• Wogi@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Ok I looked her up, I had to know.

        She’s a “fat-affirming” dietitian and her PhD is in “body positive medicine”

        Her name is a blatant pun.

        I don’t think I’m reaching when I say not only is the account fake, this person doesn’t exist, but that it was made to make fun of fat people.

    • AWTM_James@sh.itjust.works
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      Also, I don’t agree with the OP and think it’s fucking dumb, but let’s not forget that “retard” used to be a medical term as well

      • Benjaben@lemmy.world
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        That’s the way these things have always gone and probably always will. Retarded, imbecile, idiot, these were all effectively clinical terms (or whatever best approximated clinical practice in their eras) - they didn’t hold an insulting intention initially. People co-opted the terms to make fun of each other, as we do, and so professionals had to shift the clinical vocabulary so they weren’t using commonly hurled insults when discussing patients. And that means new words people can use to make fun of each other, yay! Which of course they did, necessitating another rotation. Pretty hilarious if you ask me.

        The most recent example in my own life - my wife is in her mid 30s, and is pregnant - some medical professionals call this a “geriatric pregnancy”! But because some folks are getting offended by that term, they’re starting to use “advanced maternal age pregnancy”. Bit of a mouthful, I think they’ll get to keep that one.

        Anyway. Carlin had a great bit on this phenomena, he’s the one who pointed it out to me.

  • Guy_Fieris_Hair@lemmy.world
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    It’s quite literally the medical term… i… I am an obese man, I am an obese man mostly of my own doing, their might be some psychological or socioeconomic reasons, but it’s mostly the fact that food is good, exercise sucks, and impulse control. I wasn’t born this way, I wasn’t treated as nonhuman for something beyond my control, and obese is not used for the sole purpose of being derogatory.

    Those two words are very, very different. Even if you are obese because of a thyroid, or injury, or whatever, a doctor can, and will call you obese in your medical reports. And if you can’t handle that because you can’t handle that slight uncomfortability, no wonder you are still obese.

    • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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      But neither is your skin colour expressed in Latin. It becomes a slur based on how and when it’s used.

      I agree with feeling ‘obese’ is a neutral, objective term for the physical/medical fact. But then, coming from a non-Anerican context, I used to have no sense of the N word being so offensive, any more than any other random insulting (or even affectionate!) term.

      In the wrong context, ‘obese’ can certainly be hurtful and inappropriate. I can imagine, for some people, it’s a trigger word of years of pain and mockery.

      • Etterra@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Look I’m a fat American and here at least nobody I’ve ever heard has used “obese” as a slur. You hear actual insults, “fatass” comes immediately to mind but there’s plenty of others; I’ve heard plenty of them personally. The OP in the pic is a fucking doctor according to her obscured user name and needs to be far more responsible. Obesity is party of a medical status - being called a land whale is an insult.

        Further, the N-word has centuries of racist cultural weight behind it. The word “obese” is far more recent and isn’t used as part of the systematic oppression of an entire ethnic to group - one that makes up an enormous amount of American population.

        This isn’t even apples and oranges. This is cantaloupes and blueberries. Not watermelons though, that has racist baggage too.

      • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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        1 month ago

        But neither is your skin colour expressed in Latin.

        Niger is Latin… Nigger is not.

        While I’m generally not sensitive to these things, claiming something that’s factually not true as a defense of the word is just not okay. Use the word if you really want to use it. If you use it in any other way other than academically (such as discussing the word in of itself)… don’t surprise pikachu when people shun you for it.

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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            Not according to the etymology. https://www.etymonline.com/word/nigger

            1786, earlier neger (1568, Scottish and northern England dialect), negar, negur, from French nègre, from Spanish negro (see Negro).

            All of these languages are latin-based languages… So there must be a latin root. If you dig further you find

            from Latin nigrum (nominative niger) “black, dark, sable, dusky” (applied to the night sky, a storm, the complexion), figuratively “gloomy, unlucky, bad, wicked,”

            So yes negro exists in the middle but not as the source necessarily… It would have evolved (if I read the etymology correctly) as Nigrum -> Niger -> Negro/neger/negar/negur -> Nigger.

          • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
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            Jeez, you’re really out here word policing when it’s clear we’re simply talking about the word… You know… not actually attributing it.

            You act like just saying “Negro” with no context is any better.

            Just like your namesake, you’ve added nothing to the discussion except a bit of toxicity.

      • redisdead@lemmy.world
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        I never used or seen used ‘obese’ as a slur.

        Fatty, yes. Absolutely, all the time. Obese, no.

        If you’re ‘triggered’ by being called a fatty, stop being fat.

        • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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          If you’re ‘triggered’ by being called a fatty, stop being fat.

          Now that’s a bad take.

          We shouldn’t mock people for things they struggle with, even if we think they could just stop.

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            Struggling with actual problems, sure.

            Struggling with being unable to stop shoving burgers in your mouth is not an actual problem.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              And saying things like that is exactly why obese people have so much trouble having the confidence to start losing weight. And no, it is not as easy as you are suggesting. We live in an era of processed foods and food deserts where people are so overworked and often with such long commutes that they don’t have the energy or the time to cook a healthy meal when they get home.

              Telling those people to stop shoving burgers in their mouth doesn’t help anything.

              Also, and I can’t believe this is the second time I’ve had to say this to someone today- have you ever been insulted into making a lifestyle change? I sure haven’t.

  • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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    Despite popular believe, people doesn’t and can’t suddenly turn black as they pleased, while body weight is something you can at least control through dedication.

    Until next time ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        I think there’s a danger in oversimplifying.

        On the one end, some people do have a hard time or maybe even actually impossible time to fight their obesity.

        On the other end, a lot of people are dismissive of trying to lose weight and hide behind “body positivity” and “obese people can’t help it” when they could really get a lot of results if they actually took it seriously. A relative of mine has been obese for decades, even as the diabetes came on the general take away they had was “apply medicine, keep living how I like”. Then when their liver started failing due to the fat and got the prognosis that they were probably going to die in a matter of months, they found the motivation to lose 40 pounds, in the goal of extending their life a little. Now they have what is, by all appearances, a healthy liver again. They also have much better mobility, reduced joint pain, blood sugar that doesn’t need medication anymore. Though they are still stuck with a lot of the damage already done, losing weight has been a great boon to their life, and something they always had dismissed as being something other people could do but they were just stuck that way.

        • yamanii@lemmy.world
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          Keyword: some. The number of people that actually have a dysfuncional thyroid gland is extremely low to the percentage of obesity in a population, like your example, the majority needs a push since it’s more of a mental thing, even therapy can help it.

        • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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          Well we’ve had fat hate for much much longer and most attitude about fat by most people is still hate, especially by fat people themselves and that has never helped decreasing obesity.

          In your example, it took clear evidence of imminent death to find the motivation to lose the weight.

          I would posit that the public hate and self hate about being fat is not helping. And whenever I hear complaints about body posivity around fatness, what I think I’m hearing is the fat hate enforcers being upset at being denied. I imagine they quite like being able to hate freely and feel superior “for a good cause”.

          I suspect that fat hate has never helped anyone, and probably made things worse.

          I think framework of being is a personal moral failing, just doesn’t work and perpetuates the problem. Like many other “forever problems” like drug use and homelessness.

          I think it’s safe to assume that problem that persist through entire lifetimes simply are bno ever going to spontaneously resolve themselves through sheer will power, especially not today where it is being sapped away by commercial interests.

          • jj4211@lemmy.world
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            We don’t have to abolish the word ‘Obese’ to avoid ‘hateful’. This started with someone being offended at the mere word ‘Obese’ and elevating it to a racial slur, then a comment saying a lot (likely the vast majority) of obese people can improve their situation.

            We shouldn’t be mocking and laughing at someone because they are fat, or harping endlessly on it, but it’s sufficiently bad that when my doctor saw me being obese, he never directly said anything, just said things like “make sure to eat plenty of vegetables” and “being active really helps people be fit”. When Rebel Wilson decided to lose weight, people acted like she somehow betrayed obese people, that she abandoned her role as a model of body positivity.

            The pendulum has swung too far to the point where people get too offended at the plain statement of being obese means health issues.

            • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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              The pendulum hasn’t even stopped swinging toward the “more fat hate camp”. What you perceive as"too far in the anti hate direction" is merely the begin of slowing down in the more hate direction.

              This entire discussion is a ad absurdum attack by the “more hate” camp to counter this slowing down. It is the endlessly repeated clip of the angry blue hair girl of the antisjw craze.

              And it’s going to take way way more than that to smoke out the hate mongers out of their last refuge.

        • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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          On the one end, some people do have a hard time or maybe even actually impossible time to fight their obesity.

          Correct, so unless you know for a fact you’re not talking to one of these people it’s probably best to keep your mouth shut.

    • dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee
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      Yep, the same way people can take full control of their depression, alcoholism or other psycological issues. It’s all about just rolling up those sleeves and deciding not to have the issues. So we can safely assume that all heavier people are a result of them actively choosing to become heavy, so we should always treat them as such.

      • DillyDaily@lemmy.world
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        At the end of the day, alcoholism, depression, and obesity, they are unhealthy states of being.

        They are not something people choose, and while there are treatments, it’s not something everyone can control.

        That doesn’t mean we should simply accept this state of being. People living with depression deserve better, people living with alcoholism deserve better than for us to say “it’s out of their control, they can’t help it, so we shouldn’t judge, let them be” when what they need is better support and better treatment options.

        Likewise, obese people deserve better than “eat less, move more, fatty!” but they also deserve more than “all bodies are beautiful, just let us be”

        I say this as someone who was a fat kid, and a fat teen, and a fat adult. I had a BMI of 50 for a most of my life. In my mid 30s, I got it down to 28, and still going.

        So I say all of this is as someone else who was fat, obese, and morbidly obese. Obesity should be viewed the same way we view depression and anxiety, though depression and anxiety also need some better PR.

        Being obese may not not always be a choice, but the the ultimate end goal of how we view obesity as a state of being is to find ways we can all manage our weight. Because obesity is not healthy, for those who can’t easily control their weight, life sucks, they are patients in need of treatment, not morally failing people, but also not “perfect plus sized activists who are healthy at every size”

        Because while bodies and sizes vary and we can do healthy things at every size. Obesity is inherently unhealthy. Obviously being bullied won’t solve anything, but neither will society politely ignoring how hard it is to live a full life while suffering from obesity.

        Being black isn’t an inherent health issue. It genuinely is just a different state of being. 99% of problems unique to black people are social issues, not medical issues… So the comparison between obesity and substance abuse issues is more helpful than trying to compare being obese to being BIPOC.

        • DrFuggles@feddit.org
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          Congrats on your weight loss journey! May I ask if there was a specific thing that motivated you to start and keep going? And how did you turn your mindset around?

          • rekorse@lemmy.world
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            For me it was understanding the idea of equilibrium. The way I use it is to mean the state of something given enough time that highs and lows have evened out.

            A practical example is with common diet mentality of dieting until reaching a goal, and then stopping the diet. The diet is a peak, not dieting is a valley, over time youll end up back at the same weight or more. Basically the problem is that modern diets give people high expectations when studies show the most likely scenario is that the weight is lost, and gained back plus some.

            So what will work. If we think of this long term equilibrium, the dieting doesnt work because they aren’t permanent changes. So if we agree the only way to stay healthy long term is to make permanent changes, we can agree that making cumulative small permanent changes that affect diet will ultimately result in lost weight.

            Sugar is the easiest to target IMO. Dairy, meat, and fish also are good things to target too as they cause other health problems besides weight gain. Switching to mainly water is another thing. Even taking on a new hobby or exercising a slight bit more will result in a net loss as less time is able to be spent on eating and more energy is spent physically.

            Plant based whole food diets usually result in weight loss because they are less calorie dense, so you will feel full with a fraction of the calories in your stomach. Alternatively you can lose weight with calorie dense foods, but you will likely have to deal with hunger more.

            Once I started thinking more like this, it was easier to come up with my own changes rather than shopping around diets with absurd restrictions. You know yourself best, make small changes and keep trending in a good direction, and if you make a “mistake” do your best to forget about it and immediately get back to it.

          • jj4211@lemmy.world
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            Not him, but I found my will to lose weight when a close family member was told their liver was failing and they had a few months to live, due to cirrhosis from their obesity. I knew I was on a similar trajectory and my bloodwork showed a hit to my liver function.

            Good news is that my relative also found the will to get healthy and their liver improved more than the doctors thought could happen and so we both are doing much better. I’m even under 25 BMI now after losing 40 lbs. Also amazing to be able to move around like I used to as a teenager again.

            As to how, not very helpful but just using that fear to drive willpower to just suck it up and eat less and exercise even when I really want to be doing something else. It means to some extent just living with usually being a little hungry and almost never filling full for me. Changed the food for less calorie dense stuff and avoiding refined sugars of course, but still have to reduce food intake.

      • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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        Are you claiming that depression, alcoholism, and other psychological issue cannot be treated? Are you saying that to someone who went through severe depression period twice in his life and on his path to recovery for the second period only recently? Or are you saying people will become severely obese even when eating the same healthy amount of healthy food as other non-obese people?

      • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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        MJ turning white is because of Vitiligo, he use makeup to cover up the skin condition.

        Also he’s black by birth, not a choice he made either.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          And even on his level, he had to deal with systemic racism. It took two years for MTV to start broadcasting videos with black people in them, including videos already made by Michael Jackson (although it’s not true that Billie Jean was the first video by a black artist on MTV. That honor went a couple of weeks earlier to Pass the Dutchie by Musical Youth).

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      while body weight is something you can at least control through dedication.

      Generally not.

      There are quite a lot of disorders affecting eating habits, and there are quite a lot of conditions that mean that even on something like a keto diet you’ll get obese (or extremely thin).

      So no, if you are not obese, you most likely are not more “dedicated” than some person you know who is. You are just healthier. Most likely since birth, and there’s nothing they’ve done wrong.

      Obviously it’s still bad to be obese.

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        Try staying fat while eating nothing.

        Try staying thin while eating a whole cow each day and injecting fat into your veins.

        If both are impossible, then you can control your weight.

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    all medical terms get turned into hateful insults–moron, idiot, imbecile, r*tarded which is approaching but will never achieve n-word status-- all used to be actual medical diagnoses. “obese” will go the same route and be replaced by something else, which will also eventually become derogatory and be replaced

    funny how “shit”, “piss”, “fuck”, “cunt”, “cocksucker”, “motherfucker”, and “tits” are almost everyday words now

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    I forget what comedian said it, but if you’re discussing two words and you cannot even say anything except the first letter of one of the words, that’s the worse word.

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    Fun Fact:

    A northern German youth-slang word for “Bro” is “Digga”, which is a friendly way to say “Fatty”, from “Dicker - dick” (lit.: Fatty, fat/thick), but with the implication of being very dear friends, “dicke Freunde” (lit.: thick friends) just has the meaning “close friends” with no implication of being fat and “dick miteinander sein” (lit.: being thick together) is also an expression of closeness, not of weight.

    Interestingly, Digga is being used in exactly the same way as black people in the US use the soft n-word with each other. “Mein Digga!” (lit: my thicky) is 1:1 analogous to “My n-word!”. It’s common for tourists to do a double take when they hear some very German and very white youths yell at one another “Ey Digga!” and many German rappers definitely use it as a stand in for the soft n-word, but It’s use and etymology is rooted in the old dock workers culture of Hamburg and has absolutely nothing to do with the n-word.

    • janNatan@lemmy.ml
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      I’m from the USA, and when I first heard “digga,” I was certainly confused! It seems the youth say it even more than the generation that invented the phrase now.

      Anyway, English speakers have an old phrase that is similar and might help some understand the usage of the word “thick” here. The phrase is “thick as thieves” - meaning thieves stick together.

  • 01011@monero.town
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    Comparing a health condition to ethnicity is peak whiteness.

    Nevermind the fact that melanin is a very practical and healthy trait.

  • ealoe@ani.social
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    Obese people acting like they can’t control it is precisely why they’re obese. It’s vile to discriminate against someone for their height, race, sexual orientation, and other factors because they have no control or choice over those things. But if someone makes a bad choice that negatively affects their own health and others around them, it’s acceptable to tell that person it’s unsafe. Shaming them is ineffective, but just pretending being obese is normal and healthy isn’t ok either. These folks need help.

    Don’t even start with me on thyroid disorders, those are a small fraction of people who are obese and even they do not defy basic laws of thermodynamics. Eat less than you burn, it’s basic math. You may not be able to control the disorder but you are in control of how you respond to it.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      Obese people acting like they can’t control it is precisely why they’re obese.

      Body Mass Index doesn’t do a good job of scaling by height. Its much easier to qualify as “obese” when you’re 6’ tall, simply because your frame is so much larger. And quite a few people really are just larger. Samoans are large folks, which is why they produce so many football linemen. South Americans tend to be a lot smaller and leaner by their nature.

      You can change your diet to cut out the excess sugars and limit your carbs, but a person whose body demands 5000 calories a day is simply not going to be the same size as someone who can get by perfectly fine on less than 1500.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      I hope you also saying it to smokers, drinkers, etc.!

      Maybe bring back the “slow suicide” and “brain damage” jokes for them, or at least call them “self harm”, that will be totally not counterproductive or anything!

  • Jimbo@yiffit.net
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    Bigga please, I got my mind on much bigger things to say the least

    My latest beat just sound like they was released by David East

  • zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev
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    If you can write one word but not the other, it’s the other that’s worse.

    That being said, fat people do face systemic issues which are often intersectional with race, class, gender, etc., but this is a shitpost, so don’t think too hard about it.

  • zippythezigzag@lemm.ee
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    I thought it was"fat". It almost seems like she’d be mad at any term that describes her as she is, like as if she is ashamed to be something thats completely within her control not to be.

    • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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      Bingo…you won yourself a hamburger. Not from mcshits though, they want to be a luxury food so no one but the Uber elite should spend money there going forward. Plus their salt patties are nasty