One of the growing causes of death in modern times is obesity. It’s a silent killer that plagues North America and is rising in other continents with every passing year. As being overweight becomes the new normal, it makes sense that larger folks would find camaraderie in each other’s company and the shared experiences that being bigger brings.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where people over-invest in identity politics to define themselves. We also live in a world where people love to play the victim. Enter the “fat acceptance movement”. Rapidly gaining popularity among the social justice crowd, health at any size champions believe that being fat is somehow a culture and take pride in their excess pounds. While many people struggle to shed their fat and fear the health risks it brings, the cult of fat acceptance denies the negative realities of obesity while bemoaning the endless oppression of the obese.
It’s gotten bad enough that some outraged overweight are even asking those struggling with their weight to consider their privilege if they don’t topple the scales at morbidly obese or higher.
At least, that’s what a popular magazine recently wrote when it published the opinion of Caleb Luna, a self-proclaimed fat activist who describes himself as “a working class fat, brown, queer, living, writing and dancing in Oakland, California.” Luna attacks the fat acceptance movement, finding issue with the fact that the “vast majority of [fat acceptance participants] are on the smaller end of the spectrum of fatness.” He continued on to condemn the harm that these supposed “smaller fats” had inflicted on his identity as an overweight person by diminishing his voice.
One of his chief concerns was that it “obscures the thin privilege that smaller fat people have access to.” He lamented that “pants in [his] size are difficult to come by” and that he can’t “get in and out of cars easily.” He opined that his “experiences are much, much different than those who are smaller than [him].”
He also worried about “body terrorism”. While the concept is already absurd by itself, he takes it to the next level by worrying that a fat person who isn’t fat enough is inherently fatphobic. He likened this phenomenon to seeing “transmisogyny in LGBTQ spaces…woven into the fabric of [the movement].”
Last but not least, he ended his screed by saying the small fats were diminishing the voices of those most oppressed by their weight — calling for the community to “focus and center [on] those who are most likely to experience…the most violent forms of fat stigma.” In other words, being fat is no longer enough to be oppressed: one has to be as fat as the author.
The article makes a compelling argument, but it’s not the intended one. Instead it exposes the ideology of health at any size for what it really is: a self-indulgent oppression Olympics whose members yearn for the social justice spotlight. The author ignores science and embraces his larger form not because he truly believes it’s beautiful, but because he wants to have a cause to champion and an imaginary bully to whom to stand up. It makes him feel like a legitimate outrage warrior and an oppressed minority at the same time.
Ultimately, fat acceptance is a joke. Not only does it promote a disease which kills people, it hides behind the idea that being fat is somehow natural and that to be concerned about extra weight is discriminatory. While most people struggling with their weight are aware of the risks each pound packs on, a fat acceptance devotee sticks their head in the sand while their hand is reaching for the next potato chip. They’re not much better than flat earthers or other groups that go firmly against the laws science has established over the past few centuries.
And now they’re trying to argue that some overweight people are more marginalized than others based on a number from a scale. Good luck with that. When all of your members joined to unite in their supposed oppression and be heard, it’s not going to go well when you tell them to check their privilege and quit their whining.
At least, it won’t go well for the fat acceptance movement. If this social justice group self-cannibalizes to extremists like this, it can only make the world a better — and healthier — place.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.