argh! fat! argh!

[keryx]

It turns out that even the great community Fatshionista has a secret number in its head. You know what I mean? Many people have 200 lbs in their heads as the number at which someone is about to DROP DEAD FROM TEH FATS OH NOES. Members of that community seem to stop at 500 lbs - which is, admittedly, rather large.

Over time I've amended my belief that what immobilizes fat and supersize folk who complain about quality of life is not their fat per se but the fact that they haven't continued to move their fat bodies around. Now I think what immobilizes them is a culture - including themselves - that makes it impossible to visualize a happy, contented, supersize person who is reasonably healthy (or at least, no worse off than an average person). So, you know what, if you are so sure for you personally that you can't be healthy without that weight? Try to lose the weight. I hope along the way you pick up habits that make you feel better.

Just. Please please please don't presume you can pick a number and declare that people who weigh more than that are at death's door. We're all limited by our experience and our paradigm. I remember 160 lbs or so making my quality of life suck, but 200+ (yes, the magic number! OMG!) is apparently just fine. My perspective's shifted quite a bit in those 10 years.

The magic number is always just a bit further than the fattest weight we can imagine for ourselves, but that magic, unliveable number is likely a size at which someone else lives just fine. So stop imagining. There, problem solved.

Comments

[sheana.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there are times I really want to throatpunch that community for that shit. I love the girl who was blathering about the "morbidly obese" BS - oh noes, you hit the magic fatdeath threshold!

I will say, though, that I think you're giving the comm waaaay too much credit - I think the "acceptable fat" threshold is much lower and, perhaps, much more arbitrary (i.e. "pretty fat" may be okay, but "ugly fat" is unhealthy... meh, I'm not explaining well).

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, this.

I'm contemplating wearing some really ridiculous outfit of silly shoes (highlighted by my pigeon-toed stance) cuffed up jeans, a t-shirt and a too small cardigan buttoned right under my breasts and doing an OOTD and waiting for the twenty-two year olds who slobber all over one another when they post outfits like that to drop into dead silence.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I'm betting you will be totally hot.

Or at least I am when I wear that outfit every weekend! HA! Minus jean cuffs.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

It's the jean cuffs and the too-small cardigan that always make me say "um, what?" when I see them.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the too-small cardigan as a fashion choice. After The Gay finish destroying marriage, I'm going to marry my itty bitty sweater collection.

More seriously... I like the vibe of multiple layers of different lengths. It makes me think of paper art and kimono and other cool layery things.

Cuffed jeans I cannot defend.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

There is no defense for too-small cardigans or cuffed jeans. Ever.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Too small cardigans RULE! As long as they'll actually button and fit your arms, so they're mostly small in length and sleeve.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

Well if it buttons (really buttons, not just once under your breasts) and fits your arms, it's not too small. The ones I'm thinking of don't so much "fit" as "the arm can be stuffed into the sleeve in a manner which results in a look not unlike that of sausage links."

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking this morning that it'd be fun to go a week or so dressing to highlight my "bad" features. Sausage arms would look pretty sassy with a nice muffin top.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

Mm, I have to see the best way to dress to really highlight my thunder thighs. I think stompy boots, which draw attention to the powerfulness of said thighs, what do you think?

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Fantastic! I can't work that look, though, since it would hide my cankles.

[dreamalynn.livejournal.com]

My ankles (and the shape of my calves) are the only part of me that's (relatively) svelte. I love my ankles.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Rarely does the "conventionally pretty fat" thing get expressed aloud on the community (in the past it did and was squished by the mods), but I do think a lot of the members are in that adolescent phase where they can defensively embrace size difference as long as that size conforms to most other beauty conventions.

But the 500lb thing went mostly unchecked by commenters, probably because they all did what I did: thought I'm not getting into THAT with THESE PEOPLE and went to whine on their ljs.