Fat Is Not the Problem – Fat Stigma Is

Re:Fat Is Not the Problem – Fat Stigma Is by LinuxBender on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @05:58PM (#27043392)

Shaming people of any kind is counter productive. On some weird level they are correct however, fat is not the problem. Fat is often the symptom of a fatty liver and pancreas and is absolutely a serious life threatening problem that cost people and their government a lot of money and lowers the quality of life. There are hundreds of downstream chronic illness that come from a fatty liver and pancreas, too many to name here. I have been monitoring the governments of the world this last couple of years hoping they might use the pandemic to help solve some of the root underlying causes of bad health. I have not seen any improvements as of yet. No improvements from the FDA around food quality and chemicals. No evolution of the medical industry allowing the adoption of better science and technology. Only temporary improvements in air quality in some areas, but only as a side effect of the lockdown. Air quality overall has not improved.

Scientific American as of late have been posting click-bait articles that attempt to invoke an emotional response and start fights, political and social commentary disguised as science. It is unprofessional and opposed to the scientific community. What happened to them? Did I just shame them?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Fat Is Not the Problem – Fat Stigma Is by JoeyBananas on Tuesday May 04, 2021 @11:45PM (#27045941)

> Shaming people of any kind is counter productive.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Anytime that a behavior X is considered undesirable by society, the people who engage in behavior X feel ashamed about it and there is a stigma surrounding people who do X. Any culture that is not completely neutral on all matters shames people. Such a culture could never exist in the real world because it would be very inhuman.

Whether or not fat people are shamed by others is really a question of how people collectively feel about fatness. I say that it's a good thing that people collectively assign negative value to fatness since it is a sign of general unfitness and ill health.

I'm not saying that we all should go out and bully fat people, but I do think that this "normalize fatness" movement is very misguided.

If what you believe is that positive reinforcement (Giving the dog a treat when they do a trick) is good and negative reinforcement (Beating the dog when they do something wrong) is bad, then why not support "normalizing fitness" rather than "normalizing fatness?"

[ Parent | on HN ]