Why would losing weight be anti-feminist?

[anna_wing]

Apparently there are people who think that it is unfeminist to want to avoid being fat.

I am not entirely certain why. Being fat is bad for you, and not just because it's a major risk factor for a bad COVID-19 result. It's better not to be, if you can manage it. There is stuff about "unhealthy beauty standards", and I do remember the models of the 90s and early 2000s, who were indeed shockingly and unhealthily underweight. But as far as I am aware, that is no longer considered the beauty standard anywhere, except possibly among South Korean pop stars of either sex. And obviously there are ways to lose weight that are sensible, and ways that aren't. But the precise chain of logic that connects all of this with feminism remains unclear. I have a vague sense that a middle has been fallaciously excluded, somewhere.

For any human being, being either overweight or underweight has higher health risks (and is also physically unattractive). It may be easy or difficult to achieve the happy medium of a healthy, or if you like, lowest-health-risk weight from either end of the gradation, but it's a worthy goal for anyone, male or female. Being fat makes every medical problem worse, just from the added strain on the body. None of this has anything to do with being a feminist or not.

Comments

[mtbc]

It's a fallacy, for sure. This one I put in the category of lack of benefit of the doubt: you might want to lose weight for health reasons, or because of superficial male expectations, and people don't know which it is, and they can see wanting to lose weight as being a sign you might care what men think or something that will make sexist men happier so it looks like Evidence of Bad even though all you actually care about is your health. It's consistent with a thing they object to, a sign of it, even though it is not the only plausible explanation. (And trying to avoid making superficial men happier is exactly caring what men think.)

It also feels categorically different from constructively criticizing those who innocently use outdated words for things, especially groups of people. Having them use a different, less offensive word, comes at little cost to them. Whereas, their health means a lot and weight much affects that.

Given that I'm male I don't at all object to having ignorance heavily corrected, I know I'm speculating rather than reporting anything first-hand. As a middle-aged male in the US, the closer-to-home analog I can think of is, if I see a young girl who might need adult help (not obviously happy or supervised) I sure hold back before offering assistance because I don't want to look like some sexual predator. So, I certainly have a wholesome motivation, but people might see it and worry because my actions are also consistent with something that concerns them.

[minoanmiss]

Stress and weight gain are closely linked, and the standard methods of losing weight can be stressful, which can mean that for at least some people, even some who are overweight, it can be a healthier path to not strive to lose weight. And no one can really tell at a glance who that person is, so it's not really a good idea to, for instance, walk up to a stranger and tell her her ice cream cone is so unhealthy.

https://www.today.com/health/does-stress-cause-weight-gain-t126249

[anna_wing]

I see it as that being at a healthy weight is a good thing in itself. Obviously it's preferable to get there and stay there by having healthy habits, rather than silly and possibly dangerous fad diets. Other people's motivations don't bother me at all.

[mtbc]

Definitely, I too am much in the for health reasons camp, if it weren't for that I'd be obese, I enjoy food!

[sartorias]

I think a lot of what is going on is not necessarily a drive to get fat, or even a message that fat is okay so much as the swing of the social pendulum away from women among women, especially below the age of fifty, "competing" to see who is the thinnest woman in the room.

An acceptance of all body types is the mean, so to speak, the mode being to avoid language that some consider triggering, like, "Oh I had a guilty pleasure--now I'm going to have to live on salad for a month to get rid of the effect of that tiramisu on my thighs!" sort of talk. Commiserating with one another about constantly dieting, or calorie counting, is no longer in among certain feminist circles. Instead, asking if body talk is triggering, and getting the go ahead to discuss bodily issues but not from the perspective of looking thinner.

[anna_wing]

Ah, I see. The approach is very health-based in my milieu. There are social campaigns to eat more healthily and exercise more, especially elderly people. That competing to be the thinnest in the room is not something that I have ever come across, mostly because for most of my life, normal size for both men and women has been the lower end of a healthy BMI.

[minoanmiss]

I'm fat. I thought I would put that up front in case it affects your assessment of me.

I think people who say "losing weight is antifeminist" are trying to put too many concepts together and crushing out logic and information. As Sartorias said, "the swing of the social pendulum away from women among women, especially below the age of fifty, "competing" to see who is the thinnest woman in the room. "

I personally believe that part of feminism is that women should own our own bodies and personally decide for ourselves what to do with them. I think someone trying to make the point that women are not required to be thin to be healthy, or to deserve respect as human beings, could by skipping that part say that losing weight is antifeminist, when what would be more accurate to say that what are antifeminist are the expectations that every woman owes it to society to "look attractive" and that every woman is required to be below a certain weight or she deserves to be harassed in public, downgraded at work, or even sexually assaulted as a 'favor'.

Also, on being fat being necessarily unhealthy, or losing weight being easy... life is a little more complicated than that.

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/everything-you-know-about-obesity-is-wrong/

[anna_wing]

Thank you for the explanation. You're someone from a completely different culture, I don't expect you to share my outlook or opinions on anything, no worries.

It was just something baffling because I didn't see the connection. Women being forced to wear high heels or excessive make-up etc in circumstances where that look was not an intrinsic part of the job is certainly objectionable and improper.

My particular milieu puts a lot of emphasis on maintaining a healthy weight through exercise and a proper diet. It has been only in the last couple of decades that excess fat started actually showing up as a potential problem in the healthcare system. Before that, the older generations were born when the effects of war and privation were still an issue, and being at least mildly underweight was the norm for both sexes when I was growing up (we got free milk in schools). Being fat was...outlandish, whether you were male or female. It's commoner now, unfortunately, but it remains disapproved of on a, as it were, unisex basis.

[melita66]

I am overweight. minoanmiss verbalized many of my thoughts about your post. The bit that really got me is [about being underweight or overweight] "(and is also physically unattractive)." That may be what you find attractive, but that's not how many other people define attractiveness.

[anna_wing]

Thank you for your comment.