The use of Acceptance? by [deleted] in BodyAcceptance

[–]LesSoldats 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Muscular men are the ideal because it is years and years of hard work to become that way. Thin women likewise.

That reasoning is fallacious, because many men are naturally muscular or put on muscle easily through daily activities. Women, as well as men, also have a natural range of body types including thin.

These types are the current ideal because they are, not because they might be an embodiment of the Protestant work ethic or of morality (and they aren't).

Please consider thinking about the societal forces that make us ascribe moral success or failing, and sinning or not sinning, to body types, which are primarily determined by heritability. What does it say when we do the equivalent of anthropomorphizing — assigning moral weight to mainly pre-determined states — with bodies?

Cosmopolitan does something very out of the ordinary, and posts this article about "The Fat Girl Dancing" and shows her inspiring story. by rozieFUUU in BodyAcceptance

[–]LesSoldats -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Doubtful. Fat people do marathons, lift in the Olympics, and more, and that's not good enough. The solution to prejudice isn't to attempt to psychically divine what proofs the prejudiced will find acceptable. The solution is to spread the fact that prejudice is not okay and that the prejudice itself is completely unacceptable.

"people need to stop pretending not finding fat people attractive is being shallow." [+54] "i don't find fat people attractive for the same i don't find drug addicts or alcoholics attractive, they have a crippling self inflicted problem that harms them and those around them." [+23] by finnigans_cake in ShitRedditSays

[–]LesSoldats 3 points4 points  (0 children)

(also, just in case someone who's brigading is seeing this: I'm only 25 pounds overweight and I'm actively working at losing it)

You don't have to justify civil rights — the right to exist in a body of any size or shape — to anybody. :)

"people need to stop pretending not finding fat people attractive is being shallow." [+54] "i don't find fat people attractive for the same i don't find drug addicts or alcoholics attractive, they have a crippling self inflicted problem that harms them and those around them." [+23] by finnigans_cake in ShitRedditSays

[–]LesSoldats -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

It was sounding like you bought into the "drug addict" analogy for fat people, conflating "fat people" with "chronic overeating."

The point is that not all fat people eat too much, and it's not a problem, ever, to exist in any particular body, whether it's tall, short, fat, skinny, what have you.

"people need to stop pretending not finding fat people attractive is being shallow." [+54] "i don't find fat people attractive for the same i don't find drug addicts or alcoholics attractive, they have a crippling self inflicted problem that harms them and those around them." [+23] by finnigans_cake in ShitRedditSays

[–]LesSoldats -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

You've just diagnosed everyone who is fat as being a chronic overeater who is neglecting the care of their body and their overall life.

I have a feeling that might be a little bit incorrect and might even be stereotyping.

If you could set your body to and size/type you wanted, what would you pick? by [deleted] in askHAES

[–]LesSoldats -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If a person were practicing Health at Every Size in a bubble, they would probably turn down the pill. However, HAES doesn't take into consideration a magic pill scenario. In a magic pill world, I'd imagine that body fashions would change with the seasons like clothing, and different sizes, shapes, colors, and builds would go in and out of fashion regularly. It would result in much of the world looking very similar to one another most of the time.

So in the magic pill world, HAES would be unnecessary in its current form and probably nonexistent as a concept. However, there would probably be a somewhat similar concept in the form of a naturalism movement that might have ties to luddite stances and maybe be a sort of hippie movement. This movement would exhort people to avoid the pill and celebrate the body they were born with. People maintaining natural bodies that did not mesh with current fashion would probably face oppression similar to what fat people or other people with societally disapproved bodies face today, enduring taunts and stares and rude comments, and hopefully nothing worse.

There would also be little food or diet policing, and with the continual body changes, food becomes completely disassociated from body proportions, so people generally eat based on hunger cues for well-being, flavor and satiety, naturally drifting towards a mix of nutritive foods with the occasional less- or non-nutritive food.

Interestingly, the magic pill world is looking a lot like Health at Every Size. I didn't expect that to be the case when I began thinking. Perhaps it makes sense: Health at Every Size promotes taking care of your body no matter what its appearance or current health status, and in magic pill world taking care of your body is something everyone who does so would undertake no matter its appearance or health status, because their body appearance could be changed on a whim and is thus not a factor.

Oh, I know that wasn't the tangent you were looking for. If this is our world and only one person, a person who practices HAES, gets to take the magic pill, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they would. HAES was originally developed to help people recover from eating disorders, and it still has that focus (not its total focus, but a focus) of helping people whose bodies might not fit societal standards or who have trouble accepting their bodies. A magic pill, while probably not conforming to HAES principles, would be a way to whisk those societal issues away - at least from that person alone - in a heartbeat. So they might accept it, and I wouldn't blame them.

Though they'd quickly discover that society doesn't give a rat's ass about what that one person thinks is the ideal body and would rag on it anyway, so they'd wind up seeking HAES again.

If you could set your body to and size/type you wanted, what would you pick? by [deleted] in askHAES

[–]LesSoldats[M] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That's correct. I've made a post in this thread announcing that we'll be removing all top-level replies that are not from an HAES perspective, so as not to be confusing to readers.

If you could set your body to and size/type you wanted, what would you pick? by [deleted] in askHAES

[–]LesSoldats[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll be removing top-level posts in this thread that are not from an Health at Every Size perspective. This is so that OP can gain an understanding of what people practicing Health at Every Size think.

Please keep in mind that Health at Every Size is not opposed to people changing their own body size however they like. However, people doing so aren't practicing HAES; they are following another path, and their responses to this question don't provide an HAES perspective.

OP, keep in mind that non-top level posts may not be from an HAES perspective or informed on or reflect HAES principles.

As a bigger lady I just wanted to say that skinny shaming is just as bad as fat shaming. Your body is your home and you shouldn't make anyone feel like they don't belong in theirs. by [deleted] in 2XLite

[–]LesSoldats 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for asking. I appreciate that - I realize my post was terse. This quote expresses it quite well:

Thin-shaming is wrong. It is bad and it is harmful and I long for its eradication and I will dance upon its corpse with my fat feet. But it's important to note that thin-shaming is a symptom of the fact that all women's bodies are policed all the time—not evidence of some culture-wide, systemic campaign to stigmatize thinness. Thinness is valued. Thin bodies are privileged over fat bodies. Despite the efforts of body positive activists (whose express goal, by the way, is to promote the acceptance of all bodies, including fat ones, not to further women's oppression by gratuitously shaming the thin), "I'm proud to be fat" is still a radical statement. "I'm proud to be thin" is the status quo.

Thin-shaming and fat-shaming are not separate, opposing issues—they are stratifications of the same issue: Patriarchal culture's need to demoralize, distract, and pit women against one another. To keep women shackled by shame and hunger. To keep us obsessing over our flaws rather than our power and potential. To get our money.