Health at Every Size(HAES)

[Lotus the Cat]

Kraft mac n cheese is $4.50 for 5 boxes, and less if you buy generic like we did. Two boxes would probably feed our family at that time, and that's 2700 calories roughly, or 900 a person. Add the 500-800 from lunch (required to be high-calorie for the food insecure that wouldn't have another meal that day) and another few hundred from breakfast, both paid for by the school because poor, and you're up above 2000. Honestly, I have no idea what my mom ate when I wasn't there because I never asked and I was in school. Probably the same thing we ate all the time though - garlic noodles (pasta + garlic salt and parmesan), rice and beans, instant mac and cheese, quesadillas, taco meat.

You seem to put a barrier between "I think fat people are lazy" and "but I support them in trying to lose weight". This is where you have to stand outside yourself for a moment and realize that you are not going to convince anyone of your sympathy when you say "fat people are lazy". Regardless of you thinking that there is a barrier between those two in your mind, there is not in the minds of the people you are talking to. You are the same as the men who walk around justifying their "no fatties" rule with "I just care about their health", and the same as the women who watch what fat people in the office eat like a hawk and ask "are you really sure you want to participate in the birthday party today sweetie? Do you really need that cake?" There is no line between "I think your fatness is a symptom of a major character flaw, but I don't want you to feel shame about it!"

Clearly we can never agree on anything because liver is delicious. Gimme all yo liver.

I'm not trying to convince anyone of my sympathy because I have none. Just like I have none for smokers who slowly kill themselves through habit. I think smoking is a bad habit and I would support anyone trying to quit, but I won't accept smoking as a good thing. Same goes for obesity. That being said I won't stop people doing what they want unless they're loved ones and I have genuine concern for them.

I think im able to have an opinion on the weight of others in that my tax dollar goes to fund their medical expenses for totally preventable illness (at least smokers and alcoholics are taxed for their consumption).

It looks like we will disagree. I can't believe you like liver...

Lol, edit to your edit to my edit: when you consider $90 a week, remember I am in Australia and every thing costs twice as much here. So consider it as $45 a week in your experience.

I had 30 contact hours a week at uni not including the time to study, prepare assignments and work to earn my $90. Either way, going hungry and obesity don't tend to go hand in hand.

I admit that phase didnt last too long as I ended up eating better when I got a second job during uni.

 

[Kanzler]

I don't think one is food insecure if they're able to eat a calorie surplus on the regular enough to become overweight. If cheap food is high calorie, it really should be easier to just eat slightly less food. Calorie calculations are honestly not that difficult. Most of things in life aren't. You just have to take an hour out of a week to make the initiative, find out what needs finding out.

Also, we've got a samosa place that would let you live off samosas for just $14 a week. That's 10 samosas a day, and around ~2500 calories. With potatoes so complete protein profile, and beans and good stuff. And I don't see what's so wrong about throwing free food out if there's more than what you need. It boggles my mind when I was in cadets that some people would give me rations they didn't want or like (but of course giving me food is a better choice than throwing out something they wouldn't eat anyways).

Point is that an abundance of cheap food isn't really an excuse to eat more than one should. If Kraft Mac and Cheese is 90 cents a box, then instead of feeding a family with 14 boxes a week (2 boxes a day x 7 days = 2700 calories a day) do with 11 boxes (1.57 boxes a day x 7 days = 2125 calories a day) and pocket $2.70 weekly. Refrain from heavy exercise to make sure those calories take you through the day.

 

[Oryx]

I don't think one is food insecure if they're able to eat a calorie surplus on the regular enough to become overweight.

I was not food insecure. Food insecurity is not being sure whether or not you'll have a meal at home that day; I knew I was getting dinner. There was no "food insecure" and "food secure" separate meals - I was just explaining why school lunches were so high calorie.

 

[Anno]

To bring about something from a different perspective, fat-shaming hurts even those who are not overweight. The brief sum of the matter is that I am transgendered and at an age where it matters so much to me what people think about the way I look (13,) and at the age of only 11 I had an eating disorder.

Not a oh she is a little too thin thing. Not something hyped up or overblown. A legitimate and very dangerous case of anorexia nervosa. At 11. Why was I throwing up everything I ate, and refusing to eat at all a lot of the time? Why were my ribs showing through my clothes, and blood coming from parts of my body they shouldn't? Because all I could think about was how my injections (that stop me from being a boy) could have the side-effect of weight-gain, and that no girl who was ever fat could ever be pretty. And I wanted to be pretty. Fat-shaming reminds to those who are at a healthy weight that they shouldn't be content to stay that way. It took me a year and a half after that to get my weight back up and even now I get pangs of anxiety when I hang out with a friend and see them eating a small portion of something sweet, even now I worry for them. This social obsession with weight has scarred me for life... and don't you think, as a teenage transgendered girl, with a single parent, trying to reconcile my own staunch Christian beliefs against who I am, that I have enough on my plate?

I was 11 years old and hospitalized for five weeks over an eating disorder, because I was afraid of being fat, and therefore, unattractive.

Don't you see how messed up this is? If people want to have a bigger body type, or they're happy with it, that should be their choice. The poison in the media about how "you should always be thin and those who argue are usually fat..." is horrible, but no more horrible than the claims earlier in this thread that you cannot be for universal healthcare while allowing people to be whatever weight they want to be.

Really?

Does that mean you can't be for universal healthcare and pro-choice?
Does that mean you can't be for universal healthcare and allow people to work in higher-risk jobs?
Does that mean you can't be for universal healthcare and allow people to have alcohol?

That's a horrible way of thinking, and quite frankly, selfish. So selfish. People come in all shapes and sizes and there are health risks for the super skinny and the upper end of the weight scale, that's definitely true, but you know what is not going to encourage a very overweight person to lose weight? Making them hate themselves, because then why would they care about their health?

 

[Lotus the Cat]

I'm going to share with you all the reason behind my vehemence. I may have never been overweight, but I know what it's like to feel unattractive, to cover myself up and feel depressed by the way I look.

A lot of the arguments around obesity is the perception of body image and what popular culture does that makes people who are overweight and obese feel unattractive. You know what else popular culture portrays in ideal body image? Perfect skin - often wonderfully airbrushed to unobtainable levels.

While you will at least find people who find overweight or obese people attractive, I challenge you to find people who prefer people with acne, eczema, etc.

Ever since I hit puberty I have suffered from cystic acne. While most of it is gone now I'm by no means cured of it. When it was at its worst I had awful red lumps all over my back, shoulders and chest. I was only lucky that my face wasn't the worst affected, but I have discolourations, large open pores and scars on my face from it too. When I was younger I would cover myself up, I felt uncomfortable going to the beach (and usually avoided anything requiring a bathing suit). I was afraid of getting intimate with guys because of the reaction they would have to it. I was self conscious simply talking to people because I felt like they were staring at and judging me for my acne. The worst part was that I was doing everything I could to curb it to no avail - medication & topical creams.

To this day I still cover up my back because I'm self conscious of all the scars it left behind.

If I could have overcome my acne through perseverance alone that would have been fine. This is why I get angry about obesity. I suffered similar issues with body image except I didn't have the option to overcome by simply trying. I could only take my drugs and hope for the best.

My point is I can relate to the stigma and why I have no sympathy for those who bemoan something that can be eliminated by changes in behaviour. As I suffered from a condition I could not control, I only sympathise (and empathise) with those who have no control over their condition.

You are the same as the men who walk around justifying their "no fatties" rule with "I just care about their health", and the same as the women who watch what fat people in the office eat like a hawk and ask "are you really sure you want to participate in the birthday party today sweetie? Do you really need that cake?" There is no line between "I think your fatness is a symptom of a major character flaw, but I don't want you to feel shame about it!"

People also perceive that those with acne eat too much junk food or are dirty. I have been criticised of eating chocolate because of my acne, even though there is no link between acne and chocolate.

 

[Tek]

HAES isn't suggesting that everyone of every size is always healthy - a popular misconception. Instead, it focuses on helping anyone interested in being as healthy as they can be in the body they have right now.
...
Weight change may or not occur when someone shifts to a HAES approach, who knows? HAES advocates aren't anti- weight loss as such, we're anti- the pursuit of weight loss.

This is certainly an interesting phenomenon. I think it's also a step in the right direction.


Now this is a strange way of looking at things, but I have found it to be true that when you stop trying to do something - when you completely give up on any particular outcome - then in that moment, you place yourself in an ideal position to actually do something effective about it. Oddly enough, I have heard this same sentiment coming from people who I disagree with on a great number of things.


For that reason, I find the commonsense approach, which goes something like this:

You can't recognize that something is a deleterious issue and encourage them to just EMBRACE IT. You should embrace it as far as loving you for you, then you should be taking steps to be healthier. You should at least be TRYING.

...to be completely backwards and outdated, and actually detrimental to one's success.


That's the extreme way of saying it, anyway. I think the commonsense approach (of trying) is useful up to a certain point. I would go as far as to say that you have to learn how to try, and spend a lot of time trying, before you are ready for the not-trying approach.






In a similar fashion, I find this notion to be a holdover from humanity's teenage years:

Not everyone is automatically deserving of respect. Some people are absolute detriments to society and humanity and deserve no respect. Period.

The principle can be illustrated by a personal anecdote.


My roommate's last day at his current job was yesterday. A few days prior, he had a run-in with a supervisor that was constantly unfair and rude.


My roommate had thought of all kinds of nasty things to say, to put this supervisor in his place, and make him feel just as terrible as he had made my roommate feel. Yet, when he was in an office with this guy and another employee, my roommate turned and shook his hand, and said "It's been a pleasure working with you."


Now, my roommate had not forgotten about all the things he'd wanted to say. They were, in fact on the tip of his tongue. But the night before this handshake, the supervisor had noticed some extra work my roommate had done, and thanked him for it. And that one simple act of kindness was enough. That single "thank you" created an opening, a pivot point for the entire situation.






My point, very succinctly, is that by being kind and respectful to someone who does not deserve it, you create an opening. You make it easier for that person to begin acting differently.


And it appears to me that the HAES movement is based upon this very principle. By allowing your body to be exactly what it is, by having respect regardless of circumstance, you are creating a space in which you can take effective action upon your health.

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

There's plenty of people who are skinny yet have bad health, yet other who can be considered fat or even obese but have better health than the unhealthy skinny people. So it's more about eating the right foods, and moving around more than it is about one's size.
Interestingly there was a study a year or so ago that said having some fat on you is more likely to mean you're healthy.

 

[Dakotah]

I recently discovered that I have type 2 diabetes. It's being controlled by diet and exercise. But it has resulted in some weight gain and caused several other problems that I won't go into. Should my being overweight, despite the illness which is causing it, be deserving of ridicule and disrespect because I don't fit into someone's ideal of what a person of my size and sex and age should be?

The people criticizing people for being overweight really need to stop and think: is it truly a lack of motivation on their part that is causing the weight gain, or is it an underlying problem that they have little to no control over that's causing it?

In my case, there is medication that can be used if diet and exercise isn't enough to control my diabetes, but even with keeping to a strict diet and exercising regularly, the medication that I would need to take would exasperate my weight gain issues because that is one of the side effects. How would these people critical of other people's weight tackle that?

 

[Sir Codin]

I just want to clarify that the point of losing weight isn't to get skinnier than a rail, because that's also unhealthy.

The point is to get to a good weight that your body can handle and decrease your risk of disease. Ideal weight. If being skinny was healthy, they wouldn't but the word "underweight" on the BMI scale, now would they?

@Jay: Why can't it be both lack of motivation and medication side-effects that affects a person's weight? I was on medication that increased weight for a while, but I also stopped eating healthy and exercising. So in truth, it really is my fault and anyone who criticizes me for my weight is right. Why are we entitled to never ever feel bad? I stated earlier, fat shaming can be a source of good. That cosplayer was fat shamed, felt bad, and realized she needed to change, so she did and she's never felt better. I've had people criticize my weight and you know what? That has inspired me to change myself and I'm starting to get better. I stopped relying on the medication and I started exercising and eating healthier and I'm on a good start, I've lost 10 pounds so far. Criticism should inspire people to better themselves because your success in the face of adversity is the biggest "♥♥♥♥ you" you can possibly give to the people criticizing you.