I definitely disagree with this ma’am, so here’s an informal thread with some of my haphazard thoughts about the fatphobia I see often in service members (something I’m no stranger to, especially bc ht/wt is so engrained as a central fixture of health/fitness for SMs, esp. women) https://twitter.com/karamgreene/status/1309489217601503232

first, a great thread from someone with way more authority to speak on this than me: https://twitter.com/yrfatfriend/status/1294800465259974658

temporarily cast aside the fact that BMI is bs, but my weight has NEVER been an indicator of my fitness. ht/wt was big deal in my cadet BN, people fixated on it so much that for my first APFT they actually cared more that I wasn’t “fat” than they did about me literally failing

by the time I could max push-ups, I needed to be taped because the muscle mass I’d gained put me over my weight limit. and now, with the new test, I need even more muscle mass, and I’ll be gaining more weight. but I’m absolutely fitter and healthier now than I ever was as a cadet

why don’t we criticize people who smoke or chew or do dangerous crap in their free time as much as we do fat people? and why do we expect civilians (who aren’t even expected to be physically fit for their job) to be thin? fat people don’t owe society their health

also weight discrimination actually causes people to gain more weight so if the goal is for people to weigh less, then it’s better to invest energy in providing more cost effective healthy foods, reducing the influence of the sugar industry, improving access to healthcare, etc.

normalizing being fat isn’t the problem, and criticizing it isn’t helping anyone. Lindy West has some GREAT content out there. the TV show Shrill (which is amazing) is based off her book and you should absolutely check it out as well as this podcast: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/589/tell-me-im-fat

sorry y’all, threads are hard apparently lmao. anyways, not trying to specifically attack anyone, and I understand (specifically in the military) why we have certain standards. but let’s try to reflect on them and not apply them to people just because we think fat = bad

also no, before you tweet at me about it, this doesn’t apply to the shitbag soldier who sucked at everything and also happened to bust tape. just consider how this organization shapes our understanding of what “healthy people” look like