Unpopular opinion, and yet vital to understand for body liberation: We live in a society that pressures fat people to self harm in order to survive.
🍵 Weight cycling — which is all attempting to lose weight really accomplishes in the long term — is worse for health than just being fat.
🍵 Many diets restrict calories to less than war rations, and cause all the terrible side effects of a starvation diet.
🍵 Dieting is a major risk factor for eating disorders (which, yes, fat people get, too).
🍵 Fat people are pressured to give up all their resources (financial, emotional, physical) to be smaller.
🍵 Fat people are manipulated into mutilating healthy organs in the hope of being slightly smaller.
🍵 Fat people who performatively diet and obsessively exercise are treated slightly better, reinforcing that open self-harm earns respect.
🍵 And dieting is the biggest risk factor for weight gain. Since the largest fat people are treated the worst, this means that fat people who diet are being set up for ever-worse treatment.
🍵 It’s all a scam; we don’t have a scientifically-proven way to make fat people thin.
🍵 Oh, and considering fat bodies to be inferior in the first place is racist, classist, bigoted and ableist.
◇─◇──« »──◇─◇
Privilege is unearned, but it’s not something you need to feel bad or guilty about. Let’s work to extend those privileges to the most marginalized bodies, too.
Learn more about body image, ending weight stigma and changing the world with the Body Liberation Guide.
Every Monday, I send out my Body Liberation Guide, a thoughtful email jam-packed with resources on body liberation, weight stigma, body image and more. And it’s free. Let’s change the world together.
Hi there! I'm Lindley. I create artwork that celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards at Body Liberation Photography. I'm also the creator of Body Liberation Stock and the Body Love Shop, a curated central resource for body-friendly artwork and products. Find all my work here at bodyliberationphotos.com.