Fat Acceptance Movement Research Paper

Julius Caesar stated “Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look, he thinks too much; such men are dangerous.” Cassius’ “lean and hungry look” unsettled Julius Caesar, who preferred the company of fat, contented men whom he believed were more trustworthy and appreciative. When we think of heavier people, we think that they are nice because they have nothing to be mean about and typical thin people will be stuck up and rude to the heavier person because they do not see that heavier person for who he really is. This is a stereotype; heavier people are not necessarily jolly, and thin people are not necessarily mean or stuck up. Stereotypical attributes have had a negative effect on society,

This article was written by Sunny Sea Gold on a popular wellness website named Greatist. The beginning of the piece addresses the question , what does someone gain from just being ok with their body? The author states that she intentionally avoids saying “loving” your body because she feels that loving ever aspect of your body all the time is an unrealistic goal. She also points out that research has linked positive mental and physical states are linked with being satisfied with ones body. The issue of weight and its relationship to body acceptance is the main theme of the article, and the author presents arguments such as, disliking your body may increase your risk of obesity, and women of any weight who accept their flaws are able to handle

Over time, there have been more activists groups than one person can count. Some of these groups, however, stand out amongst the others. A group that calls themselves the "Fativists" have recently been surfacing in many mainstream outlets such as blogs, social media, and even Television. Fativists fight discrimination against those who are overweight or fat to put it simply. There is now a growing group of people who believe that "Big is Beautiful" and, despite the social stigma, that fat people are actually just as beautiful if not more beautiful than those people who are thin.

One of the most destructive bombs in history has the unusual name of “Fat Man.” This was the codename for the atomic bomb that was ultimately dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in an attempt to end the war in the Pacific between the United States and Japan. This was the second atomic bomb that was dropped on Japan by the United States.

In the chapter The Adoption and Management of a “Fat” Identity, Douglas Degher and Gerald Hughes analyze how the reality of people that are overweight changes. “Obese people are fat first, and only secondary are seen as possessing ancillary characteristics.”(Degher and Hughes p.265). In today's society being overweight or not having the ideal body being portrayed by the media is usually considered as unhealthy. As a consequence, pharmaceutical drugs are being created daily to help reduce weight, workout dvds are being produced daily, and clothes keeps getting reduced and limited so that overweight people have a hard time finding something that fits them and that they like. In the eyes of countless individuals, being fat is considered deviant

In “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance” by Mary Ray Worley, a member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (or NAAFA), analyzes the stigmatization of fat people in our society. With the use of both personal experiences and facts, Worley portrays the effects of this social stigmatization on fat people, in comparison to the actual realities of the issue.

Society today has distorted what a healthy physique actually looks like. It tells you, if you don’t have muscles bulging from under your skin then you are out of shape. And that if you are overweight you are just ugly. Another false concept is that if you are overweight you’re lazy or not self disciplined (Bordo 2). There are so many factors that have to be accounted for when evaluating someone’s weight. To assume that someone is lazy or weak because they are overweight, is ignorant. Many people are deceived into thinking that obesity is terrible like a sin. In her article Susan Bordo gives an example of a study taken where children chose obesity to be more uncomfortable or embarrassing than dismembered hands or facial deformities when shown

The pressure to lose weight in today’s society inhibits the personality and health of overweight people while essentially increasing the weight of the people who experience these pressures (Worley 163-167). So reasons Mary Ray Worley in her article, “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance.” Worley uses her personal experience as well as a small number of facts to dispute why overweight people struggle as they attempt to contribute to society (163-167). In the beginning of her article she references an association of which she is a member, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, to convey the possibilities to advance society when judgement based on size is abandoned (163-164). The association holds a conference every year, and Worley continually refers to the atmosphere at the convention as “another planet,” suggesting that the scarcity of judgment during the convention differed significantly from her everyday experiences (163-164, 167). Applying her encounters to all people of her weight category, she declares that even doctors blame the majority of sicknesses on weight (165). She also proclaims that people should not diet and exercise in order to lose weight, as this triggers loss of motivation without results, but to improve their attitude and mood (166). Referencing Dr. Diane Budd from the convention, she states that attempts to lose weight cause “lasting harmful effects on one’s appetite, metabolism, and self-esteem” (164). While Worley’s unjustifiable

The purpose of this paper is to study the social aspect of obesity and an individual's personal experience of being fat. I understand obesity as a socially and politically meaningful divergence that is analogous to other significant differences based on the body, for example: disability, gender, and ethnicity (ef. Cooper, 1997&1998; Young, 1990). In my research, I approach obesity as a discursive category that is created, produced and reproduced through various social practices, such as: medicine and health care system, school, religion, and the media (e.g. Foucault, 1979).

Epidemics of any scale have both threatened the Earth’s people and frightened them in ways unfathomable. Whether it be a global outbreak of swine flu or an isolated incident of a cold in a small village they all shake the community on some level. But imagine an epidemic that people willingly promote the growth of an outbreak, one that is being pushed on a national scale to everyone on every social and economic tier. Obesity has been viewed as a social epidemic and is even noted to have a serious rate of infection through the connection of social networks. The Fat Acceptance Movement, or FAM, has been the main sponsor of this epidemic by claiming it’s acceptable to be obese despite the evidence that’s stacked against their claims. Obesity acceptance needs to be stopped as it is a slow suicide for the obese, and hurts the nation as a whole overall through social distraught and secondary economic misfortune, in the sense that everyone loses in some way.

Isn’t it so easy to look at someone and consider them a certain way? If someone is underweight, people consider them anorexic, and if someone is overweight, people consider them obese. Making assumptions such as "she is too skinny, she probably starves herself", or "he is fat, he must be eating McDonald's all day" are some examples of ignorant comments. Instead of judging someone for being obese or underweight, people should consider the reasons the problem. Individuals who suffer from obesity might suffer from hormonal problems, thyroid, or have a slow metabolism. Same goes for individuals who are underweight, they might suffer from hyperthyroidism, excessive stress, or anorexia. Instead of judging individuals on their weight, people should consider them to be just like themselves. Therefore, people should not judge others based on body shapes, because they might not know about some of the serious illnesses that can result in the

Weight discrimination “generally refers to negative weight-related attitudes toward an overweight or obese individual” (Puhl 1). Obesity numbers started to skyrocket in the 1990s and weight discrimination started to become a problem about five years later. Obese individuals are susceptible to weight discrimination at health care facilities, school, work, and even in personal relationships. Studies have found that the chances of experiencing weight discrimination increase the more an individual weighs. “In our study, 10 percent of overweight women reported weight discrimination, 20 percent of obese women reported weight discrimination and 45 percent of very obese women reported weight discrimination. men were lower, with 3 percent of overweight, 6 percent of obese and 28 percent of very obese men reporting weight discrimination. This finding also tells us that women begin experiencing weight discrimination at lower levels of body weight than men” (Puhl 2). For women weight discrimination is more common than race discrimination.

Thicker women face discrimination and pressures from society and their peers to lose weight because their bodies types are perceived as unhealthy this is the relative idea Beth MacInnis shared in “Fat Oppression”  in Consuming Passions. MacInnis discusses the health risk associated with weight loss and the misconception thicker women are unhealthy because of their body sizes. She points out that having a bigger body other than being thin the ideal beauty standard is seen as being unhealthy but for those women to lose weights by means that are risky and are shown to be unhealthy in her research. In simpler terms MacInnis is pointing out the hypocrisy in the idea that not being thin is unhealthy but for women that aren’t skinny face actual unhealthy and unethical means to lose weight.

The movement doesn’t sound bad at all. However, underneath that thin veneer of inspirational messages lies the true nature of the movement and the problems that arise with it. First, the Body Positivity Movement has the tendency to be exclusive. When scrolling down the body positivity tag on websites, majority of the posts you see feature plus sized women. It’s rare that one will come across a body positivity tag with a photo of a skinny or muscular or average sized body, and it’s even rarer to see the tag accompanied with a photo of a man. If body positivity is supposedly for everyone, why is it that we don’t see enough of average sized or skinny women, and men? Why is it that the photos that accompany media articles about body positivity are mostly photos of overweight or obese women? There shouldn’t be any exclusivity within the movement, because where there is exclusivity, there is a tendency to bash those who aren’t included - which then leads to my second point.

Individual problems such as addictions, illnesses and mental depression stalk us throughout our lives, but there is more to addictions, illnesses and mental depression than meets the eye. A good example of this theory is obesity. Obesity in Australia is turning into a problem and as the rates of obesity increase each year, the larger the problem expands. According to sociologist, C. Mills, problems can be divided into either troubles or issues and more often than not, a problem which is seen as a person trouble, when looked at globally, is in fact a social issue. This idea is referred to by C.Mills as the sociological imagination.