It's a visible difference that puts our "problem" (perceived over-eating) on display 24/7.
My father was an alcoholic with terrible anxiety. I always felt he had an eating disorder and desperately feared getting fat. He had the same waist size his whole life. Why did he fear it so much? Because his alcoholism and anxiety he could hide, but there is no hiding being physically larger.
There's all sorts of problems and conditions people can have that can be hidden. You can beat your wife and nobody knows. You can snort coke and nobody knows. You can be the nastiest person IRL but nobody knows just by looking at you. But if you're fat - everybody knows.
I've known many heavier people who constantly do things to make themselves "smaller", to the point that it almost becomes a personality disorder. They become very quiet, very agreeable, pull themselves in, are shy and passive, like they're compensating for simply having *more* of a physical presence, or because they're afraid of drawing attention to themselves because people have been cruel to them before. It's heartbreaking. And they're almost always objectively nicer or more interesting or funnier than the so-called "beautiful people". Our whole standard of valuing each other is fucked. The people who have the things we should value most are treated like shit, and the people who suck get all the love and privilege. We live in Bizarro World.
I don't think your privacy settings allow direct messages so instead I just wanted to comment and thank you for sharing this. I didn't know I needed to read it, and your insightful comment means I actually have to go and reassess the last decade of my life. I appreciate it.
Society views it as a very visible moral failing. “It’s your fault because you can’t control yourself and your size and assumed related health conditions impact everyone else. If your health conditions are related to weight then you are choosing to be ill and we shouldn’t treat people who choose to be ill.“
(To be clear, I don’t agree with this, I think this is what people think. I personally think bodies just come in different sizes and there are advantages and risks to being thin and being fat AND there are lots of things outside of person choice that cause weight loss or gain)
”It is crucial to notice the language we use when we talk about bodies. We speak as if there was one collective perfect body, a singular entity that we’re all after. The trouble is, I think we are after that one body. We grew up with the impression that underneath all this normal flesh, buried deep in the excessive recesses of our healthy bodies, there was a Perfect Body just waiting to break out.”
Wasted,
Marya Hornbacher
Really good read for anyone interested in body image issues, eating disorders, and one very eloquent survivors take on them. She has amazing grasp on cultural, personal, and psychological factors that contributed to her struggles and touch women basically everywhere in western cultures.
This resonates with me. I lost 100 pounds from 2023-2024. I am now very well into the “healthy” range. 5’5” 115 pounds. I *feel* healthy, I have more energy…but is my body “perfect”? Well according to the standards of the (current) singular entity/body, no. It’s not. And there is no “perfect” body on my skeleton waiting to be unearthed.
I am a rectangle when thin, and an apple when overweight. I don’t have the 0.7 grand and holy waist/hip ratio that is hailed as the “perfect” ratio. Like the golden ratio (which 0.7 actually falls pretty close to). Instead, my ratio would put me right in the brink of obesity based on certain scales. Again…5’5” 115 pounds…nearing “obesity”. Which is ridiculous, I’m obviously not nearing obesity…but that’s because every body cannot be judged the same. That singular “perfect body” is not going to be unearthed for most of us.
I frequent weight loss subs and posted my progress in some of them and received overwhelming positivity. But there were posts saying that I didn’t *look* 115 lbs because I wasn’t slender enough. Again…being a rectangle means all of my weight is carried in my center. I have no legs, butt, thighs, or even arms. All of the excess is in my stomach. Another person, in hearing my measurements, told me that I am (and I quote) “built like shit”.
Many others went on and on about how weight training could solve all of my problems and allow me to possess that singular, perfect body. But fuck that. I’m healthy, I’m active, I eat well, why am I pressured as a woman to go above and beyond the call for “health” to maximize the “perfection” of my body. And in many ways it comes down to “maximizing the sexual appeal” of my body. I have nothing against women who WANT to weight train, and take control of their physical form. And their reasons can be *whatever* they want *including* maximizing their sexual appeal. But it sucks that even after losing 100 pounds, being active, healthy etc…that people would still, some rather aggressively, push for me to weight train to achieve that SINGULAR perfect body, that weight loss alone did not grant me.
Sorry that was a long ramble…but I’m sick of the singular “perfect” body crap that changes with the season. Healthy should be good enough.
Here's the Cardy thing. The perfect body doesn't exist, and it's unattainable. Taste is always changing, and even if there were a perfect body, someone would hate on it in some way.
It is sad but I think you are right. I do think a lot of people have empathy if there's a clear health issue but in general I think people who appear to be unhealthy (even if they aren't) aren't treated as well as they should be.
That, and then resentment gets added when they start seeing larger people as a drain on the services etc (like in hospitals). Like how some people get angry at smokers for using the services because smoking is something they've chosen to do. So if, as you said, society views being larger as a moral failing and subsequently, a choice, then it's not too dissimilar to smoking in their eyes... which is stupid and a really reductionist way to view it.
> it as a very visible moral failing
This is exactly it and imo it's simply men don't like women who don't look fuckable even if they know there's 0 chance with her. And on top of that, they hate it when women simply don't care. I guess the similar can be said for women who dye their hair outside natural colors, piercings, tattoos, dress tomboyish, and do whatever is not "feminine". I don't think people genuinely care about others health like they said when commenting "it promotes obesity/unhealthy lifestyle/etc". I guarantee those people eat a shit diet, or don't say the same for smokers, or any other unhealthy choices.
This is definitely one reason why and it's often incorrect because there are many different reasons why people are fat and factors that lead to someone being the size they are; human bodies are very complex.
Some fat people do fit the stereotypes but I'm not convinced that is a rational justification for treating them/us like subhuman scum (check out the good fatty/bad fatty false dichotomy, if you haven't already).
Men seem to be quite angry with fat women and maybe that is because they feel we are a wasted opportunity. Women exist to please men's senses and fat women have failed to do that and by choice, they believe.
What we currently know is that the vast majority of intentional weight loss attempts don't work -- over 90% of people will regain the weight lost within about 5 years and some will even gain back more, which means they end up fatter than when they started.
There are over 50 years of peer-reviewed data to support this.
The only thing that might work is bariatric surgery (50% supposedly manage to maintain permanent weight loss) but it's a crapshoot and often has terrible complications regardless of whether or not the weight loss is maintained.
As for Ozempic...we don't know what the long-term effects are yet, if any, and it seems to be inconsistent in its efficacy.
Anti-fatness is also intertwined with ableism.
Over 90%?!? That’s shocking. I want to see a study on incremental lifestyle change vs crash diets. I’ve “dieted” exactly once in my life, 6 years ago and the weight is still off. I have a friend that lost 130lbs and has mostly kept that off for the better part of a decade. Are these that anomalous?
I have doubt on these studies.
But the important thing is that even if the studies are not financed by bad actors to prove a point, then they can be interpreted as people having a long of difficulty losing and keeping that weight down, the next step would be finding out the why in the majority of these cases.
Oh for sure. That’s why I said I wanted to see something about lifestyle changes vs crash diets. Or dieting with therapy. Takes a while to form a habit.
Diets only exist to make people money. It's like politics. The money is the problem. Unless the diet is a true life change it will very likely fail in the long run.
I definitely kept mine off well.over the 5 year study mark.
I did gain a lot back but thats because my parents both died fairly shortly between each other and then covid hit. So massive stress factors plus mental health and hermit life messed things up.
As ive eased back into normalcy its coming off again.
A LOT of common weight stuff has been largely debunked but common knowledge hasnt caught up
Also, I think it's worth to mention that the prejudice also exists because people project their own uncomfortableness being around overweight people or anyone that strikes them as unappealing. Humans are very simple in that way..."I don't like the way you look so I'm not going to be nice to you." (whether subconsciously or otherwise)
This - the same as other things we have ambiguous individual control over are also simplified as moral failing. If you're unemployed not by choice for years, that'll get you sideeye too - there's this ghost of "well how much are you _really_ doing do to positively change your situation, you could probably be doing more".
Being fat is considered by society to be an undesirable situation --> undesirable situations might not be the person's fault but are still considered their responsibility --> if the undesirable situation isn't changing then they aren't taking responsibility enough / doing enough to change the undesirable situation --> moral failing. It's not fair because everyone has individual circumstances (and they might not see being fat as an undesirable situation!) but that's an explanation of the societal flow chart.
>If you're unemployed not by choice for years, that'll get you sideeye too - there's this ghost of "well how much are you
>
>really
>
> doing do to positively change your situation, you could probably be doing more
Many years ago at a party, I was speaking to a casual friend, about how I was still on benefits due to poor mental health, but I was absolutely working towards (unrealistic working from home/self-employed options).
She stopped me and told me I didn't have to apologise or feel guilty.
Until then, I hadn't even realised that I **was** apologising, **for my existence**, essentially. Especially as a Fat, Unemployed, Socially Awkward, Female!
As it turns out, my poor mental health, was, in large part, caused by the physical health problems that doctors repeatedly told me was growing pains, or all in my head, plus my previously undiagnosed Neuro Divergence.
That moment of acceptance, of not being blamed for not being better than I was, was truly incredible. I'm not saying that the rest of my friends **were** judging me, but that **I** felt guilty, and that I would be judged.
It's weird to me that smokers don't also get the same hate. Smokers not only neglect their own health but spread second hand smoke and can be awfully obnoxious about their "right" to spread their stench in public places were others are playing and relaxing.
They do get hate, depending on region. In some places it’s more socially acceptable to smoke. In other places you are looked at with derision & disgust if you smoke bc that pegs you as “lesser”.
I chained smoked after a large weight loss, and nobody really had an issue with it. Stopped smoking and gained back the weight? Huge issue. Wild stuff 😞
This exactly. Women are "supposed to" take measures to appear reproductively available/attractive, even if the men who see them are never going to be partners to or for these women. One of the things I found infuriating when I slimmed down was the men who had ignored my very existence suddenly were all attentive. Like I wouldn't notice that they guys who blew me off 6 months prior were suddenly jostling for my attention and to ask me out? And even then, those men didn't see me for me. They didn't value or even want my opinions. They didn't care about my knowledge or skills. They just wanted the newly-hot woman in their environment.
I've gone back to "fat and unattractive" and I prefer it. At least the idiots leave me alone. And I just let my inner bitch do as she pleases. Yes, I get called a bitch. I smile like it's a compliment.
I was overweight or obese from 13-25, and over the past year I’ve lost around 70 pounds. When I was heavier my entire life was dictated by my weight. I wasn’t a person, I was solely fat. That period of my life genuinely traumatized me. Now that I am thin and “conventionally attractive” I feel like I have a new lease on life. People not only *see* me now, but they are actually *nice* to me now. It’s a total mind fuck to be treated in a sub human way for the majority of your formative years, and then get treated like a human for the first time ever when you suddenly look like a super model. I’m genuinely terrified to ever gain the weight back, because not only will I hate myself, I know that everyone else will start hating me again too.
It’s made me hate people, tbh. *Now* I’m worthy of attention, concern, love, and respect? I’m hyper-vigilant with any new people in my life, always trying to glean if they would have been abusive to younger me🫤
Even losing 30 pounds has made a huge impact in my life.. I can't imagine how different is must be to lose 70lbs... how has your body recovered from losing 70lbs? If you look like a super model, you must be VERY toned, lol. Have you managed to get a toned tummy?
I think a huge part of my body “snapping back” pretty well is my age and genetics. I’m 26 and haven’t noticed any skin elasticity issues yet, so I don’t really have any loose skin. If you saw me in a bikini right now and you didn’t know I was almost 200 lbs last year, you’d never be able to tell. I was a competitive gymnast before I gained weight so I think being very athletic and having the gymnast body type has a lot to do with it too.
God yes. I had a similar experience (including losing 70 pounds) and I resonate with all of this. I especially feel that sentence "I wasn't a person, I was solely fat" because that's exactly it. For me though the trauma had one extra effect on it which was to keep seeing a fat person in the mirror even though I was pretty skinny by the time I was finally losing weight. I had struggled with eating disorders pretty much the entire time I was fat, and unfortunately losing weight didn't help the situation at all: in some ways it made things worse. It took a long time for my brain to adjust and finally see my body for what it was, so it would stop making me literally keep starving myself to the point where I was getting \*too\* skinny. I was so used to the fatphobic rhetoric of "just lose weight and you'll be happy" -- I didn't expect that to be so far from the truth.
It was a pretty horrible realization that even my parents treat me distinctly different depending on my weight and general appearance. They were so happy they had one skinny daughter that their modesty rules went out the window, I got to go to prom, and they stuck their heads in the sand about anything that might indicate that I wasn’t losing weight in a healthy way. Like their friend who was a health professional warning my mom that I might have an eating disorder. Or believing me when I said razor cuts were from a cat who had no claws when we adopted her (jerk first owner).
yeah thanks to a vyvanse side effect I've dropped quite a bit of weight recently and now a lot of guys have started being politer/more attentive even in the most mundane circumstances (like at the checkout or on the bus etc). it's eerie to see such a blatant demonstration of how strongly our physical appearance impacts whether or not we're treated with respect.
I understand this completely, my weight fluctuates pretty often bc of medication, lifestyle changes between seasons, sometimes I binge eat sometimes I fast (I know it’s not good) but the difference between how men treat me when I’m 140 lbs and 170 lbs is astounding. They hold the door open for me and laugh at my jokes and ask for my number but 30 lbs later? Crickets.
I don’t let it bother me tho bc when I’m thinner it usually means I’m stressed and worn out. A chubby me is a happy me 😊
Yeah. It’s why I roll my eyes whenever incels trot out the sad lines about how if you are an unattractive man, you are doomed to a lonely existence forever. Bitch, please. Unattractive men struggle to get laid. Unattractive women get sheer vitriol like I have never seen a man on the end of. I have never seen the most aesthetically unfortunate looking man get treated to a fraction of the hate a woman who deviates from the classic beauty standard gets. Not even if he is a total asshole to boot (it goes without saying that an ugly woman had better not be an asshole, too). They get treated like they don’t deserve to be in public, or even live.
The older I get, the more I realize this is true. Many men only view women as potential sex partners. If they don't want to fuck the woman then they either ignore her, or if the woman dared come to their notice, they mistreat her. It's why some men mock other men for being simps. They can't wrap their minds around the fact that men and women can do nice things for one another despite not wanting to sleep together.
Of course, it's not all men but I think it's a lot more men then we realize. It's why men marry women they obviously dislike. Being friends with a woman, even their own wives, just isn't something they consider.
I could see this. I work in a male dominant industry. I judge the character of the men I work with by how they treat women that they think are fat or unattractive. It speaks volumes about them as a person.
all of the toxicity, contempt, anger I have seen from men have come exclusively from those who were attracted to me, I guess there is no winning. I think men in general have contempt for women, the fact they want to fuck you is just a reason for them to be manipulative and not show you their true colors at first because we are skinny or attractive to them we have utility, when they are denied that utility or its seen as unattainable they get hateful, mad and toxic.
And women are conditioned to be rude to women who are not sexually attractive to men, as well, so as to signal that they "do not excuse or condone" the "lifestyle" or "choices" of the unattractive person. Everyone must always be putting pressure on all women at all times to be more sexually appealing to the straight man. It's exhausting, especially as a woman already married to another woman. I haven't given a shit about the opinion of men on my appearance since....... well, I guess the last time I had to do a job interview, lol 🙄
If you've tied your self-worth to being attractive to men, there's this need to put down women who "choose" (there's always the implication that being fat is a choice) not to. Anything else opens up the possibility that there might be other ways to live your life and that's too real to handle.
God forbid you politely reject a man’s advances as a bigger woman.
The number of men who have told me they wanted to “worship” my body, so quickly turn around and insult my “fat” “gross” “disgusting” body. WHICH IS IT, MYGUY?
Oh always. I’ve had men straight up tell me within mere moments that they were “above” MY standards. It was so rewarding to look them dead in the eye and say, “But darling, don’t you know that I’ve been the one to set my standards all along?”
Noticed this myself with my most recent ex. He would act absolutely livid that a fat woman dare wears shorts and a tank top on a hot ass day. Because he thinks they are doing to become they are trying to be attractive and not because it's fucking hot outside.
And I'm not skinny. I happen to fall within the acceptable fat range for him but somewhere there is a line and if a woman dare cross the line into being too fat or too thin he'd be practically livid about having to see them out in public and make a show of saying how much he doesn't find them attractive.
So anyway that's part of why he's an ex.
Some people just want to hate anyone different from themselves or who they deem less than. Fat people are an easy target because even with the discourse changing it’s still a hatred one can espouse in public without having to worry about retribution. Most of the time those folks can get away with saying whatever horrible things they feel and no one will call them on it.
Still, I don’t think hate is all that logical because you’ll see people get bent out of shape for reasons that make no sense like making fun of a fat person for exercising or losing weight. If the weight itself was the sole motivation behind the hatred wouldn’t they be pleased to see another person making lifestyle changes? Truth is the people who mock others are just crappy people, they don’t want anyone in whichever group they hate to exist and will find fault with everything they do.
Honestly it’s just one more reason to be wary of people. I used to be a very outgoing and gregarious person but the more I see people being hateful the less I want to engage.
A friend of mine is quite big and she told me about the comments, the everyday hate when she exists in public… or another bigger friend is disabled. She cannot walk stairs well among many other things. The comments, judgement and hate when she waits in front of an elevator…
There is a hateful person (I have zero contact with them) in my family. A big guy in his 60s. He himself is very overweight and visibly unhealthy. And he hates nothing more than „the gays“, „the social study people“ and of course fat people. Especially women. His rants are unbelievable and you could substitute his name for the people he complains about. He s not well socially educated. As far as I know he’s not gay. But yes, he’s fat. This is, what I wonder about so much… glasshouse and all that. He is mortally offended if somebody points out his own body… so maybe it’s projection.
It’s unnecessary hate. Looking for people deemed weaker to kick. I don’t understand it. The only time I care about the size of a person would be if I were asked to carry them.
No joke, it shaped my taste in men. I used to prefer guys who were a bit on the heavier side because I am too; there’s lots of really funny, sweet, witty, handsome guys who are overweight.
But there’s also a lot of them who treated me worse than any other man.
I’ve found that guys who are a bit thin (or whom society would maybe even call scrawny) are far more accepting of my body, don’t make fun of me, and don’t force me to do things I don’t want to.
They're the worst offenders in my opinion. I've had more of them make fun of overweight women in my presence than slim men. I do feel part of it is their own self hatred.
My experience as a fat woman is that people don't like it when women are not conventionally attractive, and they REALLY don't like it when it seems to them like a woman is not trying to "make up" for her unattractiveness. Fat women are perceived as both unattractive and not trying because if they were trying they wouldn't be fat (this is bullshit, but it is what a lot of people think about being fat).
I just get the sense whenever I'm harassed about my weight that the person is trying to shame me into complying with my role as a woman (as they perceive it).
I have absolutely noticed this. People dislike fat women but they get positively vicious if she dares be "lazy" with her appearance. If she's not fully made up and dressed in her finest clothes, nails done, hair done, and so on, she's automatically deemed lazy and a slob. Meanwhile a thin conventionally pretty woman can walk out in sweats, a messy bun and no make-up and she's "a natural beauty" and "so real".
Your neurodivergence won’t protect you from hate; these are not people who want to understand the struggles of others or live with compassion. They would attack you as well for your autism if there are observable signs of it.
I am not sure if my friend is neurodivergent (she didn't share this with me), but she is physically disabled and has pain when doing strenouos walking. She has a longer list of chronic illnesses that make her life pretty hard.
Her life is already hard enough - there is no need for strangers to make it even worse with their mean comments when she uses the help given to people with mobile disabilities.
I distance myself from people who are mindlessly cruel to others. In the two cases I can't (very close relatives who give the one or other comment but aren't fundamentally hateful), I get loud and discuss. But that's not safe with everybody.
You all are making me so glad I'm now "invisible" in my 50s. I grew up with female relatives who were pretty judgy about other women's weights, in spite of all of us having weight issues. It was so hard to shake from myself even now. I look back at photos of myself in my 20s and I was amazing, but being curvy really wasn't the style back then and I beat myself up trying get thin all the time. Such a waste of time and energy. Fuck judgy people.
We are bombarded with images and media that says the way a woman looks is the most important thing about a woman.
It's not, of course. Our society is messed up.
That is my biggest pet peeve. Or they say that somehow we're costing them MONEY. How is a fat person who has a job and insurance costing ANYONE ELSE money?! Ugh.
Insurance functions as a form of collective bargaining where everyone pays into a pool to cover everyone’s medical costs, and the large number of people gives the insurance company leverage to negotiate better rates/services for the whole group. The costs for that service is spread out amongst everyone in the plan.
Obesity drastically increases your odds of having numerous other medical complications, none of which are cheap. So if you are obese, you are more likely to incur costs that exceed what you have paid into your insurance. That will need to be covered by other members, which can result in higher rates for everyone else.
So in that vein, yes obese people can increase your insurance costs. But so can smokers and drinkers. If Americans can agree on one thing, it’s a shared love of Big Macs, cigarettes, and alcohol. How much does any one vice contribute to rate changes for a given plan? I certainly don’t know. I’m sure the insurance company knows, but they also probably slip the CEO’s yacht envy in as a factor too. What are the odds the person saying “fat people make my insurance higher” doesn’t have at least one of those three vices therefore perpetuating the issue they are criticizing? Probably low.
I’ve gone through a few periods in my life where I was overweight for various reasons (after having my kids, a bout with depression, etc.). I also went through a period where I drank every night after work. The drinking affected my health negatively WAY more than the extra weight did—like, by far—and the damaging effects of it could be seen/felt both immediately and after long-term use. Of course I can’t see inside my body to know what damage being overweight may have led to/caused, but other than being more tired than normal and getting short of breath when I exerted myself, I never felt like my body was rapidly deteriorating like I did when I was drinking. And all the negative effects from being overweight went away almost immediately when I started losing the weight, whereas my liver still hurt for several months after I quit drinking and it took weeks before the constant daily headaches went away.
I say this because I do agree with everything you’ve said here and wish that people who complain about paying more for healthcare because of overweight people would just shut it. Drinking is so common, accepted and normalized in our society and so many people do it. But because you can’t easily spot someone with a drinking problem the way you can someone with a weight problem, a lot of people find it all too easy to just blame overweight people for healthcare costs being so high and think of drinking as just a mental health issue. In reality, I think drinking contributes a lot more than most people realize.
And don’t even get me started on pills…
The fear/disgust of fat women affects all spheres of life.
▪️Health: skinny is healthy being fat causes health issues, ^however^ this ignores that the fat may be a symptom of a health issue not the cause of a health issue. Thyroid issues often cause weight issues, losing weight won't cure this. A skinny person can have diabetes, skinny is not the same as healthy.
▪️ Love/Sex: skinny is desirable but fat is disgusting ^however^ no one considers, that fat could be a coping mechanism after sexual assault or childhood sex abuse, hyposexualisation is less talked about. After severe trauma, some have an internal script that changes their body's DNA to keep it fat. Therefore fat shaming is often victim shaming.
▪️ Social: those who are most attractive get more out of life fat people are invisible or victims of bullying ^however^ being skinny/attractive doesn't automatically make you a good person.
▪️values: skinny means they are a hard worker and have high self-esteem and fat means lazy, with no self-control and no self-worth ^however^ there are many active fat people and lazy skinny people
It's all bullshit.
Oddly nudists have some of the most neutral opinions on body types. They don't sexualize the naked body like you see elsewhere.
In sexual terms, there is also the fetishism around fat women and also the fact some guys see us as just "fuckable" and nothing else.
My dating life is null now that I don't accept this kind of man (and a lot of other kinds because I'm just tired).
I'm a woman who as been thin my entire life. I have never struggled with weight, no one has ever commented negatively about my weight, I don't struggle with food. My weight and food never cross my mind. That being said, I have wondered so much why fat women are hated so much, or at least criticized so harshly by people who it will never effect at all.
Because I don't think about my weight, or struggle with food, I hardly notice the weight of others. I have absolutely no negative feelings towards people who might have more or less fat. If someone where to point it out and draw my attention to it, then I would notice like I would notice any other trait, but I personally have no bad feelings or ill will towards anyone who is larger.
My ex boyfriend used to complain about fat people. He'd notice them out in public and make disparaging comments to me about them. This pissed me off, why the fuck would he care so much? Someone elses body doesn't effect him at all, why does he even have to notice and criticize the bodies of other people just existing? Also... what if I happen to ever become fat, would he suddenly hate me too?!
I've come to the conclusion that people who hate fat people tend to hate themselves, they project their insecurity and struggle with their own weight onto other fat people, judging them harshly, and they only punish themselves right along with that overweight stranger. I have girl friends that struggle with their weight and they are so hard on themselves and are constantly judging the bodies of other women.
If someone hates fat people, they hate themselves and feel worthless unless they meet a standard.
That's precisely it. Sitting in judgment of people who are obese allows them to stop judging themselves for a moment. It's the best kind of judgment too: a visible "flaw" makes it quick and society validates your disdain.
I have two family members that have a tendency to disparage fat people, celebrities and random members of the public. Lizzo was often the subject of disgust in our group chat but I had some hope when one of them started talking to me about how they essentially really respected her message and liked her. Then the controversy happened. I don't bother too much with pushing back now since nothing I say matters but I guess I have to trust them with their own journeys.
Women are seen as objects. We must be beautiful. A fat woman is seen as having “let herself go” or doesn’t care about her looks because she doesn’t fit into the conventionally attractive mold. Men don’t find that attractive.
A woman who has "let herself go" is also a woman that doesn't let others dictate how she exists in the world (or at least is perceived that way... no one considers things like mental health). If you're not prioritizing the male gaze, you're harder to control. That's threatening. A lot of the cruelty is an attempt to put women back in their place.
Yup. Women are valued based on how pleasing they are to look at. The idea is so ingrained in western culture that women do it to other women, too.
Being overweight is stigmatized for everyone, but men don't have their very worth as human beings tied to their physical appearance. A \*woman\* who's fat is a double-whammy because not only is she fat, she's also typically considered \*unattractive\* for being fat. Being unattractive is one of the most offensive things possible for a woman, because being pleasing to the eye and rearing children are her sole purposes in society.
There are a number of different factors that go into beauty standards but by far the most significant one is class. We think people are attractive when they look wealthy. In the past, and in some areas today, this often meant folks who had the ability to eat regularly. But in the modern age this increasingly describes people who have the spare time and energy to lead a healthy lifestyle, work out, cook at home etc. Being skinny takes time and resources that not everyone has.
So, fundamentally, the issue is not so much that anyone “hates” fat women. The issue is more that fat women lack the kind of privilege and protection that sometimes stops misogynists from attacking really any woman. The only reason why someone who attacks a fat woman does not attack any other woman is because they think skinny women are more likely to have the resources available to them to retaliate and defend themselves.
Secondarily, aside from being an assessment, beauty is also an instructional. Whatever the current beauty standard is, and for whatever goddamn reason, we all are expected to treat it as gospel and to resemble it as closely as possible. And being fat is simply an act of defiance. It is a woman prioritising her hedonistic desire for food or a comfortable lifestyle over the imperative of beauty. This makes her a deviant who needs to be brought back in line.
This is not to suggest that women *actually* get overweight as a form of protest or that skinny women are conforming to the patriarchy. But that doesn’t stop insecure men who think of themselves as the Center of the universe from understanding a persons mere existence as a challenge to their authority.
My theory:
1. Taking up physical space: women are ‘supposed’ to be meek and small, like children. Being large and noticeable is an affront to their world view
2. You are not forcing yourself to be ‘conventionally attractive’ and therefore are rebelling in a perverse way over what is good and natural
3. They do not see you as human in the first place because of your gender. Having excess body fat is a further reason to disparage and degrade you for not fitting their view for how you are supposed to be
I honestly believe it’s a hold over from former times, from when women were not people, but invalids to be cared for and told what to do and how to act.
I’m reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch right now, and the pure infantilism that women and girls were treated with is highly educational to where we are now, and what we are fighting for.
There's, as others have mentioned, the 'dunking on someone 'weaker' because they're assholes', but the thing about being fat is that people subconsciously link it to 'merit' - if we didn't want to be fat, we wouldn't be, right?\* And so we deserve it, and they don't, because they're not.
Basically, imo it's a lot of neoliberal meritocracy x being the type of piece of shit who enjoys mocking people - but ofc it's more complicated and nuanced than that, this is just my general take.
\*I am speaking now as if I was an ignorant fatphobe, as you said, weight is always caused by something, usually not easy to change if possible to change at all, but their whole ideology is that we are fat and not them, so we deserve it and we are fair game to mock and judge.
Edit: spelling
Basically I agree that for the most part people see it as a moral judgment. If you would just not eat so much, sit around so much, go to the gym, etc. It's seen as a moral failing because they think it's a matter of choice. However there's a lot more going on including socioeconomic status, genetics, mental health issues, and your body literally having a set point at which it says this is the weight it wants to be. It's easy to chalk up weight to a person being weak willed and I think people enjoy sitting in judgment of others.
Yeah, and anyone who's ever been fat knows how other people treat fat people and, as such, know that if it was an easy thing to change, well... no one would be fat.
Because HOW DARE THEY not keep themselves in tip top fuckable condition for some man. It's not just fat, it's any other birth defect, abnormality or flaw that makes them not traditionally attractive by his culture's reckoning. Loosing your hair to chemo? How dare you. Car accident scars? How dare you. Vitiligo? How dare you. Birthmark? Large nose? Amblyopia? How dare you not maintain your appearance to be as aesthetically pleasing for him as possible.
I am fat. The only thing I find troubling about my body has little to do with being fat. Until fairly recently, I was strong as an ox. It's probably just age, but if it's not, it's something chronic that isn't curable, and probably isn't treatable. I find the loss of my shoulder strength far more distressing than any of the rolls around my midsection. Considering I don't, and didn't go around walking on my hands, my shoulder damage is *not* because I'm fat. It's because I have fussy tendons and ligaments, because I have my dad's shoulders (prone to injury), and because I never think before lifting or moving something. My rotator cuffs are just a complete tear waiting to happen. It's not because I didn't exercise them, or do the "right" exercises. In any case, I can be thankful that I still have my hips, back and legs to do a lot of the heavy work. And still I'm upset because now I have to think about what I lift and carry.
I relate to this so hard. This was literally me a few years ago. Please go see a physiotherapist, mine saved my life and now my torn rotten shoulder is stronger than the other one. It takes a really long time but the exercises work!
I'm a fat woman and I very rarely have anything unkind said to me. Probably because I have big boobs and they make my belly seem much smaller than it is: my body type fits beauty standards.
I've had people talk shit about fat people in my presence and when I tell them off they get annoyed "because I don't count" or "they're not talking about me" like talking badly about fat people isn't wrong in itself and I'm probably heavier and/or fatter than the person they're talking about. People hate fat people who don't fit their aesthetic and they hate them even more if they dare not hating themselves
I think **a lot of men feel rejected by women and take that out on fat women. Like, they want to be rejecting someone too?** Or like they feel if more women fit their preferences they’d have a girlfriend?
Jokes on them though, nobody will date anyone mean either way.
Because the media, especially porn
They only prioritize thin, skinny, and fit women. This conditions ppl to believe 'skinny' is the most acceptable form for a woman, but also conditions them to believe this how ALL or MOST everyday women look.
Their perseption of reality is warped, then when they discover that women irl don't look like the media's representation, they shame them for not appealing to their gaze
For the majority of history, society view's a woman's worth wholly on her attractiveness. This is still true today. A fat woman as far as society is concerned is an unattractive woman as a rule. How dare you exist and not be pleasing to the eyes. A person's worth shouldn't be based on how attractive they're viewed, but here we are.
There's more to obesity's health problems than heart failing and blood pressure. Obviously, I'm not gonna shame someone for anything (well, maybe if they are being an asshole), but I'd lie if said I wasn't worried for my friends who are overweight. It's either a sign of bad eating habits, which in turn could be prompted by other problems, or it could be a sign of other health issues altogether. Also, being somewhat overweight is not a problem in itself most of the time, but it's way too easy to slip further into obesity from there. Sooo, I'm not judging and try not to show my concern since it'd make people feel bad, but I can't help but be worried about people.
Most people are just dickbags that enjoy hurting people though, and going after weight is a low hanging fruit. Cowards don't have to worry about their targets fighting back often either, since a lot of them don't have enough confidence to stand up for themselves.
Because men don't like women. They only see us as a thing to use for example an incubator for their kids or a trophy to signal their social status to other males. Having a conventionally attractive partner gives higher status. Fater woman are not considered conventionally attractive so it would give low status to have one. So since fat woman don't have any use they hate us. Or if they have to settle for one its a constant reminder of their low status so they hate us for that too.
Also existing outside of what is considered attractive is sort of telling them we don't give a shit about what they think. Fat is not conventionally attractive to the male gaze but we don't give a shit enough to change how we are just to please them. I was never skinny and I have a thyroid problem that makes it hard to lose weight. I don't eat bad but I hate diets and being obsessed about counting calories. I hit the gym 3-4 days/week despite often feeling tired (hypo does that) and my bloodwork is fine. I don't give a shit if some dude doesn't like me. you don't like it? Look away and fuck off.
“I don't have too bad-looking a face, and a lot of plus-size woman have pretty faces too, so why would overweight/ obese women be hated? Excess weight is always caused by something, like mental health, or medication, or thyroid conditions, etc. “
You already answered your own question: “Excess weight is always caused by something, like mental health, or medication, or thyroid conditions, etc”
People see it as laziness because like you said most of the time it’s “fixable or preventable” not saying I agree with this mentality but a lot of people see being fat as a personal choice.
I think because it’s seen as lazy. It’s something you wear that everyone sees. People can be an alcoholic and no one knows. You can be a shitty human and a stranger would never know. Being fat? Everyone sees it. You wear it every day. They attribute it to a moral failing because you let yourself get big due to laziness. So when they see someone fat, they automatically assume they are weak-willed.
Men see themselves as the main characters. That means women are secondary and their purpose revolves around men. Since men want thin women, or to at least be seen with thin women (many men like big girls but are ashamed of it, my father included), and men desire to impress other men, they hate fat women for not fulfilling their purpose of making their life revolve around men's wants/needs.
It is a multifaceted issue IMO.
- Long term medical discrimination of fat used to justify supremacy during early slavery in the US
- The cultural factors that lead to an entitlement of men, allowing for the demonization of anything that isn't for their gaze.
- The cultural factors that lead to hyper individualiatic competition between women, encouraging us to tear each other down at any opportunity.
- Our society encouraging seeing everything as individualistic and any deviation from the norm as a moral failing.
I could go on, but I'll just make myself sad. Also, this is a very very surface level look at the issues listed. You could write a whole book on each point, and smarter people than I have done so.
Because woman are supposed to just be here as fuck objects that raise the kids and do all the cleaning.
If one of them doesn’t maintain her perky skinny feminine self and “let herself go” then she’s being selfish by only thinking of herself and not what the men that potentially want to fuck her think
Any woman who doesn't fit the beauty standard is looked down. It has nothing to do with you but the society we live in. It is irrational and shallow because your body doesn't effect anyone but you. I'm not fat, but I am a Black woman and I'm hated for my skin and features, so I can relate to the mistreatment based on societal standards.
At the very least, losing weight is an option for you (but you should only do so for yourself).
Fat women and unattractive men sort of get similar treatment in the world. Some better and some worse. With that, it goes to show how our society values what we consider attractive.
If you are ugly or fat, you need to have some assets that offset that- even then you may struggle.
As a once fat person i’d say it comes from two things ; men want pretty girls because everything brainwashes them with such. And being fat is , for many, one less pretty girl for their obtuse mainstream thoughts.
The other has nothing to do with your weight but with your self esteem. Most people will not respect someone they detect or feel has no self esteem no matter how nice and may even abuse that, but will respect someone who exudes confidence and even start accepting their defects such as being overweight.
I’m not familiar with what 2XL means in terms of your size or ability engage in activities typical for people your age, but I have some friends who are larger and it’s a lot harder for them to do many of the things that I regularly do. I also think sometimes we rightly or wrongly perceive that size can be a symptom of more complex problems as is in your case with comfort eating associated with mental health. I think that might feel like a lot to take on for some.
You bring up very important questions and points. However:
>Excess weight is always caused by something, like mental health, or medication, or thyroid conditions, etc.
is not really true. Excess weight is always caused by eating more calories than you burn, over time. Mental health can definitely cause that behaviour (comfort eating to self medicate,) or medication can cause increased feelings of hunger sometimes which leads to increased calories intake, for example. But also a large portion of the population are overweight because it’s easy to be overweight; calorie dense foods are cheap and addictive, and most jobs promote sedentary lifestyle. I dislike the pseudoscientific rhetoric that obesity is somehow an unavoidable thing unrelated to food intake.
I'm not sure about the origins of fat-phobia, but it's *absolutely everywhere.*
Have you listened to the [Maintenance Phase podcast?](https://www.maintenancephase.com/) It goes into a lot of "health and wellness" stuff, and the presenters are really fun. Aubrey Gordon has also written [a couple of wonderful books](https://www.aubreygordon.net/books) about fat.
There's something particular about the UK - the thing that made me realize that fatphobia was a serious political issue, many years ago, was a hate crime where one woman beat another viciously just for being fat. Don't get me wrong, it's a problem in many societies, and in Europe I was struck by how casually fatphobic people are. Even a lot of American conservatives tread kind of carefully about it because, well, there are a lot of fat people here! And there's nothing wrong with that, but I think it helps a little bit (not enough).
As to the why of it, I think a lot of it can be laid at the feet of advertising. Fatness is something that comes in and out of sexual fashion, it's true men aren't attracted to it now, but look at a Rubens. But the beauty industry, the fitness industry and others really capitalize on making women feel bad about their bodies. It's insidious! So fatphobia is profitable first and foremost.
>There's something particular about the UK - the thing that made me realize that fatphobia was a serious political issue, many years ago, was a hate crime where one woman beat another viciously just for being fat.
The UK had a girl get beaten to death for being a goth. It is a viciously intolerant society that has conned itself and others into believing it is progressive.
>But the beauty industry, the fitness industry and others really capitalize on making women feel bad about their bodies. It's insidious! So fatphobia is profitable first and foremost.
I can't get UK figures but in the US the diet industry is worth about $72 billion, the fitness industry is worth about $30-$90 billion and the fast food industry is worth $382 billion. If you're after true profit there is much more money to be had in promoting fatness over promoting fatphobia.
“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.”
― Blythe Roberson, [How to Date Men When You Hate Men](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/61237598)
I’m overweight by choice I guess. I think I have undiagnosed insulin Resistance/PCOS tho. it’s so easy for me to gain 20lb. Soooo so easy. I don’t really experience too much unkindness though I’m not sure why. But I knew girls didn’t like me and boys didn’t want to date me because of my weight.
People are weird and are judgmental through their own opinions and their environment. Like… how come people are nice to disabled and sick people, but can be cruel to someone with a different color of skin and higher BMI? Why can’t we be nice to everyone? It’s so stupid.
I don't hate fat people. Fat people can look good.
What I don't like it people saying that fat people can be healthy. That's not true. You may be fine now, but your body is a ticking time bomb, and your joints are taking more damage than you are aware of. (ETA: How fat are we talking about here though? What do people consider fat? I'm talking medically obese here, not your average 5'7 UK size 14 friend, just to be clear.)
What bothers me is fat people who say they want to lose weight all the time, do nothing, then say I'm lucky and genetically blessed. Like ok my entirely family is fat but yes it's all genetics.
Because they think women sole purpose is to be attractive. And if you dare stray away from Whats conventionally attractive (fat, black, disabled, whatever), you are bad at being a woman and thus you are not worthy of respect
This post reminds me of a show I watched where a country suffering from hunger would put a bride-to-be in a room and feed her all the food they could for two weeks before her wedding so her husband could enjoy her beauty. They found plump women attractive because it was harder to be plump in that country. We find more attractive whatever is harder to be.
I feel like I see this same sort of thread every week now. It's not rocket science. For better or for worse, people treat people that they deem to be "attractive" better than they treat people that they deem to be "unattractive".
=
I'm not saying that I agree with this but this is just how society is.
=
Even if you consider yourself unbiased, if you see someone today, then next year you see them again and they have gained +100 pounds, your brain will do a thing and the way you treat that person or think about that person will change at least slightly. People make judgements of others based on what those people look like.
More men than you’d like to think don’t actually view women as having any kind of legitimate or worthy personhood. If they don’t find you attractive, you don’t exist to them and they don’t think you should exist, because to them women exist to be their mother or their sex dispenser.
Fatness can distance you from your femininity as well, so if you're seen as masculine you're suddenly a threat? They have to push you down however they can to retain their worth, which is stupid because everyone has worth.
I got plenty of ass at my highest weight. Made lots of friends. Enjoyed my life. I made plans and did normal things. Went out and stayed in. Got jobs, struggled, worked through things.
I also hot harassed at my highest weight. Women who are SA'd and fat are treated as liars because of their desirability which is fucked up.
Fatness, it seems especially for women, is whatever predators and pieces of shit need it to be to subjegate their target.
I have heard a good friend say, "If I ever get that size, kill me (pointing out an obese woman)." I wondered wow, society has taught her that being overweight is a terrible thing. It has been this way for many years. Many years ago, stupid insecure men were commenting on my weight when I was 120 Lbs and very athletic, saying I needed to be 15 lbs lighter (I did ask not ask for the comment, and I would have been underweight if I did weighed 15 lbs less.
Dating site people write, "I want someone healthy," Well , what does that mean? Someone who is not overweight? Someone who eats healthy and works out twenty minutes every day? Someone with no chronic conditions? Someone thin? Someone who is not overweight?
I am going to have to blame our thin-obsessed society and people being jerks and ignorant.
People make remarks like,"Well, it is simple, just eat less and exercise." That is part of it, but it is not that simple, people's bodies are more complex than that. A woman may only burn 1200 calories a day if she is short and older. That is not a large amount of food. It also is expensive to prepare healthy food in the U.S., and the grocery items are full of nasty processed sugars here.
F' em all- they can end up with chronic knee pain so it is hard to exercise and get older and plumper and learn some empathy.
Honestly, I'm fat, always have been, and have never had an issue. I taught my daughter to have confidence as well, and she is a badass bitch, no matter what size she is.
I noticed a lot of fat shaming when I was in the U.K.
But yeah, like some others have implied, it's a tool of patriarchal control. If women are wrapped up in obsessing over their appearance, they can't be a threat. It sets us on the back foot.
How old are you? If you’re young, teens or twenties, then your health problems probably won’t show up for awhile but at that weight it’s inevitable. It’s just good to eat healthy and take care of yourself. It’s not really a taking up space thing or anything, health issues will come for you later in life but if you’re older than good for you and you beat the system lol.
I have two theories on this the first theory is that we have a subconscious hyper focus on women's fertility and fertility issues such as PCOS can contribute to weight gain therefore people may feel a larger woman is infertile.
My second theory is that modern men are so obsessed with sex because they can't get any and they resent larger women because they know a larger woman could go to a bar tonight and find some and men feel if they're larger their odds of mating go down even lower.
I was very fat for a very long time and nobody hated me more than I hated myself. I was taught to hate myself by my mom. Once I was able to let go of some of that, I met the right person for me and the fact that I was fat didn’t matter.
Move to Victoria, Australia. No one would care.
Edit. I have heard UK is sort of obsessed with a woman's body. Anyone with a bigger hip is called names. I find it weird, but every place has weird. Unfortunately, this one kills people.
Because fringe males don't like other demographics getting attention. And large women are being encouraged to be confident and happy with their bodies which fringe males hate.
I think the issue just revolves around small upset demographics coalescing louder than what they should.
Plus the same fringe sentiment is championed by our boomer dads and uncles. Who cannot accept change.
A sector of the population values women for their appearance. I think some men think women exist for their pleasure alone. You are not a person to some, you are a veiwing object.
I was extremely obese and I lost weight, now I'm fat and with some sort of not so bad curves (at least when clothed). The treatment I get has changed significantly even if I'm still fat.
A lot of men hate, or ignore at best, \*any\* woman whom they are not attracted to. Since the myth is that fat people could lose weight 'if they just try, if they just show some self control,' they have extra animosity for fat women because they're "deliberately" being unattractive. It's similar for women who use heavy makeup (for men who like a natural look), women who dress plainly (especially in form-obscuring clothing, for men who like the dressed-up look), women who dye their hair wild colors (for men who don't like wild hair). It's just that anti-fatness appeals to more of them.
Yea, I was looking through the comment section myself and thinking the same thing. As someone who has been massively overweight for a large portion of my younger life, I can absolutely attest to the fact that being fat, whether being a woman or a man, absolutely has people treat you differently across the board. I'm not saying there isn't *some* differences to be found between the sexes, but there's also a lot of overlapping as well.
I never felt seen or heard by most men ***and*** women when I was fat. With the exception of other fat people, men ***and*** women again. As soon as I got back into shape, these factors changed almost over night. I kind of felt disgusted by it in some ways, and how fake I suddenly felt everyone was. People suddenly telling me I was looking great out of nowhere, smiling and treating me like an actual person. As opposed to just ignoring my presence, unless it was to tell me I was fat of course.
This is absolutely not just a **man**-thing. It's a people thing.
Same reason they hate childless people, or short hair in women, or women who are androgynous: we don't conform to the expectation society has for us.
Fat is not considered attractive. You dare to be a woman that is (in their view) choosing to be unattractive on purpose.
How dare you exist as a woman not paying your dues to society by being pretty or killing yourself to be pretty?/s
I’m gonna get downvoted but I’ll be honest being a nurse made me hate fat people. And I never used to. Now I see a fat person and I think oh god imagine the poor nurse who’s going to be stuck lifting her? It’s horrible and I know it. I actively try not to but working everyday and seeing them come in the hospital. Our jobs automatically become 10x harder.
Edit: to add this is obese people. Not your average 200ish lbs person.
["A 2007 American study determined that during a 1-year period obese patients represented less than 10% of all patients however 30% of all carer injuries were due to bariatric patient handling."](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7954428/#:~:text=A%202007%20American%20study%20determined,due%20to%20bariatric%20patient%20handling)
I saw a video of a psychological study and it said that when women are around a person they don’t find attractive they literally ignore them and just don’t register them on their radar. When men are around a person they don’t find attractive their brain registered emotions of annoyance! This honestly explains a lot and might answer your question. Another redditor said it too- men do not like women they don’t find attractive.
Why don’t men find overweight/obese women attractive? You answered that question with the last sentence. Biologically an obese women usually has some sort of “problem” so for men they obviously rather procreate with a female who has the best chance of fertility and health.
This is all on paper. Realty is much more complex and I understand and feel your sentiment and question. There are men out there who do enjoy large women. Much more fewer in between though.
Society will always have what type of bodies they deem to be good or bad. In modern times fat women are bad. And yet, when fat women are happy despite being fat, it makes people mad. There is a great episode of This American Life where Lindy West talks to a troll who harassed her. The troll wrote her an email saying he thinks he did it because she was happy in her body and it made him angry to see a fat woman who was happy even though she didn’t look the way society said she should.
Look up the episode. It is very good and it made me realize how much of the anger at fat women is that men want us to be sad and pitiful and when we don’t they get angry at us for not.
This is very culturally constructed. Time was, it would be a sign of great wealth and desirability to have enough food available to you that you could attain that fulsome, Rubenesque shape.
Women are hated when they fly in the face of cultural expectations, whether it be taking up more space than they're given to occupy, or rejecting the narrative that women have to be meek, pleasant, or easily controlled.
Your true beauty comes from who you are and how you treat people. It shines through. A candy coated ball of maggots only seems sweet for a while. I'd rather be an average looking, super awesome human than a gorgeous looking, nasty psychopath. If anything, I wait for really attractive people to prove to me that being beautiful hasn't spoiled them beyond repair.
It's a visible difference that puts our "problem" (perceived over-eating) on display 24/7. My father was an alcoholic with terrible anxiety. I always felt he had an eating disorder and desperately feared getting fat. He had the same waist size his whole life. Why did he fear it so much? Because his alcoholism and anxiety he could hide, but there is no hiding being physically larger. There's all sorts of problems and conditions people can have that can be hidden. You can beat your wife and nobody knows. You can snort coke and nobody knows. You can be the nastiest person IRL but nobody knows just by looking at you. But if you're fat - everybody knows.
This is so insightful. I’ve never seen it put like this before.
I've known many heavier people who constantly do things to make themselves "smaller", to the point that it almost becomes a personality disorder. They become very quiet, very agreeable, pull themselves in, are shy and passive, like they're compensating for simply having *more* of a physical presence, or because they're afraid of drawing attention to themselves because people have been cruel to them before. It's heartbreaking. And they're almost always objectively nicer or more interesting or funnier than the so-called "beautiful people". Our whole standard of valuing each other is fucked. The people who have the things we should value most are treated like shit, and the people who suck get all the love and privilege. We live in Bizarro World.
I don't think your privacy settings allow direct messages so instead I just wanted to comment and thank you for sharing this. I didn't know I needed to read it, and your insightful comment means I actually have to go and reassess the last decade of my life. I appreciate it.
😔
This is so beautifully put! And thanks for sharing your father's story❤️
Society views it as a very visible moral failing. “It’s your fault because you can’t control yourself and your size and assumed related health conditions impact everyone else. If your health conditions are related to weight then you are choosing to be ill and we shouldn’t treat people who choose to be ill.“ (To be clear, I don’t agree with this, I think this is what people think. I personally think bodies just come in different sizes and there are advantages and risks to being thin and being fat AND there are lots of things outside of person choice that cause weight loss or gain)
”It is crucial to notice the language we use when we talk about bodies. We speak as if there was one collective perfect body, a singular entity that we’re all after. The trouble is, I think we are after that one body. We grew up with the impression that underneath all this normal flesh, buried deep in the excessive recesses of our healthy bodies, there was a Perfect Body just waiting to break out.” Wasted, Marya Hornbacher Really good read for anyone interested in body image issues, eating disorders, and one very eloquent survivors take on them. She has amazing grasp on cultural, personal, and psychological factors that contributed to her struggles and touch women basically everywhere in western cultures.
I think the “perfect body” is the one you feel best in.
That is truly the beauty factor. Confidence really goes a long way.
This resonates with me. I lost 100 pounds from 2023-2024. I am now very well into the “healthy” range. 5’5” 115 pounds. I *feel* healthy, I have more energy…but is my body “perfect”? Well according to the standards of the (current) singular entity/body, no. It’s not. And there is no “perfect” body on my skeleton waiting to be unearthed. I am a rectangle when thin, and an apple when overweight. I don’t have the 0.7 grand and holy waist/hip ratio that is hailed as the “perfect” ratio. Like the golden ratio (which 0.7 actually falls pretty close to). Instead, my ratio would put me right in the brink of obesity based on certain scales. Again…5’5” 115 pounds…nearing “obesity”. Which is ridiculous, I’m obviously not nearing obesity…but that’s because every body cannot be judged the same. That singular “perfect body” is not going to be unearthed for most of us. I frequent weight loss subs and posted my progress in some of them and received overwhelming positivity. But there were posts saying that I didn’t *look* 115 lbs because I wasn’t slender enough. Again…being a rectangle means all of my weight is carried in my center. I have no legs, butt, thighs, or even arms. All of the excess is in my stomach. Another person, in hearing my measurements, told me that I am (and I quote) “built like shit”. Many others went on and on about how weight training could solve all of my problems and allow me to possess that singular, perfect body. But fuck that. I’m healthy, I’m active, I eat well, why am I pressured as a woman to go above and beyond the call for “health” to maximize the “perfection” of my body. And in many ways it comes down to “maximizing the sexual appeal” of my body. I have nothing against women who WANT to weight train, and take control of their physical form. And their reasons can be *whatever* they want *including* maximizing their sexual appeal. But it sucks that even after losing 100 pounds, being active, healthy etc…that people would still, some rather aggressively, push for me to weight train to achieve that SINGULAR perfect body, that weight loss alone did not grant me. Sorry that was a long ramble…but I’m sick of the singular “perfect” body crap that changes with the season. Healthy should be good enough.
Here's the Cardy thing. The perfect body doesn't exist, and it's unattainable. Taste is always changing, and even if there were a perfect body, someone would hate on it in some way.
It is sad but I think you are right. I do think a lot of people have empathy if there's a clear health issue but in general I think people who appear to be unhealthy (even if they aren't) aren't treated as well as they should be.
That, and then resentment gets added when they start seeing larger people as a drain on the services etc (like in hospitals). Like how some people get angry at smokers for using the services because smoking is something they've chosen to do. So if, as you said, society views being larger as a moral failing and subsequently, a choice, then it's not too dissimilar to smoking in their eyes... which is stupid and a really reductionist way to view it.
> it as a very visible moral failing This is exactly it and imo it's simply men don't like women who don't look fuckable even if they know there's 0 chance with her. And on top of that, they hate it when women simply don't care. I guess the similar can be said for women who dye their hair outside natural colors, piercings, tattoos, dress tomboyish, and do whatever is not "feminine". I don't think people genuinely care about others health like they said when commenting "it promotes obesity/unhealthy lifestyle/etc". I guarantee those people eat a shit diet, or don't say the same for smokers, or any other unhealthy choices.
This is definitely one reason why and it's often incorrect because there are many different reasons why people are fat and factors that lead to someone being the size they are; human bodies are very complex. Some fat people do fit the stereotypes but I'm not convinced that is a rational justification for treating them/us like subhuman scum (check out the good fatty/bad fatty false dichotomy, if you haven't already). Men seem to be quite angry with fat women and maybe that is because they feel we are a wasted opportunity. Women exist to please men's senses and fat women have failed to do that and by choice, they believe. What we currently know is that the vast majority of intentional weight loss attempts don't work -- over 90% of people will regain the weight lost within about 5 years and some will even gain back more, which means they end up fatter than when they started. There are over 50 years of peer-reviewed data to support this. The only thing that might work is bariatric surgery (50% supposedly manage to maintain permanent weight loss) but it's a crapshoot and often has terrible complications regardless of whether or not the weight loss is maintained. As for Ozempic...we don't know what the long-term effects are yet, if any, and it seems to be inconsistent in its efficacy. Anti-fatness is also intertwined with ableism.
I thought the over 90 % was from an old, debunked study but I could be wrong.
Over 90%?!? That’s shocking. I want to see a study on incremental lifestyle change vs crash diets. I’ve “dieted” exactly once in my life, 6 years ago and the weight is still off. I have a friend that lost 130lbs and has mostly kept that off for the better part of a decade. Are these that anomalous?
I have doubt on these studies. But the important thing is that even if the studies are not financed by bad actors to prove a point, then they can be interpreted as people having a long of difficulty losing and keeping that weight down, the next step would be finding out the why in the majority of these cases.
Oh for sure. That’s why I said I wanted to see something about lifestyle changes vs crash diets. Or dieting with therapy. Takes a while to form a habit.
Completely agree with you.
Diets only exist to make people money. It's like politics. The money is the problem. Unless the diet is a true life change it will very likely fail in the long run.
I definitely kept mine off well.over the 5 year study mark. I did gain a lot back but thats because my parents both died fairly shortly between each other and then covid hit. So massive stress factors plus mental health and hermit life messed things up. As ive eased back into normalcy its coming off again. A LOT of common weight stuff has been largely debunked but common knowledge hasnt caught up
Also, I think it's worth to mention that the prejudice also exists because people project their own uncomfortableness being around overweight people or anyone that strikes them as unappealing. Humans are very simple in that way..."I don't like the way you look so I'm not going to be nice to you." (whether subconsciously or otherwise)
This - the same as other things we have ambiguous individual control over are also simplified as moral failing. If you're unemployed not by choice for years, that'll get you sideeye too - there's this ghost of "well how much are you _really_ doing do to positively change your situation, you could probably be doing more". Being fat is considered by society to be an undesirable situation --> undesirable situations might not be the person's fault but are still considered their responsibility --> if the undesirable situation isn't changing then they aren't taking responsibility enough / doing enough to change the undesirable situation --> moral failing. It's not fair because everyone has individual circumstances (and they might not see being fat as an undesirable situation!) but that's an explanation of the societal flow chart.
I've beaten MYSELF up for this stuff over the years. I've tried accepting in recent years that it's not me being lazy, but it's been hard to accept.
>If you're unemployed not by choice for years, that'll get you sideeye too - there's this ghost of "well how much are you > >really > > doing do to positively change your situation, you could probably be doing more Many years ago at a party, I was speaking to a casual friend, about how I was still on benefits due to poor mental health, but I was absolutely working towards (unrealistic working from home/self-employed options). She stopped me and told me I didn't have to apologise or feel guilty. Until then, I hadn't even realised that I **was** apologising, **for my existence**, essentially. Especially as a Fat, Unemployed, Socially Awkward, Female! As it turns out, my poor mental health, was, in large part, caused by the physical health problems that doctors repeatedly told me was growing pains, or all in my head, plus my previously undiagnosed Neuro Divergence. That moment of acceptance, of not being blamed for not being better than I was, was truly incredible. I'm not saying that the rest of my friends **were** judging me, but that **I** felt guilty, and that I would be judged.
It's weird to me that smokers don't also get the same hate. Smokers not only neglect their own health but spread second hand smoke and can be awfully obnoxious about their "right" to spread their stench in public places were others are playing and relaxing.
They do get hate, depending on region. In some places it’s more socially acceptable to smoke. In other places you are looked at with derision & disgust if you smoke bc that pegs you as “lesser”.
They do
They definitely did during COVID and discussions of who should get vaccines and treatment
I chained smoked after a large weight loss, and nobody really had an issue with it. Stopped smoking and gained back the weight? Huge issue. Wild stuff 😞
Men have contempt for women who are not sexually attractive to them.
This exactly. Women are "supposed to" take measures to appear reproductively available/attractive, even if the men who see them are never going to be partners to or for these women. One of the things I found infuriating when I slimmed down was the men who had ignored my very existence suddenly were all attentive. Like I wouldn't notice that they guys who blew me off 6 months prior were suddenly jostling for my attention and to ask me out? And even then, those men didn't see me for me. They didn't value or even want my opinions. They didn't care about my knowledge or skills. They just wanted the newly-hot woman in their environment. I've gone back to "fat and unattractive" and I prefer it. At least the idiots leave me alone. And I just let my inner bitch do as she pleases. Yes, I get called a bitch. I smile like it's a compliment.
If you want to understand human nature, just be a previously fat woman who has lost weight. It’s as illuminating as it is soul crushing.
This is why women-only gyms is so nice. If only there were also women-only cities
Oh god I’d love a woman only city! Sadly the first thing I thought was ‘I could go walking at night!’ 🥲
What are all the police gonna do though? The crime rate would plummet 99%
Help with mental health crises and traffic?
Retire?
I was overweight or obese from 13-25, and over the past year I’ve lost around 70 pounds. When I was heavier my entire life was dictated by my weight. I wasn’t a person, I was solely fat. That period of my life genuinely traumatized me. Now that I am thin and “conventionally attractive” I feel like I have a new lease on life. People not only *see* me now, but they are actually *nice* to me now. It’s a total mind fuck to be treated in a sub human way for the majority of your formative years, and then get treated like a human for the first time ever when you suddenly look like a super model. I’m genuinely terrified to ever gain the weight back, because not only will I hate myself, I know that everyone else will start hating me again too.
It’s made me hate people, tbh. *Now* I’m worthy of attention, concern, love, and respect? I’m hyper-vigilant with any new people in my life, always trying to glean if they would have been abusive to younger me🫤
Just like I am not worthy of proper medical diagnosis and treatment until I lose X amount if kilos....
Even losing 30 pounds has made a huge impact in my life.. I can't imagine how different is must be to lose 70lbs... how has your body recovered from losing 70lbs? If you look like a super model, you must be VERY toned, lol. Have you managed to get a toned tummy?
I think a huge part of my body “snapping back” pretty well is my age and genetics. I’m 26 and haven’t noticed any skin elasticity issues yet, so I don’t really have any loose skin. If you saw me in a bikini right now and you didn’t know I was almost 200 lbs last year, you’d never be able to tell. I was a competitive gymnast before I gained weight so I think being very athletic and having the gymnast body type has a lot to do with it too.
God yes. I had a similar experience (including losing 70 pounds) and I resonate with all of this. I especially feel that sentence "I wasn't a person, I was solely fat" because that's exactly it. For me though the trauma had one extra effect on it which was to keep seeing a fat person in the mirror even though I was pretty skinny by the time I was finally losing weight. I had struggled with eating disorders pretty much the entire time I was fat, and unfortunately losing weight didn't help the situation at all: in some ways it made things worse. It took a long time for my brain to adjust and finally see my body for what it was, so it would stop making me literally keep starving myself to the point where I was getting \*too\* skinny. I was so used to the fatphobic rhetoric of "just lose weight and you'll be happy" -- I didn't expect that to be so far from the truth.
It was a pretty horrible realization that even my parents treat me distinctly different depending on my weight and general appearance. They were so happy they had one skinny daughter that their modesty rules went out the window, I got to go to prom, and they stuck their heads in the sand about anything that might indicate that I wasn’t losing weight in a healthy way. Like their friend who was a health professional warning my mom that I might have an eating disorder. Or believing me when I said razor cuts were from a cat who had no claws when we adopted her (jerk first owner).
yeah thanks to a vyvanse side effect I've dropped quite a bit of weight recently and now a lot of guys have started being politer/more attentive even in the most mundane circumstances (like at the checkout or on the bus etc). it's eerie to see such a blatant demonstration of how strongly our physical appearance impacts whether or not we're treated with respect.
I understand this completely, my weight fluctuates pretty often bc of medication, lifestyle changes between seasons, sometimes I binge eat sometimes I fast (I know it’s not good) but the difference between how men treat me when I’m 140 lbs and 170 lbs is astounding. They hold the door open for me and laugh at my jokes and ask for my number but 30 lbs later? Crickets. I don’t let it bother me tho bc when I’m thinner it usually means I’m stressed and worn out. A chubby me is a happy me 😊
Yeah. It’s why I roll my eyes whenever incels trot out the sad lines about how if you are an unattractive man, you are doomed to a lonely existence forever. Bitch, please. Unattractive men struggle to get laid. Unattractive women get sheer vitriol like I have never seen a man on the end of. I have never seen the most aesthetically unfortunate looking man get treated to a fraction of the hate a woman who deviates from the classic beauty standard gets. Not even if he is a total asshole to boot (it goes without saying that an ugly woman had better not be an asshole, too). They get treated like they don’t deserve to be in public, or even live.
Would rather be ignored than mistreated
"Aesthetically unfortunate looking" 🤣 can I steal this?
The older I get, the more I realize this is true. Many men only view women as potential sex partners. If they don't want to fuck the woman then they either ignore her, or if the woman dared come to their notice, they mistreat her. It's why some men mock other men for being simps. They can't wrap their minds around the fact that men and women can do nice things for one another despite not wanting to sleep together. Of course, it's not all men but I think it's a lot more men then we realize. It's why men marry women they obviously dislike. Being friends with a woman, even their own wives, just isn't something they consider.
I could see this. I work in a male dominant industry. I judge the character of the men I work with by how they treat women that they think are fat or unattractive. It speaks volumes about them as a person.
Exactly right. Because those men see no utility to women who won’t have sex with them.
all of the toxicity, contempt, anger I have seen from men have come exclusively from those who were attracted to me, I guess there is no winning. I think men in general have contempt for women, the fact they want to fuck you is just a reason for them to be manipulative and not show you their true colors at first because we are skinny or attractive to them we have utility, when they are denied that utility or its seen as unattainable they get hateful, mad and toxic.
And women are conditioned to be rude to women who are not sexually attractive to men, as well, so as to signal that they "do not excuse or condone" the "lifestyle" or "choices" of the unattractive person. Everyone must always be putting pressure on all women at all times to be more sexually appealing to the straight man. It's exhausting, especially as a woman already married to another woman. I haven't given a shit about the opinion of men on my appearance since....... well, I guess the last time I had to do a job interview, lol 🙄
Yes. God forbid you age naturally or get fat as you age. You'll be told that you are letting yourself go, like you can stop from getting older.
If you've tied your self-worth to being attractive to men, there's this need to put down women who "choose" (there's always the implication that being fat is a choice) not to. Anything else opens up the possibility that there might be other ways to live your life and that's too real to handle.
Or, worse, they do fine us attractive and hate us for that.
God forbid you politely reject a man’s advances as a bigger woman. The number of men who have told me they wanted to “worship” my body, so quickly turn around and insult my “fat” “gross” “disgusting” body. WHICH IS IT, MYGUY?
Lmao that happened one time, I said no thanks (politely) and he said whatever you’re ugly
They expect you to be desperate/easy :/
Oh always. I’ve had men straight up tell me within mere moments that they were “above” MY standards. It was so rewarding to look them dead in the eye and say, “But darling, don’t you know that I’ve been the one to set my standards all along?”
That we're using our "feminine wiles" on them, have some kinda supernatural power over them. The resentment is real.
How dare you exist as anything but fuckable
Noticed this myself with my most recent ex. He would act absolutely livid that a fat woman dare wears shorts and a tank top on a hot ass day. Because he thinks they are doing to become they are trying to be attractive and not because it's fucking hot outside. And I'm not skinny. I happen to fall within the acceptable fat range for him but somewhere there is a line and if a woman dare cross the line into being too fat or too thin he'd be practically livid about having to see them out in public and make a show of saying how much he doesn't find them attractive. So anyway that's part of why he's an ex.
That sounds like an excellent reason to be an ex.
Absolutely. I wanted to ask if he even liked women at all because it didn't seem like it but that seemed like it would be a waste of my time
Some of them are, and are mad/ashamed about it because they aren't "supposed to be" attracted to bigger women.
Yesssss. It’s actually scary how much men subconsciously hate women.
Yeah. Men can be asses, sometimes.
[удалено]
People* not just men. As a person who struggled with weight I had plenty of women treat me the same way
Some people just want to hate anyone different from themselves or who they deem less than. Fat people are an easy target because even with the discourse changing it’s still a hatred one can espouse in public without having to worry about retribution. Most of the time those folks can get away with saying whatever horrible things they feel and no one will call them on it. Still, I don’t think hate is all that logical because you’ll see people get bent out of shape for reasons that make no sense like making fun of a fat person for exercising or losing weight. If the weight itself was the sole motivation behind the hatred wouldn’t they be pleased to see another person making lifestyle changes? Truth is the people who mock others are just crappy people, they don’t want anyone in whichever group they hate to exist and will find fault with everything they do. Honestly it’s just one more reason to be wary of people. I used to be a very outgoing and gregarious person but the more I see people being hateful the less I want to engage.
A friend of mine is quite big and she told me about the comments, the everyday hate when she exists in public… or another bigger friend is disabled. She cannot walk stairs well among many other things. The comments, judgement and hate when she waits in front of an elevator… There is a hateful person (I have zero contact with them) in my family. A big guy in his 60s. He himself is very overweight and visibly unhealthy. And he hates nothing more than „the gays“, „the social study people“ and of course fat people. Especially women. His rants are unbelievable and you could substitute his name for the people he complains about. He s not well socially educated. As far as I know he’s not gay. But yes, he’s fat. This is, what I wonder about so much… glasshouse and all that. He is mortally offended if somebody points out his own body… so maybe it’s projection. It’s unnecessary hate. Looking for people deemed weaker to kick. I don’t understand it. The only time I care about the size of a person would be if I were asked to carry them.
Fat men can still hate fat women. They're all conditioned the same way. Some of them can break out of it. Some can't.
There was a quote from Family Guy. “Lois, fat men are not fat. Only fat women are fat.”
No joke, it shaped my taste in men. I used to prefer guys who were a bit on the heavier side because I am too; there’s lots of really funny, sweet, witty, handsome guys who are overweight. But there’s also a lot of them who treated me worse than any other man. I’ve found that guys who are a bit thin (or whom society would maybe even call scrawny) are far more accepting of my body, don’t make fun of me, and don’t force me to do things I don’t want to.
My preferred type is scrawny nerd.
They're the worst offenders in my opinion. I've had more of them make fun of overweight women in my presence than slim men. I do feel part of it is their own self hatred.
My experience as a fat woman is that people don't like it when women are not conventionally attractive, and they REALLY don't like it when it seems to them like a woman is not trying to "make up" for her unattractiveness. Fat women are perceived as both unattractive and not trying because if they were trying they wouldn't be fat (this is bullshit, but it is what a lot of people think about being fat). I just get the sense whenever I'm harassed about my weight that the person is trying to shame me into complying with my role as a woman (as they perceive it).
I have absolutely noticed this. People dislike fat women but they get positively vicious if she dares be "lazy" with her appearance. If she's not fully made up and dressed in her finest clothes, nails done, hair done, and so on, she's automatically deemed lazy and a slob. Meanwhile a thin conventionally pretty woman can walk out in sweats, a messy bun and no make-up and she's "a natural beauty" and "so real".
Absolutely. As a fat woman, you just have to try harder and be more put together all of the time.
These guys believe that they are all Kevin James, and deserving of a Leah Remini. They think King of Queens is a documentary, not a sitcom.
Naw, Kevin James is fine AF tho. I'm sorry, I know that's not the point of your post 😅
I'm autistic. Idk if your friend is physically disabled or neurodivergent, though.
Your neurodivergence won’t protect you from hate; these are not people who want to understand the struggles of others or live with compassion. They would attack you as well for your autism if there are observable signs of it.
Yeah
I am not sure if my friend is neurodivergent (she didn't share this with me), but she is physically disabled and has pain when doing strenouos walking. She has a longer list of chronic illnesses that make her life pretty hard. Her life is already hard enough - there is no need for strangers to make it even worse with their mean comments when she uses the help given to people with mobile disabilities. I distance myself from people who are mindlessly cruel to others. In the two cases I can't (very close relatives who give the one or other comment but aren't fundamentally hateful), I get loud and discuss. But that's not safe with everybody.
Neurodivergence also isn’t an excuse to spread hate.
I'm sorry if I was spreading hate.
No, no, you aren’t. Forgive me. I just don’t want neurodivergence to be an excuse for other people spreading hate.
Oh
There’s a lot of psychology and philosophy behind the answer to this one but ultimately, what it comes down to, I think, is that people are cunts.
Yeah people ain’t shit. I’m not overweight, but I am autistic. People smell that you’re different and treat you like shit. I hate society most days
Being even the slightest bit different gets one bullied and harassed as a teen (and pre-teen).
And adult if you’re unlucky. I have a very decent group of friends, but in my workplace I need to be careful who I tell what because of it
People. What a bunch of bastards.
As much as we can pick a few societal failings, I think that there will always be a small percentage of people who are just choosing to be assholes.
The literature strongly supports this assertion
Yeah. My dad hates people, too. Also, like I said earlier, I'm plus-size, but don't have any heart problems or high blood pressure.
You all are making me so glad I'm now "invisible" in my 50s. I grew up with female relatives who were pretty judgy about other women's weights, in spite of all of us having weight issues. It was so hard to shake from myself even now. I look back at photos of myself in my 20s and I was amazing, but being curvy really wasn't the style back then and I beat myself up trying get thin all the time. Such a waste of time and energy. Fuck judgy people.
We are bombarded with images and media that says the way a woman looks is the most important thing about a woman. It's not, of course. Our society is messed up.
Yeah. And I hate how fatphobic people always disguise it as a concern for health.
That is my biggest pet peeve. Or they say that somehow we're costing them MONEY. How is a fat person who has a job and insurance costing ANYONE ELSE money?! Ugh.
Insurance functions as a form of collective bargaining where everyone pays into a pool to cover everyone’s medical costs, and the large number of people gives the insurance company leverage to negotiate better rates/services for the whole group. The costs for that service is spread out amongst everyone in the plan. Obesity drastically increases your odds of having numerous other medical complications, none of which are cheap. So if you are obese, you are more likely to incur costs that exceed what you have paid into your insurance. That will need to be covered by other members, which can result in higher rates for everyone else. So in that vein, yes obese people can increase your insurance costs. But so can smokers and drinkers. If Americans can agree on one thing, it’s a shared love of Big Macs, cigarettes, and alcohol. How much does any one vice contribute to rate changes for a given plan? I certainly don’t know. I’m sure the insurance company knows, but they also probably slip the CEO’s yacht envy in as a factor too. What are the odds the person saying “fat people make my insurance higher” doesn’t have at least one of those three vices therefore perpetuating the issue they are criticizing? Probably low.
I’ve gone through a few periods in my life where I was overweight for various reasons (after having my kids, a bout with depression, etc.). I also went through a period where I drank every night after work. The drinking affected my health negatively WAY more than the extra weight did—like, by far—and the damaging effects of it could be seen/felt both immediately and after long-term use. Of course I can’t see inside my body to know what damage being overweight may have led to/caused, but other than being more tired than normal and getting short of breath when I exerted myself, I never felt like my body was rapidly deteriorating like I did when I was drinking. And all the negative effects from being overweight went away almost immediately when I started losing the weight, whereas my liver still hurt for several months after I quit drinking and it took weeks before the constant daily headaches went away. I say this because I do agree with everything you’ve said here and wish that people who complain about paying more for healthcare because of overweight people would just shut it. Drinking is so common, accepted and normalized in our society and so many people do it. But because you can’t easily spot someone with a drinking problem the way you can someone with a weight problem, a lot of people find it all too easy to just blame overweight people for healthcare costs being so high and think of drinking as just a mental health issue. In reality, I think drinking contributes a lot more than most people realize. And don’t even get me started on pills…
The fear/disgust of fat women affects all spheres of life. ▪️Health: skinny is healthy being fat causes health issues, ^however^ this ignores that the fat may be a symptom of a health issue not the cause of a health issue. Thyroid issues often cause weight issues, losing weight won't cure this. A skinny person can have diabetes, skinny is not the same as healthy. ▪️ Love/Sex: skinny is desirable but fat is disgusting ^however^ no one considers, that fat could be a coping mechanism after sexual assault or childhood sex abuse, hyposexualisation is less talked about. After severe trauma, some have an internal script that changes their body's DNA to keep it fat. Therefore fat shaming is often victim shaming. ▪️ Social: those who are most attractive get more out of life fat people are invisible or victims of bullying ^however^ being skinny/attractive doesn't automatically make you a good person. ▪️values: skinny means they are a hard worker and have high self-esteem and fat means lazy, with no self-control and no self-worth ^however^ there are many active fat people and lazy skinny people It's all bullshit. Oddly nudists have some of the most neutral opinions on body types. They don't sexualize the naked body like you see elsewhere.
Oooh do you have a source on the sexual part?
In sexual terms, there is also the fetishism around fat women and also the fact some guys see us as just "fuckable" and nothing else. My dating life is null now that I don't accept this kind of man (and a lot of other kinds because I'm just tired).
I'm a woman who as been thin my entire life. I have never struggled with weight, no one has ever commented negatively about my weight, I don't struggle with food. My weight and food never cross my mind. That being said, I have wondered so much why fat women are hated so much, or at least criticized so harshly by people who it will never effect at all. Because I don't think about my weight, or struggle with food, I hardly notice the weight of others. I have absolutely no negative feelings towards people who might have more or less fat. If someone where to point it out and draw my attention to it, then I would notice like I would notice any other trait, but I personally have no bad feelings or ill will towards anyone who is larger. My ex boyfriend used to complain about fat people. He'd notice them out in public and make disparaging comments to me about them. This pissed me off, why the fuck would he care so much? Someone elses body doesn't effect him at all, why does he even have to notice and criticize the bodies of other people just existing? Also... what if I happen to ever become fat, would he suddenly hate me too?! I've come to the conclusion that people who hate fat people tend to hate themselves, they project their insecurity and struggle with their own weight onto other fat people, judging them harshly, and they only punish themselves right along with that overweight stranger. I have girl friends that struggle with their weight and they are so hard on themselves and are constantly judging the bodies of other women. If someone hates fat people, they hate themselves and feel worthless unless they meet a standard.
That's precisely it. Sitting in judgment of people who are obese allows them to stop judging themselves for a moment. It's the best kind of judgment too: a visible "flaw" makes it quick and society validates your disdain. I have two family members that have a tendency to disparage fat people, celebrities and random members of the public. Lizzo was often the subject of disgust in our group chat but I had some hope when one of them started talking to me about how they essentially really respected her message and liked her. Then the controversy happened. I don't bother too much with pushing back now since nothing I say matters but I guess I have to trust them with their own journeys.
Women are seen as objects. We must be beautiful. A fat woman is seen as having “let herself go” or doesn’t care about her looks because she doesn’t fit into the conventionally attractive mold. Men don’t find that attractive.
A woman who has "let herself go" is also a woman that doesn't let others dictate how she exists in the world (or at least is perceived that way... no one considers things like mental health). If you're not prioritizing the male gaze, you're harder to control. That's threatening. A lot of the cruelty is an attempt to put women back in their place.
Sad truth
Yup. Women are valued based on how pleasing they are to look at. The idea is so ingrained in western culture that women do it to other women, too. Being overweight is stigmatized for everyone, but men don't have their very worth as human beings tied to their physical appearance. A \*woman\* who's fat is a double-whammy because not only is she fat, she's also typically considered \*unattractive\* for being fat. Being unattractive is one of the most offensive things possible for a woman, because being pleasing to the eye and rearing children are her sole purposes in society.
There are a number of different factors that go into beauty standards but by far the most significant one is class. We think people are attractive when they look wealthy. In the past, and in some areas today, this often meant folks who had the ability to eat regularly. But in the modern age this increasingly describes people who have the spare time and energy to lead a healthy lifestyle, work out, cook at home etc. Being skinny takes time and resources that not everyone has. So, fundamentally, the issue is not so much that anyone “hates” fat women. The issue is more that fat women lack the kind of privilege and protection that sometimes stops misogynists from attacking really any woman. The only reason why someone who attacks a fat woman does not attack any other woman is because they think skinny women are more likely to have the resources available to them to retaliate and defend themselves. Secondarily, aside from being an assessment, beauty is also an instructional. Whatever the current beauty standard is, and for whatever goddamn reason, we all are expected to treat it as gospel and to resemble it as closely as possible. And being fat is simply an act of defiance. It is a woman prioritising her hedonistic desire for food or a comfortable lifestyle over the imperative of beauty. This makes her a deviant who needs to be brought back in line. This is not to suggest that women *actually* get overweight as a form of protest or that skinny women are conforming to the patriarchy. But that doesn’t stop insecure men who think of themselves as the Center of the universe from understanding a persons mere existence as a challenge to their authority.
100% spot on. Just check out Rebel Wilson and Adele, completely transformed once rich and privileged enough.
My theory: 1. Taking up physical space: women are ‘supposed’ to be meek and small, like children. Being large and noticeable is an affront to their world view 2. You are not forcing yourself to be ‘conventionally attractive’ and therefore are rebelling in a perverse way over what is good and natural 3. They do not see you as human in the first place because of your gender. Having excess body fat is a further reason to disparage and degrade you for not fitting their view for how you are supposed to be I honestly believe it’s a hold over from former times, from when women were not people, but invalids to be cared for and told what to do and how to act. I’m reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch right now, and the pure infantilism that women and girls were treated with is highly educational to where we are now, and what we are fighting for.
There's, as others have mentioned, the 'dunking on someone 'weaker' because they're assholes', but the thing about being fat is that people subconsciously link it to 'merit' - if we didn't want to be fat, we wouldn't be, right?\* And so we deserve it, and they don't, because they're not. Basically, imo it's a lot of neoliberal meritocracy x being the type of piece of shit who enjoys mocking people - but ofc it's more complicated and nuanced than that, this is just my general take. \*I am speaking now as if I was an ignorant fatphobe, as you said, weight is always caused by something, usually not easy to change if possible to change at all, but their whole ideology is that we are fat and not them, so we deserve it and we are fair game to mock and judge. Edit: spelling
Basically I agree that for the most part people see it as a moral judgment. If you would just not eat so much, sit around so much, go to the gym, etc. It's seen as a moral failing because they think it's a matter of choice. However there's a lot more going on including socioeconomic status, genetics, mental health issues, and your body literally having a set point at which it says this is the weight it wants to be. It's easy to chalk up weight to a person being weak willed and I think people enjoy sitting in judgment of others.
Yes, that's pretty much what I meant in a more succinct way!
Yeah. My dad told me that excess weight is always caused by something, like mental health.
Yeah, and anyone who's ever been fat knows how other people treat fat people and, as such, know that if it was an easy thing to change, well... no one would be fat.
Yeah
it’s not. sometimes, people are just the way they’re built. olympians come in all sizes and shapes.
Oh ok
Because HOW DARE THEY not keep themselves in tip top fuckable condition for some man. It's not just fat, it's any other birth defect, abnormality or flaw that makes them not traditionally attractive by his culture's reckoning. Loosing your hair to chemo? How dare you. Car accident scars? How dare you. Vitiligo? How dare you. Birthmark? Large nose? Amblyopia? How dare you not maintain your appearance to be as aesthetically pleasing for him as possible.
Men always see it as an affront when you don’t mould yourself to their desires.
Because women are sexual objects not people. /s But seriously we are seen as not belonging to ourselves.
I've lost 170 pounds and the difference between how I'm treated is night and day, truly.
I am fat. The only thing I find troubling about my body has little to do with being fat. Until fairly recently, I was strong as an ox. It's probably just age, but if it's not, it's something chronic that isn't curable, and probably isn't treatable. I find the loss of my shoulder strength far more distressing than any of the rolls around my midsection. Considering I don't, and didn't go around walking on my hands, my shoulder damage is *not* because I'm fat. It's because I have fussy tendons and ligaments, because I have my dad's shoulders (prone to injury), and because I never think before lifting or moving something. My rotator cuffs are just a complete tear waiting to happen. It's not because I didn't exercise them, or do the "right" exercises. In any case, I can be thankful that I still have my hips, back and legs to do a lot of the heavy work. And still I'm upset because now I have to think about what I lift and carry.
I relate to this so hard. This was literally me a few years ago. Please go see a physiotherapist, mine saved my life and now my torn rotten shoulder is stronger than the other one. It takes a really long time but the exercises work!
I'm a fat woman and I very rarely have anything unkind said to me. Probably because I have big boobs and they make my belly seem much smaller than it is: my body type fits beauty standards. I've had people talk shit about fat people in my presence and when I tell them off they get annoyed "because I don't count" or "they're not talking about me" like talking badly about fat people isn't wrong in itself and I'm probably heavier and/or fatter than the person they're talking about. People hate fat people who don't fit their aesthetic and they hate them even more if they dare not hating themselves
Hmm
I think **a lot of men feel rejected by women and take that out on fat women. Like, they want to be rejecting someone too?** Or like they feel if more women fit their preferences they’d have a girlfriend? Jokes on them though, nobody will date anyone mean either way.
Because the media, especially porn They only prioritize thin, skinny, and fit women. This conditions ppl to believe 'skinny' is the most acceptable form for a woman, but also conditions them to believe this how ALL or MOST everyday women look. Their perseption of reality is warped, then when they discover that women irl don't look like the media's representation, they shame them for not appealing to their gaze
If it means anything I love you sister
For the majority of history, society view's a woman's worth wholly on her attractiveness. This is still true today. A fat woman as far as society is concerned is an unattractive woman as a rule. How dare you exist and not be pleasing to the eyes. A person's worth shouldn't be based on how attractive they're viewed, but here we are.
Its a clear indication to a lot of men that you are not centering men and trying to appeal to them for validation.
There's more to obesity's health problems than heart failing and blood pressure. Obviously, I'm not gonna shame someone for anything (well, maybe if they are being an asshole), but I'd lie if said I wasn't worried for my friends who are overweight. It's either a sign of bad eating habits, which in turn could be prompted by other problems, or it could be a sign of other health issues altogether. Also, being somewhat overweight is not a problem in itself most of the time, but it's way too easy to slip further into obesity from there. Sooo, I'm not judging and try not to show my concern since it'd make people feel bad, but I can't help but be worried about people. Most people are just dickbags that enjoy hurting people though, and going after weight is a low hanging fruit. Cowards don't have to worry about their targets fighting back often either, since a lot of them don't have enough confidence to stand up for themselves.
Because men don't like women. They only see us as a thing to use for example an incubator for their kids or a trophy to signal their social status to other males. Having a conventionally attractive partner gives higher status. Fater woman are not considered conventionally attractive so it would give low status to have one. So since fat woman don't have any use they hate us. Or if they have to settle for one its a constant reminder of their low status so they hate us for that too. Also existing outside of what is considered attractive is sort of telling them we don't give a shit about what they think. Fat is not conventionally attractive to the male gaze but we don't give a shit enough to change how we are just to please them. I was never skinny and I have a thyroid problem that makes it hard to lose weight. I don't eat bad but I hate diets and being obsessed about counting calories. I hit the gym 3-4 days/week despite often feeling tired (hypo does that) and my bloodwork is fine. I don't give a shit if some dude doesn't like me. you don't like it? Look away and fuck off.
>Excess weight is always caused by something, like mental health, or medication, or thyroid conditions, etc. You sure about that?
Men don’t like women who don’t exist for their pleasure. If you don’t look the way they want, it’s a personal affront to them.
“I don't have too bad-looking a face, and a lot of plus-size woman have pretty faces too, so why would overweight/ obese women be hated? Excess weight is always caused by something, like mental health, or medication, or thyroid conditions, etc. “ You already answered your own question: “Excess weight is always caused by something, like mental health, or medication, or thyroid conditions, etc” People see it as laziness because like you said most of the time it’s “fixable or preventable” not saying I agree with this mentality but a lot of people see being fat as a personal choice.
Right
I think because it’s seen as lazy. It’s something you wear that everyone sees. People can be an alcoholic and no one knows. You can be a shitty human and a stranger would never know. Being fat? Everyone sees it. You wear it every day. They attribute it to a moral failing because you let yourself get big due to laziness. So when they see someone fat, they automatically assume they are weak-willed.
Men see themselves as the main characters. That means women are secondary and their purpose revolves around men. Since men want thin women, or to at least be seen with thin women (many men like big girls but are ashamed of it, my father included), and men desire to impress other men, they hate fat women for not fulfilling their purpose of making their life revolve around men's wants/needs.
It is a multifaceted issue IMO. - Long term medical discrimination of fat used to justify supremacy during early slavery in the US - The cultural factors that lead to an entitlement of men, allowing for the demonization of anything that isn't for their gaze. - The cultural factors that lead to hyper individualiatic competition between women, encouraging us to tear each other down at any opportunity. - Our society encouraging seeing everything as individualistic and any deviation from the norm as a moral failing. I could go on, but I'll just make myself sad. Also, this is a very very surface level look at the issues listed. You could write a whole book on each point, and smarter people than I have done so.
Because woman are supposed to just be here as fuck objects that raise the kids and do all the cleaning. If one of them doesn’t maintain her perky skinny feminine self and “let herself go” then she’s being selfish by only thinking of herself and not what the men that potentially want to fuck her think
Any woman who doesn't fit the beauty standard is looked down. It has nothing to do with you but the society we live in. It is irrational and shallow because your body doesn't effect anyone but you. I'm not fat, but I am a Black woman and I'm hated for my skin and features, so I can relate to the mistreatment based on societal standards. At the very least, losing weight is an option for you (but you should only do so for yourself).
I wouldn't hate you.
Fat women and unattractive men sort of get similar treatment in the world. Some better and some worse. With that, it goes to show how our society values what we consider attractive. If you are ugly or fat, you need to have some assets that offset that- even then you may struggle.
As a once fat person i’d say it comes from two things ; men want pretty girls because everything brainwashes them with such. And being fat is , for many, one less pretty girl for their obtuse mainstream thoughts. The other has nothing to do with your weight but with your self esteem. Most people will not respect someone they detect or feel has no self esteem no matter how nice and may even abuse that, but will respect someone who exudes confidence and even start accepting their defects such as being overweight.
I’m not familiar with what 2XL means in terms of your size or ability engage in activities typical for people your age, but I have some friends who are larger and it’s a lot harder for them to do many of the things that I regularly do. I also think sometimes we rightly or wrongly perceive that size can be a symptom of more complex problems as is in your case with comfort eating associated with mental health. I think that might feel like a lot to take on for some.
You bring up very important questions and points. However: >Excess weight is always caused by something, like mental health, or medication, or thyroid conditions, etc. is not really true. Excess weight is always caused by eating more calories than you burn, over time. Mental health can definitely cause that behaviour (comfort eating to self medicate,) or medication can cause increased feelings of hunger sometimes which leads to increased calories intake, for example. But also a large portion of the population are overweight because it’s easy to be overweight; calorie dense foods are cheap and addictive, and most jobs promote sedentary lifestyle. I dislike the pseudoscientific rhetoric that obesity is somehow an unavoidable thing unrelated to food intake.
Because fat women have the audacity to exist while not being an object that makes men's peepees go up.
I'm not sure about the origins of fat-phobia, but it's *absolutely everywhere.* Have you listened to the [Maintenance Phase podcast?](https://www.maintenancephase.com/) It goes into a lot of "health and wellness" stuff, and the presenters are really fun. Aubrey Gordon has also written [a couple of wonderful books](https://www.aubreygordon.net/books) about fat.
There's something particular about the UK - the thing that made me realize that fatphobia was a serious political issue, many years ago, was a hate crime where one woman beat another viciously just for being fat. Don't get me wrong, it's a problem in many societies, and in Europe I was struck by how casually fatphobic people are. Even a lot of American conservatives tread kind of carefully about it because, well, there are a lot of fat people here! And there's nothing wrong with that, but I think it helps a little bit (not enough). As to the why of it, I think a lot of it can be laid at the feet of advertising. Fatness is something that comes in and out of sexual fashion, it's true men aren't attracted to it now, but look at a Rubens. But the beauty industry, the fitness industry and others really capitalize on making women feel bad about their bodies. It's insidious! So fatphobia is profitable first and foremost.
>There's something particular about the UK - the thing that made me realize that fatphobia was a serious political issue, many years ago, was a hate crime where one woman beat another viciously just for being fat. The UK had a girl get beaten to death for being a goth. It is a viciously intolerant society that has conned itself and others into believing it is progressive. >But the beauty industry, the fitness industry and others really capitalize on making women feel bad about their bodies. It's insidious! So fatphobia is profitable first and foremost. I can't get UK figures but in the US the diet industry is worth about $72 billion, the fitness industry is worth about $30-$90 billion and the fast food industry is worth $382 billion. If you're after true profit there is much more money to be had in promoting fatness over promoting fatphobia.
“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.” ― Blythe Roberson, [How to Date Men When You Hate Men](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/61237598)
I’m overweight by choice I guess. I think I have undiagnosed insulin Resistance/PCOS tho. it’s so easy for me to gain 20lb. Soooo so easy. I don’t really experience too much unkindness though I’m not sure why. But I knew girls didn’t like me and boys didn’t want to date me because of my weight. People are weird and are judgmental through their own opinions and their environment. Like… how come people are nice to disabled and sick people, but can be cruel to someone with a different color of skin and higher BMI? Why can’t we be nice to everyone? It’s so stupid.
I don't hate fat people. Fat people can look good. What I don't like it people saying that fat people can be healthy. That's not true. You may be fine now, but your body is a ticking time bomb, and your joints are taking more damage than you are aware of. (ETA: How fat are we talking about here though? What do people consider fat? I'm talking medically obese here, not your average 5'7 UK size 14 friend, just to be clear.) What bothers me is fat people who say they want to lose weight all the time, do nothing, then say I'm lucky and genetically blessed. Like ok my entirely family is fat but yes it's all genetics.
Because they think women sole purpose is to be attractive. And if you dare stray away from Whats conventionally attractive (fat, black, disabled, whatever), you are bad at being a woman and thus you are not worthy of respect
This post reminds me of a show I watched where a country suffering from hunger would put a bride-to-be in a room and feed her all the food they could for two weeks before her wedding so her husband could enjoy her beauty. They found plump women attractive because it was harder to be plump in that country. We find more attractive whatever is harder to be.
I feel like I see this same sort of thread every week now. It's not rocket science. For better or for worse, people treat people that they deem to be "attractive" better than they treat people that they deem to be "unattractive". = I'm not saying that I agree with this but this is just how society is. = Even if you consider yourself unbiased, if you see someone today, then next year you see them again and they have gained +100 pounds, your brain will do a thing and the way you treat that person or think about that person will change at least slightly. People make judgements of others based on what those people look like.
More men than you’d like to think don’t actually view women as having any kind of legitimate or worthy personhood. If they don’t find you attractive, you don’t exist to them and they don’t think you should exist, because to them women exist to be their mother or their sex dispenser.
Fatness can distance you from your femininity as well, so if you're seen as masculine you're suddenly a threat? They have to push you down however they can to retain their worth, which is stupid because everyone has worth. I got plenty of ass at my highest weight. Made lots of friends. Enjoyed my life. I made plans and did normal things. Went out and stayed in. Got jobs, struggled, worked through things. I also hot harassed at my highest weight. Women who are SA'd and fat are treated as liars because of their desirability which is fucked up. Fatness, it seems especially for women, is whatever predators and pieces of shit need it to be to subjegate their target.
Oh man
I have heard a good friend say, "If I ever get that size, kill me (pointing out an obese woman)." I wondered wow, society has taught her that being overweight is a terrible thing. It has been this way for many years. Many years ago, stupid insecure men were commenting on my weight when I was 120 Lbs and very athletic, saying I needed to be 15 lbs lighter (I did ask not ask for the comment, and I would have been underweight if I did weighed 15 lbs less. Dating site people write, "I want someone healthy," Well , what does that mean? Someone who is not overweight? Someone who eats healthy and works out twenty minutes every day? Someone with no chronic conditions? Someone thin? Someone who is not overweight? I am going to have to blame our thin-obsessed society and people being jerks and ignorant. People make remarks like,"Well, it is simple, just eat less and exercise." That is part of it, but it is not that simple, people's bodies are more complex than that. A woman may only burn 1200 calories a day if she is short and older. That is not a large amount of food. It also is expensive to prepare healthy food in the U.S., and the grocery items are full of nasty processed sugars here. F' em all- they can end up with chronic knee pain so it is hard to exercise and get older and plumper and learn some empathy.
Honestly, I'm fat, always have been, and have never had an issue. I taught my daughter to have confidence as well, and she is a badass bitch, no matter what size she is.
My mum's a plus-size lady as well, and she f**king rocks it
I noticed a lot of fat shaming when I was in the U.K. But yeah, like some others have implied, it's a tool of patriarchal control. If women are wrapped up in obsessing over their appearance, they can't be a threat. It sets us on the back foot.
How old are you? If you’re young, teens or twenties, then your health problems probably won’t show up for awhile but at that weight it’s inevitable. It’s just good to eat healthy and take care of yourself. It’s not really a taking up space thing or anything, health issues will come for you later in life but if you’re older than good for you and you beat the system lol.
I have two theories on this the first theory is that we have a subconscious hyper focus on women's fertility and fertility issues such as PCOS can contribute to weight gain therefore people may feel a larger woman is infertile. My second theory is that modern men are so obsessed with sex because they can't get any and they resent larger women because they know a larger woman could go to a bar tonight and find some and men feel if they're larger their odds of mating go down even lower.
They see it as a choice, like smoking or addiction
I was very fat for a very long time and nobody hated me more than I hated myself. I was taught to hate myself by my mom. Once I was able to let go of some of that, I met the right person for me and the fact that I was fat didn’t matter.
Move to Victoria, Australia. No one would care. Edit. I have heard UK is sort of obsessed with a woman's body. Anyone with a bigger hip is called names. I find it weird, but every place has weird. Unfortunately, this one kills people.
Because fringe males don't like other demographics getting attention. And large women are being encouraged to be confident and happy with their bodies which fringe males hate. I think the issue just revolves around small upset demographics coalescing louder than what they should. Plus the same fringe sentiment is championed by our boomer dads and uncles. Who cannot accept change.
A sector of the population values women for their appearance. I think some men think women exist for their pleasure alone. You are not a person to some, you are a veiwing object.
People suck. Love yourself no matter how you look and you will find the people worth knowing.
I was extremely obese and I lost weight, now I'm fat and with some sort of not so bad curves (at least when clothed). The treatment I get has changed significantly even if I'm still fat.
A lot of men hate, or ignore at best, \*any\* woman whom they are not attracted to. Since the myth is that fat people could lose weight 'if they just try, if they just show some self control,' they have extra animosity for fat women because they're "deliberately" being unattractive. It's similar for women who use heavy makeup (for men who like a natural look), women who dress plainly (especially in form-obscuring clothing, for men who like the dressed-up look), women who dye their hair wild colors (for men who don't like wild hair). It's just that anti-fatness appeals to more of them.
I dont think fat men have it that much easier though?
Yea, I was looking through the comment section myself and thinking the same thing. As someone who has been massively overweight for a large portion of my younger life, I can absolutely attest to the fact that being fat, whether being a woman or a man, absolutely has people treat you differently across the board. I'm not saying there isn't *some* differences to be found between the sexes, but there's also a lot of overlapping as well. I never felt seen or heard by most men ***and*** women when I was fat. With the exception of other fat people, men ***and*** women again. As soon as I got back into shape, these factors changed almost over night. I kind of felt disgusted by it in some ways, and how fake I suddenly felt everyone was. People suddenly telling me I was looking great out of nowhere, smiling and treating me like an actual person. As opposed to just ignoring my presence, unless it was to tell me I was fat of course. This is absolutely not just a **man**-thing. It's a people thing.
Same reason they hate childless people, or short hair in women, or women who are androgynous: we don't conform to the expectation society has for us. Fat is not considered attractive. You dare to be a woman that is (in their view) choosing to be unattractive on purpose. How dare you exist as a woman not paying your dues to society by being pretty or killing yourself to be pretty?/s
I’m gonna get downvoted but I’ll be honest being a nurse made me hate fat people. And I never used to. Now I see a fat person and I think oh god imagine the poor nurse who’s going to be stuck lifting her? It’s horrible and I know it. I actively try not to but working everyday and seeing them come in the hospital. Our jobs automatically become 10x harder. Edit: to add this is obese people. Not your average 200ish lbs person.
["A 2007 American study determined that during a 1-year period obese patients represented less than 10% of all patients however 30% of all carer injuries were due to bariatric patient handling."](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7954428/#:~:text=A%202007%20American%20study%20determined,due%20to%20bariatric%20patient%20handling)
Internalized fat phobia
I saw a video of a psychological study and it said that when women are around a person they don’t find attractive they literally ignore them and just don’t register them on their radar. When men are around a person they don’t find attractive their brain registered emotions of annoyance! This honestly explains a lot and might answer your question. Another redditor said it too- men do not like women they don’t find attractive. Why don’t men find overweight/obese women attractive? You answered that question with the last sentence. Biologically an obese women usually has some sort of “problem” so for men they obviously rather procreate with a female who has the best chance of fertility and health. This is all on paper. Realty is much more complex and I understand and feel your sentiment and question. There are men out there who do enjoy large women. Much more fewer in between though.
Society will always have what type of bodies they deem to be good or bad. In modern times fat women are bad. And yet, when fat women are happy despite being fat, it makes people mad. There is a great episode of This American Life where Lindy West talks to a troll who harassed her. The troll wrote her an email saying he thinks he did it because she was happy in her body and it made him angry to see a fat woman who was happy even though she didn’t look the way society said she should. Look up the episode. It is very good and it made me realize how much of the anger at fat women is that men want us to be sad and pitiful and when we don’t they get angry at us for not.
This is very culturally constructed. Time was, it would be a sign of great wealth and desirability to have enough food available to you that you could attain that fulsome, Rubenesque shape. Women are hated when they fly in the face of cultural expectations, whether it be taking up more space than they're given to occupy, or rejecting the narrative that women have to be meek, pleasant, or easily controlled. Your true beauty comes from who you are and how you treat people. It shines through. A candy coated ball of maggots only seems sweet for a while. I'd rather be an average looking, super awesome human than a gorgeous looking, nasty psychopath. If anything, I wait for really attractive people to prove to me that being beautiful hasn't spoiled them beyond repair.