For those who aren’t familiar with the term, it means believing something that probably shouldn’t be believed, or being influenced to believe something that’s not necessarily in your best interests.
For those who aren’t familiar with the term, it means believing something that probably shouldn’t be believed, or being influenced to believe something that’s not necessarily in your best interests.
People are just very judgemental when it comes to weight. I think a lot of people like to believe that it all comes down to self-control, which is not the case. That can be very harmful. People are blamed for their own medical situations. Their self esteem is harmed and they are made to suffer through years and years of diets making the situation worse without getting the appropriate (medical) help they need.
We also judge people by their face all the time, and there is nothing they can do to change it.
And because of our animal side, we value beauty higher than almost anything else, which makes us stupid and easily manipulated.
I agree. That happens too. But I think the process of judging people by their face is largely an implicit and unconscious one. I do not think that many people will actually claim that they believe that you can decide whether someone is a bad person by e.g., the shape of their chin. (Although you always will have exceptions.) This makes it very hard to change.
Many people will claim that overweight is just the result of a lack of self control. This is something they believe explicitly and consciously. It is possible to change that believe and it should change as it is incorrect.
Even if it would be lack of self control, I dont see why people get to judge that person for it. The old saying that you need to walk in someones shoes to truly understand them is very true…
Why not support people who struggle instead of tearing them down? Specially now when we live in a society and a person being fat is no downside to the group. I can see how it could be an issue if you are a group in the forest and you have to walk long distances and the fat person slows everyone down and it endangers the group. But we dont have that situation today at all. So why not lift them up and help?
I agree with that. There is no reason to not just accept overweight people like anyone else.
To play the devil’s advocate, there’s some nuance to this. If someone is metabolically unhealthy and obese, they impose an on-going cost to society if only in terms of healthcare. It’s somewhat on the same lines as
Shaming fat people and blaming them for being fat surely isn’t constructive. It very rarely, if ever, is a lack of self control. But I also don’t think we should accept a metabolically diseased state as normal.
I think obese people should get the help they need, but we should accept them for who they are as a person. It is the same as with other physical or psychological issues or disabilities. It is very rude to keep reminding people that they cost a lot and are a burden to society because of their disease. People’s value as a human being should not be determined by that and it should not affect whether they are accepted.