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I got yet another comment on the video of Julianne and I on Fox News as posted on my YouTube channel congratulating us for saying that plus-sized people should feel good about ourselves, and then chastising us for saying that fat can be healthy when “everyone knows” that fat can’t be healthy.
I replied, “please review some of the evidence listed below refuting the idea that everyone knows fat is unhealthy”. You see, somebody had started an argument earlier on the very same thread about the very same thing and a lot of size acceptance folks (including me) posted links to scientific studies that indicate fat people can be and often are healthy.
Within just a few short minutes of my reply, the poster withdrew her comment from my channel. I’m not sure what to make of this. Did the poster change their mind? Did the poster just not want to argue? Were they embarrassed? I’m just not sure.
I do know this. I hear this “everyone knows fat people can’t be healthy” argument a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. But just because someone says the earth is flat doesn’t mean I have to believe it. Just because somebody points to the horizon and asserts that I will fall off the edge of the world, doesn’t mean I can’t get in my boat and go sailing.
It can be hard to argue with folks who bring up the “everybody knows fat people can’t be healthy” argument. Sometimes it seems like there aren’t enough sanity points in the whole world to deal with this nonsense yet again. But maybe the best way to deal with the fallacies that “everyone knows” to be true is to stand up and say, “Not me! I don’t agree, and here’s why.” Because throughout history, “everybody has known” one lie or another to be true, until enough people stood up and said “Not me. I don’t believe it.” Or at the very least, some people stood up and said, “Oh yeah? Prove it!”
My dear chicklettes, don’t allow yourselves to be bullied by what “everyone knows”. Get your hands on the facts. Do the research. And don’t allow yourselves to be stressed out by arguments from those too lazy to actually support what they are saying with statistics or numbers or citations. Because what I know is that you are awesome and deserving of respect.
Love,
The Fat Chick
1 Comment. Leave new
The idea that fat = unhealthy dates back to the 1950’s. Those were the days when smoking was still thought to be good for you because it calmed the nerves and a woman was expected to warm her husband’s slippers before he came home from work.
The crux of the issue was that doctors saw more fat folk with health problems than thin people. Conclusion? Fat = unhealthy. But that conclusion is looking the wrong way down the telescope though and is therefore almost completely wrong.
It IS true that living a sedentary lifestyle is bad for you per se and is worse for fat people than thin people. Once you start making sure that you stay fit, however, then there are scientific studies which have shown that there is NO DISCERNABLE DIFFERENCE AT ALL in the health of the fat-and-fit subjects and the thin-and-fit subjects. The only thing that you *can* say about the issue is that fat couch potatoes will be more likely to suffer health issues than thin couch potatoes. That’s it. Nothing else. Thank you for coming. Please don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out, fat-haters.
As a fitness instructor, trying to convince people that they don’t need to lose weight before taking up exercise is difficult enough but dealing with the ignorant, ill-informed fat haters and trying to get through their thick skulls into their narrow minds that they are spouting ideas from SIXTY YEARS AGO, which have subsequently been debunked is almost an impossible task. So few of them ever back down. Which I have come to the conclusion is because their ego need to avoid admitting that they have been in the wrong when they made every one of those unpleasant comments about fat people and they just can’t/won’t deal with that. However, I do love a good argument – especially when someone on the internet is wrong! Thank you for helping to stand up for the truth.
Stay healthy.
Tim x