Aunt Sally

I'm not going to comment not that I'm Mz goody four shoes. I wrote a response that was rather intemperate even for me and although it amused me, I had to press delete on that one and am glad of it. It cleared the air. Having seen the vitriol of some of the responses to this piece, I feel the poor woman, Maura Kelly, has suffered enough whether she has got the point (or not, more like it) still, enough is enough.

Jeez, it's always the wrong targets who get caught in the cross hairs isn't it? Why is it never the bastards who are butchering and killing fat people who get punked? They are inaccessible so people like MK unwittingly put their foot in it and find it getting bit off-no that is not a donut style reference. Why is it almost always women-as much I have to make an occasional exception for that big(gest) loser disjointed harpy? [Link? Hell no!]

It all makes me wonder about just how one should feel about this particular point;

To that point (and on a more personal level), a few commenter's and one of my friends mentioned that my extreme reaction might have grown out of my own body issues, my history as an anorexic, and my life-long obsession with being thin. As I mentioned in the ongoing dialogue we’ve been carrying on in the comments section, I think that's an accurate insight.

It's been touched on before and not resolved at all, what's to be done about those people who say they've had anorexia or related disorders and express rabid, often triggered/triggering fat phobia?

How do we handle this?

Ragging them out doesn't always feel right, equally, nor does letting it stand, either.

Since the advent of media driven nutritionists-not dietitian's who often have medical, or are medically qualified- whose contributions have helped to burst the fat hating dam, especially in my view sinking a more rational and gentle healthy living message, leaving the ugliness we have now. They showed by example, the angry and hatefuelled how to turn it into priggishly hypocritical moralising and faux superiority, so ugly that it has come utterly repellent to many.

I remember the end of when normal eating still held sway, they came in on the wave of weight anxiety analysing people's perfectly reasonable diets trying to panic them-I hated that as much if not more than their fat phobic BS-with their pronouncements. They were laughed out of order as the dim wits too many of them were and are.

The laughter stopped as the obesity crisis dynamic got a hold and they repeatedly placed themselves in front of fat people suggesting that they held the secret of saving others from becoming us. As their targets took the bait they repeatedly left us worse than they found us by offloading fat hate on us and leaving us to it. All this gave them a respect they would have had to earn otherwise with better standards of behaviour. Trying to turn their 'discipline' into a more academically meaningful subject is probably making too heavy a demand on their fragile nerves.

For a long time, they didn't even give a damn about our diets or rendering even their dubious 'assistance'(which although often nonsensical many fat people feel better for being included in receiving their attentions) they just used us to advance themselves and ignored us. I've not forgotten or forgiven this. They are not though the numero uno A-holes in this by a long shot, but they are high my list of those I'd like to see fall hard by the wayside, as fast as they rose off our backs.

They gave me an aversion to what someone once called aptly, failed anorexics. Now by that, I do not mean people who've had or are anorexia. I'm talking about some who seem to identify with being anorexic often labelling themselves thus. They may well have had a brush with a few problems, but I'm somewhat sceptical about their claims of having the chronic condition and having been worked over by it rigorously.

They tend to see anorexia as being about lifestyle and a kind of self realisation, often they are extremely bitter about what they see as their failure to make it work. Often they specialize in the view that fat people are provoking them by our very existence-or being "fat at them" as some FA's waggishly call it. And they often make fat people represent the personification of their sense of 'failure'in some way, which is actually the success of their bodies defences and feel a sense of licence to attack us without restraint, making us part of their state of mind. They are users (of us)to the core. Even to the extent of claiming that we must support their intolerance because it is about their eating disorder. Some of them are feminists, hence their familiar tactic of negotiating fat activists into assuming the rule of their hated lackeys and expecting us to be grateful, such is their low opinion of us.

I don't wish to suggest an artificial divide, but on the whole, those who've been genuinely trapped and brought to despair anorexia tend naturally to be more circumspect about fat phobia-and it does tend to be about that, more than any real hate-than the wannabes (sorry, but that's what they are).

They have undoubtedly advanced the fat hating agenda and their use when confronted of eating disorder as a shield is something that should not be allowed to prevent them from being held to account. Although perhaps, the vitriol they tend to provoke should also be tempered too, they tend to be rather vulnerable when cornered, as opposed to plain old haters who tend to be able to take care of themselves.
It's struck me from the off that fat acceptance cannot stop short at these extreme phobic feelings which are labelled as fear of fatness, theoretically, they don't have to be anymore than anyone else with their "fat talk". It is certainly not acceptable to me that we should be required to be supportive or silent about this.

There is some potential for FA to dismantle at least a tiny part of the energy that builds or makes up a disorder. It could make a difference to the trajectory of it and/or shorten it's duration. Recovery could be more swift and effective too, once past more potent phases.

However this might well feel more threatening than hopeful certainly among those who have not actually undergone the rigours of the condition of anorexia, because they like things as they are, their sensibilities are being acquiesced to. They may well resist any challenge of fat phobia as the easiest and most obvious expression of their feelings.