Greta Christina's fat positive manifesto

[ciphergoth]

I froze the discussion here because I thought it deserved a top-level post of its own, rather than being under a general discussion of Greta Christina. A few weeks ago she posted a very interesting series of articles on the fat-positive movement and her own beliefs; I'd be very interested to read more about what people think of them.

"I was frankly shocked at how callous most of the fat-positive advocates were about my bad knee. I was shocked at how quick they were to ignore or dismiss it. They were passionately concerned about the quality of life I might lose if I counted calories or stopped eating chocolate bars every day. But when it came to the quality of life I might lose if I could no longer dance, climb hills, climb stairs, take long walks, walk at all? Eh. Whatever. I should try exercise or physical therapy or something. Oh, I'd tried those things already? Well, whatever."

• The Fat-Positive Diet
• The Fat-Positive Skeptic
• An Open Letter to the Fat-Positive Movement

Comments

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

I am 100% on your side here, really, and grumbled about the posts in question when I first saw them a while back, but I am tempted to suspect that with things like this particular sort of knee pain losing weight might help a bit because of, well, gravity. Lighter body = less physical pressure opon knee = possibly less pain.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Yes, it probably does, but the point is we have no reliable way of helping people to lose weight in the long term, so the effects will probably be temporary - and the attempt carries other quite serious risks. Strengthening the muscles around the knee is usually a better bet, but I see that Greta Christina has already tried physio - hence my comments about placebo.