Fat Acceptance Movement

Lorraine at The Renewal blog posted an article about finding another blog called The Rotund where the maintainer is an advocate in the Fat Acceptance Movement. She actually (Lorraine, that is) saw the owner of that blog on a segment of Good Morning America.

The Fat Acceptance Movement is all about...well, accepting fat people. I've heard it grumbled before that the obese and smokers are the last two groups in America that it's "okay" to make fun of socially and ostracise. Fat people who smoke can probably cut the tension with a steak knife when they walk into a room.

HA! Get it?

Anyway...yes, the movement. The movement itself is supposed to be about fighting stereotypes and myths and general prejudice against overweight people. Which I suppose is noble.

Part of me is torn on the topic though. While in theory advocating equality and lack of prejudice is a good thing, I think that what goes hand in hand with this is a tacit advocation of the cause and having experienced things from the fat side of the fence I'd have to say that I'm not sure it's a great thing to promote.

The health care industry is already a mess with vultures swooping in to take their share of the pie plus some extra whenever the opportunity arises. Obesity carries increased risk for heart attack, stroke, diabetic complications,...the list goes on and on. Each of these are used by the vultures to help justify their outrageous costs and fees; obese people contribute unevenly to the social system in comparison to the amount they take out for care.

The movement also is anti-diet, saying "dieting doesn't work". I really think that this is a mischaracterization...many diets work. The weight maintenance fails. That's not necessarily a problem with the diet though...it's the attitude that a diet is this temporary thing that once done is completely done, like painting a fence or cleaning the toilet. It's simply not true. You achieve a lower weight by modifying your lifestyle.

But I digress...

Where was I? Oh yes. It's hard to say that I'm against a group that proclaims to support you accepting yourself as you are. There's been a big movement for people doing just that, that body image is an issue for men and women because of unreal stereotypes perpetuated by images in media. But aren't they going to the opposite extreme?

I've been a big advocate for what I call "leaving me the hell alone". It's a system where if I don't unreasonably bother you, you don't have a right to unreasonably bother me. If someone wants to not wear a seatbelt, who are they going to hurt except themselves in an accident?

Unless they live, in which case they impose medical bills that are picked up by shared-risk organizations like the Medicare system or insurance companies.

So what about the super obese? Should we be just left alone without prejudice if we're footing our own medical bills, and then let our bodies fester in disrepair and slowly break down from the added stress our obesity places on the body as long as we're not bothering you?

Part of me says that if it's not bothering anyone else, why is it their business? Leave us alone. We all carry demons. The obese just happen to carry a demon that's visible, probably one among others. I doubt that the normals are without some private demons of their own, and it's simply fashionable to boost their egos at the expense of the overweight.

The other part says that if I have to foot a disproportionate amount of the bill for a guy that lays in a hospital because he ignored twenty years or more of warnings about taking care of himself then I'm a little peeved. It also is the part of me that twitches a little when they...the movement...distorts facts into propaganda by promoting ideas like "diets don't work." It's a half truth. You failed the diet so you instead redefine "fat" as "normal".

I also don't want to give the illusion that I support being overweight because I have been there and can say that there really are a lot of mechanisms in place to rationalize and justify the situation and quite frankly, while they can be a consolation but it only numbs a pain that you're constantly aware of. You're aware of it when you can't fit a seat belt. When that theater seat pinches your cheeks together more tightly than you can pinch them together. When you realize your plate at the buffet has two trips worth of food. When you find yourself second-guessing if the seats in the party hosts' home will buckle under the weight of your ass, or becoming self-conscious of how much you're taking from the dishes compared to other guests. When you're the one that gets volunteered to walk on the ice first to make sure it's safe for the kids or be the anchor for tug-of-war, but you're the last one picked for a game of ball. Unless it's football. When you're fat it's generally assumed by every redneck armchair coach that you "should go out for football because you'd be great at it!"

So you console yourself with things like, "I'm overweight, but my doctor has been surprised because I don't have the complications that people my weight are supposed to have!" I thought I was the only one to use that excuse (many years ago). I was wrong. Looking back I think it's a common delusional belief to make myself feel better for being so morbidly obese, and as with all good things the good health slips away, slowly, chipping away in bits small enough that you don't notice it at first...until you find yourself flipping through a Dummies book on Weight Loss Surgery and wondering how you allowed yourself to get to that point.

I don't know at this point. I haven't dedicated a lot of time to thinking about the topic. What do other people think? Rights of the individual before the rights of the public? Or is this just a splinter group of delusional overweight people trying to make themselves feel better by finding others who have given up trying to feel healthy and redefined themselves to embrace their "unhealthy" state? Or am I totally off base here?