But It Is Awfully Hard on the Knees

In case you missed it, Instapundit linked this NY Times article on the "fatosphere" today. I had never heard of this particular corner of the blogosphere in which fat people argue for "fat acceptance." I'm bringing it up only because some of the things that these folks are saying in their attempt to celebrate obesity are pretty funny:

The Big Fat Deal blog (bfdblog.com) suggests 10 ways to be a “body positivity activist,” including “Be yourself,” “Understand that a lot of people are hateful morons” and “Don’t be afraid to order the cheesecake.”

Many of the bloggers are women whose writing has a distinctly feminist flavor, but there are male fat-acceptance bloggers like Red No. 3 (red3.blogspot.com), who says: “See, I don’t have a problem with fat. My body is simply adorned, and I’ll take that.”

But some experts say this sort of message is dangerous and undermines public health efforts to rein in obesity. “We do have to be careful not to put all the blame on the individual,” said Dr. Walter C. Willett, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. But he added, “The large majority of people who are overweight are overweight because of lifestyle.”

To put it more bluntly, "obesity is caused by one thing in the vast majority of the obese: stuffing one's fat face." I saw that somewhere last year and it stuck with me because it was both heartless and true.

Of course, there is a difference between being obese and being merely overweight. The former comes with a whole host of medical problems that the second does not (and see the article for some good news for moderately overweight people). However, abandoning "exercise more, eat less" for "don't be afraid to order the cheesecake" sounds like a recipe for obesity to me.

Addendum: And, yes, I know I should be the absolute last person to talk about weight issues. My posting of this article and observations about it should not be construed as an attack on anyone. Except fat people. Heh.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 04:41 AM

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