Read on Twitter
learning fat politics is like putting on glasses you had no idea you needed. suddenly you can see everything in shocking detail, more than you thought possible. https://twitter.com/tommyinboots/status/1343630251805585409
there's a common experience among people who have come to understand the full breadth of systemic fatmisia. that when you try to explain it to people who aren't familiar w fatpol, you sound like a conspiracy theorist
academic research that produces fatmisic outcomes is often paid for by the diet industry. academic research that exonerates fatness as the cause of poor health is called 'paradoxical' in the field.
meaningful long-term weight loss is nearly non-existent; and nearly all scientific work on the matter does not track participants long enough to support such a claim. this work is also often fraught with embarrassing faults in statistical anaylsis and scientific reasoning.
it SOUNDS like a conspiracy theory when you're desperately trying to tell ppl that being fat has nothing to do with your health. it SOUNDS like a conspiracy theory when you tell others that, in layman's terms, being mean to fat ppl is worse for fat ppl's health than being fat is.
once you begin to see this stuff, how profitable fatmisia is, how violent and unjust it is, you observe it everywhere, all the time. it makes you want to scream, to desperately inform others. but it's so INFUSED into our lives that it's hard to get the message through to ppl.
that's why we're always begging thin people to say something, do anything, if they have the most basic understanding of fat lib. because on top of how ridiculous fat lib sounds to those not in the know, it sounds even more so coming from a fat person's mouth.
this is also why we are CONSTANTLY writing threads and essays about the same 101-level explainers of fatphobia and fatmisia. "why body posi isn't fat lib." "plus sized fashion doesn't go far enough" etc. etc.
it's frustrating to have to spend so much time establishing that fatmisia is a coherent class of oppression; interlocking and multiplicative at the intersections (as are racism, ableism, misogyny, classism, transphobia, etc.).
once you get your head around that and beyond the "fat fashion" discussion, then we can finally start having some interesting conversations.
there are always going to be people who need to 101 explainers about fatmisia, and that's good because it means there are continually new people coming to the movement. but i see maybe a handful of people regularly going beyond that and fat fashion on here.
twitter is NOT the whole of the universe of fat lib conversations, but it is a major one, simply bc of its cultural ubiquity. even still, i deal with supposedly 'in-the-know' people all the time to whom i still have the explain that body size is not a moral issue.
that weight loss causes health problems, that health is not an ethical indicator and food intake does not suggest anything about a person's character. that eating disorders are caused by fatphobia, that thin people have unique privilege.
that forcing kids to diet is abuse, and exercise should not be used a punishment for a high BMI. that the BMI is bullshit and that american fatmisia has it's historical roots DIRECTLY in antiblack racism.
i've gotten off topic. i SOUND like a conspiracy theorist because there is SO MUCH systemic fatmisia to redress and all i [and the dozens of us fat liberationists on here] can do every day is desperately try to convince people that it exists at all.
