People that shame you for intentional WL

As someone that participates a lot in the social media beauty/fashion community, I follow lots of "body positive" people...I started following Tess Holiday about 2 years ago because I loved that she was a truly plus size woman representing the obese women in the fashion industry--like everything I ever dreamed of being, she was living the life.

I still follow her on IG and she does get a lot of hate tossed her way for being "unhealthy" and for promoting an unhealthy lifestyle...but she does work out, she has a personal trainer and she does her best to try to live a relatively active life...of course, that being said, she still is morbidly obese and she is obviously eating more than she is burning which is a risk to her health, there is no scientific argument that can prove morbid obesity to be healthy. She also tends to respond to the "haters" with a lot of snark, which leads me to believe she is really not as confident as she wants everyone to believe.

BUT the body positivity movement is supposed to be just that--positive...accepting your body for it's flaws, and not obsessing over the things you dislike. There is nothing that says you can't strive to better yourself, but the idea is to love yourself and accept your flaws at any shape/size/disability, etc...and promote self care and love and acceptance.

I think there are always going to be extreme groups of people in any "movement"...think extremist religious groups, supposedly based on love and acceptance, who end up committing horrendous crimes in the name of their so-called God...there are plenty of Christians in the world that go about their daily lives accepting gay people and not judging Jews, actually spreading love and acceptance, and there are the extremists who still believe "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"...like wtf?

I know there are actually body positive groups that do promote positivity at ANY size and shape...whether you're thin, overweight, have birth defects, scars, missing limbs, in wheelchairs, etc...that are truly about acceptance.

The fact that the body positive movement has been taken over by obese women who are trying to shame thin people is just ridiculously ironic. I had my moments as a fat girl when I felt confident, especially knowing there were other fat girls out there in my corner, and that's really what it's about for them...the camaraderie, feeling accepted and belonging to something where you feel like you're not alone.
I don't fault them for it, but call it what it is...it's not body positivity at that point, it's just fat acceptance. and that's fine too...I mean live your life.

The struggle is really finding a way to accept and love yourself while also trying to be better...you don't have to hate what you are or to think you're not good enough to want to change...sometimes you just realize that by changing you might be even better, especially when you know your body is failing you and there is something you can do to live longer and enjoy life more.

I feel like I can relate to these obese women struggling with their confidence and I want to help them but I know they look at me like I am an outsider...I am not one of them anymore- I got kicked out of the club...but I do understand them.
I definitely can say it is a lot easier to be body positive at 150lbs than at 300...but it's still not always easy.
Almost everyone has something they are insecure about, even models and celebrities have their flaws. we are all just people and we are all just trying to be accepted.

Well said.

I see you got a lot of great responses.

Losing excesive weight and staying relatively low, to medium weight and size, I experienced being called a cheater, skinny ***** even anorexic...by not only people who are MO, but even by people who had WLS and either did not lose all their weight, lost the weight then regained.

I started being not invited to some groups get together, because I made some people uncomfortable about their eating habits.

This is probably not last time when you get "attacked" for having WLS or losing weight.

Thanks everyone for the replies!

i'm all About loving yourself, God knows I have issues with it. It wasn't the first time i've dealt with it and I know it won't be the last. WLS can scare people and then a lot of em are willfully ignorant on the matter.

you know what I don't miss? 5 shots of insulin a day and metformin...not missing that at all.

I agree it does sound like absurd crap. But at the same time I get it from their perspective. They all have given up on the notion of losing weight and getting healthy.(lord knows I have given up more times than i can count) They made that group for like minded women who want to embrace their size. I can totally get that they would "SHAME. SHAME. SHAME." the girl that wants to stir away from the pack. They probably have the mentality of "we get so much crap from people about our sizes, This is our safe space to get it away from it". But at least they are just some friends you were hopefully not that close with online..and hopefully your longtime friend did not turn on you as well.

I've got absolutely nothing against BBW with curves sure.

Latino women. Black women. Italian women with their inherited curves.

But there's a big difference Between 50 lbs of curves and 200lbs or 300lbs of excess to where you're risking your health and your life and calling it body positivity!!

It's also telling children it's okay to be fat, nobody is asking every body to be a fitness model but at least be healthy.

Some women use it as an excuse to open their eyes or to see how unhealthy they really are and so they have an excuse not to get better...