Seeing the rotund's piece at CiF the other day. I met the kind of ferocious fat hatred I tend to avoid.
When I first got into FA a few years ago, I'd already come to many conclusions. I expected, nay wanted them to be challenged, to see how they held up. One of the conclusions I tentatively held was:
Those against FA have no legitimate or honest argument; at all.
That's quite a strong statement, I know. I'm happy to be corrected, I'm unaware of having been so. I cannot imagine what it could be although I assumed there must be a perfectly cogent and rational arguement against fat acceptance.
As for our efforts toward long term weight loss up to now, that they have failed, is so obvious, so evident, that no further proof is necessary. There comes a point when it is clear that something doesn't work and it's time to move on to more pressing matters. Of course, that conclusion can be avoided, by asking endlessly for more proof of the painfully obvious. Remember that one for the next time you want to continue wishing.
Again, I stand to be corrected on that also.
I've never quite got the need FA has to keep providing more evidence and proof and science that we are meant to be fat or that long term weight loss is impossible. I have my doubts about those statements. One thing I do know is science is that which is demonstrable, repeatable, and predictable. Diet failure is that if it is anything. (If indeed dieting is anything, which is debatable).
Asking for more proof, is meaningless, because, the reality is beyond any reasonable doubt. Supplying proof when asked validates the idea there is any need for any more proof, there isn't.
So when I don't particularly want to face those against FA, it's because I realise that they have chosen to suspend reality and believe what they want.
I'm not sure whether it's not a little condescending to assume that if I just explain it to them, they will get it, they almost never do, because it's their choice not mine.
You could not have easily persuaded me to stop dieting either. I stopped when I'd had enough.
So if you wish to try and reason with these people, be my guest and the best of luck. But please try to stop offering evidence of the obvious.
I don't bother to argue with fat-phobes anymore, there is no convincing them that they are wrong about dieting and WLS. I put the information out there for other fat people who are in the process of figuring out that their repeated diets haven't done anything but mess up their metabolism and make them fatter than if they had never dieted at all. Those are the people I want to reach, those are the people I want to know that they don't have to meet anyone's insane body ideal, that they are fine just the way they are, and that health is not a moral obligation to be met.
ReplyDeleteThe others are just trolls, whether they're on the internet or in real life, and I don't deal with trolls, at all, ever. They aren't worth the breath it takes to tell them to piss off.
I think your focus is spot on Vesta, I've felt the same way since I realised my original suspicions were correct.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is that some people, within FA think that it is arrogant or in some way harmful to fat acceptance to avoid these kind of pointless exchanges.
Oh yeah, you're polite not to mention I neglected to title, oops!