HAES or BMI? Does "diet culture" promote fatphobia and is that a bad thing?

One of the biggest dividing issues today (and I know cuz I read Reddit) is whether use the BMI (body mass index) to determine healthy weight or whether HAES (Healthy at Every Size) is right. I say both and neither. HAES and the BMI are both helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and both can be taken to extremes and be harmful. Part of how I lost 100 pounds was by using the BMI as a guide but also coming to understand that I am, if not healthy at every size, at least acceptable and worthy of love. 

People who think Healthy at Every Size eschew what they call the "diet culture." The term is often used cynically to imply that those who "buy into it" are somehow gullible or ignorant. I'm not even sure most users know what they mean by it. Loosely, it means being constantly weight loss diet minded. It's also called fatphobia: a fear of being overweight and body-shaming those who are what the BMI might deem overweight. 

I say might because there is some wiggle room, even with the BMI. It's an ideal weight range calculated by height to weight ratio. And in most incarnations, the BMI is limited. It doesn't factor in age, gender, how much weight is muscle vs fat, belly fat (waist size) dress or pants size, ethnicity, overall health, (some are shorter or taller and more prone to "belly fat.") and other pertinent issues. 

People who follow the BMI as I have, are often said to have fatphobia. As a weight loss bloggers, I've been criticized as body-shaming if I suggest that obesity or being overweight might not be healthy. I've been faulted for promoting "diet culture." If by "diet culture" they mean a purchased diet plan, medical weight loss or gastric bypass surgery, I'd agree. I didn't need a paid meal plan, diet club, surgery, personal trainer, doctor supervised medical treatment to lose weight. 

But to suggest that people are healthy at every size, including in morbid obesity, is delusional. "My 600-lb Life" shows what happens when people ignore increasing weight. Yes, what constitutes obesity may differ somewhat. The BMI uses 24 to <30 as overweight and 30 or over as obese. Medically, up to 36 pounds extra is overweight. Obesity is anything over that and morbid obesity is 100 pounds or more overweight. 

I've read a lot of talk about how many people feel healthier at what that definition calls overweight. Is that just an excuse? It depends on the person. "My 600-lb Life" participants will say that they like themselves "fuller" or "fluffier" which translates to 450 pounds of extra weight. 

I've also been surprised when told what someone weighs that it falls into the quite overweight category. They simply don't look overweight. I think the bottom line is that weight is a private matter BUT if every indicator (BMI, doctor, other people) points to it and my health is suffering with weight related complications (diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, back and leg problems, heart trouble, OSA, breathing issues) then I owe it to myself to lose weight. 

What woke me up to the fact that I needed to lose weight was being identified by the BMI as obese. If I didn't do something about it, I could have ended up the size of a "My 600-lb Life" patient. Once I accepted it, quit making excuses and hiding my head in the sand. I was able to lose 100 pounds. I still have belly fat and would like to lose more weight. If that means I have fatphobia or I'm a diet culture sycophant, so be it. I don't shame anyone else for weight but I don't like being fat. And I know what's healthy for me. 

Cleavage-shaming modesty police are "Pick me" and "not like other girls"

 I've become a Reddit AITA fan and recently a poster asked if she was "TA" for calling out her co-worker's cleavage. The OP (original poster) asked if the co-worker "purposely exposed herself." OP indicated that other male co-workers were uncomfortable with the cleavage on display and asked her to talk to the offender (if you believe that, I've got swamp land in Fla. for sale) So Ms. Modesty Police Woman confronted the "unprofessional attire" to protect her guy friends. 

Not surprisingly, the AITA consensus was overwhelmingly YTA. (you're the arschloch). The OP said that she herself veered toward tomboy and was good buddies with all the male workers, ergo her appointment to modesty patrol. Many commenters suggested that she was a "pick me" and an "I'm not like other girls" gal. (I've learned a lot of new urban terms since reading Reddit AITA :D) 

A "pick me" is a person who will do anything for attention or approval usually be putting others down. "I'm not like other girls" is a trope the internet has created to identify women who eschew "girl things" and embrace "non-feminine" things. All these terms are in quotes because they are stereotypical and very user-defined.

They polarize themselves as rebelliously not like other girls because they drive trucks or use tools or read (!?) and "other girls" as cartoonishly feminine because they wear makeup. The irony (and ridiculousness) lies in the conformity of the "not like other girls" "non-conformity." They literally have a dress code and the things they believe makes them different are so transparently alike. Also the things they believe set them apart, like reading or dressing like a "tomboy" are things most all women do. Their definitions are oddly outmoded, archaic or just foolish. Even OP's term tomboy went out like 50 years ago. And dressing tomboy can also be very provocative itself (tight jeans, tight T-shirt, etc). So, color me confused.

 Women identified as "pick me" and "not like other girls" tend to be very self-involved and also lacking in self-awareness. They don't understand how silly they sound. Which brings us back to the modesty police issue (and believe me, we'll get more into cleavage and body-shaming later). The fact that the Pick Me OP had no problem body-shaming someone and actually virtuously self-righteous doing so is bad enough. Don't even get me started on her inability to see that breasts aren't something you can hide let alone should. 

Fat-shaming or obesity entitlement, Reddit AITA wants to know

Hi fwiends, I've been seriously AWOL for quite awhile, so just popping in to update on weight loss (kept off most of the 100 pounds I lost 8 years ago, top is then, --> is now), long hauler Covid 19 (still lingering aftereffects) and to ponder a question that's been nagging me and apparently readers of Reddit regarding obesity. 

I've become addicted to Reddit AITA (Am I the A$$whole?), where readers ask, in moral/ethical dilemmas they've been encountered, whether they or someone else (or no one or everyone) has made bad choices or harmed others. Recently, a Redditor inquired whether she was fat-shaming by asking her obese SIL not to sit in a swing made to hold only 250#. And then to get angry when her 420# SIL sat in and broke said swing. 

I didn't weigh in (pun) on AITA but I will here. I agree with the consensus that the OP was not fat-shaming and that the obese SIL knowingly overtaxed the swing, was liable for the cost of replacing the it and should not even have had to be asked not to sit in it. She knew she was far too overweight for it to hold her. 

This is a case (which is becoming alarmingly more common) of what I call obesity entitlement. Instead of changing themselves to fit the world, more people are expecting the world to fit them. They expect that "handicapped accessible", "disability friendly" other ADA type goods and services should be made available to them, merely because they are so large that they can't utilize items made for average size people. They are not disabled, except by weight, or the effects of being overweight. 

And it comes at quite a cost to others. Many more establishments are having to make accommodations in the form of larger seating, more handicapped parking, etc, just to make room for larger clientele. This drives costs up. I'm in stores all the time as part of my Shipt job. And increasingly, store-provided mobility scooters are being used by larger people than by disabled or elderly people they were designed for. But if anything is said, or accommodations withheld, the fat-shaming card often comes out. 

This post itself may read as fat-shaming. Even as I write this, an inner voice is worrying that I sound insensitive, crass, etc. But be assured, I know, firsthand what it's like to be obese. Though I never expected nor needed accommodations, I can say that obesity is debilitating. My blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure shot up with my weight. Then I lost 100 pounds in 2014. I know that weight loss is challenging. But enabling or accommodating only makes it worse. Stay tuned for more on #howIlost100pounds.