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

[djm4]

Quite apart from what lizw said, I see the value in long-term studies to see whether controlling weight is (a) predictably possible and (b) correlates with health benefits. This is one reason why I feel I need far more time than I have to research this; some such studies appear to have been done and the results are mixed. Diabetes seems to be a better target than blood pressure, and the reporting seems to assume that this is down to the people in question loosing weight even though the study doesn't actually usually (ever?) say so. Now, that might be because it was simply too obvious to mention in the study, but I'd like to see the figures. I may also have been looking at the wrong studies and - as always - getting to anything more than an abstract is rare.

Really, though, I simply haven't done enough research. I know that, and it makes me very uncomfortable. I'm very aware of the parallels between the way fat-positivity is argued and the way, say, climate change denialism is argued. However, there are also parallels with the some of the 'science shows obesity causes diabetes' studies and with the 'science shows that male bisexuality is a myth' study, and much of the language of the fat-acceptance movement is very similar to the language used by Ben Goldacre in Bad Science. Ultimately, whatever my unease about it, I try to read the green ink and see what I think that studies linked to by both sides actually show.

I do know that my experience with that Mark Hoofnagle article you linked to is typical. People say 'this study shows that obesity causes diabetes', when in fact the study shows a correlation. I'm not dismissing correlation as meaningless - possibly fewer pirates did cause global warming; it's certainly worth looking a reason for the correlation, even if in that case the reason is pretty obvious - but I don't think it helps the case of medical professional to mischaracterise it.

I'd also just like to highlight this paragraph:

"Losing weight [in the elderly - this is leading in from a paragraph talking about them rather than the population in general] therefore appears to be a risk for death, and it is also possible that dieting in an older population simply isn't a safe proposition anyway. The message you should take home from all these studies of obesity and weight loss or gain is simple. It is very difficult to improve health through making people lose weight, and diets rarely have long lasting effects. Exercise, even in the overweight, is the most likely intervention to improve markers of cardiovascular health. In the overweight, appropriate management of symptoms like hypertension, diabetes etc., is effective in decreasing mortality. And finally, the best way to prevent the diseases of obesity is to avoid obesity in the first place. It's called primary prevention."

Ignoring, for a moment the last two sentences (because I think it's a separate issue - I'm happy to consider them if you disagree), this is pretty much exactly what most fat-acceptance campaigners are saying, too.