Consider this: fat people, if they go to a doctor with a serious issue, will just be told that it’s a consequence of being fat. Of course, being fat leads to some health issues, but in a disturbing amount of cases, they have something not related to being fat and not to be solved strictly by diet and exercise. A woman complained of feeling lethargic, vision loss, and nausea, she was told that she needed diet and exercise. She actually had brain cancer.
Problem is, that costs money and is a fairly common thing, even with kids. Met a woman yesterday at physical therapy who was in pain three days with appendicitis, almost died. She was only 8 and the kid's doctor told her all she needed to do was cut back on the chicken nuggets.
I’ll back this up. It’s well documented and has even begun to be brought up in the field. There are many common and shared aches, pains, and issues that come with carrying certain weights. Doctors tend to work on volume, they half listen until they have enough info to figure out the top most common things you could have, then they pick one and treat for it. Usually that’s the problem, and if not they treat for the others in order. Any sort of “rare” or “special” cases usually require quite a bit of pushing to get a diagnosis unless you’re lucky. So when an overweight person complains of excessive sweating, rashes, shortness of breath, fatigue, doctor may jump to weight, possibly diabetes, before they think of mono or a more exotic problem. When the symptoms are common to weight, and the person weighs more- the doctor is far less likely to draw up labs. It’s a double edged sword because it COULD be weight related, and that’s Dr and lab time other patients could use, plus cost to you.
I was diagnosed with a rare condition at 17. I’d been suffering my whole life, regular dr visits and missing school for symptoms. The dr would always say I had some type of virus, and a weak immune system. Around 11 or so they finally did tests- for several other less rare conditions that ha similar symptoms. All came up negative. They said I was fine. At 17 I went to the ER late one night. They said it was a neglible chance I had the one condition that was rare, and wanted to take my appendix. I chose to treat for the rare condition, and that’s how I got my diagnosis after 17 years of having a condition, 12 of regular visits for symtiks, and 6 years of thorough medical tests. Later on I had a rare complication. I spent 12 months literally dying slowly to the point I had lost 70lbs and could barely walk. I went to 5 different ER’s and 3 specialists. On a routine visit my primary specialists NP took one look, asked 3 questions, and admitted me to the hospital for treatment.
They said 1-3 days more and I would have been dead. The thing is, by that point at my life I no longer had a weight problem. I’d been working out and eating right so was already skinny, Having lost 60lbs I was literally skin and bones. So that’s how hard it was for a relatively healthy person to get diagnosed, to go to different doctors and hospitals, just to find one person who could solve the problem. If you’re considered overweight and every visit you’re automatically dismissed as simply having “fat people problems,” imagins how much harder it could be. In my case, my symptoms were severe and very visible. But if you have certain cancers, hormonal problems, viral or fungal infection, that isn’t readily seen or easily supports “fat problems” how do you get noticed? If you can lose 2lbs a week, do you wait a year or more to get help after you’ve lost it? If your case is like mine, will you be around in a year if you don’t get help sooner?
I'm currently struggling to get a diagnosis as an overweight person. My blood sugar, cholesterol, and blood pressure are all perfect, but the doctor insists that I have fatigue and pain in my joints and kidneys because I'm fat. I just need to cut calories and go for walks. Thing is, I gained a lot of weight because exercise has become too tiring and painful. It just becomes pointless when you need a week to recover from your workout.
I’ve been very overweight, and I’ve been thin. My personality has remained the same through both, but the difference in how I’m treated when I am thin as opposed to when I was not is night and day. No one will ever convince me there is no such thing as thin privilege.
how is "thin" privilige even a thing??? you're supposed to be normal weight, normal being a range calculated using BMI or some other shit, a p. wide frame whithin lies your good health and normal performance of daily activities. THINNES is a societal construct and it's insane. OBESITY is a medical condition and it should be regarded as such. it is however not the same kind of thing as being disable in one permanent way or other becuse obesity can be managed far better by modern science than, say, a severed limb.
how people treat you depends on a myriad of factors, their personalities included.
airplane seats are a whole other story, i can't even start wrapping my mind around the way y'all got the damn seats into th debate about a bizzare illogical concept of 'thin privilge'. what the honest fuck people.
a whole lotta problems could be solved by being polite to others and eating a reasonably healthy diet.
“Thin privilege” is defined very well by lindsmolanari. The idea that people should fall in to a standard of normal, based off the ideals of a society, or be excluded or diminished, even if those standards are not possible or practical by virtue of ones very nature. It certainly makes sense that there is an “average” around which to design things for use by humans. Ours is a society of mass production and not bespoke everything. But designing to a standard doesn’t mean you need to completely disregard that not everyone fits that. Especially when that group is substantial by percent of the population. Beyond the “obese” are body builders, conjoined twins, there are lots of smaller minority groups that need extra space as well. When you exclude someone, it becomes privelage.
It's not about being thin or conforming to society, it's about being healthy. Someone's healthy weight depends on their age, body type, height, and genetics, but for the most part a healthy weight will not be very big, even for someone who is naturally curvy. But being fat implies an unhealthy and overweight person. This is a self inflicted problem due to lack of healthy diet and excessive. There's a little overweight then there's fat, excessive weight. If you ignore your own health for so long you go from overweight to husky to just plain fat...its your fault.
dead on @silvermyth. @jmvail- size is relative and made up of just how much fat a person is toting. Bone structure, muscle mass, fat. But here’s the kicker- when people talk about health and being overweight, they never talk about anything but fat. They say “it’s about health!” When I’m in ready shape at 15 or less % body fat I’m obese by height. How many minutes a does the average adult run, stretch, walk, lift, and get activity? How “clean” does the average adult eat? Ever here a woman complain that her BF stopped drinking soda or did some little thing and lost huge weight fast, but she is basically eating above starvation and cut all the junk and is having trouble? If not google it. Some people by age, by gender, by natural hormones or other things have more trouble losing weight and gain easier. That’s without more serious factors like thyroid issues. So people hide behind health as the reason it’s ok to be cruel to the overweight, but how healthy are they?
The health argument is a socially acceptable excuse to exercise what would normally be socially unacceptable behavior, and then try and look and feel good about it by claiming it to be in the “good” of another. No one aims that same lense or scrutiny at the 19yo eating a large pizza by themselves and slamming soda and garbage but staying rail thin because they have the genes and metabolism to stay thin looking No one takes such a tact with the 40yo with a high saturated fat diet who has a mild paunch but arteries like a Paris sewer because they keep their fat on the inside. And the whole health argument ignores the plain fact that as long as you can over salt food and buy food at mc Donald’s legally, drink on a Friday night and not have state mandated exercise quotas for all citizens, it’s a persons choice if they want to be healthy or not. No one runs into your living room and shames you until you put down your after work beer, or mocks you in pop culture because you didn’t run today.
Genetics play a big role I won't deny that, but there is a healthy weight for everyone...ask a doctor or nutritionist they'll tell you. Being curvy or husky is normal. Everyone should not be a size 2 that's equally unhealthy. But being so excessively large you take up more than one airplane seat is a clear sign of excessive weight that could lead to major health problems. And some people are never going to be the media image of good looking and that's unfortunate...but surely they notice when they begin to gain so much weight that just walking becomes a chore. When they are 2 or even 3 times as large as other people on the street.
That's all well and good, but like I said, there are a lot of reasons to gain weight. Chemical inbalances, brain or body. Disability. Poverty. Notice that the most overweight nations in the world are island nations where the only food they can get are high sodium non perishables. And what you say is true, but it doesn't mean that we should treat these people with disrespect. You don't bother people who stay up late or people who eat a lot of sugar but look fine. You don't bother people who try to get tans and warn them about skin cancer. Most people don't even bother smokers. You can't play the "I'm just concerned about their health" card for those reasons. Would you deny someone who got lung cancer accommodations because their lifestyle lead to that? Few would, which is why the argument makes no sense.
@jmvail- and that has what to do with it? Does how you got overweight really matter so much? Like do we all need to keep weight journals in case we need to prove we deserve respect? Does how you got in the wheel chair matter? If you got on a motorcycle and crashed solo, or got on a motorcycle and we’re cut off, you’re still paralyzed. Surely you should have known either way before you got on the motorcycle that statistically, given enough time and miles it was inevitable? So do we just say that it was your fault and you don’t deserve accommodation, or that such accommodation should cost you extra over someone who didn’t lose use of their legs? I mean, physical health benifits only, not mental, there’s no argument that riding a motorcycle is better for ones health than not no? The same is true of cars of course. So where is the cut off line where we can safely look at a person and tell them they should have known better before we tell them we aren’t going to help or care?
I think of it as similar to smoking. Nowadays it's not uncommon for someone to approach a stranger and say something like "dont you know the dangers of smoking? You're killing yourself. And you're making things harder for everyone else with your buts and secondhand smoke. Surely someone told you how dangerous that is. You should stop." Usually when they say they cant stop the response is they're too lazy or dont care about their own health (my boyfriend quit smoking a couple years back). Doctors can help with practices and products as well. And usually a doctor is unafraid to say "this is causing major harm you need to stop". So why cant I go to an obese person at McDonalds and say the same thing? Nowadays people call obesity a "disability" and use it to get parking tags or scooters that they dont need (actually walking more would help them).and some doctors have admitted they're afraid to tell their patients they're clearly killing themselves for fear of offending someone.
Technically yes. Just like technically a consequence of having no legs and one arm is not being able to climb a ladder to access an area. The danger lies in the use of language as a tool. The very act of calling it a consequence itself automatically impose liability on the part of the person with the condition as opposed to sensitivity to the challenges they face. Secondly, when we are takin about man made structures, it’s harder to defend. If you don’t like gravity, that’s physics. You can work with physics but can defeat physics (at least yet...) But if someone tells you they are cold in your car, saying that being cold is a consequence of not wearing a thicker jacket vs rolling the windows up shows where the burden is placed.
This is true however in the situation proffered forth in the post it's a commercial situation where thin people are blamed for being thin by those that are not because those that are fat complain about paying more for extra seats. In a commercial situation like this the air company is totally in their right to charge people for 2 seats if they need 2 seats as they 1. Would lose the money of the passenger that could have had that seat and 2. It deprives an available seat that someone else could possible need to get somewhere urgently
As you say though- it’s perspective. For instance, if all the seats were larger by default- fewer people could fit, but those who did would be more comfortable regardless of waist size since thinner people would be upgraded to having more room. One could argue there is a cost associated with that- but then what about the ADA? Businesses must absorb the cost of things like providing assistance for the sight and hearing impaired, for those who can’t walk or use stairs, and so on. There are certain spots that are automatically 2-3x wider than a regular spot to allow those with wheel chair ramped vehicles to conduct regular business, and that isn’t elective it is law. What would it be any different for those who have a condition that makes them larger?
how people treat you depends on a myriad of factors, their personalities included.
airplane seats are a whole other story, i can't even start wrapping my mind around the way y'all got the damn seats into th debate about a bizzare illogical concept of 'thin privilge'. what the honest fuck people.
a whole lotta problems could be solved by being polite to others and eating a reasonably healthy diet.