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This thread has been moderated. While there is no shame in being higher weight or having a substance use disorder, conflating being higher-weight with substance use disorders is not evidence-based, is rooted in stereotypes about higher-weight people, and does a disservice to higher-weight people, to people with substance use disorders, and to higher-weight people with actual substance use disorders.
This was such a great read! It feels like the terms we use to describe ourselves are constantly changing. It can be confusing and this was incredibly helpful. Thanks for your work!
I'm very large and prefer the term obese over the term fat. People call me fat every week and it's usually done as an insult. In fact, people have been calling me fat as long as I can remember and it's almost always meant as a way to mock me. The word fat is seen in such a negative light that my niece's school banned it as a slur among other racial slurs and using it will get the kid suspended. That being said, no-one has ever called me obese as an insult. Everyone has been ultra-supportive and understanding who has used that term to describe me. I don't care that it means "to eat until fat" - what's wrong with having a big appetite anyway? It's not a moral failure to like food - food is not alcohol - and everyone who looks at you will think that you're large because you've eaten too much anyway, so there's no point pretending otherwise (regardless of the truth).
So thought provoking. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And I looked up the definition of fat in several dictionaries, and the definitions relating to bodies were very fatphobic. Ugh. (I'm a fat artist working on making an artist's book titled "Fat", just having the word float on pages of abstract, beautiful imagery.)
This thread has been moderated. While there is no shame in being higher weight or having a substance use disorder, conflating being higher-weight with substance use disorders is not evidence-based, is rooted in stereotypes about higher-weight people, and does a disservice to higher-weight people, to people with substance use disorders, and to higher-weight people with actual substance use disorders.
This was such a great read! It feels like the terms we use to describe ourselves are constantly changing. It can be confusing and this was incredibly helpful. Thanks for your work!
I'm very large and prefer the term obese over the term fat. People call me fat every week and it's usually done as an insult. In fact, people have been calling me fat as long as I can remember and it's almost always meant as a way to mock me. The word fat is seen in such a negative light that my niece's school banned it as a slur among other racial slurs and using it will get the kid suspended. That being said, no-one has ever called me obese as an insult. Everyone has been ultra-supportive and understanding who has used that term to describe me. I don't care that it means "to eat until fat" - what's wrong with having a big appetite anyway? It's not a moral failure to like food - food is not alcohol - and everyone who looks at you will think that you're large because you've eaten too much anyway, so there's no point pretending otherwise (regardless of the truth).
So thought provoking. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. And I looked up the definition of fat in several dictionaries, and the definitions relating to bodies were very fatphobic. Ugh. (I'm a fat artist working on making an artist's book titled "Fat", just having the word float on pages of abstract, beautiful imagery.)