{"id":1257,"date":"2004-12-11T14:33:11","date_gmt":"2004-12-11T22:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/12\/11\/what-fat-people-and-gay-people-have-in-common-part-two\/"},"modified":"2018-10-16T07:48:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-16T14:48:42","slug":"what-fat-people-and-gay-people-have-in-common-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1257","title":{"rendered":"What fat people and gay people have in common, part two"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the previous post<\/a>, I quoted from various peer-reviewed articles on dieting, to try and establish one point: Weight-loss programs do not work for most fat people over the long term.<\/p>\n

Now that we’ve read all that (or skimmed it, or skipped it), let me return to Don’s question: Why do I think being fat is like being lesbian or gay?<\/p>\n

There’s a question so often asked in queer-rights rhetoric, it’s become a cliche: “Why would anyone choose<\/i> to be gay? The point is, being a widely despised minority is not fun. It’s not easy. It involves a lot of suffering, for many people. It’s not <\/i>something that most people would choose<\/i>. (Although, thanks to the lesbian and gay rights movement, it is now easier for many lesbians and gays than it used to be).<\/p>\n

By the same logic, why would anyone choose <\/i>to be obese? Fat people are discriminated against in jobs, are widely seen as lazy and unattractive, and are taught a truly stunning level of self-hatred. It’s not something most people would desire for themselves.<\/p>\n

Peer-reviewed studies show that 92-96% of weight-loss plans fail over the long run – and those studies count anyone who takes off 10% or 15% of their weight as a “success.” The failure rate would be a lot higher – I’d guess more like 99% – if the measurement of “success” for fat dieters was “this person is no longer fat.” It’s clear, I think, that weight-loss treatments don’t work.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, some people will respond as Don did:<\/p>\n

The reason they fail is that their subjects choose to return to their old habits of diet and exercise. No one is forcing them to eat Big Macs and drink 64oz Big Gulps rather than salads and diet soda. No one is forcing them to sit around and watch television rather than get up and go for a walk. These are personal choices.<\/div>\n

Don’s right, in a sense (ignoring, for lack of a civil response, his stereotypes about fat people). In theory, any fat person could become thin, if they only kept up what the New England Journal of Medicine <\/i>called “extreme measures” – extreme low-calorie diets and tons of hard exercise – for the rest of their lives. (One formerly fat person who commented on the earlier thread, said that she exercises four hours <\/i>every day).<\/p>\n

By the same token, any lesbian or gay person could “not be gay,” in the sense of repressing their real desires and marrying a person of the opposite sex. (Historically, how many lesbians and gays lived their entire lives like this? There’s no way of knowing, but hundreds of thousands seems like a reasonable guess).<\/p>\n

So in theory, every fat person and every queer person could choose “not to be.” Just choose to eat as little as an anorexic, and exercise four hours every day, for your entire life. Just choose to repress your core sexual identity. Whatever it takes.<\/p>\n

But in practice, some choices are so difficult that they can’t reasonably be called choices at all.<\/p>\n

And that is what fat people and gay people have in common.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the previous post, I quoted from various peer-reviewed articles on dieting, to try and establish one point: Weight-loss programs do not work for most fat people over the long term. Now that we’ve read all that (or skimmed it, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fat-fat-and-more-fat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24350,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions\/24350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}