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21 posts tagged fitness
Fat, fitness and fairness
This blog reminded me of an etiquette issue. I am a thin person who loves intense exercise. I’m also fairly social about it; I love to invite my friends to join me for super-hardcore workouts. However, I feel unsure about asking my fat (their words, not mine) friends to join me. I’d love for them to come, but I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to get them to lose weight. I know lots of people of all weights who are in better shape than me! On the other hand, NOT asking them also seems rude because it seems like unfairly assuming that they wouldn’t be interested. Basically what I’m asking is: is there a polite way to invite my heavier friends to join my social workout sessions? I’ve thought about sending a group email to everyone I know. Thanks!
Mod response: I would probably just write an honest emails from the beginning. “Dear friends, You all know that I love intense exercise and super-hardcore workouts. You all know that working out is a really social thing for me and I just really wanted to extend an invitation to all my friends, of all shapes and sizes (Lord knows some of you can kick my ass on the treadmill) to come work out with me!”
Or, something like that. :) -Fatanarchy
Just because you “worked hard for it” doesn’t mean you deserve your privilege.
A few fallacies are at work here:
1. Hard work = societal rewards. Not always. Go outside and spend a summer counting the blades of grass in your lawn. That’s hard work, and will take a long time. When you’re done, tell everyone about it and see how well you’re received. The only reason you get societal rewards for “being/getting fit” is because of thin privilege and fat oppression. If thin privilege/fat oppression didn’t exist, no one would fucking care how much weight you lost, except perhaps other weight-loss enthusiasts.
2. Every fat person can be just like your superior self if they “work hard enough.” Not 95% of them. Most thin fitness enthusiasts who tie their sense of self worth to being thin were never fat. Most of the rest who were fat weren’t that fat to begin with. The rest base their entire lives on staying thin, sacrificing every other major endeavor in the name of thinness. The reason 95% of dieters don’t keep weight off in the long term isn’t because you’re objectively superior to that 95%, or that you’re “doing it right.” It isn’t because fat people are inferior lazy slobs so of course 95% of them are going to fail. It’s because diets don’t work, and nobody knows how to make a naturally fat person into a naturally thin person.
3. The social dynamic of oppression/privilege can ever be just. It can’t. I have yet to see a reasonable example of the justness of an oppressive scheme that is based on proper premises. For example, ‘criminals should be shunned’ is not an argument in favor of oppression/privilege because crime is a failure of social cooperation. It does not apply to when groups are oppressed for genetic characteristics or self-behaviors; groups that haven’t, in effect, “defected” from a cooperative scheme and hence, it can be argued, deserve punishment.
-ArteToLife
Who are you to say what life style is better? Who are you to say that a doctor is wrong? They went to medical school for eight years. What did you do?
Asked by
psychodave123
Who on this blog is saying that one lifestyle is better than another? The only lifestyle change This Is Thin Privilege is advocating is the one where self-righteous smart-asses stop assuming that doctors who went to medical school (for *gasp* eight years!) are all-knowing gods and that the fat people who have lived in their fat bodies for decades don’t know shit about what is best for that body or the person who lives in it. To put it another way, the lifestyle this blog advocates is a lifestyle of dignity, respect, advocacy and inclusiveness of fat people. That lifestyle has nothing to do with a body, thin or fat. It has to do with a mindset. Who am I/are we to say that is “better”? We say. Because our bodies belong to us. Not to you, not to our doctors, not to society.
Who am I to say that a doctor is wrong?
Me. It’s my fucking body.
And what did I do (presumably you mean “What did you do to earn the right to say that you know better than a doctor who went to medical school for eight years’)? I lived every single day in my own fat body for longer than you’ve been alive and certainly longer than anyone went to medical school. That’s what I did and continue to do every single day. Thanks for asking.
Lovingly,
Fatanarchy
Also, because apparently this is broken record day, READ THE FUCKING FAQ, YOU TROLL.
-MadGastronomer, the FAQ Pixie
Have you heard about Downsize Fitness? What are your thoughts on it? Personally, on the one hand I'd love to go to a gym without being looked at like my fat is contagious but on the other hand it seems like they're really into the idea of people losing weight as a sign of being fit and healthy which I really dislike.
Asked by
fun-n-fashion
I’m not a fan. From their “About Us” page on their website:
Downsize Fitness is modeled after hit TV show,”The Biggest Loser,” yet it is structured to be more realistic, both from a financial and time perspective. Every Downsize Fitness member works with a trainer every time they come to the gym. The trainer not only takes them through their workouts, but also holds them accountable for their diet.
Anything modeled after the torture and humiliation of fat people — aka, the Biggest Loser — is no kind of positive environment. It’s capitalizing on the pain and suffering and public shaming fat people, even if it’s just a marketing ploy.
Also, their “success stories” are weight loss stories, a page of (triggering!) before and after photos.
A place like that should not be patronized. When and if a gym comes along that treats it thin and fat patrons equally, and that actively discourages body shaming, I’ll support it. Most of the “fat people gyms” I’ve seen make their money off selling some form of weight loss and are no better than predatory diet companies.
-ArteToLife
Thin privilege is claiming that getting or being “fit and healthy!” means getting or being thin.
The most ignorant of objections I’ve seen to the concept of thin privilege is of the variety, “But what’s wrong with wanting to be fit and healthy?”
Fit =/= thin. Fat people can be fit, and thin people can be out of shape.
Healthy =/= thin. Fat people can be healthy, and thin people can be unhealthy.
It’s really not that hard to understand, folks. If you persist in your objections based on grounds of ‘health’ and ‘fitness’ then you’re being willfully ignorant, most likely in order to pretend that you’ve earned your privilege and that it makes you superior to fat people.
I understand: the pursuit of thin privilege is a forceful dynamic in our culture with many incentives and rewards, and it can completely take over all other goals. It can (and does) become the entire/primary focus of many people’s lives. To have it challenged really pisses off those who’ve invested so much time and energy in pretending that they’ve earned their privileged position by virtue of their thinness. Even some people who say they are against fat discrimination get their hackles raised when you suggest that thin privilege can NEVER be earned, nor are thin people EVER superior to fat people for ANY reason, full stop.
-artetolife
Thin Privilege is saying quotes like this.
(submitted anonymously)
I’m 5’2” and 235 pounds, classified as “obese.” I only consume 1200 calories a day and I workout 4 days a week. My weight remains at 235 because I have hypothyroidism. Fat =/= Unhealthy habits. Fat =/= Lazy. Fat =/= Overeating. But every time I ever explain to people that I have a thyroid problem, they just roll their eyes and say, “That’s what everyone claims.” They never stop to think that so many people claim that because so many people actually have it! THIN PRIVILEGE.
Interesting article
Not sure if you’ve seen this, but it’s an interesting article on why society might value thin bodies more. It also talks about doctors’ bias against fat people.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/11/09/164789823/how-changing-visual-cues-can-affect-attitudes-about-weight?ft=1&f=1066
(mod note: REALLY good article. Worth the read. I’m especially grateful you pointed this article out because visually normalizing fat bodies is one of the most powerful ways we can not only change social and media perceptions of people of size, but (I think) more importantly, it’s key to fat people learning to accept their own bodies and stop the cycle of self hate within their own lives. The profound impact of programming people’s brains by showing them only one size, type and shape of the human body and inundating them with images of that one body a hundred times a day can’t be emphasized enough. It is pure and simple brainwashing. (Thus why thinspo is so pervasive and damaging- they are perfect examples of mentally reinforcing one body type by inundating their own minds with images of it and then comparing that ingrained mental image to what they see in the mirror. That is, in fact, precisely why they do it. -fatanarchy)
FYI: America the Beautiful 2: THE THIN COMMANDMENTS is now on Netflix.
Watch it. Share it.
i have this very specific memory. i was in second grade, i think. i had just been moved out of the intensive care unit after open heart surgery and hadn’t eaten in a week. one of the first things my mother said to me when i was conscious was, “aren’t you happy youre skinnier now? If only you can keep the weight off!”
Thin Privilege is having people question your ability to do your job because you aren’t thin.
I had been having fights with people because I watch “Dance Moms” one of the first things out of her mouth was “I wouldn’t let her teach you, how can she if she doesn’t look like she could dance herself?” She’s saying this and the kids almost always win top awards and dance beautifully.
Thin privilege is not being constantly told your size and appearance is a medical issue that needs to be avoided and treated, while you are at work. Not being pressured to join WW and singled out among all your coworkers as diseased and defective. Not being part of a fucking survey to cure the world of people like you.
Let me make something perfectly clear.
Even if it’s just for the sake of my sanity.
The “argument” against fat people is that they “choose” to be fat and therefore deserve to be treated like shit.
I don’t give a fuck if someone chooses to be fat or not, that doesn’t give anyone entitlement to treat them like shit.
You automatically lose that argument. So the “choosing” isn’t relevant.
Fat people deserve common decency and respect just like every other human being.
Period.
No exceptions.
Thin privilege
is when you’re organizing a Sierra Club hike and, as two cute, slim twentysomething hippie chicks, you suggest I (5’8” and 205 pounds) “stay in the back of the group and go easy.”
Unfortunately they didn’t know that I am a former wildland firefighter. Bottom line: I led the freakin’ hike (which really ticked off the skinny young doctor who was hitting on the cute skinny hippie chicks all the way up the trail).
[tw]: weight loss, problematic language, sizism, pro-abusive language
Thin privilege is getting discounted rates at the gym.
(note that there’s a lot of problematic things in this segment. The use of ‘overweight,’ the unquestioned sadistic remarks made by the personal trainer, the assumption that gyms are for ‘burning calories,’ and the inclusion of a ‘fats-only’ gym that seems obviously focused on weight loss by its name)
(submitted by flareonz)
