Fat-Shamers and the Fat-Acceptance Movement Both Have it Wrong

We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

I once read that the best parents communicate two resounding messages to their children:

1. We love you like crazy
2. You cannot have what you want

In tandem, these two truths are purported to provide a foundation for success in fledgling humans. As the theory goes, when those two messages are out of balance from parent to child, the formation of their character can go horribly off track.

It is said that those children missing message number one (unconditional love) often grow up feeling insecure under dictatorial parents. They can never measure up in spite of their performance. Those who miss the second message (moral boundaries and demands) might feel loved but they often “fail to launch”. They lack the grit and self-discipline necessary to succeed perhaps because they were never given limits or pushed to be better. Both grace and truth are needed to raise a centered and well-adjusted child; one who develops the skills to have love and have grace for him or herself while at the same time mustering the drive to work hard and overcome adversity.

This dynamic is analogous to two fat-related movements, who I refer to as the Fat Acceptors and the Fat Shamers. These two groups are currently squared off when it comes to issues of fat and weight. They hold dueling points of view. Each side has a fragment of the truth, but each also holds a message that falls flat because it ignores the other side. Let’s dig in!

Fat Shamers aren’t really a “movement” per se, but I think we can all recognize what this group is about. These are people who have decided that, by and large, fat people are self-deluded and lack moral character. They view obesity to be the result of selfishness, self-indulgence, and laziness. The Shamers also believe in expressing their condemnation rather openly. The sincerest among this group (those who truly want to “help” rather than simply troll the corpulent among us) are disturbed by the abundance of health data linking obesity with disease and early death. I personally believe they have the best of intentions. They believe that by using candid and even harsh language they can shock fat people into seeing the error of their ways and perhaps chart a new life-course.

The Fat Acceptance movement, on the other hand, rejects the idea of an ideal body type. They are focused on highlighting the structural oppression experienced by people of size and advocate for the rights and acceptance of obese people. Many of them assert that you can be “healthy at any size” and like to quote research supporting their position. They critique the societal drive toward unrealistic body-images and like to call out companies who fat-shame people, categorizing this as emotional abuse. Instead, they admonish the obese to “love” themselves and their bodies by giving up on diets.

Both of these groups are right. And both are wrong.

Fat Shamers (again, the “sincere types”) are correct in that obesity is extremely unhealthy and will likely shave years and even decades off of one’s life. They are correct that those of us who struggle with our weight would do well to take radical ownership of such and make fundamental changes, both for our sake and for the loved ones and systems affected by us.

But the shamers are dead-wrong in their approach because they are easily dismissed as self-righteous, un-empathetic, and unfairly harsh. 99% of the time, the use of austere language will not work. There is even recent evidence to suggest that shaming itself lends itself to further obesogenic behaviours. Also, such an unsympathetic approach falls especially flat if the one using that approach has never personally struggled with their own weight. This tack is simply not useful or effective and creates a good deal of collateral damage in the process.

Fat Acceptors make a good point. People of size should be treated with dignity and respect, full stop. They should not be oppressed or treated as lesser people because of their relative girth. It is easy to pick on people based on a difference of appearance and countless heavy people have suffered from harassment and bullying at the hands of others. This needs to stop.

That said, there is no denying the absolute death sentence that morbid obesity represents (that’s why it’s called morbid!). Those carrying an excessive amount of extra mass on their frame are virtually guaranteed an early death akin to heavy smokers. But perhaps equally dire is the reduction in the obese person’s quality of life along the way. Chronic obesity usually leads to chronic pain (both physical and emotional). For fat-acceptance people to deny this is truly misguided and even delusional.

As with a great many things, Jesus provides a divine example to follow. When he Jesus rescued the woman caught in adultery who was facing her demise at the hands of some bloodthirsty Pharisees, he said “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.” (John 8). As the mob slowly dispersed, the woman remarked that no one had condemned her. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Now go and sin no more.”

When it comes to the scourge of obesity, can we follow Jesus in this regard? Perhaps if concerned others came to the table with less self-righteousness and more empathy, and those afflicted with obesity came to that same table with humility and an acknowledgement of the truth, together they could work together to put a dent in the obesity problem.