The propagation of fat phobia, and why the "obesity epidemic" isn't.

A thread.

I was listening to a health podcast today. One I often get some good tips from. Sometimes the tip is just that there are some incredibly radical disordered eaters out there who think they are the healthiest and everyone should be like them.

The guest was an author, upper class middle aged white man who grew up in Los Angeles, and waxed poetic about how keto, specifically restricting your diet to bacon, eggs, sausage, chicken and green vegetables was the right thing to do.

He was convinced that this would end the obesity epidemic. He made a comment about how fat people smell cinnabon and can't resist the hunger it triggers. Then he made a comment about how thin people judge fat people when they see them eating unhealthily.

The last sentence is the only one he got right.

I eat mostly well. I stay away from highly processed foods. I live in the woods with my dog. I hike. I walk. I do crossfit/HIIT/heavy weights at least once a week. I prioritize. My sleep. And yet if you saw me walking down the street you would see a middle aged obese woman.

I am fat, y'all.

Have been most of my life.

Genetics. A sincere love of good food. The redhead in me protesting when my mother told me I had to be thin to attract a husband. Cancer. Emotional trauma response from rape and abuse. My insides are healthy. My outsides are fat.

I was triggered. I love myself. And that has taken most of my life to arrive at. We do so much damage to our kids teaching them they have to be afraid of being fat. They need to be thin to be healthy. Weight is something to be controlled and feared.

I emailed them. I told them that people were not fat because of carbs. People were fat because they couldn't afford good food. Did not have access to it. Didn't know how to prepare it. Not everyone can walk into a Farm Boy and pay $6 for a container of out of season berries.

Being healthy has become a privilege of the white middle and upper class. I see people of marginalised/racialised communities every day in their homes, and the poverty is ASTOUNDING.

Fruit and veg are expensive or inaccessible. What is cheap is heavily processed foods, laden with sugar that I wouldn't feed my dog.

We need to fix the social determinants of health. If we can fix the poverty/housing/social issues, the health of the community will naturally improve and flourish.

That's the shit we need to be focusing on. Accessible food and education surrounding food and its preparation for everyone. Not heavily restricted diets targeted at making people less fat.

And we are judged. You've all done it. Hell I've done it. I'm a fat girl who forgets she is fat. And it beats down our self esteem and adds to disordered eating. And it creates a chasm between the thin and the fat, while ignoring the healthy/unhealthy discrepancy.

Diet is the only 4 letter word that I consider bad. Diet culture should be roped in...sometimes it means well, but it is contributing to poor mental health. We cannot fix the health crisis from a weight perspective. It needs to be fixed from a social community perspective.

Upper middle class white folk should not be preaching diet advice to marginalised/racialised communities period. We should be using our money and our privilege to make access to food and education (and clean drinking water: @JustinTrudeau I'm looking at you).

Fat people are not a problem to be solved. The problem is society. Wage gaps. Inequality and inequity. Fix these things, health will follow.

Fat people are not to be judged. When was the last time you saw a fat person judging someone for being thin? (I mean, I'm sure it happens but you get the point).

Fat is not to be feared. We are pretty awesome human beings who have more patience, tolerance and self love than most people, because we are taught that no one will love us if we are fat. So we learn to love ourselves. We are also amazing cooks and bakers

We are not sick, and we are not damaged. I don't want to be thin. I love my curves.

Society is sick, and the system is damaged. Do better.