note: I would like to add that I don’t believe the women picture above is actually very bi

note: I would like to add that I don’t believe the women picture above is actually very big at all. She seems like a fairly healthy weight to me. The issue I am addressing here is the message written on her card, because it is something that is commonly circulated by many people. I am not attacking her personally at all, I am analysing the message that she is relaying.“I need feminism because me loving my fat body is apparently a radical concept. Smash patriarchal beauty standards!” I personally find weight issues a really delicate topic, so I am going to try tread lightly. Before I begin I would firstly like to say that I find it extremely important that people are able to accept their body regardless of their weight. Feeling guilty about yourself and wallowing in self hate is just as unhealthy mentally. Saying that, I also think people need to accept the reality of the dangers and issues their body weight can cause if it is too small or too large. There is nothing positive about ignoring health facts. You loving your fat body IS a radical concept, because loving something involves taking proper care of it. If you truly loved your body, you would nourish it with healthy, nutritious meals because that is what bodies thrive on. Likewise, for those who don’t eat enough, loving their bodies does not involve restricting their intake and running on low fuel constantly. You can accept your body the way it is, but loving it means so much more than that. I don’t believe you should feel guilty about the way you are built or the way you let yourself go, but I also don’t believe you should promote unhealthiness by parading it as loving yourself. Accept yourself the way you are, but don’t justify poor lifestyle choices. [source] Fat doesn’t just lie under the skin (subcutaneous fat), it can also accumulate around the internal organs (visceral fat), creating a myriad of health problems. The biggest problem I find with this issue is the fact that this body shaming issue is credited to patriarchal beauty standards. When you blame the patriarchy, you are essentially blaming men. When women struggle with weight, it is somehow acceptable to presume that it is because men hold them to such shallow standards. Yet when men face the exact same struggles it suddenly becomes unreasonable and almost offensive to suggest that women hold men to such shallow standards. It’s a disgusting double standard, it doesn’t address the real issue, and it doesn’t actually help anybody.I personally believe that the biggest problem is the huge stigma surrounding diets and dieting. It almost seems like unless you are naturally or effortlessly slim/healthy, than being on a diet or healthy eating plan is something to be ashamed of. Instead of encouraging people to eat well, we shame them because they are trying. They are trying to be healthy and people just sit there and think, “hah… look at that fatty eating a salad, they’re probably going to go home and raid their fatty fat collection of snickers bars from their cupboard.” We raise our eyebrows at those who turn down slices of cake for the sake of health, and we give off such an air of superiority about it we’re basically mocking them because we believe they are destined for failure. Both genders are guilty of this. Not just men, not just the patriarchy.It is easy to simply brush off issues with ‘the patriarchy!’ but can you see how it doesn’t adequately address the underlying issues? Can you see how to ostracises an entire gender out of an issue that affects everyone? Can you see how it unfairly lays blame on one gender? Simply put, this is one of the reasons why we don’t need feminism. We need a genderless movement that addresses the behaviour of both genders, because both genders are at fault for fat shaming, and both genders are affected by fat shaming. - fraudulentfeminism -- source link

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