(no subject)

[firecat]

via supergee

This is brilliant. I'm mostly saving it for my own later use, but I also wanted to share it.

"21 Things to Stop Saying Unless You Hate Fat People"

(If I were writing the article I would rephrase that to "...unless you want to contribute to hatred and discrimination against fat people." I know, I know, that doesn't pack the same rhetorical punch.)

Warnings:
1. Trigger warning for comments -- they might discuss examples of fat hatred.
2. I am instituting rules for the comments of this post. Do not promote any of the things listed as fat-hating. Also do not quibble about whether items on the list count as promoting fat hatred. You might well want to quibble, because even I don't agree with all of items, but please do it somewhere other than in comments to this entry. I'm going to delete comments that don't follow the rules. If I delete your comment, it doesn't mean I hate you.

Comments

[cleverthylacine]

OMG, I hope I get through moderation because I just tore Ms Public Health a new one. She's so wrong she's not even in a galaxy the light from Right can hit within 2000 years. The single most robust predictor of negative health outcomes is socioeconomic status, and the dark secret that health care professionals don't want to accept based on all the research is that while there is a highly heritable component of body weight (if your family is fat, you probably will be, too), the particular type of fat accumulation most often (but not always!) seen in people with metabolic syndromes and other disorders normally blamed on "obesity" is almost certainly caused by stress and inflammation, and correlates very strongly with SES in epidemiological studies. In other words, the broker and more stressed you are, the more likely you are to become fatter than you might have if you were leading a less stressful life and had more resources and better health care.

[amadi]

Public health person is a friend of mine on Twitter and a popular blogger (FeministBreeder) and my jaw dropped. I tried to comment but my phone ate it, and I'm glad I just walked away because I was not very constructive.

It's such a gross thing.

[firecat]

Good comment, both here and there.

[bibliofile]

SES is also a biggie in educational achievement gaps, IIRC. Big surprise, eh?

Brilliant post you linked to, there. Must spread the word!

[cleverthylacine]

Also, I find that a good way to stop people from talking about "their tax dollars" is to suggest that if fat people are to be denied coverage, or denied affordable coverage, for their health needs, then it automatically follows that athletes--particularly climbers and motorsports people and football players and boxers, but generally athletes--should also be denied the same coverage, because of the likelihood that they will require expensive care and recurrent care due to the frequency and severity with which they manage to injure themselves. And if they're kinky or queer like me I make sure to add the coda about how would they like their health professionals to quiz them on the perceived risk (not the actual risk, just the perceived risk) of their sexual lives?

[firecat]

Health care costs increase with age. Maybe the next time I hear someone using the "my tax dollars" argument, I'll tell them to go watch Logan's Run.

[st_aurafina]

Definitely bookmarking that as an excellent and pointed 101 post.

I was feeling buoyant, so I read the comments. So many props to the people doing the firm but calm take-downs of concern trolls.

[ironed_orchid]

Thanks for linking. That's a really great post.

[pulchritude]

Great post, ty for sharing! :)

[eggcrack]

Excellent post. Going to my bookmarks immediately.

[eeyorerin]

Whyyyyyy did I keep scrolling -- okay I stopped after the first comment thread. But I was warned!

[sabotabby]

Ah yes, I read this earlier today (and didn't read the comments). I don't agree with absolutely every point, but in general I found it rather good advice.

I've encountered most of these things in the wild. With white-person privilege, I find that racist white people say things around me that they would never say to a person of colour. I don't think it's the same with thin-people privilege—apparently no one has a problem saying most of these things right to fat people's faces, which is not only hateful but mindbogglingly rude.

[sophy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this. I found the comments frustrating, but still good and informative because of the discussion that flowed from all of the frustrating ones - I'm sure both heavy moderation and an already built-up size acceptance readership of that blog helped in that, bit it made me wish more of the internet could be that way.