://biologyinsights.com/how-much-carbon-dioxide-do-we-exhale/ https://biologyinsights.com/how-much-carbon-dioxide-do-we-ex... Ok, that is way more than the dozen grams per day I thought it was.
        phantasmish 9mo ago
        It's one of those initially unintuitive things that makes perfect sense when you consider that "burning calories" is... pretty literally burning calories. Of course CO2 is how most of the mass goes away. Similar to the "trees are mostly made from air" thing.
smeej 9mo ago
What got to me was when my own doctor was telling me I was "healthy at any size" when I was telling her about things like plantar fasciitis in my feet that clearly got worse as I gained weight. Like, it would be one thing if I told her I felt like a million bucks and my labs were excellent and I was a little bit big. But I was in there explicitly telling her that I was NOT healthy at my size. I eventually got a better doctor and a dietitian and lost 50 lbs by changing my macros to focus on getting enough protein, fat, and fiber, which finally curbed my hunger, and wouldn't you know it, my feet feel better.

thisisauserid 9mo ago

The cynic in me can imagine that the body positivity "movement" was secretly funded by the ABCD* companies. How about "Plant Based!" Let's get some more grain into soup and milk! I'm honestly surprised that sawdust is so far only in shredded cheese. No "tree milk" yet for my coffee? * ADM Bunge Cargill Dreyfus