A recent trend all over the internet lately is fatphobia.
Now, what is fatphobia… well according to google:
Fatphobia: irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against obesity or people with obesity.
The whole debate on what is considered healthy has gone to lengths where doctors that promote healthy lifestyles to their patients are getting cancelled on TikTok… for being given medical advice to lose weight that will affect their overall wellbeing.
The stigma behind fatphobia has been promoted by the body positivity movement that has been happening over the past year, as brands like Nivea as well as H&M, are having more inclusive body types in their campaigns.
But has this promoted more harm than good?
As someone that goes to the gym on a regular basis, I believe people aren’t that interested in the whole fitness lifestyle anymore as there are quicker ways to have the trendy hourglass body or a bigger butt.
The Brazilian Butt Lift.
In regard to the body positivity movement, it’s nice to see people are confident in their own skin and aren’t trying weird celeb diets like ones usually prompted by the Kardashians to get their supposedly ‘real bodies’. The issue is a healthy lifestyle is being treated as a trend and being overweight far beyond a healthy BMI is being normalized and when people encourage their peers to go to the gym as a way to have a healthier lifestyle, it is deemed fatphobic.
A great example is Adele losing weight, there were claims that she was fatphobic, for losing weight and just wanting to be comfortable for who she is.
Fatphobia is basically just the fear of fat people, but generally speaking, no one is afraid of fat people.
The rate of obesity has increased largely in women compared to men, as the average global increase in obesity is 29% in women and 27% in men.
Men often face more pressure compared to women when it comes to body type, as a majority of women wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with a fat or obese man, thus the majority of people attending the gym or participating in sport are men.
I have come across videos where fat women say they wouldn’t date a fat man, and wouldn't want to lose weight either and prefer to have a muscular man in their life and vice versa it would be an issue.
Fat Activists on TikTok also state that having a preference excluding a marginalized group of people is deemed problematic. Some people have even gone to lengths to claim fatphobia was a racial issue in the black community but it wasn’t.
Black women are just built differently based on different regions of the world, i.e. women from southern Africa (Khoisan) had bigger and wider butts and thighs as a way of storing body fat due to living in the desert regions. Nothing in regards to actually being fat but just the overall structure of people in those regions.
The question is how far Fat Activism will go on promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.
