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  • Locked thread
fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:

The same is true at a population level. Calorie for calorie, chicken breast is more satiating than pizza. It may or may not be universal, but it certainly is true for the majority.

You're aware pizza with chicken on it exists right? To consider them to be entirely seperate things is folly.

And many toppings are even more filling, or ways to prepare pizza.

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PoizenJam
Dec 2, 2006

Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!
fishmech could I eat a single meal of Five Guys every day, lose weight, and be totally fine and healthy? I mean surely there's a point at which your food is so calorie dense and so lacking in micronutrients that it becomes a problem, right? Such a meal plan would still put me quite close to my daily caloric limit for losing or maintaining weight, and still gives me a reasonable balance of my macronutrients. Thing is, it leaves me dangerously low on things like Iron, calcium, vitamins, and potassium.

It seems there has to be some legitimacy to the idea of healthy vs. unhealthy foods if that's the case. If the only way I can get my required nutrients through such foods is through eating an excess of calories, surely that's not a 'healthy' way of eating. I know your contention is that fat people just over-eat all kinds of different foods, but I know at least a few people who ate themselves into obesity simply by being picky eaters who ate nothing but hot dogs, chicken nuggets, and french fries. I challenge you to create a diet with those kinds of foods that would hit your recommended nutrient goals without going over your recommended daily caloric limit.

In that sense, I guess 'healthy food' is more of a useful fiction than a real thing- used to describe foods that have high nutritional yield per calorie, both in terms of optimal balance of macro-nutrients and delivery of sufficient micronutrients.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

JVNO posted:

fishmech could I eat a single meal of Five Guys every day, lose weight, and be totally fine and healthy? I mean surely there's a point at which your food is so calorie dense and so lacking in micronutrients that it becomes a problem, right? Such a meal plan would still put me quite close to my daily caloric limit for losing or maintaining weight, and still gives me a reasonable balance of my macronutrients. Thing is, it leaves me dangerously low on things like Iron, calcium, vitamins, and potassium.

I mean, this is also true if you only ate chicken breasts.

PoizenJam
Dec 2, 2006

Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

computer parts posted:

I mean, this is also true if you only ate chicken breasts.

Or just straight refined sugar, or lard.

I suppose fish mechs contention would be those foods aren't inherently unhealthy so much as the diet is unhealthy?

Weldon Pemberton
May 19, 2012

fishmech posted:

Because eating two boxes of pop tarts before lunch is still something people don't do.

No, most people would not find it easier to eat nearly a pound and a half of pop tarts, while eating multiple pounds of chicken is a thing people do pretty often who are fat.

Not only have you provided no evidence for this assertion, but you are ignoring that I'm actually talking about all food in similar composition to pop tarts, such as cake and chocolate. Eating 1000kcal of cake on its own and still wanting more is very easy for even me to do, and I weigh 105lbs. In fact at one point at least half of the calories in my 1300kcal diet were provided by milk chocolate, and I still wanted to eat more of it at the end of the day, with only my willpower stopping me. I didn't want more of the fruit, veg and meat that was making up the other half of my diet. I virtually don't know anyone who couldn't eat an endless amount of junk food. When helping my husband gain bulk, I had to start giving him giant bags of Cheetos along with the 4-5 high protein meals I was already serving him: he would leave the rice and pasta in the meals because he was "too full" but suspiciously never get tired of eating Cheetos.

I realize this evidence is anecdotal but so is yours, and I at least provided one study as well. Virtually every fat person complains about having low willpower with chips, sweets and fast food, not broccoli. Yes, they COULD overeat on broccoli, but they generally DON'T, because that's not what they get the overpowering craving for.

quote:

Plus your argument doesn't make sense, because say 2000 calories of the average pop tart is only 80% of the 2000 calorie recommended fat, while 120% of daily carbs (only half being simple sugars). It'd also be 50% of your daily protein. So it ain't got a high amount of sugars in it compared to the fat, nor is the fat particularly high on its own.

It doesn't have to be a perfect ratio of sugar to fat, it just has to have "not a low amount" of both. The study showed rats will stop eating pure lard or pure sugar after they fill up on calories, but basically never stop eating food such as cheesecake, ice cream and chocolate even when they've had a lot more in terms of calories.

BRAKE FOR MOOSE
Jun 6, 2001

fishmech posted:

You're aware pizza with chicken on it exists right? To consider them to be entirely seperate things is folly.

I did not see that one coming! That's creativity!

Asiina
Apr 26, 2011

No going back
Grimey Drawer

BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:

I did not see that one coming! That's creativity!

Whatever it takes to win!

Lagotto
Nov 22, 2010
I was always taught that eating a lot of food high in sugar and unsaturated fats will get you diabetes and will clog up your arteries and kill you. Any truth in that or just another myth?

Yardbomb
Jul 11, 2011

What's with the eh... bretonnian dance, sir?

I'm sure it's been mentioned plenty in a long thread like this, but another problem to some of the "Duh just eat less!" things is that pretty often, obese people are also very depressed people, who may be eating even more as another big effect from that. Plus, and this is usually more a factor for kids/younger people especially, the kind of bullying or harassment people can get from even being mildly fat just spurs that kind of thing on much faster. As it turns out, beating people up (Not really meant physically but hey use both ways as needed) over their problems rarely helps them get on fixing those problems.

Whether that's addressed by or has anything to do with the groups in the OP or whatever I don't know, I guess I just felt like adding that it's not always a flat matter of "Just don't eat" when there are other problems making that difficult on it's own. It can just turn into a big run-around of 'I eat because I'm sad, I'm sad because I eat' real quick.

Yardbomb fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Jan 22, 2016

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

fishmech posted:

You're aware pizza with chicken on it exists right? To consider them to be entirely seperate things is folly.

And many toppings are even more filling, or ways to prepare pizza.

All foods are exactly identical to all other foods. Got it.

I'm going to live entirely on salt now.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:

I did not see that one coming! That's creativity!

Fishmech will always be right.

Huzanko
Aug 4, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

Yardbomb posted:

I'm sure it's been mentioned plenty in a long thread like this, but another problem to some of the "Duh just eat less!" things is that pretty often, obese people are also very depressed people, who may be eating even more as another big effect from that. Plus, and this is usually more a factor for kids/younger people especially, the kind of bullying or harassment people can get from even being mildly fat just spurs that kind of thing on much faster. As it turns out, beating people up (Not really meant physically but hey use both ways as needed) over their problems rarely helps them get on fixing those problems.

Whether that's addressed by or has anything to do with the groups in the OP or whatever I don't know, I guess I just felt like adding that it's not always a flat matter of "Just don't eat" when there are other problems making that difficult on it's own. It can just turn into a big run-around of 'I eat because I'm sad, I'm sad because I eat' real quick.

Huzanko
Aug 4, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

Nevvy Z posted:

Fishmech will always be right.

Yep! He will stretch the original argument out or mutate any statement you make in order to serve his ends. You could write a novel and link out to 10,000 studies, charts, graphs, pictures and he would still find a way to stick to his point and then move the goal posts. I'm almost certain he has some sort of mental disorder. However, posting here long enough will do that to you.

The best thing anyone can do with Fishmech is to ignore him.

Huzanko fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Jan 22, 2016

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

JVNO posted:

fishmech could I eat a single meal of Five Guys every day, lose weight, and be totally fine and healthy?

Probably, depending on the meal. Why are you so surprised by that? There's a pretty wide range of things you can make a meal from at Five Guys and it's not like they poison their food.

Again: you people just want to believe so hard that food U dislike is evil.

Weldon Pemberton posted:

Not only have you provided no evidence for this assertion, but you are ignoring that I'm actually talking about all food in similar composition to pop tarts, such as cake and chocolate. Eating 1000kcal of cake on its own and still wanting more is very easy for even me to do, and I weigh 105lbs. In fact at one point at least half of the calories in my 1300kcal diet were provided by milk chocolate, and I still wanted to eat more of it at the end of the day, with only my willpower stopping me. I didn't want more of the fruit, veg and meat that was making up the other half of my diet. I virtually don't know anyone who couldn't eat an endless amount of junk food. When helping my husband gain bulk, I had to start giving him giant bags of Cheetos along with the 4-5 high protein meals I was already serving him: he would leave the rice and pasta in the meals because he was "too full" but suspiciously never get tired of eating Cheetos.

I realize this evidence is anecdotal but so is yours, and I at least provided one study as well. Virtually every fat person complains about having low willpower with chips, sweets and fast food, not broccoli. Yes, they COULD overeat on broccoli, but they generally DON'T, because that's not what they get the overpowering craving for.


It doesn't have to be a perfect ratio of sugar to fat, it just has to have "not a low amount" of both. The study showed rats will stop eating pure lard or pure sugar after they fill up on calories, but basically never stop eating food such as cheesecake, ice cream and chocolate even when they've had a lot more in terms of calories.

Considering you've probided no evidence that there's a massive wave of people eating multiple boxes of pop tarts in a single meal on the regular, I don't see how you being 105 pounds and really liking cake and chocolate has to do with anything?

You didn't provide any "study" about your particular case of "i really like cake and chocolate" nor did you provide any study that said "people can't eat a lot of chicken".

Ok but none of those foods are similar to a pop tart, ya goofball. I bet if you ran a study where you offered pop tarts to rats they wouldn't eat all that much!

Noam Chomsky posted:

Yep! He will stretch the original argument out or mutate any statement you make in order to serve his ends. You could write a novel and link out to 10,000 studies, charts, graphs, pictures and he would still find a way to stick to his point and then move the goal posts. I'm almost certain he has some sort of mental disorder. However, posting here long enough will do that to you.

The best thing anyone can do with Fishmech is to ignore him.

My argument is already correct, the mental disorder is people like you who want desperately to believe that there is evil food out there and as long as you don't eat the evil food you won't get fat. And that mental disorder and its messaging are a large part of why so many people get fat, and then lose interest in really working on getting thin, because so much of the "information" out there is fake bullshit that doesn't work.

There are people eating every conceivable combination of foods around the world, and for each combination there are plenty of fat people and plenty of skinny people.

Stop making arguments that are bogus for once in your life, maybe? Of course, your hero and namesake couldn't do that either.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
As has been pointed out to you before, you are distorting the argument.

Nobody is saying "if you eat bad food, you get fat, and if you eat good food, you'll be good, no matter the calories". The claim is that some food is comparatively more conductive to eating the right calories, and other food makes it much harder.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Cingulate posted:

As has been pointed out to you before, you are distorting the argument.

Nobody is saying "if you eat bad food, you get fat, and if you eat good food, you'll be good, no matter the calories". The claim is that some food is comparatively more conductive to eating the right calories, and other food makes it much harder.

This claim is bogus: what actually makes it harder or easier is a given person's tastes, and people's tastes vary so widely that there's little to recommend. Due to the way many people's tastes and preferences run, what one person could happily sit and eat all day is what another person might only be able to stand a moderate amount of, and a third person would outright refuse.

vv It's still an incorrect argument.

fishmech fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Jan 22, 2016

Huzanko
Aug 4, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

Cingulate posted:

As has been pointed out to you before, you are distorting the argument.

Nobody is saying "if you eat bad food, you get fat, and if you eat good food, you'll be good, no matter the calories". The claim is that some food is comparatively more conductive to eating the right calories, and other food makes it much harder.

Kommienzuspadt
Apr 28, 2004

U like it

Cingulate posted:

As has been pointed out to you before, you are distorting the argument.

Nobody is saying "if you eat bad food, you get fat, and if you eat good food, you'll be good, no matter the calories". The claim is that some food is comparatively more conductive to eating the right calories, and other food makes it much harder.

Yup

Also fat acceptance is bogus and if anyone feels strongly to the contrary

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20460905

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21726509

from the latter:

quote:

The percentage of patients undergoing a liver transplant for NASH increased from 1.2% in 2001 to 9.7% in 2009. NASH is now the third most common indication for liver transplantation in the United States. No other indication for liver transplantation increased in frequency during the study period. Compared with other indications for liver transplantation, recipients with NASH are older (58.5±8.0 vs 53.0±8.9 years; P<.001), have a larger body mass index (>30 kg/m2) ...

NASH = non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, i.e. fatty liver disease caused by metabolic syndrome (eating yourself to death) that has progressed to end stage organ disease. Those numbers are terrifying.

BRAKE FOR MOOSE
Jun 6, 2001

fishmech posted:

and people's tastes vary so widely that there's little to recommend. Due to the way many people's tastes and preferences run, what one person could happily sit and eat all day is what another person might only be able to stand a moderate amount of, and a third person would outright refuse.

This has been refuted by published research, including, but not limited to, studies that I already posted. There is no universal diet plan. There are individual foods which are more or less satiating, universally, because of their physical nature and how human beings respond to them.

twodot
Aug 7, 2005

You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

fishmech posted:

This claim is bogus: what actually makes it harder or easier is a given person's tastes, and people's tastes vary so widely that there's little to recommend. Due to the way many people's tastes and preferences run, what one person could happily sit and eat all day is what another person might only be able to stand a moderate amount of, and a third person would outright refuse.

vv It's still an incorrect argument.

BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:

This has been refuted by published research, including, but not limited to, studies that I already posted. There is no universal diet plan. There are individual foods which are more or less satiating, universally, because of their physical nature and how human beings respond to them.
While these posts can't both be wrong, they both have the same serious flaw. fishmech claims to know something about every single food (there is no individual food for which a person won't vary), and BRAKE FOR MOOSE claims to know something about every single person (there is a food for which all people don't vary). Neither of these can be supported.

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

Shutup.

BRAKE FOR MOOSE
Jun 6, 2001

twodot posted:

While these posts can't both be wrong, they both have the same serious flaw. fishmech claims to know something about every single food (there is no individual food for which a person won't vary), and BRAKE FOR MOOSE claims to know something about every single person (there is a food for which all people don't vary). Neither of these can be supported.

This is true, and it is a mistake in logic. Since it is not essential to my point, I will back off on "universally."

Some of the major contributors to satiety are volume, palatability, and protein, fat, and fiber content. Individuals are likely (if not certain) to vary in sensitivity for things like stomach mechanosensation, sweet taste perception, and hormonal response to macronutrients, so individuals will certainly have different subjective satiety ratings. That the effect exists, and is strong enough to pick up in the kinds of studies that nutrition scientists do, is sufficient ground to block out foods into groups of "high satiety" and "low satiety" as recommendations to the general population. In other words, foods at the low and high ends of the "satiety index" are likely to be low and high across the population, because it depends on basic biological mechanisms that are essential in metabolism.

The important take-home is that this makes it effective advice for food choice: if you want to feel more full for fewer calories, try these foods. This is useful advice to incorporate into a diet plan, since consistent adherence is the #1 problem. This doesn't solve non-homeostatic eating (not hungry, but eating anyway, out of habit or desire for some taste) but it certainly makes things more pleasant.

BRAKE FOR MOOSE fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jan 22, 2016

PoizenJam
Dec 2, 2006

Damn!!!
It's PoizenJam!!!

fishmech posted:

Probably, depending on the meal. Why are you so surprised by that? There's a pretty wide range of things you can make a meal from at Five Guys and it's not like they poison their food.

Again: you people just want to believe so hard that food U dislike is evil.

I loving love Five Guys you shut your drat mouth!

But in all seriousness chill out buddy, I'm just pitching some questions to better understand your position. I'm not even saying you're wrong so quit it with the assumptions about what I believe. Christ it was literally my first post in this topic, and I even gave the the benefit of the doubt in my second post. Here, I'll quote it for you:

JVNO posted:

I suppose fish mechs contention would be those foods aren't inherently unhealthy so much as the diet is unhealthy?

Fascinating, human beings are capable of nuanced opinions.

I mean, if you're just trying to be obstinate and unpleasant then be my guest, keep misrepresenting others arguments just so you can 'win', whatever that means.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

twodot posted:

While these posts can't both be wrong, they both have the same serious flaw. fishmech claims to know something about every single food (there is no individual food for which a person won't vary), and BRAKE FOR MOOSE claims to know something about every single person (there is a food for which all people don't vary). Neither of these can be supported.

I really haven't seen the evidence of the opposite of my post, which is a food that every human being both loves and will happily eat a whole lot of.



It's werid how you're completely incapable of contributing to this thread, isn't it?

BRAKE FOR MOOSE
Jun 6, 2001

fishmech posted:

I really haven't seen the evidence of the opposite of my post, which is a food that every human being both loves and will happily eat a whole lot of.

Who ever said you had to love it? You don't have to love it. You have to eat it. We're explaining why you don't have to be hungry to lose weight. Not claiming that weight loss is easy.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:

Who ever said you had to love it? You don't have to love it. You have to eat it. We're explaining why you don't have to be hungry to lose weight. Not claiming that weight loss is easy.

Actually you do have to be hungry for a bit to lose weight to "not health problem causing" , if you're cutting down from obese as hell and getting obeser, as millions of Americans are!

And yeah you do kinda got to love a food to be willing to eat it to excess. Why would you go around willingly choosing to eat a food to excess that you hate? People locked up in serial killer basements who are forced to eat whatever garbage or they get the hose again ain't exactly relevant to the general population.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
Note: the claim is not there will be literally zero hunger ever for the mindful dieter. The claim is the hunger one eventually endures as one goes through life, especially on a diet (which is, as Louis ck helpfully points out, nothing compared to real, actual "I have not eaten anything but shows for a week and will die of malnutrition soon" hunger but just "I could use a sandwich now" western world hunger) can be, rather universally, made much worse via suboptimal food choices, and much attenuated via smart food choices, where smart choices are rich in protein, fiber, water etc, and suboptimal choices are fatty, starchy, sugary, often extremely processed food products.

There is also a large consensus about what choices are better for most (almost all) people.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
There is a further claim that the number of people who manage to get fat on diets consisting, as a fraction of calories, predominantly of food much higher in protein and fiber than fat and carbs, is so small that it is entirely appropriate to say that "people don't get fat on chicken breast and broccoli". (The claim is not that a diet that not so much consists of, but also contains, chicken breast and broccoli, that is, in addition to overprocessed carb and fat delivery vehicles, keeps you slim.)

A third claim is that to argue with fishmech seemingly requires one to talk a scifi android with a malfunction humanity chip.

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Cingulate posted:

It it is entirely appropriate to say that "people don't get fat on chicken breast and broccoli".

It is not in the least. Stop believing in magic never get fat foods.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
WELL I GUESS THEN WE HAVE TO AGREE TO DISAGREE

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004

Cingulate posted:

WELL I GUESS THEN WE HAVE TO AGREE TO DISAGREE

Great, are we allowed to have this thread without fishmechs constant input yet? all he does is drag the discussion down I can't believe he doesn't get banned for that poo poo. He's literally smothering discussion, stop engaging.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Nevvy Z posted:

Great, are we allowed to have this thread without fishmechs constant input yet? all he does is drag the discussion down I can't believe he doesn't get banned for that poo poo. He's literally smothering discussion, stop engaging.
Being wrong isn't illegal though.

Also, the thread is not about if it is better for your line to eat chicken breast and broccoli than pizza, but if we should "take thin privilege and health at any size more seriously".

Huzanko
Aug 4, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

Nevvy Z posted:

Great, are we allowed to have this thread without fishmechs constant input yet? all he does is drag the discussion down I can't believe he doesn't get banned for that poo poo. He's literally smothering discussion, stop engaging.

He's been banned many times and just creates new accounts.

FSMC
Apr 27, 2003
I love to live this lie

Cingulate posted:

Being wrong isn't illegal though.

Also, the thread is not about if it is better for your line to eat chicken breast and broccoli than pizza, but if we should "take thin privilege and health at any size more seriously".

Fishmesh doesn't believe what he is saying though. The issue isn't that he's stupid or wrong, it's that he thinks he's more intelligent than everyone and can out argue anyone whatever their position is. He is simply trolling, and the fact most people don't notice and argue with him, means he's pretty good at it..

And the thread clearly isn't about think privilege, it's clearly been about fishmesh for the last few pages

Huzanko
Aug 4, 2015

by FactsAreUseless

FSMC posted:

Fishmesh doesn't believe what he is saying though. The issue isn't that he's stupid or wrong, it's that he thinks he's more intelligent than everyone and can out argue anyone whatever their position is. He is simply trolling, and the fact most people don't notice and argue with him, means he's pretty good at it..

And the thread clearly isn't about think privilege, it's clearly been about fishmesh for the last few pages

Fishmech: The SA Forums Argument ARG

BRAKE FOR MOOSE
Jun 6, 2001

FSMC posted:

Fishmesh doesn't believe what he is saying though. The issue isn't that he's stupid or wrong, it's that he thinks he's more intelligent than everyone and can out argue anyone whatever their position is. He is simply trolling, and the fact most people don't notice and argue with him, means he's pretty good at it..

It's usually interesting because he makes people fix their bad arguments, and this forum is bad argument central. It's just annoying when he's either clearly wrong and losing badly (e.g. here), or is only right when he totally misrepresents what people are saying (e.g. Uber). More often than not I actually find it interesting, as opposed to posters like MIGF, Arkane, etc. I like to engage because it forces me to think about the words I'm using when talking about something I care about. And also, because Fishmech is fat and I thought there was the outside chance he might have internalized what he's saying out of self-sabotage. I'm done now though, because I finished making my points.

Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:

It's usually interesting because he makes people fix their bad arguments, and this forum is bad argument central. It's just annoying when he's either clearly wrong and losing badly (e.g. here), or is only right when he totally misrepresents what people are saying (e.g. Uber). More often than not I actually find it interesting, as opposed to posters like MIGF, Arkane, etc. I like to engage because it forces me to think about the words I'm using when talking about something I care about. And also, because Fishmech is fat and I thought there was the outside chance he might have internalized what he's saying out of self-sabotage. I'm done now though, because I finished making my points.
Well in this thread they were entirely cheap sophistry, somewhere between pointless and actively harmful. It basically amounted to "my grandpa smoked and got 78 years old, cigarettes -> lung cancer for 100% of cases is not proved causal beyond unreasonable doubt".

So does anybody have a strong argument for fat acceptance, or is this thread doomed to be Fishmech Central?

I guess I could say I think fat acceptance is a (bad) overreaction against a (bad) trend - the moralization of bodyweight. Like, between bodyshaming and fat acceptance, it seems there is no prominent way of talking about bodies that's not stupid.

Asiina
Apr 26, 2011

No going back
Grimey Drawer

Cingulate posted:

I guess I could say I think fat acceptance is a (bad) overreaction against a (bad) trend - the moralization of bodyweight. Like, between bodyshaming and fat acceptance, it seems there is no prominent way of talking about bodies that's not stupid.

I agree. Fat acceptance is dumb and bad, but it's also completely understandable as a reaction to how fat people are treated.

There are a lot of bad things that happen to fat people. Their imperfect body is seen as a reflection of who they are as a person, so that when you're fat you must be a disgusting person who hates yourself and you are right to think that. Strangers approach them and tell them that they are awful if they ever eat in public. It's not unusual to have people yell slurs at them or throw things at them from passing cars. When you live in that kind of world and then you find a group that says "hey, don't listen to them, you're beautiful just the way you are." It's really hard not to latch onto that sliver of positivity and believe it.

The problem is when that movement goes too far and goes beyond saying that putting someone down for their weight is a seriously lovely thing to do and should be stigmatized. When it becomes more about perceived slights because the world doesn't accommodate you. For example, sitting in chairs with arms is a really hard thing to do for a fat person. It can be either impossible or just painful. I know that I've had massive bruises from sitting in lecture hall chairs or airplane seats that have something sticking out the side of the chair. So as a fat person, that chair made me feel bad about my weight and (because society links your weight to you as a person) feel bad about myself. So if we're following fat acceptance to an extreme, then people should make bigger chairs so I don't have to feel that way. This feels like a long way from literally having garbage thrown at you from strangers, but it follows from the same ideals, so it's difficult to separate.

I know that I personally feel that one of those things is something that is a reasonable request and the other is just ludicrous and people need to stop whining, but I'm not sure if there's an easy break point where fat acceptance goes too far and becomes laughable. Which is a problem because if people think that fat acceptance is about these far extremes that are completely impractical and just feel like fat people are whining that life is hard then they aren't going to listen to the more legitimate parts of the movement, which is about stop actively harassing fat people and treating them like garbage because their body is in bad health.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

Cingulate posted:

Well in this thread they were entirely cheap sophistry, somewhere between pointless and actively harmful. It basically amounted to "my grandpa smoked and got 78 years old, cigarettes -> lung cancer for 100% of cases is not proved causal beyond unreasonable doubt".

So does anybody have a strong argument for fat acceptance, or is this thread doomed to be Fishmech Central?

I guess I could say I think fat acceptance is a (bad) overreaction against a (bad) trend - the moralization of bodyweight. Like, between bodyshaming and fat acceptance, it seems there is no prominent way of talking about bodies that's not stupid.

One of the issues with the conversation is that you can't seem to say "being fat literally kills you" without pissing certain people off. While I'd agree that we shouldn't be shaming, shunning, and casting fat people out because some of them genuinely can't help it this active hostility toward actual, legitimate medical research is insane. Being 500 pounds is absolutely not healthy but you're getting piles of people acting like we shouldn't even mention weight ever or do research on it.

Even saying to one of your friends "hey man you're eating yourself to death please stop I would be sad if you died of a heart attack at 35" is considered a bad thing all of the sudden. Apparently it's now a bad thing to actually care about the people you like enough to try to get them be healthier.

I mean if somebody is happier being fat, gluttonous, and lazy then fine, that's their business, so long as they realize they're shortening their life. However, this idea that we should encourage that as acceptable behavior is a massive problem.

Granted it's also one of those situations where the people mean well but blow it out of proportion and go way too far. There are some nuggets of truth there; we should not be photoshopping models into absurdly slender, unrealistically tiny forms or acting like 2% body fat is the ideal that everybody should strive for. It's almost as if...

wait for it...

the truth is actually somewhere in the middle on this one.

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Cingulate
Oct 23, 2012

by Fluffdaddy
The problem is this is seemingly a super boring conversation because who'd disagree? Being fat is bad. Treating this not as a problem of health, but of deficient morals is also bad. It should, for our society, be possible to respect a fat person as a person and yet not be a hindrance for their weight loss.

That's about it I guess.

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