Accountability in Music • Page 334

This is an extremely nuanced topic with a lot of different answers. First and foremost, a goal to lose weight is not always healthy. People who suffer from eating disorders often have specific goals, and congratulating weight loss or perpetuating the idea of a “revenge body” only encourages what could literally be a disease/mental illness. On top of that you don’t know what a person has dealt with health wise- someone could be losing weight because of cancer or something like that and complimenting them on visible weight loss can be insulting and painful.

I feel (and you are free to disagree) that in a society that values thinness above all - health, happiness, nutrition, etc. - commenting on weight loss or gain should just not happen. Even the best intentioned comment can be harfmful or hurtful.

 

From what I can gather Adele got into working out after her divorce but yeah she was always gorgeous and fat shaming is bad but I'm glad she seems happy

 

Yep yep yep

 

Speaking to the mental health aspect, it really can be a slippery slope. My girlfriend suffers from eating issues and sometimes when people comment on her looking thin or mentioning her losing weight, it turns into an obsession and that “I need to lose more” mindset because of all the positivity. I know people mean well, but I agree, we probably just should stray away from commenting altogether.

 

Yes! I don't remember the exact story, but I know her most recent album was written about an abusive relationship, really cool artist, recommend them to anyone here!

 

There's an appropriate context to compliment someone on changing their appearance: and that's when that person asks for opinions or announces it. (This is obviously a broad take that can clearly have exceptions.)

I think the issue is how quick people are to point out that the weight loss happens. That can just be really triggering to a lot of people for a lot of reasons, and can have the same impact as intended fatphobia regardless of intent.

edit; this is of course just my opinion that absolutely nobody has to agree with but I just think culturally we tend to automatically associate weight loss with positivity and that can be really harmful, just like all unsolicited comments about anyone's body or appearance can be.

 

Honestly surprised no one tagged me into this yet lol this is basically my bread and butter area of expertise that I have spent years studying and of course directly living. Just gonna preface with that because I’m also going to say that if you’re thin you really shouldn’t have much of an opinion other than being an ally to fat people, this is a “sit down and listen” kinda thing.

intentional weight loss is inherently fatphobic. Intentional weight loss at its core is an intention to not be fat, and that’s literally it.

I mean I understand this but like I said above intentional weight loss is at its base fatphobic. There are lots of ways to congratulate people on reaching goals, etc, without being fatphobic! We should be reframing the whole mindset.

This is all good stuff.

anyway I fully expect arguments bc this is deff a hot topic rn but I’m gonna try real hard to be calm and helpful and provide emotional labor bc I want y’all to be better educated, and I don’t want this to be a fighting match. Hope to be met with the same.

 

yep no one should ever be "trying to lose weight" imo

if this post makes you mad just gonna say I'm way too tired to argue
may or may not feel like it in the morning but it's unlikely

 

I’m genuinely interested in what y’all are saying about this because it sounds so foreign and strange to me. Honestly, is there some referential information you could point me towards? I’m curious to learn about it.

 

I’m not arguing but there are definitely some scenarios where people should attempt to lose weight as far as health reasons go. My parents for example both recently lost weight and it made significant improvements to their respective heath issues. But I understand your sentiment.

 

I'm assuming these exceptions dont apply to what either of them said.

 

Can you elaborate on that? I’ve been actively trying to lose weight for the last 6 months now and have succeeded in doing so. Why shouldn’t I be?

 

I think so too, but I didn’t want to make that assumption yet.

 

If you want to make changes in your life and a side effect of those changes is weight loss then cool
the goal should not be just to lose weight

 

I don’t really understand why that is though? I feel better, I like the way I look better, I have an easier time shopping for clothes— the list goes on. These things are all result of losing weight, something I actively aimed to do.

I’m not coming at you or anything, I just genuinely don’t understand the viewpoint.

Am I just thinking about this completely the wrong way? Very possible. I’m tired after a long day. Apologies if I come off as confrontational or anything of the sort.

 

RT

 

I think you are thinking about it the wrong. I might be wrong but the general sentiment is that you should instead focus on the behaviors you’re changing. Staying active, eating a healthy diet, not compulsively eating, and so on. By focusing on creating good habits, they’re much more likely to stick and weight loss will come as a result of those healthy behavior changes.

so the goal should be to create healthy habits and cultivate a healthy lifestyle. Weight loss will naturally happen as a result of that.

 

I think I get it. So essentially what’s being said is it’s okay to want to lose weight because of the positive changes that come along with doing so, but the goal shouldn’t be just to lose weight for the sake of.. weighing less? That’s a weird sounding sentence, but if so, I agree. I suppose I was just interpreting the statement the wrong way.

 

This really hit the nail on the head and I fully agree

 

I was over 315 pounds a few months ago and wanted to lose weight. Why? Top reason is I have heart disease in my family but also I wanted to feel better, personally. That was my decision and I will always support anyone who makes the same decision.

I gained a good amount of weight the past couple years and my biggest issue I have is how FREELY people PUBLICLY tell me im overweight and make fat jokes. It has kept me from going out to see groups of people because i would feel judged and you know what? They would judge me. That's awful and my main goal when I hopefully drop this weight is send a message of how awful I felt when people pointed out that I was overweight and how much it DOES NOT equal self worth. I've lost 25 lbs and that's great but I am the same exact person I was 25 pounds ago. If a person loves who they are and accepts who they are let them be who the fuck they are and keep your shallow opinions to yourself.

I love and applaud the message @supernovagirl promotes because it helped me accept myself more and not invest so much emotion into people who judged me because of what I looked like.

 

Sorry I want to get my point across but others are much better at it than me

 

From my understanding, it comes down to unlearning the idea of “fat” or weighing more as being inherently bad. If one likes the way they look more after having lost weight, what informs that feeling? Fatphobia. The desire to not be perceived as “fat” or overweight because of the stigmas that come along with that. Anyone can set whatever physical appearance goals or health goals they want for themselves, but I feel like we should understand the societal contexts and whatever external or internalized factors are informing our habits.

That’s at least my general feeling, there have been several quality posts from others, particularly @personalmaps and @supernovagirl and I appreciated their words and after this post I’ll fall back into my default listening mode. I think body image is a crucially important issue, and our cultural conversation about it feels so far from where it should be IMO. I don’t generally share much about my personal life here, especially when it connects to people I’m close to, but I’ve seen how overwhelming an influence body image can have on one’s mental health.

 

Just want to throw out there that there’s a difference between body positivity and the fat acceptance movement. Also fatphobia / diet culture bullshit should be called out for what they are: intolerance

 

I only know my personal battle and definitely want to learn ways that are right and wrong to address people if they are trying to improve their life and part of that is maybe losing weight. I know how triggering it can be when someone said the wrong thing to me and I never want to do that to somebody ever ever ever.

 

Like I’m not coming at anyone for their own choices or opinions because fatphobia is literally so steeped in everything in our culture and is systemic so I don’t blame anyone for harboring intense internalized fatphobia. But I DO hope and wish that people would be open to unpacking it and listening with an open mind because nobody likes to hear they are doing something out of internalized fatphobia.
At the end of the day the explicit intention to lose weight is fatphobic. If someone wants to eat healthier, or be more active, that’s great. But a) that’s actually not guaranteed weight loss so I did want to point that out in response to someone who said it was inevitable. It’s been suggested by research that long term significant weight loss is improbable to impossible. So much of dieting and diet culture is restricting and literally disordered eating. There’s a difference between making healthier choices and explicitly trying to diet and lose weight. One is fatphobic and one isn’t.


There was a b) but idk I got lost along the way sorry lol