ItsTHEWOO: I didn't know that NAAFA took an anti-dieting (read lose weight) stance. I was quite shocked to read your post. You are also right when you refer to them as "obesity-enabling".

If you don't even know what their "stances" are, how can you say you know enough about the organization to say they are "obesity enabling"?

You know there are a lot of people who think those who seriously low carb are "nuts". We understand, they don't. If you don't understand something it's better to learn about it rather than denigrate it or its members.

People go there to heal. If one person's view on what they think is a "lifestyle" change is allowed then others have to be as well and then soon it just becomes another diet board rather than a place to go to say how you feel without being told you are ugly because you are fat or that your fat is ugly(which has been said here on THIS board even in forums i've read). They promote healthy choices. They promote activity and exercise. What they don't promote are things that might lead one of their members to further turmoil.

Look at all the people on this board obsessed with the scale and how truly hurt and sick they get when it doesn't move according to their wishes. Look at how many people "fall off-plan". How in the world can it be wrong to have a place to gather to where you don't have to put yourself or the way you look down or read others put Themselves down when they are much smaller than you?

Most people would agree that staying the weight you are and improving other areas of your life, both internally and through healthier eating and lifestyle(all things they promote) would be much better than constantly yo-yoing up and down from diet after diet and "lifestyle change" after "Lifestyle change". Why does it bother some people so much that this group allows people to be who they are without trying to make them think that what they look like is bad?

NAAFA is not about dieting. If they were then they would be hypocritical. They ARE about health and activity. If a person gets healed more inside then, as some members here can attest, he/she may decide for many reasons to change their eating habits, perhaps low-carbing, but for some it will never happen if everywhere they turn they are being told "lose weight".

Hear Hear!!!!

The thing is, I wasn't "promoting" anything, least of all LC dieting. All I was trying to do is receive (and maybe give) information. I went there to understand their position on weight loss attempts (are they against the act of losing weight itself even if done responsibly and healthfully in a completely sustainable manner, or are they only against the exploitation of nutritional ignorance by the weight loss industry?).

If it turned out to be the former, I also was hoping to open a dialog of communication to find out why they feel losing weight itself is bad. I have an inkling it has something to do with the myth that fat is neutral, metabolically inactive tissue which does not really effect health directly, and bias against extreme fatness is only for cultural reasons. Since they believe fat has no affect on health and anti-fat sentiment is purely cultural, they should not try to lose weight but rather try to change culture.

I do agree with them, in a sense. Bias against moderate overweight is cultural issue. Moderate overweight itself does not threaten health, in fact moderately overweight people have been shown to be more healthy than the underweight body types our culture espouses. If this anti-dieting message was confined only for people with bodyfat in the overweight/moderate obese range, I would have far less of a problem with it.

However, extreme amounts of overweight are health-threatening for all the reasons I listed in my first post. For NAAFA to say "if you are 500 pounds, you shouldn't try to lose weight since the problem is only with culture and not your body and health", they are placating their already emotionally fraught super morbidly obese members with enabling lies. When you are several hundred pounds overweight, you have limited mobility and probably several health issues, with several more looming over the horizon. How can they in good conscience encourage people to stay like that?

[QUOTE]"any efforts which involve intentionally trying to lose weight is a diet and not supported by NAAFA"[QUOTE]

Sorry, but the above quote simpy reinforces the impression that NAAFA is an obesity-enabling organization. If NAAFA wants mainstream support it needs to clarify what it means, because it isn't "okay" to be obese. The health risks to the individual alone should make that obvious. Smokers have become persona-non-grata just about world-wide because of the health care issues associated with smoking...do you honestly think the obese are going to be given a free pass over this issue?

I agree with you totally. If you listen to their personal histories, they come from backgrounds wrought with hurt. I can deeply sympathize, as I was at one time morbidly obese and know what it feels like. I have ventured out in the world, all the while feeling like a physical oddity. I know what it's like to not be accepted. I know what it's like to have strangers of all ages insult you for the way you look.

Many of them also have been yo-yo dieters. In desperation, they turned to fad diets (liquid diets like optifast), low fat dieting, bulimia, anorexia... desperate to lose weight.

I can see how they would feel NAAFA is the best option after that; they figure "Every time I try to diet I wind up gaining more. I'm stuck here fat, I might as well live life and accept it".

But, like you said, this feeling is very much learned hopelessness. If they tried to do something less drastic to lose weight, like say cut out the whites, they might be pleasantly surprised to find they have made a lifestyle change that both reduces weight and improves health that *isn't* a quick fix diet.

I wouldn't dare suggest low carb to them (as much as I would *love* to). I understand the claims of how wonderful the "all steak and cheese diet" is sounds very familiar to them; they've already been through the hoops and loops with all manners of "wacky fad diets". Most of them are far too jaded to give it a try, and I can't say I blame them. If I were a bit older and had been through the fad diet obsession madness of the 80s and 90s, I probably would be well over 300 pounds today, and long given up on finding the myth of permanent, sustainable weight loss. In fact, the reason I had not dieted before finding low carb is because I knew I would be far too miserable on it to sustain any loss and would wind up regaining. However, Atkins made sense and I, in my naive 20 years of life, decided to give it a try. I was very very lucky to find information about carbs/GI/insulin first, without first turning to something drastic or inefficient.

When you've been failed so many times before, and you are emotionally so broken and shamed, it is easy to understand how they do what they do. I just wish there was a way to change their minds, and encourage them to take just one more leap of faith...

NAAFA provides a safe environment for large and obese people. All obese people do not have health issues!!! When weight impacts health they urge you to address it. Many times, however, the issue that is looked at as weight related is not. And many times just seeing the weight triggers sterotypes in peoples minds. I think your attitude toward these people is shown by your descriptives "emotionally fraught super morbidly obese members". Isn't morbidly obese or obese adjective enough? Perhaps NAAFA is protecting its members from being "emotionally fraught" by you.

FYI members of NAAFA are not all morbidly obese nor are they all unhealthy.

NAAFA members are encouraged to be active, healthy, confident and social within their present bodies. While individual members of NAAFA may choose to go on a diet, it is the line of NAAFA that they will not take a position encouraging such for the harm it has done to it's members as well as the attitudes of society that the problem rests with them and their behaviors. They have been browbeaten with that attitude enough!!!

Just because you have found the holy grail of lc and wish to impart that knowledge with the fervor of the newly or successfully coverted, they do not have to accept your prosthelitysing (sp?). Leave them alone. If you wish to convert obsese people to lc, do it one at a time by example among the obese people you know in your own environment. Surely by example you can lead.

I can say with confidence they are obesity enabling, judging from the *several* times the moderator told me NAAFA does not support any efforts, no matter what they may be, with the direct intention of lowering body fat.

If that's not obesity enabling, what is?

That is exactly why I went there odyssey, I went there to communicate and learn. You seem to be under the impression that I was promoting LC diets or something; I did not and had not intention of (as much as I would like to educate them about the principles behind atkins, I understand this would be a bad idea... see the above post).

I went there to ask them to clarify their position on weight loss. I also had the intention of asking them why they think it is such a bad thing if people try to lose weight in a responsible, sustainable, healthful fashion (meaning without hunger pain or excessive deprivation), but I didn't get the chance to do that as the moderator locked my thread immediately.

Again, I did *not* promote *my* particular "lifestyle change", I was just asking if they were against lifestyle changes which result in weight loss in general.

I understand NAAFA is about teaching obese people to love themselves; but with such a physically and psychologically deleterious message of obesity enabling (and yes, you certainly must agree that discouraging your members from doing *anything* to lower their weight IS trying to encourage them to stay obese) you have to ask yourself, how healthy mentally and physically is NAAFA? What kind of organization would tell a super morbidly obese person he can be just as healthy as anyone else, regardless of his weight?



I have nothing at all with NAAFA's message that you should love yourself and live regardless of weight.

I also do not think NAAFA should directly encourage weight loss. That is not their point.

My qualm with NAAFA is the fact they do not have a neutral stance on weight loss; they directly PROMOTE obesity by telling the world and their members they "do not support any changes with the direct intention of lowering weight in mind.

... not only does NAAFA not support any efforts to reduce obesity, but they take a neutral stance towards feederism. To those of you unaware, "feeders" are (usually male) admirers of very obese women. They encourage their already heavy girlfriends to get fatter through (often sexualized) "feeding"... sometimes to the point of immobilization, or at least impaired mobility. Feeder relationships are often exploitative; most of these women are lonely, starved for attention, and feeders pray on them, exploiting them to fulfill their fetishes. It is a take-take relationship... what happens when they break it off? Then what... she's left with a gained dozens of pounds.

How NAAFA can speak openly against "any efforts to directly lower weight", but at the same time take a neutral stance towards feeders, relegating it as a "personal lifestyle choice", and by choosing to be a feedee you are just being free to do what you want with your body, is just disgustingly hypocritical.

Intentional weight gain neutral, intentional weight loss bad. Gotcha.

It is this, and only this small but very poisonous message that spoils NAAFA for me. If NAAFA was even neutral about weight loss, I would think they are great. I might even consider joining. However, not only are they hypocrites when it comes to weight loss (they will condemn the intentional changing of the body in one direction, but not the other?), but they ENABLE people to stay obese. They are like a pimp, a predator, they look for people who feel they have no way out of their "hell" and exploit them.

I have been and still am obese...what really gets me about NAFAA is that to ME they ARE promoting being unhealthy. I KNOW they promote activity and loving yourself for who you are... ah, who knows.. maybe the problem is I just never could really love myself fully being 275... I was flat out ashamed and I KNEW I looked terrible. I do have a friend who seems happy at over 300 though..she isnt thrilled about her weight but she is a lot healthier than I was at my top weight over all.. still... I do think they are enabling.... BUT I agree that they shouldnt have to talk about diets and lifestyle changes if that's their thing... we should all have a safe place to talk about what we choose too... in MY RL there is nobody who thinks Atkins is safe...everyone around says I am killing myself.

First of all, there comes a point when you get to a certain weight you can't but help devlop health issues. FAT is not a metabolically neutral substance, this is the biggest lie NAAFA is founded on. The point at which extra fat starts to be a problem is different for everyone, but everyone does have a point by which extra fat interferes with good health and living life to the fullest (impared mobility). I can't support a blanket statement like "all people should never try anything to lower weight".

Oh, and my description of their members is mostly accurate, I think. You don't join NAAFA if you feel happy and accepted in the world.

Why do you keep accusing me of trying to start trouble, or make them feel bad? I never told them to lose weight, that wasn't an issue in my post, at all. I just simply asked them to clarify their position on weight loss. I asked them to communicate. You are displaying perfectly the kind of escapist-denial life and mentality that NAAFA supports. I am so sorry I commited the HORRENDOUS CRIME of asking them about dieting! GASP!



That's not the point. The point is they enable those who are unhealthy to stay unhealthy.

But, according to NAAFA, if it is your current body which is causing the lack of health, activity, and confidence, then ultimately you should choose unhealth, immobility, and denial rather than "make an attempt at any "lifestyle change" that has the purpose of inducing weight loss".

Don't you see how contradictory that message is? If they really are encouraging their members to be healthy a d feel good, how can they outright say they do NOT support personal choices to lower weight in any case?

Oh come on. I've heard several examples of NAAFA shunning the "rogue member" who DARES to diet. NAAFA has repeatedly shown they don't support personal choices to improve health, if those choices involve intentional weight loss. You don't have to look farther than the first page of the message board to find an example. One woman was asking for a scale that weighs up to 400 pounds. She sounds positively frightened that the members of the board might think she is "dieting to lose weight". She explains how her weight has started to affect her health and she has no choice but "break the rules" by going on a diet.

What a sick attitude and atmosphere. What kind of group shames their members into justifying the improving your health?

I wasn't pushing LC on them. The only time I mentioned LC, was when I was describing the lifestyle change I made, and the only reason I did that was to provide an example of lifestyle changes.

THIS IS EXACTLY how I feel! I looked to this group a lot but felt almost sickened that I would not be accepted if I wanted to better my quality of life by losing the weight. it's very very sad to me!!!!!!!!!!

Just to be clear, I am going to state one more time, in big letters...

I DID NOT GO THERE TO PREACH OR PROMOTE LC LIFESTYLE CHANGES, OR ANY KIND OF PARTICULAR WEIGHT-RELATED CHANGE IN LIFESTYLE. I MERELY ASKED IF THEY COULD CHANGE THEIR LIFESTYLE IN A WAY THAT RESULTED IN WEIGHT LOSS, WOULD THEY SUPPORT IT.

You may not have felt as if you promoted LC but to someone who has been on diet after diet and heard just about everything You did promote it .. how? by telling just how much you lost, how quickly, and how you did it.
The first part of Your letter there to me sounded like the beginning of a weight loss ad in all seriousness, even though i know whole heartedly that is not how You meant it, that is how it came across to me so i am certain that some others who saw it who have issues with dieting would also see it in that same vein.
The moderator told you that indeed there are probably many overweight people there who wish to lose weight BUT that their boards were not the boards to discuss it on.
These people are not in a vaccuum. They are not sheltered from news and television etc etc .. when they are ready to venture out, if they so choose, and lose weight they will do so. i can tell you right now that if i looked at this as a way to lose weight i NEVER would have started LCing because all i have done when i tried to lose weight is ended up even heavier.
And YES it IS better to tell a 500 pound woman not to diet if she started out as a 200 pound woman who dieted her way to 500 pounds. The next diet she goes on might make her 600 or kill her. Better for her to be where she is and learn about health and ways to be more active than diet her way higher.