http://m.jezebel.com/5914422/no-mat...think-youre-fat

As if we needed more evidence that anti-fat bias is about moral superiority and not about health, a new study finds that people continue to be negatively affected by fat stigmas even after they have lost weight. Researchers asked participants (young men and women) to read vignettes about a series of women—some who had lost 70 lbs and some who had remained weight-stable. They were then asked to rate the women based on attractiveness and other factors. The results? People hate fat people so much that they can't stop hating fat people even after the fat people became thin people.



Of course. Because you don't really qualify as a thin person; you're just a fat person masquerading as a thin person. You're tainted. All that stuff that supposedly made you fat—laziness and moral turpitude and lack of willpower and that pneumatic Dorito funnel you had installed next to your bed—that's all still in there, waiting to make you fat and gross again! Despite all of society's protestations that fat people are just thin people with temporary gluttony problems, it turns out that they don't really see fat people that way. Fat once, fat for life. Nobody is more committed to the intrinsic permanence of fatness than the smug fat-haters insisting that fat is a choice.

On top of that, study participants reacted even more negatively to the formerly fat women if they were presented with additional information suggesting that weight control is easy. But it is almost certainly not easy, says Kerry O'Brien, one of the study's co-authors:



So make no mistake, fat people. If you lose weight, do it because you want to, and not because you're chasing that carrot that the fat-shamers love to dangle (it's a marzipan carrot—fat people don't eat vegetables!)—the one that says weight loss will be a magical release from shame and ridicule and your life will suddenly become perfect. They are lying. They are liar people. You might manage to become thin, but jerks will still be jerks.

Not a regular 'Jezebel' reader here, but this sounds depressing. I did see something good to take from this.

The title of this thread made me laugh. Ah, who cares, what anyone thinks?? I can only live this life for me. I can't make or live my life based solely on the emotions of others. I have to get up, and go about my day-every day, regardless of if stranger's are going to be aroused or repulsed by my body-much less than what they might think of my health history stats. There are so many things you can choose to worry about. Don't let this be one that should put weight on your shoulders! Happiness comes from within, joy bubbles inside you from being with the ones you love. There will always be hateful people, but that is their problem, not yours. You are only responsible about how you feel.

There's another thread where we are discussing how perpetually thin people find weight control "so easy!" and overweight people must be both lazy and idiots to have not grasped the simple fact that doing nothing works for skinny people, fat people should try it!

I think that it is true. It is interesting to notice how others view us on the weight loss journey. Some people will never get over their weight hate and some who know and love us never judged us by our weight in the first place. Feeling good about one's self is the most important aspect of weight loss and I know that I am on the right track.

That's rather like tall people finding being tall is easy. I had an argument with a friend who has always been thin about willpower. I told him that the way to look at it is this. I've never smoked, so cigarettes have no power over me, while smokers are tortured by it.

Would it be right of me to lord it over a smoker that I have no trouble at all resisting tobacco?

Actually this really is true. There is such a bias against fat that even HAVING BEEN fat is still very embarrassing. I've seen that, both people's reactions to others once they knew they 'had been', and people's reaction sometimes even in advance to not letting others know they had been (indicating a lot of people recognize this).

I once read a study done where college kids were asked about various things and they pretty much agreed they would rather date someone who did 'hard' drugs or beat up their mates before someone who was 30 pounds too heavy.

PJ

My mother was heavy (though never as heavy as I! But at her top weight she was probably about 225 pounds).

My youngest sister is 6 feet tall and now at age 55 probably weighs about 145 pounds, but in college weighed about 120 pounds. And she once had a boyfriend break up with her after her met our mom! He broke up with her because her MOTHER WAS FAT.

He basically said, "If you want to know what a girl will look like in 20-30 years take a look at her mother. And I don't want to have a fat wife"

But of course the joke was on him as my sister remained at about 125 pounds until she hit 50, but then did gain about 20 when she ran into menopause. But at 6 feet tall 145 pounds is still skinny!

Meanwhile her daughter, my niece, seems to keep getting heavier and heavier. Is some boy going to look at my sister and say, "Gee, your mom is skinny, so I guess in 20-30 years you will be skinny also". It's sort of a no-win situation.

LOL!
I don't give a flying frig what people think of me and my pneumatic Dorito funnel! I think getting older gives you some perspective. Especially since everyone else is also fat now.

How about: http://www.godlikeproductions.com/f...sage1266014/pg1


Wow, we have a lot of power! Taking down society, destroying the country, and re-writing the laws of genetics. The writer stops short of actually suggesting we be rendered down for our excess oil to be used to power the lights at his favorite gym, but not by much. The responses follow in pretty much the same line . . . it is interesting to be reminded of how much (some) people hate on us. It reminds me to appreciate the decent ones out there. . .

I don't know, maybe that's strangers. When I've lost weight before I got so much positive attention I couldn't handle it. And it went to my head thinking I was skinny now I could eat anything and slowly gained it all back, it wasn't low carb dieting before.

Last weekend I had an eye opener I shared in another thread with some people sharing their hatred for anyone fatter than them. Anyone that didn't serve them well, quick enough or nice enough was labeled fat jerk and heartily laughed at by these genetically selected super skinny people who do next to nothing to be so thin. Thereby thinking all fat people are really bad because they should be just like them, skinny, so the fat people must be doing something really bad and eating nonstop 24/7. Very frustrating.

I love this one.

I don't know about studies....but I do know about my own experiences and this is NOT mine. I'm 8 months into maintenance and I STILL have people that I see regularly compliment me on how great I look and how much weight I've lost. Now they may be waiting for me to fail and gain the weight back, but they don't view me as a "fat person disguised as a thin person." They honestly want to know what I've done to make the change.

One more thing...



This is FALSE! Weight status is FAR from uncontrollable. I've been able to control it VERY well with lc. And it has NOTHING to do with "perceived." You're fat or you're not. I DO agree that mainstream needs to rethink the approaches...ditch the grains for goodness sake!

It really upsets me that the trend seems to be that "the powers that be" want to classify obesity as a disease. It's NOT a disease! It's a symptom of bad choices and misinformation!

Yes, they are unable to give good advice; so they try to make the claim that it's impossible anyway.

It's my genetics which makes me "carbohydrate sensitive." But it was health authorities telling me to eat low fat/lotsa grains... which made me fat.

I think there are quite a lot of people who are not able to "easily control weight" with _any_ eating plan. There are a lot of dedicated people in this forum I've watched work hard at food for years, are still fat, and what they lose is very small (and sometimes with the help of drugs). People thinking that eating lowfat or lowcarb or vegan or whatever is the solution of everyone, that's really no different than people who are young males or naturally skinny thinking it's easy for everyone if they're not sloths--bodies differ.

I realize ... it's very exciting when it works but there are a lot of body issues going on that are not about carbohydrates. Most people don't find that out until they lose the carbohydrate-related weight and discover they're still fat and now eating the same way isn't helping (and in many cases, then they feel crappy on VLC, because the carb-related weight is no longer coming off and giving them that energy). Probably more an issue for heavier people...


Pretty sure genetics cannot change monthly.

Obesity 'can be' classified a disease if you consider that at least 11% of adult females in the USA (that's over 11 million people) are estimated to suffer from Lipoedema, a genetic-related, officially incurable, "dysfunction of fat regulation" that causes them to not be able to 'lose' weight between the upper pelvis and ankles (and sometimes upper arms), so it begins adding at puberty and since it pretty much never comes off (not by diet, or exercise, or gastric bypass, or anorexia), by the time they're in 20's they're often heavy and by the time in 30's often quite fat and it just gets worse, develops into secondary worse conditions, and contributes to additional-body fat gain and other conditions affected by fat quantity. I personally believe that has to be organ and/or diet related and resolvable somehow but nobody knows how; the official stats are 11% of the female population incurably fat but almost entirely undiagnosed. (I lost 170# on lowcarb. Everywhere but there. Bodyfat on the upper part of the body (torso) seems ridiculously easy to lose.)

Of course they seldom diagnose it in the USA since that would screw up major industries. People might not go under the knife if they knew it wouldn't help the primary source of their weight for example. But, that is an example of an actual disease state officially labeled and based solely on "dysfunctional adipose regulation".

In general though I agree; obesity is only trying to be reclassified as a disease because of the implications that will have. Such as that then you couldn't give diet advice or you'd be practicing medicine. Right now the only way people have to get healthy and stay off/get off pharma drug/control is via the weight loss thing which makes people clean up their act. Take that out of the picture and we are all sick junkies and the mega-corps+government are the pimps.


PJ