“Fat acceptance” blogs urging overweight people to shed negative feelings about their body image can lead to healthier diet and exercise choices, a study has found.
The fat acceptance movement, which seeks to foster a support network among overweight people, has inspired a plethora of blogs and web forums such as Corpulent, Fat Heffalump and The Rotund — an online community that’s become known as the “fatosphere”.
In a study published in the journal Qualitative Health Research, researchers from Monash University, the University of New England and the University of Canberra interviewed 44 fatosphere bloggers from Australia, the US and the UK about how their involvement in the movement had changed them.
“There’s been a lot of criticism of the movement that it promotes obesity and encourages people to give up on weight loss and makes their health worse,” said one of the researchers, Dr Samantha Thomas, a Senior Research Fellow at Monash University’s Department of Marketing.
“We saw there was a lot of opinion about the movement but very few people had actually studied it.”
Interviews with the respondents revealed many had experienced feelings of worthlessness, shame, crash diets, cycles of starvation and binge eating and laxative abuse before discovering the fatosphere.
“Having that support and feeling empowered, people slowly found that their health behaviours began to change dramatically. For example, many people suddenly felt confident to do swimming, something they would not have done before,” she said.
“People shifted their focus away from weight loss and more toward health. A lot of people started to take part in physical activity not as a way to lose weight but because they enjoyed it. Instead of pounding it out on the treadmill they start playing with their kids. It’s actually a massive shift in the way they looked at things.”
Shifting the focus away from restricting food and toward listening to the body’s needs could also lead to better food choices, said Dr Thomas.
“There are actually a lot of lessons for public health here,” she said.
“The term fat acceptance is really confronting for people. That’s why we have seen a lot of blame and criticism. Society tells us it’s not OK to be fat for a whole bunch of moral and medical reasons,” she said.
“This study shows that far from promoting obesity and promoting negative health behaviours, the movement is really positive for some people’s health.”
So basically, if fat-bashers actually cared about people’s health (as they so often claim to as an excuse for their intolerance and hatred) then they’d actually support fat acceptance instead of trying to tear body-positive folks down?
Surprise! When you’re not made to feel miserable about yourself, you become more motivated to take care of the self that you have. Who knew?
Why it’s perfectly acceptable to read all day, to garden all day, to be at the pool all day, to work all day, to shop all day, to be out with friends all day, but the minute you decide to sit at a computer or console and game all day, suddenly you’re wasting your life?
Elite athletes all have exceptional traits, and we do not give these traits sole credit for their wins.
We do not assume that every short woman will become a gymnastics champion or that every man with long arms will bring home swimming gold medals.
We also do not demand that our Olympic swimmers have “average” wingspans or that our basketball players all have “average” height.
We celebrate our elite athletes as champions, knowing that they took these advantages, added 80 billion hours of grueling training, and pushed themselves to the full and amazing limits of their potential.
On July 7, former high school English teacher Louizandre Dauphin decided to drive to a quiet place to do some reading. Sound suspicious? Residents that saw him in his car thought so and, naturally, they called the police, who stopped the black New Brunswick, Canada, resident as he drove back home. The interaction ended peaceful — but was made all the more ironic by why he went on the drive in the first place.
I don’t think it’s proper. You can’t spread equality with a closed fist.
You sound mad fucking stupid man shut the hell up
I think this creates a separation in the LGTB community. Why not just have one flag for everyone?
There are literal hundreds of LGBT flag variations to upfift said Race/Religion/Country
Even ones for the specific areas in the LGBT community
How the fuck is this any different? Why is it everytime black people come up with something for themselves y'all have to come out with this show your entire asses with this “"segregation” shit.
Suck on my entire dick
The comments are full of people showing their true selves. If you have a problem with this, unfollow me right now.
“You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, you should also like that. Again, you have stood before some landscape, which seems to embody what you have been looking for all your life; and then turned to the friend at your side who appears to be seeing what you saw - but at the first words a gulf yawns between you, and you realise that this landscape means something totally different to him, that he is pursuing an alien vision and cares nothing for the ineffable suggestion by which you are transported. Even in your hobbies, has there not always been some secret attraction which the others are curiously ignorant of - something, not to be identified with, but always on the verge of breaking through, the smell of cut wood in the workshop or the clapclap of water against the boat’s side? Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it - tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say “Here at last is the thing I was made for.” We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.”
Slytherin: *sarcastically* Well, aren't you sugar and spice and everything nice!
Hufflepuff: Well, aren't you rudeness and sarcasm and.... um.....
Slytherin: No, you go on. If you find something that rhymes with sarcasm and makes sense, I'll admit that we're friends.
I think you might be missing the GOP strategy here regarding Sec. Clinton’s bigotry speech, and the fact that no Republican came forward to defend Donald Trump. Republicans know that she spoke the truth—the indefensible truth about Donald Trump—and they want to squelch any discussion about it. That’s what they are doing.
Because they don’t want this speech on the airwaves, debated on panels, over several news cycles, with more and more of the dirty laundry getting debated in the mainstream news cycles, leading the Nightly News with dramatic music. Screaming headlines. Any any—ANY—statement by a Republican will trigger that discussion that no GOPer wants.
The mainstream news guys are sitting there at their email boxes, waiting, waiting, for statements, so they can write a piece on it. Benjy Sarlin mentioned it on Twitter, which you probably saw. [JF: I have now] And a couple of other journos, agreed.
But without some outraged statement from Ryan, Cruz, anybody, the mainstream journos have nothing to write about, there is no news cycle, no panels, no screaming headlines, no multi-news cycle. Just a Wow! Clinton gave a rough speech!” End of story. And that’s the strategy. Bury this story. And it’s working.
That’s how the GOP handles this kind of story. And it works just fine, every time. The mainstream journos can’t find a both-sides hook, and they are nervous about this alt-right stuff anyway, so the story dies. Journos fear the brutality of GOP pushback. So it goes. Every. Time.
Contrast that with the non-story about the Clinton Foundation. Every GOPer was sending out a truckload of statements to keep that story going. Chuck Todd has stated in the past that he—they—have no choice but to write about whatever the GOP is upset about because they all put their shoulder to the wheel. And the GOP always has something for journos to write about. Controversy! And no fear of brutality from the Democrats. That’s how that goes.
fun fact: bisexual is not a curse word and no one will die if your character says it on tv. in fact, no one will die even if your character outright says they are are bisexual, rather than saying they “don’t like labels” or hooking up with people of the same gender for gratuitous fanservice rather than any actual character or plot development. i know. take it all in. it’s unbelievable but true.
Children’s animation: Well thought out ideas with good morals and likable characters and engaging storylines that can appeal to both an older and younger audience.
Adult animation: SHIT DUDE LET’S SAY FUCK A LOT AND JUST BE REALLY RACIST, FUCK JUST TRY TO OFFEND EVERYONE AND SMOKE THE WEED AND HAVE THE SEX I MEAN WHY NOT THROW IN SOME FART JOKES TOO TO MATCH THIS HIGH QUALITY ADULT HUMOR WHO CARES ABOUT GOOD CONTENT WE NEED TO BE SHOCKING AS FUCK.
“While today marks a milestone in history for some women, the adoption of the 19th Amendment left out many people who still continue to face barriers to accessing the ballot.”http://ppact.io/2atWHfV
Women’s Equality Day is on this date because of the celebration of the passing of the 19th Amendment.
Don’t waste all the work that went into getting women the vote - U.S. READERS REGISTER TO VOTE HERE
If you have trouble getting to the polls physically, or can’t take the day off, YOU CAN DO AN ABSENTEE BALLOT, you can usually mail your vote in advance!https://www.vote.org/absentee-ballot/
FOR ANYONE WHO THINKS VOTING DOESN’T MATTER, READ THIS AND PLEASE SHARE!
Women’s Equality Day is on this date because of the celebration of the passing of the 19th Amendment.
Don’t waste all the work that went into getting women the vote - U.S. READERS REGISTER TO VOTE HERE
If you have trouble getting to the polls physically, or can’t take the day off, YOU CAN DO AN ABSENTEE BALLOT, you can usually mail your vote in advance!https://www.vote.org/absentee-ballot/
FOR ANYONE WHO THINKS VOTING DOESN’T MATTER, READ THIS AND PLEASE SHARE!
Carroll Spinney, above, is the puppeteer who plays Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street. He did a reddit today, and his first answer is a tear jerker.
my storytelling final! or, that week i almost went blind cross-hatching!
it’s a couple weeks old at this point, but i’m still proud of it (all that cross-hatching…) even though looking back at it now i can see a ton of flaws or things i just could’ve done better. maybe i’ll redo it one day.
the page colors are kind of wonky because they’re photographs; i didn’t have a scanner big enough for the pages.
It’s good to know that we weren’t the only ones driven crazy by people who “axe” questions.
Okay, see, we talked about this linguisitic phenomenon in my grammar class. I don’t remember what it’s called, but it happens with other words, too - my professor used an example of “uncomfortable.” When you say it out loud, most likely, it sounds more like “un-comf-ter-ble,” thus mixing up the position of the r and the t, like how the k and the s are mixed in this speech pattern. However, not many people are out here acting high and mighty because someone said “uncomfterble” like they are with “ax,” and that has absolutely everything to do with academic biases - because “ax” is associated mostly with Black people (and occasionally lower-class whites), it’s viewed as “improper” speech, whereas most people, even middle & upper class white people who are thought to speak the most ~proper~ version of English, say “uncomfterble.”
And a quick Google search yields that even Chaucer used “axe” to mean “ask” within his writing. (Source) (Source)
tl;dr actually caring about whether someone says “ask” ~”correctly”~~ is rooted in racist & classist biases of language so, consider, not.
Most linguistic pedantry is inherently racist in nature.
It's like the difference between the harassment faced by men and women online, or the harassment faced by whites and poc. Yes, the former exist in the first case, and yes, it's bad that people get harassed. However, the difference in degree in each example is so extreme that it's amazing we even use the same word to describe both.
As someone who has been “thin-shamed” I can say it does Not at all go hand in hand with fat shaming. People “thin-shaming” me was mostly verbal harassment- you’re too skinny, you look like a boy, eat a fucking cheeseburger, what’s wrong with you why don’t you like food?
But guess what, I don’t have a problem finding clothes that fit me. There aren’t companies that refuse to make clothes for my size. There is no shortage of messages telling me that despite the harassment of some, I am still beautiful and ideal even if I’m unhealthy. Despite being thin-shamed, I still PANICKED when I started a medicine that made me gain weight, and I had to really analyze that, because no matter what my culture will still say that “fat is unideal” “fat is bad” and “honestly its fine to starve yourself / but shameful and bad to overeat.”
So “thin-shaming” is shitty because it’s shitty to be judged and have people make assumptions about you. But Fat-shaming is institutional, it’s not just individuals harassment and judgement, it’s potential jobs, it’s clothing companies, it’s media and advertisement, all telling you you’re bad as you are. Like what a way shittier thing.
In my treks over the internet, I have seen various people (mostly social justice people) worrying that they are somehow harming Real disabled people if they use a wheelchair if they can still walk a little or use stim toys or these nifty color communication badges if they aren’t autistic. Similarly, I have seen various people (mostly anti-social-justice people) who believe that Fake Disabled People are running around pretending to be disabled and using color communication badges and wheelchairs and so on, and this hurts disabled people somehow (they have never quite specified how).
This is completely fucking wrong.
In universal design, there’s something called the curb cut effect. Basically, things intended to benefit people with disabilities wind up benefiting everyone. Curb cuts, which are intended for wheelchair users to be able to get on sidewalks, help bicyclists, parents with strollers, delivery people, and a dozen other nondisabled groups. Similarly, closed captioning, which was originally meant to benefit Deaf people, helps people who have trouble with auditory information processing (hi!), people who like talking during films, and people trying to watch TV in noisy bars.
The curb cut effect is accessibility activists’ secret weapon. You see, people don’t generally want to accommodate disabled people any more than they have to. Accommodating disabled people is a pain in the neck, and disabled people are generally a small and relatively powerless group with limited ability to complain. However, if any TV network tries to remove closed captioning, they won’t just have to put up with complaints from Deaf people. They will have to put up with complaints from everyone who has ever tried to watch TV in a noisy bar. The latter is far more likely to strike fear in the TV executive’s heart.
Furthermore, pretty much anything that’s limited to disabled people only has to have some sort of process for figuring out who’s disabled. This presents numerous issues. Many disabled people don’t know they’re disabled. (Raise your hand if you’ve had a conversation with someone who thinks that ADD or depression isn’t real because everyone acts like that, right?) Many disabled people struggle with feeling like “fakers” and won’t ask for accommodations that they need. Many disabled people who do know they’re disabled can’t prove it: healthcare access is often limited for poor people, people of color, trans people, and so on; navigating bureaucracy requires skills like being able to talk to people, show up places at a scheduled time, and do things that you intended to do, that many mental illnesses and developmental disabilities make difficult. Every time you say “this is for disabled people only”– whether by limiting it to disabled people institutionally or by criticizing people who do it and whom you don’t think are disabled enough– a lot of disabled people don’t get access to it.
Sometimes this is a cost worth paying. For instance, we can’t let everyone bring their dogs into every public space, because service dogs have to be specially trained to not be disruptive in stressful situations. This training is expensive but service dogs are usually free, meaning that the number of service dogs available is limited, so we can’t have service dogs available to everyone who wants one. In this case, the alternatives are much worse and the cost is worth paying. But the cost is still a cost.
And notice that the people who decide who gets service dogs are the client’s medical professionals, not random strangers. It is never okay for random strangers to decide if someone is disabled enough for an accommodation. For instance, some store owners will only let service dogs in if they think the person is “really” disabled. This is wrong (and also illegal by the Americans with Disabilities Act). Other people will make fun of wheelchair users who can stand up. It is a major violation of privacy to expect random strangers to disclose their private medical history to you. You are far more likely to be harassing an actually disabled person to be criticizing a nondisabled person. And even if the person is nondisabled… who cares? Nondisabled people using wheelchairs does nothing but create a larger pro-wheelchair demographic, which benefits disabled wheelchair users. There is no call to be the Disability Police.
For a specific example, consider one of my friends, who started flapping his hands when he was happy because he thought it was adorable and later found out that flapping your hands when happy is a common symptom of autism. He freaked out, worrying that he was appropriating autism somehow. However (as I told him at the time) actually nonautistics flapping their hands works out great for autistic people. A culture in which the default reaction to happy hand-flapping is “ohmigod, adorable” rather than “you freak” is a culture in which autistic people do not have to waste energy suppressing their natural ways of moving. And because he’s nonautistic, it’s much easier for him to explain to people who dislike hand-flapping why it is wrong to do so, which helps to create a more welcoming environment for autistic people.
Similarly, I’m nonautistic, but I do flap my hands when I’m experiencing intense emotion. Unlike many autistic people, it is possible for me to stop. Think about it like not smiling when you’re happy: it’s possible for most people to do so (especially if they get mocked for being weird every time they smile) but instead of being fully present in the moment you’d have to be continually conscious of your facial expression lest your lip twitch when you’re not thinking about it. If we say “you must be This Autistic to flap”, then I still have to police what my hands are doing, which goes against the whole point. But if we say “everyone gets to express happiness in the way most natural to them, unless you express happiness by punching people in the face or something”, then everyone gets to express happiness in the way most natural to them (yay!) and we have lots of people invested in creating a culture where that stays true (yay!).
In conclusion: if an accommodation helps you and you can get it without proving you’re disabled (i.e. as you must to get a service dog), you should use it. If using a wheelchair helps you move faster and farther than you would otherwise, use a wheelchair. If stimming makes you happy, stim. If those nifty communication cards help you express your communication preferences (and they are available at whatever event you’re at, which seriously why is that not every event, they are so cool), use them. And it is wrong to disability police people. If someone does not seem disabled enough to use an accommodation to you, then you should be quiet and mind your own business instead of harassing them about it. In the vast majority of cases, nondisabled and less disabled people using something is helpful to more severely disabled people, and when it is not, it is the job of medical professionals to decide, not you.
Every time you say “this is for disabled people only”– whether by limiting it to disabled people institutionally or by criticizing people who do it and whom you don’t think are disabled enough– a lot of disabled people don’t get access to it.
