The surprisingly harmful aspect of the body positivity movement

It's so interesting how different bodies are, hey?

And yeah - I fully agree with loving yourself, no matter what! But to argue away the health concerns as fatphobia just doesn't make sense. Self-love is totally keeping yourself healthy. Yup.

Yes - basically we can't win. We either don't care enough about our bodies, or we care too much, and there's rarely any middle ground where people who want to judge us are concerned.

I finally realized/decided that I'm the one who gets to choose what's right for me and screw the people who think they get to have input.

The HAES movement bothers me a lot. They conflate loving yourself with not doing anything to change yourself. I love myself enough TO want to change myself. I love myself enough to work towards being the healthiest me I can be. I love myself enough to be pursuing an education in a field that matters to me. I love myself enough to want to work to being my best self and not to just accept stasis.

Isn't it fun!! Then add in the way so many people think of overweight people as stupid and lazy and seem to be completely unable to see past that filter to see ANYTHING else about them at all... I find it incredibly frustrating.

I totally agree about the conflation of self love with refusing to change. People always need to work on themselves, body and mind, and work on self-improvement. Everyone needs to improve somewhere!

Cool about your education! If you don't mind sharing, can I ask what you're studying? (No worries if you'd rather not!)

I did my AA in Exercise and Sport Science and I'm working on my BSes in Gerontology/Aging Services and Health Management Services. My ultimate goal is to somehow use this combination of knowledge to make the dying process better for all those involved - hopefully in the hospice setting.

I'm planning on doing INELDA training in May and I'm ridiculously excited about it.

That's fantastic! Way to go! :)

I have struggled myself with the Body Positivity/HAES stuff myself.

http://www.theantichick.com/2016/10/19/cognitive-dissonance/

http://www.theantichick.com/2017/08/02/body-positivity-and-w ls/

I will point out that HAES officially does NOT hold the position that everyone who is overweight is healthy. They state clearly that some people have weight-related health issues. Their thrust is that shaming people has been proven to be counter-productive, and that health professionals should not look at weight as a PRIMARY indicator of health. I can hang with all of that.

What I CAN'T hang with is people who call WLS "body mutilation" or "amputation of healthy organs" and advise even people for whom the fat is impeding their ability to move and take care of themselves that trying to lose weight is pointless and they should just accept themselves the way they are. Literally, I read a comment on a BP post from a woman whose abdominal fat is physically preventing her from being able to properly wrap her legs that have severe lymphedema (also weight related). This woman was talking about loving herself enough to try and lose some weight. The author flat out told her that weight loss is impossible long-term and she should focus on loving herself as she is. As if those things are mutually exclusive.

To me, body positivity is a good thing. It never helped me to hate my body. But loving my body is not the same thing as accepting it and never trying to improve it. Loving my body means trying to keep my body as healthy as possible.

EVERY SINGLE health issue I have is worse with more weight. With the exception of my migraines, every other health issue I have has improved (and even gone into remission) with the weight loss. I am more mobile and more active than I've been in years.

I support BP/HAES on social matters... people should not be marginalized or discriminated against because of their size. Physicians should not tell someone with an ear infection that they need to lose weight, and not prescribe an antibiotic because the person is fat. A large person with a torn ACL needs surgery, not weight loss, and a physician whose treatment plan is determined by the patient's size needs to find another line of work. People should be able to move in this world without being judged for their size. And frankly, unless I'm on someone's medical team, their weight/health/diet is not my concern so I shouldn't comment on it or judge them.

But I have to draw the line at saying people are healthy when they are so large that they are unable to move and/or perform what we nurses call "activities of daily living"... cleaning themselves, dressing themselves, eating, etc. And I won't support any kind of group that tells people in this group that they shouldn't try to improve their health through weight loss.

And, as someone who has had WLS, I'm not welcome in most BP/HAES spaces unless I'm confessing my "sin" of having WLS. I'm not down with that either. I had WLS because I love myself and my body.

Totally, yes! I agree with every word of this! I'm off to read your blogs now - thanks for the links! :)

The whole concept of body positivity is weird to me. I don't love OR hate my body. It just is. I can do most things I want to with relative ease and not too much pain.

I don't understand the frantic drive to loooooove ourselves. I think it is more realistic to be content-ish, and work on anything that is personally troublesome.

I do think it's important because a lot of overweight people, especially women, DO hate themselves and their bodies because of their weight. And there is so much discrimination against fat people in general, so I get why there's a social movement to try to offer a different voice. But to conflate the notions that seeing yourself as a valid human being and not needing to change anything just isn't healthy. Everyone needs to work at self-improvement, body and mind both!

That said: yeah, the whole "self love" thing is a bit carried away, in my view. It's just another symptom of our incredibly individualistic, self-centered society. I'm more about world love, personally!

I really think the acronym should me MHAES: Mental Health At Every Size. Are there people who are morbidly obese and have okay lab values? Sure. But I agree with a previous poster who basically said you're only healthy until you aren't. I can't really see anyone who is obese or morbidly obese as anything other than a ticking time bomb of health problems, and I include myself in that, which is why I'm here.

Also, I have read a lot of Isabel Foxen Duke and Geneen Roth this past year, and have listened to a lot of podcasts about body positivity, and there's a lot to love about all of that. But what I have also found is, thanks to set point theory, simply practicing intuitive eating is not helping me lose weight. It's basically just maintenance. My body wants to keep me where I am, so if I listen to it, that's where I'll stay. And that's unacceptable to me.