Stoid argued that insults directed toward fat people about their fatness are always worse than insults directed against skinny people about their skinniness. I offered a hypothetical. She refused to address it. I decided to drop it. If the above is your synopsis, you’re entitled to your opinion, but I disagree that it’s accurate.
The hypothetical is meaningless because no-one disputes that people can be bullied about anything, and that bullying can be cruel in itself once a topic is chosen. Or even that bullying can occur for being underweight.
This does not mean there are not issues that are considered more acceptable by society to bully people over and excused more readily. You dont see people yelling comments down the street in the same way, and the fact you had to choose a schoolyard example is significant, because that transition is really the only time significant bullying over being skinny tends to occur. Its nasty, but not the life experience you see with overweight people, after that age stage its often about envy rather than about personality flaws. You are conflating single incidences with patterns of behaviour that can carry over a lifetime.
Sometimes people do the ‘fat suit’ for a day and find out how strong the reaction can be due to simply changing your body size. If you dont do it you dont find out how ubiquitous it can really be.
Otara
That is not an accurate statement. A careful reading of what I actually did argue will reveal your mistaken understanding. That is why I collected the conversation so you could read it all together and see how your hypothetical did not represent the point being made, so answering it wouldn’t further the sub-debate you and I were engaged in.
I invite you to read it again.
Lord Ashtar, leaving behind that I do not believe Stoid at all “that insults directed toward fat people about their fatness are always worse than insults directed against skinny people about their skinniness”, and that saying that she claimed thus is a straw man, I did answer your hypothetical. And?
Hypotheticals are nice. And in that hypothetical both are bullying to the same degree. Both are focused on teasing over a teen aged girl’s physical form in a hateful manner and focused on the looks.
Is it your position that that hypothetical represents the sort of negative speech directed against members of each group in general through all ages of life?
Teasing of the thin was brought up in this thread, I think, to try to posit that everyone gets teased and that negative speech against the fat is no different. And it isn’t always different but in general I believe it is.
I believe that, in general negative speech against the fat is directed against the class as a group and attributes to members of the group negative characteristics similar in type to the prejudgements held by some against gays and Blacks (which in no way implies that the fat have in the past or currently do suffer from the violent oppression that has been the hallmark of oppression against those groups - in type but not in severity).
I believe that bystanders have an obligation to stand up against bullying in all its forms. Including against the thin, or against addicts. Bullying against a class by society at large however, IMHO, engenders particular obligation upon the ethical bystander to speak up.
And I completely agree with that. The issue I have is with those who say that because it is not impossible to succeed, that any failure is because the person who failed is weak, or lazy, or stupid, or all three. And that berating the person for that is fair game. Berating a smoker who tried and failed to quit as any of those things is unacceptable to me; the more appropriate response is to encourage them to try again with a realistic understanding of the challenge (s)he faces and encouragement to try with a more complete support system and a better understanding of how their social networks and local environment may make it difficult for them. Telling them him/her (s)he is weak is ignorant and stupid. Similar to telling that to someone who says they have tried to sustainably lose fat and failed - the only difference being that sustainably losing fat (once morbidly obese) is objectively much more difficult. With assistance about 15% of smokers can expect to succeed in quitting; the success rate for the morbidly obese is much lower.
Majorly different. The obese are not being told that the habit of overeating is disgusting, they are being told that they are. OTOH I’ve heard a smoker being told that starting to smoke was a stupid decision, but never that the smoker was stupid or lazy as an intrinsic part of who they are, that being a smoker means that they have less worth as a human being. And if I heard such speech I’d object to it, as much as I object to individual smokers who feel they have the right to impose their smoke in my face. (And in that case it is that specific behavior that I object to.) A smoker has the option of smoking only with other smokers or in private and not placing themselves as potentially subject to harassment; an obese person has no such option.
Finally do you believe that there is the same widely held visceral disgust against smokers in our society as there is against the fat? Such has not been what I’ve observed in general or seen on these boards.
Does that make sense to you?
I would suggest it’s sexism based on sizism.
DSeid, I think your point of people vilifying the habit rather than the person in the smoker vs. fat person debate is extremely germane. I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but I think you’re absolutely right, and that’s what makes the fat-hating so personal and painful.
This is disingenuous. I don’t believe that an obese person has any better shot of adopting a healthy diet and exercise and not losing weight than they do of making those changes and actually losing weight. How could this work? The latter has the positive reinforcement of losing weight, at least. The former is all the same work with no measurable change, meaning it is much more likely to be abandoned.
Both approaches achieve the same health benefit. Unless there is some other way I’m unaware of to get healthy than eating a healthy diet and exercising? The whole reason they’re obese in the first place is because they are unable to do exactly that. So the idea that an obese person can get healthy instead of losing weight appears (to me, at least) ridiculous on its face.
That’s misleading. The counterparts of “slightly overweight people who [have] nutritious diets and [do] routine exercise” are “slightly underweight people who [have] nutritious diets and [do] routine exercise,” right? But that’s not who the group actually is, is it? No, the other group – that you misleadingly refer to as “counterparts” – is described as “very skinny.” No mention of diet or exercise, but it does mention that “many of them are sick or smoke.”
Many of them are sick? Sick, skinny people? You mean, like cancer patients? Gee, what a complete shock that the group of slightly overweight people with good diet and exercise habits lives longer than the group of all very skinny people, many of whom are sick. The two groups have absolutely nothing to do with each other. It’s hard not to view your use of the word “counterpart” as an outright lie, though I’m pretty sure most of the blame lies on the linked article, which itself has a misleading and inappropriate title.
Ellis Dee, I suggest you re-read the link. The study was specifically controlling for factors like illness and smoking.
In fact it is pretty well established. Those with BMI’s under 18 have a higher mortality than “normal weight” individuals and “overweight” individuals. The latter generally have the lowest mortality in most (but not all) studies. Mortality increases as one gets into the obese groupings (BMI 30 and above). Here’s a recent one.
Careful analysis shows that the lowest mortality is associated with a BMI somewhere between upper normal and mild overweight (about 24 to 28 range).
Here’s another interesting study.
Now I wouldn’t take these studies and use them to advise anyone that being “overweight” is healthier than “normal” weight, but the point is that the biggest benefits accrue from the lifestyle choices, whether or not the weight follows. Yes, it may. But it may not and healthwise it doesn’t matter all that much if it does.
Fair point, but even discounting the sick and the smokers, it’s disingenuous to cite “slightly overweight with good diet and exercise” as the counterpart to “very skinny.” I bet the “slightly thin with good diet and exercise” fare much better than the “very skinny” group too.
I have a friend from childhood who did that…a lot. All through high school and after he’d always ask “Hey, do you think I’m fat?”. He was. We all knew it. He knew it. He just wanted me and the rest of his friends to say 'Oh, you’re not that fat" or something. Finally one day when he asked me that as we walked down the street looking at girls (hey we were around 18 then) I justsaid 'YES! You’re fat! I’m tired of you asking me that so you can feel better about stuffing your gob with twinkies! You’re a fat ass!".
That was almost 20 years ago and the guy is still fat and has health problems because of it, now that we’re both in our mid to late 40s. I have another friend, actually a girl I used to date that must weigh around 250 pounds. She didn’t weigh that much when I dated her, but she has some kind of kidney problem or something that caused her to balloon up. I understand that. Its not really her fault and she does try to keep her weight down, even if she can’t seem to shake must of it off. Another buddy of mine got kinda fat but in the last year decided to take up bike riding to exercise. He’s lost weightbut not without effort and watching what he eats.
I’d have to agree. If you’re fat because you et too much and don’t do anything to lose weight then really, you shouldn’t complain when people call you fat.
“Very skinny” was just how someone described the BMI category under “normal”, officially called “underweight”. And yes, “slightly thin” has less mortality than below “normal” BMI. But “slightly overweight” has a lesser mortality rate than both.
Matched for other other variables, including the amount of exercise, the “slightly thin” have a higher mortality rate than the “slightly overweight”.
Jolly, did calling him a “fat ass” help him more than lying to him did? Maybe, since he was asking, from early on, you could have told him that yes, he was fat and getting fatter and that you, as a friend, were concerned. He may have gotten insulted anyway, or not. It may not have helped. He may just have stopped asking you after that since you were no longer going to give him his daily dose of positive affirmation. But probably there was other options than either lying or using insulting speech. Maybe even just answering matter of factly: “Yes, you are fat.”?
Was there a reason you did not consider one of those other options?