You Are Allowed to Be Fat - Just be happy in your life

in #life7 years ago

It is often said that perfectionism is the enemy of everything. And nowhere is this truer than in our apparent obsession with weight loss and slimming techniques. Of course, it is always desirable and healthier to have a flat stomach. However, the amount of discrimination that fat and overweight people have to endure because of society’s obsession with weight loss and unreal slimming standards is sickening. Being fat has pretty much become a social stigma and the amount of fat-shaming that some people have to go through in their daily lives has often driven many of them to resort to highly dangerous slimming treatments.

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One thing that people who resort to fat-shaming often fail to understand is that each and every individual’s body dynamics are different. A type of figure that works for one individual may not necessarily work for another. Also, the amount of stress and anxiety that people are under due to fat-shaming often causes psychological and mental health disorders and many have to seek professional help as a result. Often times, fat people resort to starving themselves in an effort to lose weight and find some acceptance in society. This ends up doing more harm than good.

You Can Be Overweight But Still Be Healthy

This may sound contradictory but the fact is that not everyone who apparently seems fat and overweight is actually having health issues.


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He or she may even be healthier than your average slim and slender individual. Just like being thin is no guarantee of good health, in the same way being overweight is not simply a sign of health issues.

In essence, there is nothing wrong with being fat and overweight. We have been conditioned by society and brought up to uphold certain unrealistic and prejudiced standards. One of them is the obsession with a slim figure and an utter disregard and contempt for fat people. Our popular media, both mainstream and social, also repeats the same message over and over again that fat or overweight equals bad. Our television shows depict virtually no body positive characters or storylines of any kind. Also, the diet industry today has become a multi-million dollar industry and a huge part of its advertising/promotion campaigns is focused on fat-shaming to entice people to consume more of their weight loss products (pills, fat-burning belts etc).

Appearance Doesn’t Equal Good or Bad Health

You cannot pronounce someone as healthy or unhealthy simply by looking at them and judging their body shape. Good or poor health is the consequence of an individual’s choices. It is, of course, good to eat well and exercise irrespective of body shape and size. But what is more important is to live healthily and strive for personal well-being, instead of losing weight by hook or by crook.


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Nothing Wrong With Being Fat

Certain notions and stereotypes have held strong in almost every era, stuff for which there has never been any scientific explanation or justification. For instance, about 3 generations ago we believed that women could not become good business leaders, politicians, administrators, or academics. About 2 generations ago, we started to realize that women were just as capable and intellectually gifted as men. However, people of colour and non-white races were still considered inferior and uncivilized. About a generation or so ago, we started to realize that there was nothing that made white people superior to other races. Though it has taken a while, but the world is finally starting to realize that being fat is not as much of a doomsday scenario as it is made out to be. Different fashion campaigns have started using plus-size models in a bid to promote body positivity and encourage people to feel more comfortable in their own skin.

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In an age where our body is an integral part of our identity, believing or propagating the notion that being fat is a bad thing will only cause unimaginable stress for countless individuals. What is needed is to be more considerate and understanding towards fat people and help them to practice acceptance of their own bodies while simultaneously pursuing a healthy lifestyle to ensure personal well-being.

You Can Fat and Happy

You do not have to justify anything to anybody and you most certainly do not have to accept other people’s versions of what you should or should not look like. Ultimately it is your body and you should have complete control over it. Own your imperfections and wear them on your sleeve with pride. Trust yourself and trust the journey. While being overweight is not ideal by any means, your body fat should not be preventing you from living a life full of happiness and well-being.


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Recognize that people come in lots of different shapes and sizes and they all have unique qualities and personalities. Accept your own body completely and give a middle finger to the weight loss brigade. Practice healthy eating and workout routines and maintain a healthy lifestyle. You have as much right to be happy and comfortable in your own skin.

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No reason to feel bad about being fat as long as you dont have serious health issues. Feeling good about ourselves is key for a good life. But to live a long and fruitfull life, we have to take care of both our physical health and mental health.

nice story @jasimg, I was also fat few years back. Even though no one in my family was fat-shaming me, I always felt sluggish, unenergetic, and slow all the time. I even started to had knee problem.
Since my mother is diabetic then there is a chance I will become one. That is why I started my journey to be healthier (not skinny).
In the beginning I thought exercise will be enough, it turns out eating in calorie deficit (through intermittent fasting) plus exercises helped me to lose weight, became healthier and stronger physically and mentally.

For myself, the danger of accepting ourselves being fat is we become complecent and it leads to unhealthy eating habit and leads to morbid obesity...thus try to always strive to be the best version of yourself in everything that you do including losing that fat into healthy Body Mass Index
peace and blessing

Yeah.
What's important is our priority/goal that we want to achieve. Happiness is our most priority regardless of anything. Even if we get sick in the end, as long as we're happy today. Enjoyment and eating are what most people like and feels happy doing those 'feels good stuffs'.

In my faith, knowledge and experience:
I guess my recommendation to health is as simple as balance.
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I guess most people are not aware of this. We only most of the time know/knew the word 'eating'. The word 'fasting' sounds alien to us. A lot of things to search and study on fasting. The popular one maybe not to some is intermittent fasting. I won't go deeper into this. There are a lot more about fasting stuffs to learn from.

Most cultures are already cultured on their scheduled time on eating. Time for breakfast, time for snacks, time for lunch, time for snacks, time for dinner. We are/were becoming slaves of our time. We don't even listen to our body, if its expanding or purging.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" A food industry slogan?
Even the word 'breakfast' obviously violates the law of fasting. Breakfast means breaking the fast, that's why its called breakfast.

Fasting is traditional, ancient, an old thing. But, in the process, its evolving. There are a lot of varieties to study/learn on fasting.

Anyways, thanks @jasimg for posting up a good health insights.
More power!

I really do appreciate your approach @jasimg and I agree, it is important to maintain a healthy balanced life where moderation and structure is applied to ones lifestyle to allow for eating comfort foods as well as healthy options. The 80/20 principle is a great way to keep healthy most of the time with the allowance of treats here and there. I would like to argue that it is not how you look on the outside or how much you weigh on the scale ( I have many metal plates from a life threatening accident and weigh about 7kg's more than I generally 'should' but I don't mind as what I think is most important is how much visceral fat sits in between your organs and skin and bones that determines your general level of body fat. If you are generally active involving regular stretching, body massaging and core stabilizing exercises with a fair amount of cardio- you should have a healthy amount of visceral fat. It isn't the easiest means of determining health as you cant simply stand on a scale and bam!- there's an indicator of how much visceral fat you have, but at least it is some form of true indicator, what do you think?

kidding me? i'd love to be fat! well, for the past few of my teenage years, i've been trying to add weight. i eat severally, like i consume alot cause i'm a foodie, yet nothing works. i'm stuck like this. somebody help meee!!!!

Perfection perspection of today's world is sickening. Me and my dear wife trying to not to be a part of that perspection. We are trying to be healthy and eat whatever we want instead. The idea is that: How can you become happier while you don't eat anything you want?

Eat my fellow Steemians, just don't forget to move to not lose your health :)

This post has received a 45.94 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @jasimg.

thanks for share these nice informations ;) we dont have to be fit :D