indiestarlight:

johannestevans:

always bothers me when “improvements” to unhealthy diets are all about taking tasty things away rather than ADDING new things. like. add new tastes and new flavours and MORE NUTRIENTS and vitamins

there was some awful show on for encouraging middle class mothers to take their eating disorders out on their children and it was like “oh well, this snack doesn’t taste as good as my usual one, but it’s healthier”

so get one that??? actually tastes as good?

like this thing of. you know this food that you like and enjoy eating? why don’t you toss all that out and eat stuff you don’t enjoy as much or want to eat?

that’s unhinged to me.

like i just think the process of discovering newer, healthier foods should be ADDITIVE, where you’re exploring new tastes alongside your usual ones, slowly broadening your palate and your preferences, rather than punishing yourself for “unhealthy” food

(CW eating disorders)

god i feel so strongly about this bc i could not figure out how to strike a balance between “eating foods that make me feel good” and “not relapsing back into disordered eating habits” until i switched my mindset from “i need to remove unhealthy foods from my diet” to “i need to figure out which foods makes me feel good and add them to my diet”

examples:

moving from “i want a snack. chips sound really good, but i can’t eat chips because they’re unhealthy, so i guess i just won’t eat anything” to “i want a snack. chips sound really good, so i’m gonna eat some, but because i haven’t had any fruits or veggies today, i’m gonna eat some grapes with them”

moving from “i’m craving a burger and fries from mcdonald’s, but that’s unhealthy, so i’m just gonna eat some plain brown rice and grilled chicken even though those don’t sound good” to “im craving mcdonald’s, but last time i ate that it upset my stomach, so i don’t think eating it would make me feel good. but i think what my craving is telling me is that i need carbs and protein, so how about i make some steak and mashed potatoes for dinner?”

moving from “i’m in too much pain to cook tonight, but frozen food is unhealthy, so i just won’t eat anything” to “im in too much pain to cook tonight, so im gonna eat a frozen meal, but im gonna add some pre-cooked chicken and frozen spinach to it because i think the protein and veggies will make my body feel good”

and honestly this has been so much better for me and i feel so much better both physically and mentally than when i was just focused on “i can’t eat anything that’s Unhealthy”

vstheworld:

mockiatoh:

themauvesoul:

Hate diet culture so much bitches will b like “don’t eat processed carbs they’re so bad for you” like and??? So what?? God did not give us grain and stone to grind it with for no reason. Bread is inevitable. Bread is food for the heart and the soul. U think I’m gonna give that up in pursuit of instagram fitness?? U think I’m gonna deny myself the simple pleasure of toast with jam so I can endlessly chase an ever-shifting standard of beauty that ultimately means nothing? In 20 years I will no longer be beautiful and in 60 my body will be vacant food for other, smaller creatures. But the taste of fresh bread? Of homemade donuts and still-warm pie? I will carry the taste on my tongue into whatever follows this life. So like. Stop telling me I should diet lmao. I’m not abt to martyr myself just to get a man to look at me.

Op genuinely thank you for this

“bread is inevitable” is our household motto now

nandalorian:

mikkeneko:

heavyweightheart:

timemachineyeah:

Ugh that post has gotten me thinking about fat acceptance in a way I haven’t in years. I’ve read more studies about weight and health than probably any other topic I’ve ever researched. And every time I see someone wail about health I am just like

Did you know that in post-mortem examinations there is zero correlation between weight and levels of arteriosclerosis and related diseases found?

Did you know that people with an overweight BMI have the longest life expectancy, that those with an “ideal” and an “obese” have about the same life expectancy, and that being “underweight” raises mortality rates more than being “morbidly obese”?

Did you know that losing weight and then gaining it back is worse for your heart than remaining at the weight you started consistently?

Did you know that 95% of people who lose weight do gain it back, and there has never been a single documented weight loss program that has been demonstrated to keep the weight off for five years or more in the majority or even a significant minority of people? Like, telling people to lose weight isn’t much use if we don’t know HOW to make that happen.

Like I have read The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos and Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata and Big Fat Lies by Glenn A Gaesser (Ph.D!) And Fat!So? and several other books that I don’t own and so don’t remember all of their names I spent like four years reading every single study coming out and looking at the methodology and noting which ones had huge holes or terrible methods and which didn’t (the holes were almost always in the pro-weight-loss studies) and like

Big Fat Lies has 27 pages of bibliography. 27 pages worth of scientific citation. The book content itself is only 197 pages. That’s a page of references for every 7 pages of book. Reading the book is just reference after reference and study after study. Most of these doctors (like Linda Bacon, author of Health at Every Size) started out the same way. They wanted to use the scientific method to find a real weight loss program or health solution that worked and could be proven to work, and so studied everything they could about weight and fitness only to find out that we didn’t need weight loss in the first place. That all the studies calling for it were lacking or nonexistent. That weight and underlying metabolic health have very little relation. That the history of our relationship with health and obesity has little basis in fact and a LOT of basis in capitalism, politics, and fashion. No, really, the association between weight and health was first proposed by insurance companies looking for ways to charge people more by claiming risk. They also charged tall and short people more. And people with different skin colors. When they got in trouble for charging people for things they had no control over and had no bearing on their health, they set out to prove that weight was controllable and that fat was unhealthy to make money. 

These are also a lot of the same people who went on to invent the President’s fitness program, so if you went to public school you probably already hate them. 

Anyway, if you want a place to start reading about the issue, this article is a pretty good launching pad. 

This casual rant is like a primer on weight science. Amazing. I second their book recommendations, and would add to the list Body Respect by Drs Bacon & Aphramor, Body of Truth by journalist Harriet Brown, and What’s Wrong with Fat? by UCLA professor of sociology Abigail Saguy.

man I remember that time I reblogged an anti-fatphobia post and lost a follower and  reader who took the time to come into my DMs and rant about how betrayed he felt that I, who he had trusted and respected, would dare to signal boost content that made people feel like it was okay to be fat. how dare I

anyway the weightloss industry is a scam

HuffPo is BS in many ways, but they knocked it out of the park with their 2018 article Everything You Know About Obesity is Wrong. 

It delves into most of the points raised by the OP and takes it one step further by investigating how many health issues attributed to obesity are, in fact, often byproducts of the stress of being fat and not the weight itself. While this commonly includes conditions like depression, anxiety, and disordered eating, it can also translate to heart problems as a result of the body producing more of the stress hormone cortisol, which can increase blood cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure–all common risk factors for heart disease. Cortisol can also promote buildup or plaque in the arteries. Some studies have started to look at the life expectancy of those who are stigmatized and bullied for being fat vs. those who aren’t. Spoiler alert: people who are tortured and traumatized for their weight don’t live longer.

And none of this even scratches the surface of medical bias and the subpar treatment many fat folks face when seeking medical advice for something completely unrelated to diet or nutrition.

If people focused less on stigmatizing fat folks and wailing about health while also upholding systemic barriers that prevent fat folks from being able to participate in fitness activities in the same way as their thinner counterparts, a greater number of people might find an active lifestyle more accessible to them, thus promoting better exercise habits and overall strength and fitness. Many, many people, including those medically considered “overweight” or “obese,” enjoy being active–whatever that might look like on an individual level–and participating in activities such as organized sports, but avoid doing so because of fear of ridicule or stigma, or various barriers that are systematically placed in their way. 

For instance: do you know how impossible it is to pursue a hobby in long-distance cycling while fat? How about kayaking? Surfing? Or equestrian? If you think any of the clothing or equipment necessary for these sports–such as cycling jerseys or one-piece suits, wetsuits, actual kayaks, or breeches–are easily accessible to people over a US women’s size 10/12, think again. And that is to say nothing about how fat folks can be ostracized or bullied for even trying to participate in fitness activities, even ones as basic as going for a jog or hitting the gym.

While thinness isn’t an indicator of health or physical fitness, the same also holds true: fatness isn’t an indicator of lack of health or physical fitness. They aren’t mutually exclusive concepts, but fat people are often barred from fitness or active spaces without experiencing some form of alienation or barriers to their participation, whether social, economic, physical, or otherwise.

(And none of this is to say that anyone, especially fat people, owe others fitness or “good” health, because that is how we slide firmly into ableism.)

We don’t owe the world anything period. Fatness doesn’t preclude us from being able to enjoy the same happiness and acceptance as thin folks, and we sure as fuck shouldn’t have to participate in health or diet culture to “earn” respect or acknowledgement of our basic human rights.

For those who are interested, there is also a fantastic article from Medium that looks at The Bizarre and Racist History of the BMI that I highly recommend.

truejew:

thunderboltsortofapenny:

welkinalauda:

rainbofiction:

cj-sewers:

thethirddecade1121:

I just realized how fucking disgusting it is that it’s considered healthy and normal for teenage boys to eat everything ever yet teenage girls are obviously also growing but are fucking dieting all the time and shamed for eating while they’re growing

Shit

That’s not even the half of it because

- often when a teenager (male or female) puts on some fat it’s in preparation for a growth spurt. Grownups know this. 

- teenagers grow in weird gawky ways, like a girl’s hips will spread out and look “fat” until her legs get longer, or they’ll shoot up super tall and then slowly put on muscle and fat. Grownups know this. 

- it’s very common for a women’s body weight to fluctuate plus or minus 5% with her menstrual cycle

but in the diet mentality all of these things are considered personal moral failures, a failure of control, when controlling it is literally impossible. I am so incredibly saddened by women who weigh themselves multiple times a week and fuss over ten freaking pounds when that’s well within the bounds of menstrual fluctuation + just-ate-lunch. It’s horrible.

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”
– Naomi Wolf

Grown ups really do not know this. I tell this to parents at least once a week, your child is sleeping/moody/putting on weight because their body is preparing to more or less jump the Grand Canyon of maturation stages. Hormone changes start a full YEAR before first menses.

My own mother, who works in the medical field and has worked solely for OB/GYN for the last 16 years, gave me grief about all of those things. And she knew about hormone level changes and weight distribution changes and she STILL did it. Don’t think hard facts will outweigh societal norms. Keep talking about it until they can’t ignore the facts

Eat!!! Food !!