Higher fat content, ironically, was linked to weaker bones, which are more prone to fractures. Really no getting around the damage you are doing to your body no matter how healthy you feel.

I don't think we have any proof that there is a certain weight or body fat percentage that will give you optimal health as health is such a mixture of things. I do believe you can be overweight and healthy.

Although I will say excess weight can put stress on your joints as evidenced by the fact that I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis at the age of 30. Although exercise has kept my knee issues at bay for the most part and I've even done things like running pain free. Of course I had to lose 150 lbs to do it :)

Each person's health is very individual and you can't say 'you are overweight therefore you are unhealthy' because that just isn't true. Health isn't black and white in terms of either you are healthy or you aren't. You can be in pretty good health with room for improvement but I wouldn't call you unhealthy.

Now there may be some issues that arise due to weight but a lot of health issues come due to your diet and lack of activity which can cause obesity and are things that are related to poor health. So is it a case that someone who is obese is automatically unhealthy? Or is it unhealthy habits that cause obesity and poor health? Also there are some genetic components to overall health as well.

What are your credentials?

One:

I never said being a normal weight automatically made someone healthy.

Two:

I never said overweight people should be treated with anything less than respect.


I don't "accept" my fat. If the best person I can be is someone who stuffed herself up to 315lbs, I don't accept that. I won't.

Now someone is going to come along and assert that (most) people don't become obese by overeating and lack of movement...

I really feel the tension in this place. I thought we were all in this together and we came here for encouragement!! I do not feel that from this thread. It reminds me of people debating politics or religion...........

Duplicate post.

Yeah I did think we were all in this together. I stupidly joined a site dedicated to weight loss and had the nerve to assert that being morbidly obese may be less than optimum for health.

My mistake!

Everyone calm down :D

MyBestYear - you asked a question, "What do you think of the FA Movement", and you're certainly getting a wide variety of responses, based on all different perspectives. My own answer to your question was somewhere in the middle, and you have answers on either sides. One of the underlying notions in the FA Movement is that obesity is not necessarily the cause in and of itself of many of the health problems with which it is associated, so it's natural that that concept would be debated a bit as well.

It's OK to have different opinions on this (though I am going to move the thread over to "General Chatter" since it is less about support and more about discussion)...we're all coming from our own perspective. One of the great things about 3FC is the variety of viewpoints we have, even though we're all here for a common goal.

I don't think it's like that at all. I'm sorry you feel that way, though. :hug:

Everyone has their own opinions, and this is a hot topic, especially for a group of fat chicks!

Discrimination and knowing right and wrong are two different things. We all know the drawback of being overweight and I'm sure people who lose the weight are screaming because they want everyone to strive for the freedom being fit brings them. Some people just need a wake up call. It takes time. If you want to stay overweight you might be in the wrong forum.

I think discussion about weight and weight loss is a good thing. We may have slightly differing opinions but that is how things go :)

We also have opinions based on our own experiences and of course some of the issues arise with the fact that things like BMI aren't a good measure of health but they are how we measure whether we are overweight, obese, morbidly obese or beyond.

And of course studies in terms of health and weight tend to be inconclusive although there are plenty of reasons to look at weight and weight loss.

For me, one of my own struggles is that I've lost 150 lbs and I'm happy with my weight even though I'm officially obese. And as I said before, health is a very individual thing much as weight is a very individual thing. Someone may feel disgusted if they weighed as much as me while I'm thrilled.

To be honest, I have mixed feelings. I do think that people shouldn't be judged and any form of discrimination is wrong, whether is has to do with sex, color, national origin, sexuality, and weight. I find it sad that as a country we are so insecure with ourselves and instead of embracing differences, we belittle others to ward off our own sense of inadequacy.
People of size should not be made to feel inferior, but then again don't we dictate our own feelings?
Weight and health are two completely different issues, what body size works for one person doesn't work for another. We shouldn't try to put everyone in the same box, not only is it counter-productive...quite frankly it's boring.
I think if we just treated people, all people, the way we want to be treated, we wouldn't have a need of any acceptance movement.
I've met people in my life, smaller than me and bigger than me, but what makes a person beautiful and attractive isn't their outside, it's their inside.
Is being morbidly obese the optimum choice for health, well no but being an insensitive, crude jerk isn't optimum for health either.
It's all about what works for each person and as human beings, our real job is to embrace our fellow man, regardless of their color, sexual orientation or weight.
Just my thoughts

I'm not sure why you, OP, are getting so defensive because some people here disagree with you on a couple of things. The fact is, if you don't feel healthy the way you are, you can change it. Other people asserting that they are healthy at their current weight is not meant as an affront to you, nor is you suggesting that you are not healthy at your current weight an affront to anyone else. The problem is that there are many people that claim that, across the board, overweight people are not healthy, and that they are not healthy because of their obesity. However, correlation does not equal causation. What that means is that if studies show that overweight indivuduals are X times more likely to die of, say, heart failure it doesn't meant that those overweight people are more likely to die BECAUSE of their weight. They might be more likely to die because they eat more processed foods, or get less aerobic excercise, or are more likely to smoke, or any number of things. It could also mean that people who have heart problems become overweight in part because of those heart problems. In any case, none of that really matters to the issue of Fat Acceptance. As a PP mentioned, FA isn't about saying "all fat people are healthy" or "there are no risks associated with obesity." It's about telling people, in general, that a persons weight is none of anyone else's business. Since you stated that you don't feel like overweight people should be treated poorly because of their weight, then you agree with FA. To say otherwise is like women who say they aren't feminists, but think women should have the same rights as men.

I don't agree choosing obesity is a healthy lifestyle choice.

I feel very ambivalent about only one faction of FA (the part that accomodates fat and feeder fetishists). I think the NAACP would have been in trouble if it had embraced white men interested only in having sex with non-white partners.

Finding FA though saved my sanity, if not my life. Learning that I didn't have to think about myself the way everyone else seemed to -the way I was taught to. Fat may not be great, but I am. Crash dieting was not healthy and was not a virtue. Getting the fat off by any means (even those that were extremely unhealthy and even dangerous) was not acceptable.

How much "extra" weight starts to cause health problems? How much IS "extra?" Does "extra" weight provide (or is it associated with) any health advantages?

I've found that these questions piss people off. Even a tiny bit "extra" (like 5 and 10 lbs) is often seen as a health concern, when there's no evidence that this is true. The leanest humans are not the healthiest. A study that found that slightly "overweight" people live longer than any other weight group was met with an outcry of angry responses to the study because it "encouraged" people to stop striving for an "ideal" weight (who the heck gets to decide ideal anyway? Well in this country the insurance companies, the fashion, movie and film industries and the tabloid media, apparently).

From the arguments used to criticise me most of my life, I've come to the conclusion that most people couldn't care less about health (except to use it as a weapon). No one cares that I'm not healthy - they only care that I'm ugly (to them). I'm "supposed to" feel crappy about myself and that's all that matters. Any time I am obviously happy about myself (having nothing to do with my fat) someone always has to point out that I shouldn't be happy because I'm fat (and sadly so often, the person throwing that argument is fat or was fat - and usually is female).

I can't help but think that when the ONLY legitimate argument against obesity is TRULY health, the obesity problem would be much easier to address. In the history of medical, psychiatric and mental treatment - success really only began when the stigma and judgments started to change. In the early years, addiction and mental health problems, people didn't seek treatment for fear of the stigma. It's almost like the predator's instinctive response - hide your weakness or your fellow predators will tear you apart. If you go further back, before medical treatment was common place (when illness was caused by "demons" or immoral living) people hid medical issues also.

You can't hide fat, except by hiding. It's no longer socially acceptable to hide away our mentally ill and handicapped relatives, but it is still socially acceptable for fat folks to be hidden. It's even encouraged. Fat people face some of the worst criticism when they're seen in public trying to do something about it. I've gotten more dirty looks, nasty noises and comments and outright hostility not when eating an ice cream cone, but when eating a salad ("who is she kidding," said very loudly), dancing (Gawd, she looks ridiculous), and when exercising or doing other activities that fat people aren't supposed to be seen doing.

I've even had women flirt with my husband in front of my face, because they think I'm no competition (My husband and I share a lot in common, he's also fat, extremely sociable and funny. It just shows that the stigma against fat men isn't quite the same as it is for women).

I've also been told in a variety of ways (enough times to be extremely saddened by it) that I'm "not like other fat people." Every time, it was meant as a compliment, but I see it as the ultimate proof of descrimination. Fat is so bad, that anyone who isn't lazy, crazy, selfish, stupid, incompetent and smelly is the "exception" to the rule.

I know many of you have heard this many times, but once, in response to my making a comment about being fat (I think it was about not being able to find nice business clothes in my size) a coworker told me "you're not fat."

I weighed nearly 400 lbs at the time, OF COURSE I WAS FAT. I started laughing (hysterical, pee yourself, laughing). My coworker got embarassed and snapped "you know what I mean."

Sadly, yes I do. Fat is such a horrible, terrible, evil thing to be that an intelligent, successful, funny, sociable woman had to be something else - certainly not (hushed whisper of horror) FAT.

Saddest of all, is the defensiveness with which our society reacts to the very idea of destigmafying fat. We're encouraged to be "tolerant" of most deviances (even unhealthy ones) except obesity. Jumping out of airplanes and swimming with sharks, sex "addicts" having unprotected sex with sexually transmitted diseases - these are all (proven by research) seen more sympathetically than obesity. Fat rape victims have the least "success" in getting their rapist's put away (I guess they were "lucky" to get any male attention at all). When a rapist gets more sympathy than a fat woman, something is terribly wrong.

The superficiality of the human race sometimes disgusts me (attractive rapists are more likely to be judged not guilty than ugly ones. Rapists that are more attractive than their victims even more so. I guess rape isn't that bad if your attacker is cuter than you are).

Sometimes people suck.

I can't dwell on the evil in the world, whether it's aimed at fat or something else, but I can fight it. I can stand up for myself and I can refuse to allow the world to convince me that I'm supposed to hate myself. I'm not going to do it, and I'm going to do what I can to help others not fall for the lies in that message either.

I especially hate though when "health" is used as a stick to beat someone with (especially when the beater has many lifestyle-induced health problems of their own).

It isn't about hate for me though. I love myself lots - but I see my obesity as a result of not loving myself enough to care for my body -- so I don't *accept* that.