I have a very obese friend who is very concerned about fatphobia. They seem to be pretty allergic to the idea of losing weight, so I've never really brought it up to them, but I do idly talk to them about my own weight loss because it's a pretty big part of my life and it'd be dishonest to just... not talk about it, I guess. They don't seem to take it personally, at least, but I do seem to notice they seem to think I internalize fatphobia to some degree. But we don't talk about it in much depth because i'm not terribly interested in arguing about it.
But it did get me thinking about the idea of fatphobia, and how it's used as dissociative point to avoid the idea of weight loss when you're in the stages of denial. (I was, for a while). I did experience fatphobia... quite a lot, and I've experienced people being significantly kinder and more respectful to me as I've lost weight. It's something, to be frank, that pisses me off. Because... I shouldn't have to lose weight to be deserve common human decency that my peers enjoy. People with other mental health and medical issues aren't subjected to the same degree of hatred and disgust that obese people are, it's to a point that if you even try to talk about fatphobia, people will categorize you as a specific kind of strawman.
So in a way, fatphobia aids in this dissonance, making it all the more difficult for many obese people to accept that weight loss is even an option that they have. Because it feels like giving up, it feels like admitting that fatphobic people are right, that you as a fat person are disgusting, undeserving of empathy, love, compassion, quality health care, clothes that fits or looks good, etc.
I guess I wish that it wasn't an automatic assumption that being a fat-acceptance activist didn't mean anti-weightloss at the same time, that more it meant trying to bring people to be aware in how they treat others is unacceptable, no matter their current weight, if they're currently gaining or losing.
It's definitely a frustrating ordeal. I think often of the difference of my treatment before and after weight-loss, but how I'm the same person on the inside, and the injustice of it makes me quite angry. I'm still quite fat, too.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/ocn1un/fatphobia_antiweightloss_dissonance/
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