Here’s a hypothetical situation for you: Imagine that you believe that something is wrong. No, more than that, you believe something is dangerous and unhealthy. You want to put a stop to it. Now imagine that someone else disagrees with you. They don’t think it’s wrong, and they don’t believe it’s dangerous or unhealthy. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? The facts have to be on somebody’s side, right?
Now imagine this same situation, but we’re talking about being fat. On the one hand, we’ve got people who believe that being fat is wrong, dangerous, and unhealthy. And on the other hand, we have people who believe that fat is a natural state of being, and that it is not, in and of itself, dangerous or unhealthy. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?
People argue this all the time. And I’m sure you can guess which side of the argument I agree with. But here’s the real truth: None of it matters. None. Why? Because no one has figured out how to make fat people permanently thin. Jillian Michaels hasn’t figured this out. Dr. Oz hasn’t figured this out. Super smart people at major research institutions and universities haven’t figured this out. Jenny Craig hasn’t figured this out. Because if someone had, we wouldn’t have an “obesity epidemic” any more, would we? We would all be thin and the world would be full of rainbows and unicorns forever and ever.
Yesterday, I read a totally hilarious article on Gawker, about how doctors aren’t really fat-shaming their patients, but actually helping them. Here’s my favorite quote:
It is a doctor’s duty to do what they can to help an obese patient to lose weight—which includes pointing out to them, in a polite and constructive way, that they are obese, that losing weight would be good for their health, and how to best accomplish that.
Hilarious! Because fat people don’t realize that they are “obese” until a medical professional tells them! And they obviously have never, ever been told before that losing weight would be a good idea. Craziness!
But the best part is, “how best to accomplish that.” The article forgets to mention that weight loss is almost always temporary. Almost always. If I told you a product had a failure rate of 95%, would you buy it? Of course you wouldn’t! And yet we throw sixty billion dollars a year at an industry that provides a product that fails nearly all of the time. And we buy it over and over, convinced that the product works, and we have failed in the way we use it! Now, you may be sitting there thinking, “But it DOES work, if you try hard enough.”
That’s the thing that really burns my biscuits: That there are people who truly believe that if we haven’t achieved permanent weight loss, it’s because we just haven’t tried in the right way, for the right amount of time. We have not made the appropriate “lifestyle changes.” It’s a moral failure, a lack of willpower. We are apparently obligated to keep reducing our food intake and increasing our movement forever. Gee, that sounds like a super fun way to live, all so that we will be thin healthy.
I guess the point is, there’s isn’t a point in listening to all of these arguments. If – and it’s a huge if – someone figures out a way to make people thin permanently (in a way that does not do more harm than good, I must qualify), then I’ll start to listen. Until then, it’s all yelling and fighting. And I have much better things to do with my time than to listen to people fight.
