WomensStuff

Seldom have I seen someone miss the point THIS hard. Reading an essay by someone who feels bad that people are losing weight at her. She's feels good when someone fails to lose weight through diet, and gets especially mad at weight loss surgery because it works.

She went with her mother to support groups, not to support her mother, but for the free clothing. She feels morally superior at the end because she didn't try to ruin someone's post-surgery recovery.

The author near the end aaaaaalmost grasps that apart from vanity there might be other reasons for losing weight, but then immediately considers only the most superficial aspects. Maybe it's what others say about her?

For one brief moment she does actually realize that maybe people have their own reasons for wanting to lose weight. Diabetes, ruined knees. Those she accepts, but wanting to prevent it is not allowed, making that private choice is too much of an insult to the author.

Fat phobia is probably the prejudice I am most personally and intimately familiar with, and it has continued to astound me the depth of self hatred and external vitriol it can inspire.

This feels like such a poetic expression of the mental dance that turns in to emotional knots. I think it's fair to be angry that there exists enough social and cultural pressure to be "acceptable" that people would undergo a fairly dangerous procedure that intentionally removes one of the greatest simple pleasures in life. And it's not a coincidence that far more women get bariatric surgery than men.

I feel the knots in my own head when I think about the wegovy prescription I recently got. My decision was made because I have enough health issues that this would theoretically help, but do I get excited about the fact that I might be able to just get cute clothes from random shops again? Do I get excited at the thought that maybe more people will think I'm pretty and maybe I could finally find a partner or even just have someone flirt with me? Absolutely. Am I excited that maybe doctors will stop blaming my weight for my chronic issues that started long before the weight? Yes. Does it feel like a deal with the devil, even without the potential horrors of bariatric surgery? Also yes. (And is that too many rhetorical questions in this format? Seems likely 😅)

I'm not sure I have the energy to debate anyone about this, but I thought I would share my own perspective 🩷

Thank you, Wren, this has given much food for thought!

I used to joke with people that I was my mother’s before picture, in the ubiquitous and devastating tradition of photos taken to reveal dramatic weight loss, the punchline for every ad that sells weight loss to women.

the brutality of this sentence ...

The fat people who become obsessed with counting calories and steps, the ones who try to vacate their bodies a little at a time . . . I don’t worry about them. They’ll never make it. Sooner or later they all come back.

jfc, as someone who is counting calories and fasting to lose weight (and have already lost 40+ lbs), this is so disturbing to read 💀

I mean, she's right - most people do regain the weight, but I have to believe I can be an exception and form healthier long term behaviors, otherwise there is no point in trying (and I wouldn't have lost all the weight I have already lost by trying - even if I have still more to lose).

Honestly, this essay functioned as a kind of advertisement for weight loss surgery, I never seriously considered surgery before but now she has me looking into it, lol

Compared to the other surgeries, it looks like gastric banding is fairly reasonable tbh

anyway - yes, what a great writer, "cautionary whale" is just pure gold

you're giving me too many good articles to read 😭

This woman comes across as a bitter crab in a bucket, making the struggles of others all about herself. Who passive-aggressively eats an entire bag of Halloween candy just because their friend is talking about the "evils" of white rice?

Honestly I hate to be rude but this woman sounds unbearable.