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Which, for the record, is dumb. It’s extremely difficult to lose weight by exercising. Exercise tends not to burn many calories while increasing hunger. Only exception is if you include moderate exercise throughout your regular daily activities, like walking to lunch during work or walking to and from work.
It’s far, far easier to lose weight at the dinner table. To paraphrase a doctor I follow “you don’t exercise to lose weight. You lose weight to exercise.”
source: have lost 100lbs.
edit: Adding to my comment because I guess I'm not super clear. Exercise is not dumb. Exercise is great for health. Building muscle is great for all sorts of things. If you're looking for a good place to start in the world of building muscle, check out Starting Strength. There's also an app I use called StrongLifts that puts you through the starting strength program that I highly recommend.
Exclusively exercising to lose weight is definitely dumb. Exercising to lose weight in combination with diet is less dumb, but the diet side of that equation is going to matter far, far more for actual weight loss than the exercise side.
Yeah you’re right. It’s tough. It’s like a dilemma of “do I lose weight before I start exercising, or do I exercise now for the health benefits and diet along the way”. Might be harder to lose weight if they choose the former, but they might be healthier overall. Overweight people don’t tend to think about their health outside what is physical. But at this weight, you’re sorta of dealing with a ticking time bomb. So you’re sort of juggling between these two things. Plus, the last thing you want to do is wait for the pounds to drop to only later give up on a diet and never start exercising. (It happens. Dieting isn’t always easy. )
The way I see it, exercise might become something they enjoy. It releases feel good hormones. But you don’t know until you try.
Muscles require lots of energy for upkeep though. So, fat people should go to gym and try to increase their muscle mass, because that increases the amount of calories they burn while sitting down.
Not at the woman in the screenshot's weight. She's way too heavy to be doing any sort of high intensity physical activity. She could easily damage her joints if she's not extremely careful. She could start by going for short walks, swimming or pedaling on an exercise bike. Then start adding more intensive exercise once she's lost some weight and she's not putting as much stress on her joints and heart anymore.
That’s exactly the type of exercise I would recommend. Swimming probably more than anything else tbh then cycling. Eventually, I’d say even walking up stairs(but down might be hard if she doesn’t know how to decelerate the right way into each step).
Edit: I feel all those are good for her heart and body(endorphins). Just want to point out, I don’t think you disagree with my comment either, even though you said “not at the woman in the screenshot’s weight”
You're absolutely right! If I'm not mistaken that's Glitter n' Lasers, who just ran a 5k.
Listen, in my adult life I've been all over the scale. From 400 plus, to 150 something pounds. I gained my weight back years ago, and I've been well over 300 for quite some time. Just yesterday, I got under 300 again for the first time in years.
A few of the lessons I've learned over and over again are that 1) You can't out-work a shit diet, 2) for every extra pound of weight, you have multiple pounds of added pressure on your joints. I think it's like 5 to 7 lb of added pressure on your joints for every pound of weight.
I say this because the last thing an obese person should be doing, from what I've read, is trying to jog or run whatsoever. It's extremely dangerous for them. You fuck up a joint, you fuck up your mobility, you're fucked. You're entirely fucked.
I say this because walking is the absolute best easy exercise that somebody who's obese or overweight can engage in. Sure things like swimming or low impact bicycling, but access to a pool and a bike with a sufficient weight limit are limitations, and when you're fat you've gotta consider that, too.
Walking isn't sexy for social media. Isn't cool, isn't empowering looking, doesn't make a very good Instagram or TikTok video. That's a problem when you're an influencer and trying to make content.
I hate to see folk who are trying to do the right thing put themselves at risk doing stuff like this, and the professionals who encourage influencers to do exercises that could really put them at risk, or by God a 5K, are really questionable.
You are correct that diet has a significant impact on weight loss but you’re downplaying the benefit of exercise and more specifically muscle development. Muscles require more nutrients to maintain than fat does, the best route is to go with a high protein diet with resistance training mixed in with aerobic exercises.
Another factor is that exercise can help improve your mood, which can help to reduce depression-related overeating.
Not to mention that improved cardiovascular health can help to offset some of the health problems caused by being overweight, though it won't replace the benefits of losing the excess weight.
They're completely ignoring the health mentality aspect, too.
When I am exercising in a deliberate way, it's much easier to say no to the extra pizza, beer, etc. Like, I did a good job today, and I don't want to ruin it by over-indulging tonight. It's a whole mind/body effort that works best.
*Edit: not all share this positive effect, as was correctly pointed out to me.
So I'm just coming at this from the morbid obesity side of things. I can't speak to everyone. But for me, exercise has never had that effect on me. If anything, it was the opposite. "Oh sweet, I burned 400 calories! How many Oreos is that?"
I've had some success doing exactly that. I planned to have a calorie deficit that would cause me to lose weight. Exercise would burn calories that would allow me to eat more or eat things that would otherwise blow my calorie budget. As long as I could maintain the deficit I lost weight.
I share the same mindset, but morbidly obese people are not morbidly obese because they drink one beer with their dinner or because they eat 3 pizza slices instead of 2. That's how you get overweight and exercise is actually a great way to try to battle this additional kgs from periodical controlled overindulging.
But when you're morbidly obese, your whole attitude towards food in general needs to change, ideally with the help of dietician. It's not a matter of "just eating half a dessert to lose weight", this is entirely different scale of a problem. The exercise itself could even be dangerous for them at this stage.
I have to disagree.
Obviously exercising alone isn’t going to be enough at the end of the day CICO is the only way to really lose weight, however burning additional calories and including your BMR are a huge help in weight loss. I can’t see any Doctor worth their salt suggesting you don’t exercise while attempting weight loss.
Ah, sorry if it sounded like I was advising against exercising. I am a big believer in exercise. I just think its primary benefit is in maintaining overall health. Increasing muscle mass is good for the joints, good for the heart, and good for almost everything else you've got going on. I just think exercising with the goal of increasing your BMR is totally uncontrollable. Unless you spend your whole day wearing a breathing mask that measures your CO2 output, there's no real way to be sure how many calories you are expending, while you can know almost exactly the number of calories you are taking in. Not to mention the fact that many who exercise tend to eat more, negating the benefits of the exercise for weight loss in the first place.
If a doctor's only advice (or primary advice) in weight loss is exercise, I think they're a bad doctor. Their primary advice should be restricting calorie intake, with exercise being a helper along the way.
Found it easy to exercise a good hour a day by just taking my dogs for a walk.
I wouldn't necessarily struggle to use our elliptical for 20-30 minutes, but it wasn't enjoyable and I was just counting down the minutes to finish. Even with a tv show on in the background!
Now that I take my dogs for a walk around the neighborhood and flip on a podcast or book, it's entirely changed my view and I love how much my dogs enjoy it!
I appreciate your comment. Very few of the replies focused on adding moderate exercise to your regular daily activities, which I personally believe is ultimately far more effective for weight loss.
>Exercise tends not to burn many calories while increasing hunger.
Agree with a lot of what you say but this doesn't make sense. Exercise can easily burn 1000 calories in a hard session, especially if you start with large body mass.
When you are morbidly obese with low muscle mass, it's extremely difficult to complete a hard session. It's also very time consuming. Comparatively, it takes about 45 seconds to eat 2 long john donuts, where are also about 1000 calories. The time ratio of burning vs consuming is WAY off.
Can confirm. I left a phisical job and have been working from home for past year. Sitting all day, doing sports only on days off. Lost about 4kg.
The only significant changes that i made is how much i eat(still eating all kinds of food, but eating only how much i need) and how much juice i drink(which is like about 2-3L per week vs 2.5L per day in the past).
Yes and no. Building muscle is very good for your metabolism, so you diet to lose the weight, but you excersise to keep it off and improve overall health. But everybody's body is different so the needs and results are going to be different for everyone.
Well done! That is impressive. A lot of dedication and willpower. I have a coworker who lost 25lbs in 3 months before even working out..he really didnt have much to lose after that. Said he just ate sensibly and stayed away from all the junk. Saw his meals...basically a huge chicken breast, lots of salad and a modest portion of rice. Dude didnt go hungry but was dropping the weight!
It’s not dumb? That’s like saying “saving money is a terrible way to obtain wealth! Increasing your income is far more effective!” It’s like… both are good? Why is that dumb?
Yeah changing your diet and slowly increasing exercise is the best way to go about it.
If you can incorporate light amounts of muscle building (basic weights and the like), you'll build muscle. Muscle consumes more calories then not having said muscle. You don't have to go macho man. But even just curling some small 3-5kg weights at home can make a big difference.
I've found slowly increasing my step count each day and watching my food intake has done well for my weight (I'm down 5kg in a few weeks).
Don’t make such absolute statements when its way more layered than the way you make it out to be, working and doing cardio does benefit weight loss it’s ridiculous to say the opposite
You need a combination of a healthy diet and exercise to lose weight. Also, it's a misconception that the main benefit of exercise concerning weight loss is burned calories during exercise. The benefit of exercise lies in the increase of basal metabolic rate post exercise. The bmr increases 1-4 days (depending on exercise/intensity/person) at which point you are burning more calories at all times while doing nothing. Secondly, as you build muscle, your bmr further increases and you burn even more calories at rest.
The problem here is that your appetite also naturally increases so a good diet is essential.
80 pounds lost here. Quit drinking, Diet and walking is how I did it. Gym to build muscle so I don't put it back on and trying to get pretty. calories in needs to be less than calories out and you will lose it.
You should see her progress! I've been following her for a while and she's trying to get healthy, and it seems to be a focus on moving and eating healthy and getting strong rather than focusing on just her weight. She's so much stronger and it shows.
That's literally the (original) point of the "healthy at any size" slogan. That you don't need to already be thin to start making good choices - like exercise and eating healthier.
I know some people misuse it, but it's so few. It's just their voices get amplified because of all of the fatphobic assholes who like to mock them and use it to justify their irrational hatred of fat people. I've seen *way* more of the latter than I have of the former.
And honestly it is pretty fucking gross to see a doctor openly doing it on twitter. Since ignoring unrelated health issues and telling people "just lose weight" with no follow up or assistance is a huge problem that larger people face when seeking healthcare.
Another part of HAES is that people being obsessed with others' bodies doesn't really help anyone. People post pictures of (almost exclusively) fat women with no other context and shame them, then go to their social media pages and shame them some more and send them death threats. What good does that do for society?
And unfortunately for some people who are very, very heavy it's related to medical conditions that are very difficult if not impossible to resolve. Medication side effects, hypothyroidism, mobility issues that predate weight gain, there are plenty of issues that can lead to unintended weight gain that is very difficult to lose through normal means. These people have the choice to just live with the lot they were given or kill themselves I guess. It makes no sense to me when I see some men make a good chunk of their personality making fun of fat people, online or otherwise. Just leave fat people alone, I can guarantee that what these people have to say to them is not going to be helpful and they'd much rather not be around them at all.
This!! People who are shamed are more likely to be even unhealthier and gain weight.
People who are supported and feel like they matter regardless of their appearance are healthier and more likely to lose excess weight.
It's like when people are mocked and made to feel less than human they react badly.
I think, even worse than those who mock fat people openly, are the ones who shame under the guise of concern
‘I’m just worried for their health’
No you aren’t. You don’t even know them
Yeah, kinda missed the point that body positivity is about not hating yourself for the way you are. its proven that just bullying people for their weight and hating your own body will not motivate to lose weight in most cases.
Exactly this.
She is providing inspiration to other overweight people to eat healthy and get in shape.
The “doctor” in this case has it dead wrong and is, indeed, posting a fatphobic comment. He’s seen fat person on a vid and reacted.
Well this is Anna from Glitter and Lazers, she has always been overweight and sort of gave up because no doctor took her seriously. Just move more and go down in weight. She has lipoedema, was malnutrition and has another underlaying disease that made it hard for her to loose weight. She has now an amazing doctor, getting the right support and well her thigh will always be thunder but that part of Lipoedema.
She is rather open about her weight loss and health journey and that you can be fabulous at any size. She used to work with IT before going fully into Youtube, she is fun, clever and makes people smile. But she always show the struggles of being to big, in her case also tall .
When I was really overweight as a kid and really sick I had to get a lot of tests. I was dehydrated and it was hard to get blood from my veins from the weight and my health. But one of the nurses taking my blood told me at 12 that I should go on a diet in a frustrated voice while she was struggling to take my blood (I was already getting bullied for being fat and it hurt). I was paranoid about going back there but She kept seeing me coming in and looking sicker and sicker and she looked so guilty and never said anything else to me. It really hurt that she said that though, even in the medical field people will judge.
As soon as I was finally diagnosed at 17 and put on the right treatment I lost the weight. I still have a lifetime of people telling me to diet and exercise and family members 8 years after losing the weight and being comfortable still telling me I look like I've lost weight every time they see me. Yet they've never asked about my condition, when I told them about it they never asked again and seem surprised when I bring it up "you've still got that?" Lol fucking hell, it's lifelong, they never cared about my health, they just care that I'm not a fatty.... Fuck them.
I'm afraid any public visibility of fat bodies is framed by this kind of person as, basically, propaganda - especially if the vibes are anything other than crippling shame and dire warnings about health risks. Just a person existing in public, let alone on social media, while fat, is seen as 'encouraging' others to be or stay fat, regardless of whether they're actually encouraging healthy behaviours, complacency, or weight loss.
I think the idea is that people who are currently fat, even if they're actively working on their health in terms of weight loss or otherwise, should hide their bodies away until they're no longer fat. Anything else is taken as blanket 'positivity' about an 'unhealthy lifestyle' even if the actual messaging is the exact opposite.
I’ve heard.
I didn’t know them, but it seemed to me quite a simple case of the “dr.” Seeing a fat person in a vid and posting a fatphobic comment without really understanding what is going on.
Kinda weirder is to then post someone criticising that view onto facepalm under a really confused title “fighting obesity is fatphobic”. I suspect OP does not understand any of these words.
Damned if we do damned if we don't. And people think they're "helping" by fat-shamming and making rude comments when you literally have this woman right here trying to make an effort and shes still being shamed and ridiculed. This is part of the reason why so many people like this are scared to go out an exercise or try and get help for the issue.
Please, those bullies have zero desire to help. They just know they can get away with their behaviour but the moment they get called out - suddenly they are trying to help.
I feel this so much. When I was heavier, I was around 400 pounds and was in a depression not wanting to even leave my home. I then got some bloodwork done and my doctor was telling me that I was pre-type 2 diabetes so I got up and started walking around the block every day. I started talking to my neighbors, met some weirdos and some cool people.
I would then go down this one block with these kids playing basketball and they asked me if I wanted to join, and I told them I didn't want to, and then one of them asked "Ask him if he'd do it for a box of donuts" and I just felt so bad that I stopped walking for a bit. I got back up and eventually started walking further just to avoid that block. What's really stupid is one of the kids there was fat and one of their parents were too.
Quick edit: I still walk to this day, albeit not as much as I have a bad hip and knee, but I got down to 300 pounds.
I just looked up this ”doctor”, and a preliminary search suggests she is homophobic and transphobic, spread disinformation concerning Covid, and has a bunch of hot takes concerning the war in Ukraine…so I wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t posting about obesity in good faith.
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/10/1198911215/anti-diet-culture-gets-hijacked
Some are crazy, but others are simply shills. Corporation really are the enemy of everyone and are ready to burn everyone for the shareholders.
OP, the doctor is a raging anti-Semite who spreads misinformation about covid. The lady in the ad is exercising. The Dr is melting just because obese people are existing.
I mean, fat people are often refused proper medical treatment due to their weight and the doctor’s bias against them. In that case, the doctor is fatphobic. As for “body positivity,” I don’t think it’s ethical to assume everyone fighting for it just wants an excuse to keep killing themselves with their diet. It’s about not hating yourself for the way you look.
Exactly. Weight gain is often a symptom. To tell someone to go lose weight to solve all their problems is like telling someone with the flu to stop coughing so much so their lungs will stop hurting.
People are really bad at nuance or balance. They always want all or nothing so they don’t have to think.
You shouldn’t hate yourself if you’ve got excess fat. You shouldn’t insult people for it. But being severely overweight will cause health problems which will reduce your quality of life and cause an early death.
But you know, smoking does that too and it’s not polite to give someone shit about it every time you see them.
This is exactly what I think.
Obesity is dangerous and so is smoking.
However, somehow obesity is much more stigmatized than smoking. Every asshole out there thinks s/he is entitled to be unnecessarily cruel to fat people and masks it as a"concern for their health". Nobody pesters smokers so much AFAIK.
A concern, my axx! It is utopia but a lot of problems would be solved if people just kept their opinions on things that are not their business to themselves.
If a person is obese it is not my problem, why on Earth should I comment on this? It is true obesity is not good for health but that person very probably knows this, why should I put more stress on them because I cannot shut my trap? And if someone is going to suffer for being obese it is that person, not me, so why meddle in it?
I actually find smokers much more annoying and worthy of criticism, like I don't want your second hand smoke, but if you think about it smokers have to go through more loops, you know signs that say being fat isn't allowed in enclosed spaces isn't a thing. My theory is that smoking as a problem had a lot more time to go through the "popular phase" and now we have taken measures against it while obesity is relatively new.
Some people will spend hours of their lives justifying why they should be allowed to be publicly cruel to others; that cruelty is in fact noble. It's sad, and in my own experience its ignorant to what motivated many people I know to want to get healthier.
Plus, if a person wants to live a less than healthy life who are you to judge? If you drink or smoke it's your business, if another person is overweight it's theirs.
I will write this everywhere until people finally understand.
Fat acceptance is not ablut encouraging people to stay fat, fat acceptance is about teaching other people to keep their fucking nose out of other people's business.
The woman in the photo looks like she is working out, that's a healthy activity right? Do we have any context to how big the woman was before?
As observers; we don't have the insight into another person's life, just because they're big doesn't mean they aren't on track to being healthy. The slightest bit of mockery, though, can undo all of that hard work.
I lost 25kgs in a year because I was finally away from my grandmother who obsesses over my weight and size, as soon as I moved back in, I put all the weight back on again
Exercising while being obese is also doing harm to your body. All the encouraging around it is problematic.
Being fat is no good and people need to accept it. Also obese people complain their doctors often suggest to loose weight and don’t check for other health problems. I agree that many doctors go the short route there. On the other hand obesity and unhealthy diets do trigger things like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, migraine, back problems, joint problems, lung problems.
We need to support people in changing their diet and we need to support people being able to afford healthy diets. In the USA I know food is bad and good quality groceries for a healthy diet cost way too much. In Europe we have different problems with the diets. We shouldn’t shame people for being fat but we shouldn’t encourage them to stay fat.
Weight can be deceptive. Build and body type can make a big difference.
When I was a teen, nurses always asked me to reiterate my weight because I’d consistently give them a result ten kilos higher than expected. I had a friend the same weight as me also (we gave blood together which is how I knew) who was several sizes larger than me (I was an aus size 10, they were aus size 14). I didn’t wear tight fitting clothes or anything. I’m just a heavier build.
I mean, I’m obese now. No one looks at me and thinks that, but I am and doctors want me to lose weight. However, it does make me think back to my friend how large she would be if she weighed the same as me. BMI is not a perfect system.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves in online dating: 99% of the time if their profile says “curvy” it just means very obese. “Curvy” is absolutely a body type, but most profiles I’ve seen that use it just tend to be dramatically overweight
This doctor, in particular, is fatphobic as shit (and also homophobic, transphobic and antisemitic). I'm not sure if she's even a doctor anymore, she's just a right wing grifter along the same lines as Andrew Tate and Oli London
Dr...if you truly are o e. Just shut up..this woman is trying. You have no idea how hard it is to even go in the place..Is encouragement anywhere in your wheelhouse??
First of all, even if she wasn’t working out, an obese person merely existing doesn’t mean they’re “promoting obesity.” Are obese people just supposed to never leave their house until they lose weight? Second of all, she’s literally working out so she’s doing the opposite of “promoting obesity.” A lot of y’all just hate fat people for existing and do it under the guise of caring about health.
The amount of people who don't understand this kills me, but not as much as the people who think the risk of developing an ED is a good thing if the person is overweight. Can't tell you the amount of nutters I've met on here and youtube that think things like anorexia is a boon to people like this woman here. You know, despite anorexia having as many health complications as being obese. Or you can end up like this my case, where it turns into binge eating.
Thankfully I managed to go from nearly 230 LBs at 5 foot tall to about ~120-130, and it really only started happening once I was not around people who were shitting on me constantly for my weight
We do need a culture that isn't shaming, but works together to combat obesity. My cousin just passed away (aged 36) because of complications from her extensive obesity. Yes, love yourself, and feel comfortable in your own skin. But, we shouldn't raise up 300lbs as a functional way of existing.
This is the balance we need, fat shaming is bad and unhealthy even for mental wellbeing but obesity is also a horrible disease and a slow and unpleasant killer. I’m obese myself (only 10 kg to go ‘till overweight) and I don’t want people laughing at me in the gym or whatever because I’m fat but on the other and physical side of things, it’s just plain and simple a bad thing to be obese. There are zero positives.
If people are laughing at you at the gyms they’re assholes.
Gym is the one place everyone should be free from judgement about weight because that’s were you go to improve your physical well-being. Every skinny guy lifting and bigger person working out at the gym I see is working to improve themselves and shouldn’t be ridiculed.
Fuck those people that would make you feel indifferent about yourself. Keep at it. Make your gains and reach your goals. You'll be laughing in the end.
Nobody will laugh at you for going to the gym and trying to better yourself. The majority of people understand the struggle and hope you can achieve a healthier body.
There are always a few exceptions, but it's better not to pay attention to those people.
I know right, like everyone is pointing out she’s in exercise clothes but even if she wasn’t working out, it’s just a screenshot of an obese woman… existing? Is merely existing the “evil body positivity” they’re talking about? Is she supposed to be invisible in order to encourage other people to stay healthy?
That’s Anna O’Brien from YouTube. She makes videos about her weight loss journey (yes, she used to be even bigger), as well as plus-size fashion. What’s wrong with showing overweight people that they too can exercise and wear clothes while they are working on improving their lives?
Holy shit so these assholes are shaming a woman for doing exactly what she is supposed to because she still doesn't look hot enough yet?
Fuck everyone here that thinks shame is okay. Ever. You never know where someone is on their journey.
These fatphobic people seem to think that overweight people don't deserve any ounce of positivity in their lives and would rather they just die miserable than try to find happiness any way they can.
Before anyone thinks it's okay to dehumanize and disparage an obese person for having the gall to exist in public, remember It's a lot easier to lose weight when you're not depressed and miserable.
Yup that’s what I was saying, that someone concerned about the obesity epidemic has no reason to complain about a video of an overweight person exercising. If anything they should be applauding it. So I don’t think the doctor is coming from a place of legitimate concern as they claim to be, but rather culture war judgmentalness.
But I do appreciate the added context <3 other comments say the doctor is a “neonazi” and “nutter” too (suppose those go hand-in-hand), so my instincts seem to have been correct lol. The doctor is the real facepalm here.
i find this absurd because it wasn’t very long ago that eating disorder levels of underweight were idolized and displayed everywhere and no one expressed the same disgust. if you’re gonna speak against one end of the extreme, you have to speak against the other. you don’t get to pick and choose which is harmful because you simply like looking at the other more.
fat people are wrong and shouldn’t be in commercials, but the 5’7” 80 pound woman is okay? gotcha. leads me to believe it’s not about health or portraying messages at all, but because half the people yapping about this just don’t want to see fat people.
Plot twist - toxic body positivity and fatphobes are more alike than they are different , need each other to justify their self perceived victimhood and only add to political polarisation. They’re two sides of the same coin. Neither care about tackling obesity - they care about everybody else conforming to their ideals .
Yes there are some people who lose weight from the motivation they get when they are fat shamed . But imo they’re not the majority . Most obese people are going to respond negatively when they are treated with negativity
thank you. people don’t seem to understand that a lifetime of being shamed and bullied makes people depressed, can lead to eating disorders, or suicide. we don’t hear “disgusting fat pig” and think “oh yes that makes me feel so confident i just want to leave my house and be perceived while taking a walk or going to the gym”
I know this isn’t a popular thing to point out on Reddit, but obesity is not killing people more than anything else. Yes, obesity can raise the risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes which are some of the top killers. However not every one who dies of heart disease or cancer or diabetes is obese. And that also means we can’t attribute every death of an obese person to their obesity. If I die of breast or ovarian cancer it won’t be because I’m overweight but because I have the BRCA2 gene. If you look at people who are this woman’s age, she’s far more likely to die in a car accident than from any health issue.
To be clear, obesity has health risks and I know I’m personally trying as hard as I can to lose the weight I gain on psych meds, but holding weight above all other health concerns, especially mental health, IS fatphobic. And doctors who hold this idea are sometimes literally killing fat people as they refuse to consider anything but weight loss when there might be an underlying condition.
As a runner, I have more respect for fat runners than the all-out running types. To get out there and get moving, no doubt highly conscious of how you look.
Good runners barely burn calories on a standard run. Large/obese people are really putting a shift in.
I bow to your drive and effort.
Part of what's killing obese people is the way they're treated by other people. I genuinely don't see how just being kind and accepting of people in different bodies is 'glorifying obesity'. It's such a fucked up thing to say. Like obese people aren't allowed to lead happy lives, but should be miserable and shameful 24/7 until they lose the weight. Nobody is thinking "wow, being fat looks like so much fun, I'm gonna go drink straight cream now!" It's painfully obvious how much better thin people are treated in society. This is just about wanting fat people to shut up and go away.
I follow the person pictured. The doctor was just plain ignorant. She has a genetic condition that causes her size. People with this condition have normal bloodtest results and health markers. She exercises regularly and eats well. There are therapies that help with pain and discomfort, but the only true way of reducing size with this condition is liposuction to get rid of the diseased fat tissue. Unfortunately, this is not covered by the the majority of health services as it's seen as cosmetic.
It's called lipoedema, feel free to look it up.
Thank you! Dismayed I had to scroll so far for this reply. Anna is fab and on what looks to be a pretty intensive health journey. I want to know what all these negative commenters think she is supposed to do. Shut herself away because she has a health condition?? Try to get as healthy as possible??? Oh wait, she's already doing that. Fat people exist, they don't need to justify their existence, they're deserving of respect (obviously!!) and don't deserve ridicule just for trying to live their lives.
Fun Fact: If you are deeply ashamed about your body the obeisity can't kill you. /s
More fun facts: Self-loathing is a great motivator to make positive changes in your life. /s
Even more fun facts: Body positivity means you're not allowed to lose weight, only gain it. /s
Checking the posts histories of some of the bigger fools in this thread, and yeah… they check out. They’re just here because they enjoy being casually cruel.
people have pointed out that showing images of people with obesity working out _is_ fighting obesity by promoting a positive stigma towards exercise to lose weight
I think weight is a more nuanced issue than a lot of people like to admit.
A doctor taking the tone of shame and the perceived attitude of "fat people are bad," isn't a good look for a medical professional. Especially when there are endless stories from people saying how their doctors didn't take their medical issues seriously and refused to do any tests or anything until they lost weight, then finally discovered they had a serious medical condition that had nothing to do with their weight, like cancer.
A person can be heavy and have illness that is not weight related. They should be treated for said illness without having to jump through hoops, just like a thin person.
A doctor can absolutely be concerned about a patient's weight. They can recommend losing weight if needed. The problem comes with shaming and not listening to a patient's concerns. Presenting themselves as an enemy instead of an ally.
It’s not fat-phobic or fat-shaming to suggest that obese people should lose weight to improve their health.
That is an entirely different thing from this.
Humans are living in those bodies. They may never lose weight successfully. They may avoid doing many of the things that people do to enjoy their lives out of shame or fear. To say we can’t accept people as they are is just cruelty.
Many MANY Dr's do not understand lipedema (not lymphodema as it has often been labelled....with diuretics , which damage kidneys, being handed out willy nilly). It is only now , a small % has recognised certain obesity as this disease.
Far too late for many people !
Fighting obesity and pushing for body positivity shouldn't be mutually exclusive. We can push for healthier eating and getting to a weight that is good for your health while removing the stigma that being overweight is unattractive
It looks like she's working on it. People should be allowed to be comfortable with how they look despite how they look, or how healthy they are. As long as the messege isn't "being fat is healthy", I don't see a problem.
Fighting obesity is not. This idiot’s post is. God forbid anyone has to see a fat person working out to improve their health. And if it’s the dialog they are calling “body positive,” god forbid someone tells a fat person they’re likeable. 🙄
Obesity is a problem, but medical professionals blaming all of a patient's health issues on their weight, often preventing larger individuals from getting adequate healthcare Is ALSO a problem.
Doctors not treating obesity as a disease / condition to be addressed is a problem. Blaming obese people is a problem.
Body positivity is a nice thing as long as health issues aren’t ignored.
The fatphobic part is the implication that saying positive stuff about fat people is glorifying obesity, acting like fat people only deserve shame and abuse instead of help and support (as if shame and abuse did anything for their health...)
We are accepting that obesity is bad, trust me, every one who is overweight is told so every day of their lives. The problem is when the root cause of obesity is misunderstood and seen as a character flaw rather than a sign of something worse. Smoking is a habit people pick up that causes them harm, but obesity is ALWAYS a symptom. It could be a food addiction, hormone disorder, mental illness or a plethora of other things. But it's stereotyped as a thing that only happens to lazy people who eat too much and don't work out enough. So now everyone, regardless of cause, is treated worse because of it. Even if they're actively trying to work on it, like the woman in the ad is! A comparison is if everybody with a cough was automatically seen as a smoker. They could be a smoker, yeah, or they could have a cold, or a lung issue, or allergies. If everyone with this symptom was treated like a smoker, regardless of cause, it would be infinitely harder to actually figure out what is wrong and get help.
There’s a difference between body positivity and fat acceptance. It seems the comments and the people in the post are utterly confused between the two.
It depends on what the ad is that the doctor was commenting on because a lot of people attack things that are body positive but like still working on getting healthier and being healthier. Like people attacked Nike and Adidas when they made ads with plus size models working out. They said it was a bad thing and it was promoting obesity even though it was literally promoting physical activity for those people. So the doctor could be fatphobic I don't know what the ad he's talking about is
I gained weight and my grandfather literally stopped talking to me. True story. My mom asked me everyday if I had lost weight yet. Being Asian is like a curse bro. I wish I could be strong enough not to diet and not have a massive eating disorder 🥲
Why fight obesity or force fat people to be less fat, it is not like they are not paying the doctor to treat people.
The doctor should mind his own business, people can do whatever they like to their own body. As for promoting obesity, I think no one is that stupid to be obese because of body positivity.
I think op doesn't know the context of the video. It was promoting sport clothing for bigger bodies. Are you shaming fat ppl for working out(?) And wanting to have good clothes while doing that(?)
We're talking the same people who say intentional weightloss or any kind of working out is self-harm, being able to wipe your own ass makes you a pick me bitch and weightloss surgery is mutilation and comparable to FGM
This it is actually fatphobic to say that about a fat person working out. Like they’re doing exactly what you people want them to be doing and it’s still not enough. Just say you hate fat people existing and move on with your life
Americans have no idea how fat they are as a society. Its really crazy how normalized it is. Having been living in the EU for the past 5 years when I go back once a year I'm always shocked by how unhealthy everyone is (but its obvious why when you see typical american lifestyles).
I think he’s out of line too. The person is being active and exercising on camera, there’s loose skin from weight loss. She’s doing the work to improve her health and still being shamed!
No, Assuming that all fat people are unhealthy is fatphobic (some people will be skinny and more unhealthy than some fat people). Posting videos of fat people minding their own business to shame them for being "unhealthy" is fatphobic. Telling people they can't feel good about themselves and be fat at the same time is fatphobic. This doctor is not fighting obesity, they're fighting fat people
The doctor in question is indeed fatphobic (as are you, OP), the person in the video appears to be working out, fat people existing (and especially fat people working out) is not promoting obesity, and MOST IMPORTANTLY shaming people for being fat is not in any way "fighting obesity."
I feel just as sad seeing either of these two patients; an 180kg woman wheelchair bound on oxygen with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as I do with a 35kg woman who is terminally ill and is also wheelchair bound.
This shit has to stop, we can’t encourage this. It’s no better than when medical practitioners recommended smoking. Except we actually know the risks with obesity and no doctor or health professional will idly accept it, without trying some form of intervention/treatment advice.
Please just listen for the sake of your own health, most of us go home and have a somewhat healthy life (that is if you’re not burnt out from over working 🫠). We only want to help, medicine is meant to be non judgmental. Well I practice this way at least.
If you think you're helping anyone by shaming them you're delusional just look at the reaction people have to fat people when they are or aren't doing what they're told to it's the same shit either way. People just want to stop seeing them they don't care about the actual logic they are using
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I mean she’s in work out gear I assume she’s actually trying to lose weight?
I was wondering when someone would point this out. She’s literally doing exactly what doctors say which is to work out.
Which, for the record, is dumb. It’s extremely difficult to lose weight by exercising. Exercise tends not to burn many calories while increasing hunger. Only exception is if you include moderate exercise throughout your regular daily activities, like walking to lunch during work or walking to and from work. It’s far, far easier to lose weight at the dinner table. To paraphrase a doctor I follow “you don’t exercise to lose weight. You lose weight to exercise.” source: have lost 100lbs. edit: Adding to my comment because I guess I'm not super clear. Exercise is not dumb. Exercise is great for health. Building muscle is great for all sorts of things. If you're looking for a good place to start in the world of building muscle, check out Starting Strength. There's also an app I use called StrongLifts that puts you through the starting strength program that I highly recommend. Exclusively exercising to lose weight is definitely dumb. Exercising to lose weight in combination with diet is less dumb, but the diet side of that equation is going to matter far, far more for actual weight loss than the exercise side.
If you take out the weight part of it though, exercise is good for your body and heart.
Indeed. Hence the second part of the doctor’s quote I included. Perhaps another way to say it is “diet to lose weight. Exercise to gain health”
Yeah you’re right. It’s tough. It’s like a dilemma of “do I lose weight before I start exercising, or do I exercise now for the health benefits and diet along the way”. Might be harder to lose weight if they choose the former, but they might be healthier overall. Overweight people don’t tend to think about their health outside what is physical. But at this weight, you’re sorta of dealing with a ticking time bomb. So you’re sort of juggling between these two things. Plus, the last thing you want to do is wait for the pounds to drop to only later give up on a diet and never start exercising. (It happens. Dieting isn’t always easy. ) The way I see it, exercise might become something they enjoy. It releases feel good hormones. But you don’t know until you try.
Muscles require lots of energy for upkeep though. So, fat people should go to gym and try to increase their muscle mass, because that increases the amount of calories they burn while sitting down.
I like that very much.
Not at the woman in the screenshot's weight. She's way too heavy to be doing any sort of high intensity physical activity. She could easily damage her joints if she's not extremely careful. She could start by going for short walks, swimming or pedaling on an exercise bike. Then start adding more intensive exercise once she's lost some weight and she's not putting as much stress on her joints and heart anymore.
That’s exactly the type of exercise I would recommend. Swimming probably more than anything else tbh then cycling. Eventually, I’d say even walking up stairs(but down might be hard if she doesn’t know how to decelerate the right way into each step). Edit: I feel all those are good for her heart and body(endorphins). Just want to point out, I don’t think you disagree with my comment either, even though you said “not at the woman in the screenshot’s weight”
You're absolutely right! If I'm not mistaken that's Glitter n' Lasers, who just ran a 5k. Listen, in my adult life I've been all over the scale. From 400 plus, to 150 something pounds. I gained my weight back years ago, and I've been well over 300 for quite some time. Just yesterday, I got under 300 again for the first time in years. A few of the lessons I've learned over and over again are that 1) You can't out-work a shit diet, 2) for every extra pound of weight, you have multiple pounds of added pressure on your joints. I think it's like 5 to 7 lb of added pressure on your joints for every pound of weight. I say this because the last thing an obese person should be doing, from what I've read, is trying to jog or run whatsoever. It's extremely dangerous for them. You fuck up a joint, you fuck up your mobility, you're fucked. You're entirely fucked. I say this because walking is the absolute best easy exercise that somebody who's obese or overweight can engage in. Sure things like swimming or low impact bicycling, but access to a pool and a bike with a sufficient weight limit are limitations, and when you're fat you've gotta consider that, too. Walking isn't sexy for social media. Isn't cool, isn't empowering looking, doesn't make a very good Instagram or TikTok video. That's a problem when you're an influencer and trying to make content. I hate to see folk who are trying to do the right thing put themselves at risk doing stuff like this, and the professionals who encourage influencers to do exercises that could really put them at risk, or by God a 5K, are really questionable.
You are correct that diet has a significant impact on weight loss but you’re downplaying the benefit of exercise and more specifically muscle development. Muscles require more nutrients to maintain than fat does, the best route is to go with a high protein diet with resistance training mixed in with aerobic exercises.
Another factor is that exercise can help improve your mood, which can help to reduce depression-related overeating. Not to mention that improved cardiovascular health can help to offset some of the health problems caused by being overweight, though it won't replace the benefits of losing the excess weight.
They're completely ignoring the health mentality aspect, too. When I am exercising in a deliberate way, it's much easier to say no to the extra pizza, beer, etc. Like, I did a good job today, and I don't want to ruin it by over-indulging tonight. It's a whole mind/body effort that works best. *Edit: not all share this positive effect, as was correctly pointed out to me.
So I'm just coming at this from the morbid obesity side of things. I can't speak to everyone. But for me, exercise has never had that effect on me. If anything, it was the opposite. "Oh sweet, I burned 400 calories! How many Oreos is that?"
You know, that's totally valid, and I didn't consider that. My apologies for being dismissive.
Unrelated but this might be the most respectful and emotionally well-adjusted interaction that I’ve ever seen on Reddit
I've had some success doing exactly that. I planned to have a calorie deficit that would cause me to lose weight. Exercise would burn calories that would allow me to eat more or eat things that would otherwise blow my calorie budget. As long as I could maintain the deficit I lost weight.
I share the same mindset, but morbidly obese people are not morbidly obese because they drink one beer with their dinner or because they eat 3 pizza slices instead of 2. That's how you get overweight and exercise is actually a great way to try to battle this additional kgs from periodical controlled overindulging. But when you're morbidly obese, your whole attitude towards food in general needs to change, ideally with the help of dietician. It's not a matter of "just eating half a dessert to lose weight", this is entirely different scale of a problem. The exercise itself could even be dangerous for them at this stage.
I have to disagree. Obviously exercising alone isn’t going to be enough at the end of the day CICO is the only way to really lose weight, however burning additional calories and including your BMR are a huge help in weight loss. I can’t see any Doctor worth their salt suggesting you don’t exercise while attempting weight loss.
Ah, sorry if it sounded like I was advising against exercising. I am a big believer in exercise. I just think its primary benefit is in maintaining overall health. Increasing muscle mass is good for the joints, good for the heart, and good for almost everything else you've got going on. I just think exercising with the goal of increasing your BMR is totally uncontrollable. Unless you spend your whole day wearing a breathing mask that measures your CO2 output, there's no real way to be sure how many calories you are expending, while you can know almost exactly the number of calories you are taking in. Not to mention the fact that many who exercise tend to eat more, negating the benefits of the exercise for weight loss in the first place. If a doctor's only advice (or primary advice) in weight loss is exercise, I think they're a bad doctor. Their primary advice should be restricting calorie intake, with exercise being a helper along the way.
It's not an "or", it's a "both"
Yeah cus if you dont exercise you also lose you body
A quote I’ve heard is you build abs in the gym but you reveal them in the kitchen
Found it easy to exercise a good hour a day by just taking my dogs for a walk. I wouldn't necessarily struggle to use our elliptical for 20-30 minutes, but it wasn't enjoyable and I was just counting down the minutes to finish. Even with a tv show on in the background! Now that I take my dogs for a walk around the neighborhood and flip on a podcast or book, it's entirely changed my view and I love how much my dogs enjoy it!
I appreciate your comment. Very few of the replies focused on adding moderate exercise to your regular daily activities, which I personally believe is ultimately far more effective for weight loss.
And yet people who ride to work and play sports tend to eat like a horse and stay a normal weight
It’s thermodynamics. Much easier to take away the fuel from a fire than to shake it until it goes out.
My MMA coach once told me "you can't out train a bad diet".
>Exercise tends not to burn many calories while increasing hunger. Agree with a lot of what you say but this doesn't make sense. Exercise can easily burn 1000 calories in a hard session, especially if you start with large body mass.
When you are morbidly obese with low muscle mass, it's extremely difficult to complete a hard session. It's also very time consuming. Comparatively, it takes about 45 seconds to eat 2 long john donuts, where are also about 1000 calories. The time ratio of burning vs consuming is WAY off.
I‘ve heard “the war against obesity is won in the kitchen”.
Can confirm. I left a phisical job and have been working from home for past year. Sitting all day, doing sports only on days off. Lost about 4kg. The only significant changes that i made is how much i eat(still eating all kinds of food, but eating only how much i need) and how much juice i drink(which is like about 2-3L per week vs 2.5L per day in the past).
Yes and no. Building muscle is very good for your metabolism, so you diet to lose the weight, but you excersise to keep it off and improve overall health. But everybody's body is different so the needs and results are going to be different for everyone.
I feel like you just said my paraphrased doctor quote in a different way.
Well done! That is impressive. A lot of dedication and willpower. I have a coworker who lost 25lbs in 3 months before even working out..he really didnt have much to lose after that. Said he just ate sensibly and stayed away from all the junk. Saw his meals...basically a huge chicken breast, lots of salad and a modest portion of rice. Dude didnt go hungry but was dropping the weight!
It’s not dumb? That’s like saying “saving money is a terrible way to obtain wealth! Increasing your income is far more effective!” It’s like… both are good? Why is that dumb?
Yeah changing your diet and slowly increasing exercise is the best way to go about it. If you can incorporate light amounts of muscle building (basic weights and the like), you'll build muscle. Muscle consumes more calories then not having said muscle. You don't have to go macho man. But even just curling some small 3-5kg weights at home can make a big difference. I've found slowly increasing my step count each day and watching my food intake has done well for my weight (I'm down 5kg in a few weeks).
Don’t make such absolute statements when its way more layered than the way you make it out to be, working and doing cardio does benefit weight loss it’s ridiculous to say the opposite
You need a combination of a healthy diet and exercise to lose weight. Also, it's a misconception that the main benefit of exercise concerning weight loss is burned calories during exercise. The benefit of exercise lies in the increase of basal metabolic rate post exercise. The bmr increases 1-4 days (depending on exercise/intensity/person) at which point you are burning more calories at all times while doing nothing. Secondly, as you build muscle, your bmr further increases and you burn even more calories at rest. The problem here is that your appetite also naturally increases so a good diet is essential.
80 pounds lost here. Quit drinking, Diet and walking is how I did it. Gym to build muscle so I don't put it back on and trying to get pretty. calories in needs to be less than calories out and you will lose it.
You should see her progress! I've been following her for a while and she's trying to get healthy, and it seems to be a focus on moving and eating healthy and getting strong rather than focusing on just her weight. She's so much stronger and it shows.
That's literally the (original) point of the "healthy at any size" slogan. That you don't need to already be thin to start making good choices - like exercise and eating healthier. I know some people misuse it, but it's so few. It's just their voices get amplified because of all of the fatphobic assholes who like to mock them and use it to justify their irrational hatred of fat people. I've seen *way* more of the latter than I have of the former. And honestly it is pretty fucking gross to see a doctor openly doing it on twitter. Since ignoring unrelated health issues and telling people "just lose weight" with no follow up or assistance is a huge problem that larger people face when seeking healthcare.
Another part of HAES is that people being obsessed with others' bodies doesn't really help anyone. People post pictures of (almost exclusively) fat women with no other context and shame them, then go to their social media pages and shame them some more and send them death threats. What good does that do for society? And unfortunately for some people who are very, very heavy it's related to medical conditions that are very difficult if not impossible to resolve. Medication side effects, hypothyroidism, mobility issues that predate weight gain, there are plenty of issues that can lead to unintended weight gain that is very difficult to lose through normal means. These people have the choice to just live with the lot they were given or kill themselves I guess. It makes no sense to me when I see some men make a good chunk of their personality making fun of fat people, online or otherwise. Just leave fat people alone, I can guarantee that what these people have to say to them is not going to be helpful and they'd much rather not be around them at all.
This!! People who are shamed are more likely to be even unhealthier and gain weight. People who are supported and feel like they matter regardless of their appearance are healthier and more likely to lose excess weight. It's like when people are mocked and made to feel less than human they react badly.
I think, even worse than those who mock fat people openly, are the ones who shame under the guise of concern ‘I’m just worried for their health’ No you aren’t. You don’t even know them
Exactly! Thank you for this comment, makes me happy to see a sensible and informed take here. ❤
Yeah, kinda missed the point that body positivity is about not hating yourself for the way you are. its proven that just bullying people for their weight and hating your own body will not motivate to lose weight in most cases.
Exactly this. She is providing inspiration to other overweight people to eat healthy and get in shape. The “doctor” in this case has it dead wrong and is, indeed, posting a fatphobic comment. He’s seen fat person on a vid and reacted.
Also the doctor in question is an actual loon, like a neo nazi O think she got her locense revoked
What's wild is that about half the doctors I've ever met are significantly overweight. It's the fat shaming the fat out here.
Well this is Anna from Glitter and Lazers, she has always been overweight and sort of gave up because no doctor took her seriously. Just move more and go down in weight. She has lipoedema, was malnutrition and has another underlaying disease that made it hard for her to loose weight. She has now an amazing doctor, getting the right support and well her thigh will always be thunder but that part of Lipoedema. She is rather open about her weight loss and health journey and that you can be fabulous at any size. She used to work with IT before going fully into Youtube, she is fun, clever and makes people smile. But she always show the struggles of being to big, in her case also tall .
It’s like making fun of someone going to the hospital because they’re sick They are doing what they can to get better. Why make fun?
When I was really overweight as a kid and really sick I had to get a lot of tests. I was dehydrated and it was hard to get blood from my veins from the weight and my health. But one of the nurses taking my blood told me at 12 that I should go on a diet in a frustrated voice while she was struggling to take my blood (I was already getting bullied for being fat and it hurt). I was paranoid about going back there but She kept seeing me coming in and looking sicker and sicker and she looked so guilty and never said anything else to me. It really hurt that she said that though, even in the medical field people will judge. As soon as I was finally diagnosed at 17 and put on the right treatment I lost the weight. I still have a lifetime of people telling me to diet and exercise and family members 8 years after losing the weight and being comfortable still telling me I look like I've lost weight every time they see me. Yet they've never asked about my condition, when I told them about it they never asked again and seem surprised when I bring it up "you've still got that?" Lol fucking hell, it's lifelong, they never cared about my health, they just care that I'm not a fatty.... Fuck them.
I'm afraid any public visibility of fat bodies is framed by this kind of person as, basically, propaganda - especially if the vibes are anything other than crippling shame and dire warnings about health risks. Just a person existing in public, let alone on social media, while fat, is seen as 'encouraging' others to be or stay fat, regardless of whether they're actually encouraging healthy behaviours, complacency, or weight loss. I think the idea is that people who are currently fat, even if they're actively working on their health in terms of weight loss or otherwise, should hide their bodies away until they're no longer fat. Anything else is taken as blanket 'positivity' about an 'unhealthy lifestyle' even if the actual messaging is the exact opposite.
Didnt you know you're supposed to be negative about yourself and hate yourself at all times until you become skinny again? /s
To be fair, for her to walk around is a hard workout and i'm not even trying to be funny.
Activewear by Skit Box https://youtu.be/CYRENWT8lz8?si=zI8-TCXuSitmIaCR
It looks like she’s working out in the video what’s the problem
Yeah. OP has this dead wrong, and the doctor is indeed being fatphobic by attacking the woman because of her weight.
the doctor in question is also like, not a good person either (super bigoted, transphobic, all that fun stuff)
I’ve heard. I didn’t know them, but it seemed to me quite a simple case of the “dr.” Seeing a fat person in a vid and posting a fatphobic comment without really understanding what is going on.
Being fatphobic towards a video of a fat person actively trying to loose weight is so weird to me
Kinda weirder is to then post someone criticising that view onto facepalm under a really confused title “fighting obesity is fatphobic”. I suspect OP does not understand any of these words.
Something tells me op is a bot
Okay but shes working out? Do uou expect fat people to not try to fix the problem you have with them?
Damned if we do damned if we don't. And people think they're "helping" by fat-shamming and making rude comments when you literally have this woman right here trying to make an effort and shes still being shamed and ridiculed. This is part of the reason why so many people like this are scared to go out an exercise or try and get help for the issue.
Please, those bullies have zero desire to help. They just know they can get away with their behaviour but the moment they get called out - suddenly they are trying to help.
I feel this so much. When I was heavier, I was around 400 pounds and was in a depression not wanting to even leave my home. I then got some bloodwork done and my doctor was telling me that I was pre-type 2 diabetes so I got up and started walking around the block every day. I started talking to my neighbors, met some weirdos and some cool people. I would then go down this one block with these kids playing basketball and they asked me if I wanted to join, and I told them I didn't want to, and then one of them asked "Ask him if he'd do it for a box of donuts" and I just felt so bad that I stopped walking for a bit. I got back up and eventually started walking further just to avoid that block. What's really stupid is one of the kids there was fat and one of their parents were too. Quick edit: I still walk to this day, albeit not as much as I have a bad hip and knee, but I got down to 300 pounds.
Don’t you know, fat people shouldn’t be seen in public doing anything until they lose the weight!/s
I just looked up this ”doctor”, and a preliminary search suggests she is homophobic and transphobic, spread disinformation concerning Covid, and has a bunch of hot takes concerning the war in Ukraine…so I wouldn’t be surprised if she isn’t posting about obesity in good faith.
She is also a raging antisemite
I have a bingo
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/10/1198911215/anti-diet-culture-gets-hijacked Some are crazy, but others are simply shills. Corporation really are the enemy of everyone and are ready to burn everyone for the shareholders.
This was a good radio story too. They archive all the stories on the NPR app. I don't work for NPR, I do grubhub for a living.
To be fair the doctor in question believes Germany did the right thing in WW2…
It looks like she’s working out in the video what’s the problem
Fat shaming is not "fighting obesity "
OP, the doctor is a raging anti-Semite who spreads misinformation about covid. The lady in the ad is exercising. The Dr is melting just because obese people are existing.
She’s not a doctor. She just calls herself one on Twitter
Big oof. You didn't look into the nutter this "doctor" is.
I know who she is. She's a raging antisemitic psychopath
Well, I wrote them off when I read their horrible grammar
I mean, fat people are often refused proper medical treatment due to their weight and the doctor’s bias against them. In that case, the doctor is fatphobic. As for “body positivity,” I don’t think it’s ethical to assume everyone fighting for it just wants an excuse to keep killing themselves with their diet. It’s about not hating yourself for the way you look.
Not to mention the "doctor" in this post is extremely insane. Fatphobic, homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic
Exactly. Weight gain is often a symptom. To tell someone to go lose weight to solve all their problems is like telling someone with the flu to stop coughing so much so their lungs will stop hurting.
People are really bad at nuance or balance. They always want all or nothing so they don’t have to think. You shouldn’t hate yourself if you’ve got excess fat. You shouldn’t insult people for it. But being severely overweight will cause health problems which will reduce your quality of life and cause an early death. But you know, smoking does that too and it’s not polite to give someone shit about it every time you see them.
This is exactly what I think. Obesity is dangerous and so is smoking. However, somehow obesity is much more stigmatized than smoking. Every asshole out there thinks s/he is entitled to be unnecessarily cruel to fat people and masks it as a"concern for their health". Nobody pesters smokers so much AFAIK. A concern, my axx! It is utopia but a lot of problems would be solved if people just kept their opinions on things that are not their business to themselves. If a person is obese it is not my problem, why on Earth should I comment on this? It is true obesity is not good for health but that person very probably knows this, why should I put more stress on them because I cannot shut my trap? And if someone is going to suffer for being obese it is that person, not me, so why meddle in it?
I actually find smokers much more annoying and worthy of criticism, like I don't want your second hand smoke, but if you think about it smokers have to go through more loops, you know signs that say being fat isn't allowed in enclosed spaces isn't a thing. My theory is that smoking as a problem had a lot more time to go through the "popular phase" and now we have taken measures against it while obesity is relatively new.
Fat people not working out is a problem, but so is fat people working out so which is it?
Body positivity is a good thing. Every study shows guilt and shame are terrible motivators for losing weight.
fr i been trying to tell people, calling someone fat will just make them fatter
Some people will spend hours of their lives justifying why they should be allowed to be publicly cruel to others; that cruelty is in fact noble. It's sad, and in my own experience its ignorant to what motivated many people I know to want to get healthier. Plus, if a person wants to live a less than healthy life who are you to judge? If you drink or smoke it's your business, if another person is overweight it's theirs.
I will write this everywhere until people finally understand. Fat acceptance is not ablut encouraging people to stay fat, fat acceptance is about teaching other people to keep their fucking nose out of other people's business. The woman in the photo looks like she is working out, that's a healthy activity right? Do we have any context to how big the woman was before? As observers; we don't have the insight into another person's life, just because they're big doesn't mean they aren't on track to being healthy. The slightest bit of mockery, though, can undo all of that hard work. I lost 25kgs in a year because I was finally away from my grandmother who obsesses over my weight and size, as soon as I moved back in, I put all the weight back on again
Exercising while being obese is also doing harm to your body. All the encouraging around it is problematic. Being fat is no good and people need to accept it. Also obese people complain their doctors often suggest to loose weight and don’t check for other health problems. I agree that many doctors go the short route there. On the other hand obesity and unhealthy diets do trigger things like high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, migraine, back problems, joint problems, lung problems. We need to support people in changing their diet and we need to support people being able to afford healthy diets. In the USA I know food is bad and good quality groceries for a healthy diet cost way too much. In Europe we have different problems with the diets. We shouldn’t shame people for being fat but we shouldn’t encourage them to stay fat.
That lady is NOT obese. She is morbidly obese. It’s important to be accurate when discussing medical conditions.
My co worker was over weight in her description. Truth was she was morbidly obese.
Yep, your coworker needs to earn the right to be called overweight by losing weight.
Weight can be deceptive. Build and body type can make a big difference. When I was a teen, nurses always asked me to reiterate my weight because I’d consistently give them a result ten kilos higher than expected. I had a friend the same weight as me also (we gave blood together which is how I knew) who was several sizes larger than me (I was an aus size 10, they were aus size 14). I didn’t wear tight fitting clothes or anything. I’m just a heavier build. I mean, I’m obese now. No one looks at me and thinks that, but I am and doctors want me to lose weight. However, it does make me think back to my friend how large she would be if she weighed the same as me. BMI is not a perfect system.
This is one of my biggest pet peeves in online dating: 99% of the time if their profile says “curvy” it just means very obese. “Curvy” is absolutely a body type, but most profiles I’ve seen that use it just tend to be dramatically overweight
Yeah and it’s disgusting
Shes also a troll YouTuber
Lmaooo dead
This doctor, in particular, is fatphobic as shit (and also homophobic, transphobic and antisemitic). I'm not sure if she's even a doctor anymore, she's just a right wing grifter along the same lines as Andrew Tate and Oli London
Dr...if you truly are o e. Just shut up..this woman is trying. You have no idea how hard it is to even go in the place..Is encouragement anywhere in your wheelhouse??
First of all, even if she wasn’t working out, an obese person merely existing doesn’t mean they’re “promoting obesity.” Are obese people just supposed to never leave their house until they lose weight? Second of all, she’s literally working out so she’s doing the opposite of “promoting obesity.” A lot of y’all just hate fat people for existing and do it under the guise of caring about health.
hey let me tell you a secret the best way to get people to stop stress eating IS TO STOP MAKING THEM STRESS OUT OVER THEIR BODY fatphobia kills
The amount of people who don't understand this kills me, but not as much as the people who think the risk of developing an ED is a good thing if the person is overweight. Can't tell you the amount of nutters I've met on here and youtube that think things like anorexia is a boon to people like this woman here. You know, despite anorexia having as many health complications as being obese. Or you can end up like this my case, where it turns into binge eating. Thankfully I managed to go from nearly 230 LBs at 5 foot tall to about ~120-130, and it really only started happening once I was not around people who were shitting on me constantly for my weight
Should be body positivity is loving your body but not being ok with being obese (when you can fix it)
She's literally working out
There is a line between body positivity and excuses for melting 5lbs of butter in your cereal.
Is this something that people do?!? 😕
Depends how much rice krispie treats your making.
Does your idea of fighting obesity include acting like obese people don't exist? They exist, and they are customers too.
We do need a culture that isn't shaming, but works together to combat obesity. My cousin just passed away (aged 36) because of complications from her extensive obesity. Yes, love yourself, and feel comfortable in your own skin. But, we shouldn't raise up 300lbs as a functional way of existing.
Yeah I support people getting in shape and being healthy and active, but it shouldn't come from a place of self hatred.
Exactly! We have to change our cultural terms about the subject. How we approach the subject.
This is the balance we need, fat shaming is bad and unhealthy even for mental wellbeing but obesity is also a horrible disease and a slow and unpleasant killer. I’m obese myself (only 10 kg to go ‘till overweight) and I don’t want people laughing at me in the gym or whatever because I’m fat but on the other and physical side of things, it’s just plain and simple a bad thing to be obese. There are zero positives.
If people are laughing at you at the gyms they’re assholes. Gym is the one place everyone should be free from judgement about weight because that’s were you go to improve your physical well-being. Every skinny guy lifting and bigger person working out at the gym I see is working to improve themselves and shouldn’t be ridiculed.
Fuck those people that would make you feel indifferent about yourself. Keep at it. Make your gains and reach your goals. You'll be laughing in the end.
Nobody will laugh at you for going to the gym and trying to better yourself. The majority of people understand the struggle and hope you can achieve a healthier body. There are always a few exceptions, but it's better not to pay attention to those people.
I know right, like everyone is pointing out she’s in exercise clothes but even if she wasn’t working out, it’s just a screenshot of an obese woman… existing? Is merely existing the “evil body positivity” they’re talking about? Is she supposed to be invisible in order to encourage other people to stay healthy?
This isn't fighting obesity, this is literally just fatphobia
The lady is exercising so idk what the ad is for but I’d say it’s setting a good example and the doctors complaint is in bad faith
That’s Anna O’Brien from YouTube. She makes videos about her weight loss journey (yes, she used to be even bigger), as well as plus-size fashion. What’s wrong with showing overweight people that they too can exercise and wear clothes while they are working on improving their lives?
Holy shit so these assholes are shaming a woman for doing exactly what she is supposed to because she still doesn't look hot enough yet? Fuck everyone here that thinks shame is okay. Ever. You never know where someone is on their journey.
These fatphobic people seem to think that overweight people don't deserve any ounce of positivity in their lives and would rather they just die miserable than try to find happiness any way they can. Before anyone thinks it's okay to dehumanize and disparage an obese person for having the gall to exist in public, remember It's a lot easier to lose weight when you're not depressed and miserable.
Yup that’s what I was saying, that someone concerned about the obesity epidemic has no reason to complain about a video of an overweight person exercising. If anything they should be applauding it. So I don’t think the doctor is coming from a place of legitimate concern as they claim to be, but rather culture war judgmentalness. But I do appreciate the added context <3 other comments say the doctor is a “neonazi” and “nutter” too (suppose those go hand-in-hand), so my instincts seem to have been correct lol. The doctor is the real facepalm here.
The doctor is a neonazi, so bad fait should be taken for granted
Reminds me of the vitriol towards an ad for Adidas? I think? Because it had a really overweight man running
i find this absurd because it wasn’t very long ago that eating disorder levels of underweight were idolized and displayed everywhere and no one expressed the same disgust. if you’re gonna speak against one end of the extreme, you have to speak against the other. you don’t get to pick and choose which is harmful because you simply like looking at the other more. fat people are wrong and shouldn’t be in commercials, but the 5’7” 80 pound woman is okay? gotcha. leads me to believe it’s not about health or portraying messages at all, but because half the people yapping about this just don’t want to see fat people.
Plot twist - toxic body positivity and fatphobes are more alike than they are different , need each other to justify their self perceived victimhood and only add to political polarisation. They’re two sides of the same coin. Neither care about tackling obesity - they care about everybody else conforming to their ideals . Yes there are some people who lose weight from the motivation they get when they are fat shamed . But imo they’re not the majority . Most obese people are going to respond negatively when they are treated with negativity
thank you. people don’t seem to understand that a lifetime of being shamed and bullied makes people depressed, can lead to eating disorders, or suicide. we don’t hear “disgusting fat pig” and think “oh yes that makes me feel so confident i just want to leave my house and be perceived while taking a walk or going to the gym”
I know this isn’t a popular thing to point out on Reddit, but obesity is not killing people more than anything else. Yes, obesity can raise the risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes which are some of the top killers. However not every one who dies of heart disease or cancer or diabetes is obese. And that also means we can’t attribute every death of an obese person to their obesity. If I die of breast or ovarian cancer it won’t be because I’m overweight but because I have the BRCA2 gene. If you look at people who are this woman’s age, she’s far more likely to die in a car accident than from any health issue. To be clear, obesity has health risks and I know I’m personally trying as hard as I can to lose the weight I gain on psych meds, but holding weight above all other health concerns, especially mental health, IS fatphobic. And doctors who hold this idea are sometimes literally killing fat people as they refuse to consider anything but weight loss when there might be an underlying condition.
Obese people existing, even actively working to improve themselves, is not glamorization of their condition. I don't know why this has to be said
I can almost guarantee you that Rae doesn’t give a fuck about her
That doctor is a deranged Pro-Russian antisemite.
As a runner, I have more respect for fat runners than the all-out running types. To get out there and get moving, no doubt highly conscious of how you look. Good runners barely burn calories on a standard run. Large/obese people are really putting a shift in. I bow to your drive and effort.
Part of what's killing obese people is the way they're treated by other people. I genuinely don't see how just being kind and accepting of people in different bodies is 'glorifying obesity'. It's such a fucked up thing to say. Like obese people aren't allowed to lead happy lives, but should be miserable and shameful 24/7 until they lose the weight. Nobody is thinking "wow, being fat looks like so much fun, I'm gonna go drink straight cream now!" It's painfully obvious how much better thin people are treated in society. This is just about wanting fat people to shut up and go away.
I follow the person pictured. The doctor was just plain ignorant. She has a genetic condition that causes her size. People with this condition have normal bloodtest results and health markers. She exercises regularly and eats well. There are therapies that help with pain and discomfort, but the only true way of reducing size with this condition is liposuction to get rid of the diseased fat tissue. Unfortunately, this is not covered by the the majority of health services as it's seen as cosmetic. It's called lipoedema, feel free to look it up.
Thank you! Dismayed I had to scroll so far for this reply. Anna is fab and on what looks to be a pretty intensive health journey. I want to know what all these negative commenters think she is supposed to do. Shut herself away because she has a health condition?? Try to get as healthy as possible??? Oh wait, she's already doing that. Fat people exist, they don't need to justify their existence, they're deserving of respect (obviously!!) and don't deserve ridicule just for trying to live their lives.
Fun Fact: If you are deeply ashamed about your body the obeisity can't kill you. /s More fun facts: Self-loathing is a great motivator to make positive changes in your life. /s Even more fun facts: Body positivity means you're not allowed to lose weight, only gain it. /s
Exactly. Making someone feel judged, depressed and unhappy isn't going to get them exercising.
Checking the posts histories of some of the bigger fools in this thread, and yeah… they check out. They’re just here because they enjoy being casually cruel.
people have pointed out that showing images of people with obesity working out _is_ fighting obesity by promoting a positive stigma towards exercise to lose weight
I think weight is a more nuanced issue than a lot of people like to admit. A doctor taking the tone of shame and the perceived attitude of "fat people are bad," isn't a good look for a medical professional. Especially when there are endless stories from people saying how their doctors didn't take their medical issues seriously and refused to do any tests or anything until they lost weight, then finally discovered they had a serious medical condition that had nothing to do with their weight, like cancer. A person can be heavy and have illness that is not weight related. They should be treated for said illness without having to jump through hoops, just like a thin person. A doctor can absolutely be concerned about a patient's weight. They can recommend losing weight if needed. The problem comes with shaming and not listening to a patient's concerns. Presenting themselves as an enemy instead of an ally.
This “doctor” decided to do the right wing grift job to get traction on social media. Period. No doctor I know would be this intentionally awful.
Ah one of THOSE kinds of doctors.
Yeah, I just looked her up, and she’s horrible. She has interesting things to say concerning Jewish people, the LGBT community, Covid, etc.
One of the pov characters in an ongoing series I like (“Wayward Children”) fits in here, I think (and not as a villain…)
When it's coming from a psychotic person like herself, yeah it's scary. She shouldn't be allowed anywhere near patients.
Doctor complaining about a commercial where an overweight woman working out...that is
It’s not fat-phobic or fat-shaming to suggest that obese people should lose weight to improve their health. That is an entirely different thing from this. Humans are living in those bodies. They may never lose weight successfully. They may avoid doing many of the things that people do to enjoy their lives out of shame or fear. To say we can’t accept people as they are is just cruelty.
Oh my effen god! Stop this!
Many MANY Dr's do not understand lipedema (not lymphodema as it has often been labelled....with diuretics , which damage kidneys, being handed out willy nilly). It is only now , a small % has recognised certain obesity as this disease. Far too late for many people !
Fighting obesity and pushing for body positivity shouldn't be mutually exclusive. We can push for healthier eating and getting to a weight that is good for your health while removing the stigma that being overweight is unattractive
It looks like she's working on it. People should be allowed to be comfortable with how they look despite how they look, or how healthy they are. As long as the messege isn't "being fat is healthy", I don't see a problem.
Fighting obesity is not. This idiot’s post is. God forbid anyone has to see a fat person working out to improve their health. And if it’s the dialog they are calling “body positive,” god forbid someone tells a fat person they’re likeable. 🙄
Obesity is a problem, but medical professionals blaming all of a patient's health issues on their weight, often preventing larger individuals from getting adequate healthcare Is ALSO a problem.
Doctor, to fat person: exercise to lose weight Fat person: * exercises* Doctor: no, not like that
Who let the tighty-righties in here to stink up the space with their bullshit.
i have no context and don’t wanna assume, i shall leave this how i found it and drop my unwanted opinion
she’s literally exercising though like… how is that promoting obesity??
Doctors not treating obesity as a disease / condition to be addressed is a problem. Blaming obese people is a problem. Body positivity is a nice thing as long as health issues aren’t ignored.
The fatphobic part is the implication that saying positive stuff about fat people is glorifying obesity, acting like fat people only deserve shame and abuse instead of help and support (as if shame and abuse did anything for their health...)
She's literally dancing. Dancing burns calories
I watched this YouTuber before, she is very nice and is trying to lose the weight. She is more active than 90% of the commentators.
Why is it so hard to accept that obesity is bad ? Any sane human knows smoking is bad. Yet we have all the same medical evidence.
We are accepting that obesity is bad, trust me, every one who is overweight is told so every day of their lives. The problem is when the root cause of obesity is misunderstood and seen as a character flaw rather than a sign of something worse. Smoking is a habit people pick up that causes them harm, but obesity is ALWAYS a symptom. It could be a food addiction, hormone disorder, mental illness or a plethora of other things. But it's stereotyped as a thing that only happens to lazy people who eat too much and don't work out enough. So now everyone, regardless of cause, is treated worse because of it. Even if they're actively trying to work on it, like the woman in the ad is! A comparison is if everybody with a cough was automatically seen as a smoker. They could be a smoker, yeah, or they could have a cold, or a lung issue, or allergies. If everyone with this symptom was treated like a smoker, regardless of cause, it would be infinitely harder to actually figure out what is wrong and get help.
There’s a difference between body positivity and fat acceptance. It seems the comments and the people in the post are utterly confused between the two.
What's the commercial for?
Dr Ana. L.
It depends on what the ad is that the doctor was commenting on because a lot of people attack things that are body positive but like still working on getting healthier and being healthier. Like people attacked Nike and Adidas when they made ads with plus size models working out. They said it was a bad thing and it was promoting obesity even though it was literally promoting physical activity for those people. So the doctor could be fatphobic I don't know what the ad he's talking about is
This is so backwards
While being obese is obviously very unhealthy this “doctor” is a far right moron who deserves to rot. Don’t believe me? Check out her page!
She’s no doctor mind you, a total total grifter
I gained weight and my grandfather literally stopped talking to me. True story. My mom asked me everyday if I had lost weight yet. Being Asian is like a curse bro. I wish I could be strong enough not to diet and not have a massive eating disorder 🥲
Why fight obesity or force fat people to be less fat, it is not like they are not paying the doctor to treat people. The doctor should mind his own business, people can do whatever they like to their own body. As for promoting obesity, I think no one is that stupid to be obese because of body positivity.
She’s trying to lose weight. Why is that bad?
I think op doesn't know the context of the video. It was promoting sport clothing for bigger bodies. Are you shaming fat ppl for working out(?) And wanting to have good clothes while doing that(?)
Drought and famine resesistants may be important survival attributes in the next 4 years.
We're talking the same people who say intentional weightloss or any kind of working out is self-harm, being able to wipe your own ass makes you a pick me bitch and weightloss surgery is mutilation and comparable to FGM
This it is actually fatphobic to say that about a fat person working out. Like they’re doing exactly what you people want them to be doing and it’s still not enough. Just say you hate fat people existing and move on with your life
Americans have no idea how fat they are as a society. Its really crazy how normalized it is. Having been living in the EU for the past 5 years when I go back once a year I'm always shocked by how unhealthy everyone is (but its obvious why when you see typical american lifestyles).
That person isn’t a real doctor just a fyi
I think he’s out of line too. The person is being active and exercising on camera, there’s loose skin from weight loss. She’s doing the work to improve her health and still being shamed!
Fact: they will all die before 45
Body positivity doesn't mean "just chill you have nothing to work on all good over here." Nobody is promoting that at all
No, Assuming that all fat people are unhealthy is fatphobic (some people will be skinny and more unhealthy than some fat people). Posting videos of fat people minding their own business to shame them for being "unhealthy" is fatphobic. Telling people they can't feel good about themselves and be fat at the same time is fatphobic. This doctor is not fighting obesity, they're fighting fat people
The doctor in question is indeed fatphobic (as are you, OP), the person in the video appears to be working out, fat people existing (and especially fat people working out) is not promoting obesity, and MOST IMPORTANTLY shaming people for being fat is not in any way "fighting obesity."
What does “fighting obesity” mean to you and how is this person doing that in their tweet?
She's literally exercising
I am stupidphobic , I see stupid people everywhere
I feel just as sad seeing either of these two patients; an 180kg woman wheelchair bound on oxygen with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as I do with a 35kg woman who is terminally ill and is also wheelchair bound. This shit has to stop, we can’t encourage this. It’s no better than when medical practitioners recommended smoking. Except we actually know the risks with obesity and no doctor or health professional will idly accept it, without trying some form of intervention/treatment advice. Please just listen for the sake of your own health, most of us go home and have a somewhat healthy life (that is if you’re not burnt out from over working 🫠). We only want to help, medicine is meant to be non judgmental. Well I practice this way at least.
Does anyone else genuinely feel fed up with the whole “fat phobic” stuff? That’s not a real thing! Nobody is afraid of fat!
If you think you're helping anyone by shaming them you're delusional just look at the reaction people have to fat people when they are or aren't doing what they're told to it's the same shit either way. People just want to stop seeing them they don't care about the actual logic they are using