In my jaunts around internet discussions of size acceptance I often hear the following troubling questions:
- What about fashion models who are underweight, should we accept them?
- What about people who are so fat that can’t get out of their beds, should we accept that?
- Being fat is ok unless someone has problems with daily life activities, then those people have to do something
- Being fat is one thing but when you’re morbidly obese it’s time to lose the weight.
- We shouldn’t give acceptance to fat people, it will just encourage them to be [insert wild judgments about what all fat people do here]
- How fat is too fat? How thin is too thin?
- Fat people cost tax payers money – I shouldn’t have to accept that, I should have a say in them doing something about it.
And to all of these I say (as politely as possible):
Who died and made them the underpants overlord?
Maybe it makes them feel important and superior to run around doling out acceptance to those who they deem “worthy” – it’s a heady thing to feel that you are the person who gets to decide if someone else gets condoned - but I remain unimpressed. I would much rather see people choose to respect the choices of others than wonder out loud about who deserves their acceptance.
How exaggerated must their sense of self-importance be to think that it should be their job not only to decide that someone else’s life activities are made “difficult” by their size, but also what they should do about it?
As for tax dollars, this is seriously questionable but even if it wasn’t I’m going to suggest that even if fat people do cost the tax payer’s money, those who don’t like it are probably going to have to learn to live with disappointment – our tax money pays for things that we don’t like, and unless someone has a list of all the things that their tax dollars pay for broken down into what they do and don’t want to pay for with the interventions that they are engaging in for all of the items on the “don’t want” list, then they are using this argument to justify their fat bigotry.
When it comes to telling other people how to live their lives, I think it’s a bad what works for me. Your mileage may vary, I’ll be happy to show you how I do it if you want”. And then we can shut up and respect other people’s right to make choices just like we want our choices respected.
I don’t particularly care if people accept me, but I do require respect or they simply don’t get to interact with me – not because it punishes them, but because it means not punishing myself.
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