Okey doke, so a little while ago, I promised @/DaShaunLH (who will be tagged at the end to not blow up their mentions) a thread on #fatphobia and #ableism.

Haven’t had the energy until now, so here’s that thread!

TW: weight, food, eating disorders

So, I am a fat physically disabled person and have struggled with perceptions about weight for my entire life. I don’t say “I struggled with my weight” because looking back, I was struggling with how people treated me because of it, not the number.

I was put on my first “diet”

When I was 9 years old and developed a shitty relationship with food that I currently still deal with.

Over time, I’ve noticed some startling similarities between fatphobia and ableism. And, I’m my opinion, fatphobia is a subsect of ableism and not a completely separate

Bias.

Here’s why: society is conditioned to see fatness as someone “choosing” disability, chronic illness and disfigurement over “normal” bodies. Rather than approaching fat bodies as natural and desirable.

Because fatness is seen as a “disability of choice” many utilize the medical model of disability to approach fat people with unsolicited medical interventions and advice.

No matter what you think about the meditative properties of exercise and diet, diet and exercise are

Technically medical interventions that shouldn’t be taken lightly—and not at all from random strangers.

Growing up, in doctors offices and amongst family, fatness was always seen as the disability I chose in relation to my physical disability, cerebral palsy.

I had chronic pain, bad muscular spasms and at one point, the arches in my feet collapsed to the point I was walking on the bones in my ankle, but the focus was often on making sure I didn’t get too big that I “couldn’t leave the house.”

When I was 14, doctors berated me for a chronic cough I had saying I may have given myself heart disease.

I had walking pneumonia.

Fatphobia is treated as a deviation from the norm that no one should “want” for themselves much like disability.

In order to be acceptable or

Prove otherwise, fat people are forced into the social contract that is inspiration porn and produce content that proves they’re at least trying to adhere to the norm by exercising and sharing their weightloss journey.

This circles back to the “disabled mindset” disabled people

Are forced to perform against. Society says: It’s fine to be disabled as long as you don’t actually want it for yourself.

This is why the body positive movement is met with particular vitriol from the mainstream because according to the public, “choosing” that life shouldn’t

Be celebrated.

And, to be clear, the body positive movement is problematic in its own right. It coasts off of the work of black femmes while cutting them out of any opportunities that is derived from that work.

Additionally it has been way to slow to embrace disabled people

Despite (but probably because of) the parallels between fatphobia and ableism.

I don’t really know how to end this thread but to say: when you celebrate weightloss as someone’s greatest accomplishment, what you’re really saying is that you’re happy they worked their way out

Of a life of “chosen” disability, chronic illness and deformity in relation to what is considered “normal.”

And, we can see you when you do that.

Thanks to @DaShaunLH for the inspiration to write this thread!