I have struggled with this my entire adult life. Both of my parents died in their 50s from diseases commonly associated with weight/eating (Diabetes and Colon Cancer). I am absolutely terrified of leaving my daughter motherless, and afraid of the dire warnings I typically get from my PCP around weight and "predisposition" to disease. But I also think that my mom's colon cancer diagnosis was delayed by nearly a year because her doctor dismissed her symptoms and nagged her, yet again, to eat better and lose weight. Your work has been chipping away at decades of anxiety and my own fatphobia that has kept me tangled in dieting and compulsive exercise. Thank you for helping me to think critically about this issue.
This connected so many dots in my head around the moral virtue of health and its relationship to fatphobia. Society makes moral judgments about things like smoking, substance abuse and, yes, being overweight and then feel like people choose their own consequences. I'm going to need to read this over and over.
Just subscribed and I love this post so much. You have articulated what I often can't because it's so personal and so emotional for me, and so exhausting, always fighting for dignity as a fat person in healthcare. Thanks for this!
None of the explanations actually address the fact that you can be agains fat shaming but being obese is still medically proven to lead to later life problems. No evidence to the contrary is being presented.
I have struggled with this my entire adult life. Both of my parents died in their 50s from diseases commonly associated with weight/eating (Diabetes and Colon Cancer). I am absolutely terrified of leaving my daughter motherless, and afraid of the dire warnings I typically get from my PCP around weight and "predisposition" to disease. But I also think that my mom's colon cancer diagnosis was delayed by nearly a year because her doctor dismissed her symptoms and nagged her, yet again, to eat better and lose weight. Your work has been chipping away at decades of anxiety and my own fatphobia that has kept me tangled in dieting and compulsive exercise. Thank you for helping me to think critically about this issue.
This connected so many dots in my head around the moral virtue of health and its relationship to fatphobia. Society makes moral judgments about things like smoking, substance abuse and, yes, being overweight and then feel like people choose their own consequences. I'm going to need to read this over and over.
Just subscribed and I love this post so much. You have articulated what I often can't because it's so personal and so emotional for me, and so exhausting, always fighting for dignity as a fat person in healthcare. Thanks for this!
Thank you so much for laying this out so clearly! I will be linking this article when appropriate.
None of the explanations actually address the fact that you can be agains fat shaming but being obese is still medically proven to lead to later life problems. No evidence to the contrary is being presented.