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Comment by nelblu | Hacker News Reader

I have a friend and she believes that obesity is a made-up disease by doctors to marginalise fat people (she calls it fatphobia). She refuses to acknowledge that obesity actually causes health issues, instead she defends obesity by citing that even "fit" people are victims of heart diseases etc. And then she makes it sound plausible by talking about how we should focus on complete health like mind + body. I went to one of her talks about it and almost all attendees were obese. Just to be clear, I don't deny about her points on fatphobia (i.e. how society rewards fit and good looking people more than fat people), but she completely loses me when she talks about how nothing is wrong with being super fat. (Btw I used to be very fat growing up and once i got my first job i have stuck to a fit lifestyle so to me it is completely against everything that I did to get rid of my obesity)

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> by citing that even "fit" people are victims of heart diseases etc.

Yes, but with waaay lower incidence as thousands of studies (0 issues on reproducibility here) show.

> by talking about how we should focus on complete health like mind + body.

Sure, as long as she realizes that the two are interconnected and that at some point you'll have to do something, for real, for the body too.

Also in this case, there is an astronomical amount of research that shows the benefits of being in the "fit zone" irt body composition and of living an active lifestyle.

And for you, my sincere compliments for having turned around your life and changed your lifestyle, you rock.

Can she not see that very overweight people are literally just not able to get around daily life as easily as physically fit people? She must be able to see that other people do things easily that would make her very out of breath? And can she not see that more physically fit people are more comfortable without the extra weight? I would have thought you could see all these things plainly even if you disbelieved all the things doctors told you.

Can she not see that very overweight people are literally just not able to get around daily life as easily as physically fit people?

Fat-rights people just take that as evidence of a conspiracy of “thin supremacy”, similar to how some people see “white supremacy” everywhere they look.

You mean like the size of seats and doors and things? I can understand that point of view.

But I mean things where there is no design being imposed. Like I can stroll down the beach if I want to. An extremely overweight person cannot. Nobody's imposed anything that makes that harder for them except their weight.

They must think to themselves 'it'd be nice to walk down the beach... I wonder why I can't do that without being uncomfortable when these other people can...' and realise that extra weight brings quality-of-life limitations.

Not everyone who is obese is at that level of being unable to do things, to be fair.

I recently lost weight (~30 lbs) taking me from the threshold of obesity (30 BMI) to the threshold between overweight and normal weight (25 BMI).

While I certainly find it easier to be physically active now with less weight, I was still able to do multi-hour hikes, bike rides, and other physical activity before at the higher weight.

And if your lifestyle is such that you drive everywhere and don’t do much physical activity besides short periods of walking I can certainly see not really considering being even heavier to be too much of a drain on your lifestyle.

That is a very harmful belief that your friend has. It is unfortunately quite common.

I have, though, wrote a few things that people should keep in mind when discussing obesity, elsewhere in this thread.

Summarized: Willpower is not a panacea, mind is not above biology; Most people have not conciously chosen to be fat; Ostracizing fat people creates harmful effects and echo-chambers -- constructive criticism is much more effective; Do not forget the part that medical disorders can play in obesity.

Of course, this applies only if you actually want to help fat people. If your (not you exactly but people generally) only point is to bully, then the effort of providing constructive criticism is not worth it, the end result being unappealing (i.e. not getting an explosive reaction out of the person you're bullying).

In any case, if you want to help, do not approve of such lifestyles (i.e. fat-acceptance), but do not bully. People may need psychological support and even medical in case of an illness. If you want to harm people, just don't.

That seems little different from the opposite end of the spectrum where anorexics form "support groups" to encourage each other to be anorexic. I don't know if there is a right way to deal with it. Maybe you could ban those groups from online platforms, but that won't stop them from doing it "in real life." These people probably need mental healthcare, but there's no humane system in place to force treatment on them (and forced treatment probably wouldn't be effective anyway.)

> but that won't stop them from doing it "in real life."

Ban them on online platforms, ostracize them in real life.

It may sound harsh, but it's not, considering all the people you'll save from them.

Is this really the best solution? I feel like this only feeds the "conspiracy" more. In my view, it's always better to let people spread their (false) views, and just make factual information easily available to counter them.

A lot of people who are attracted to such extremism are not in a rational frame of mind anyway - ostracising them in real life only serves to send them deeper into their rabbit hole.

> "ostracize them in real life."

Are they not already though? I suppose it's always possible to go even further, but I'm not convinced that would work. Perhaps it would be instructive to consider how obese people are treated in countries where obesity rates are low. Are fat people ostracized to a greater or lesser degree in those countries?

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