Jacob Riis Beach hosts the day of body positivity and fun, in the city at the heart of the fat acceptance movement
Fat Beach Day events are springing up across the US in an effort to fight back against fat-phobia, reclaim safe spaces for the community and honor plus-size culture. Today, one of these celebrations is being held to coincide with Pride month at Jacob Riis Beach in New York, a location deeply ensconced in the city’s activism space.
Pride is for people who were routinely ostracized, beaten, disowned, and murdered because they were different in a way they couldn’t change.
Being overweight is something you can change.
Being fat has always been accepted. It’s just not celebrated, because it’s not healthy, indicates that you don’t take care of your body, and/or you don’t have control over your eating habits. There are rare circumstances when weight is influenced by a medical condition, but generally it’s people eating too much and not moving enough. Being fat is looked down on the same way as being un-showered, wearing dirty torn clothes, or smelling bad. It’s not the person, but the way this person presents themselves, and it can be changed. It’s like if a guy wears offensive slogan t-shirts every day, and gets upset when people aren’t especially nice to him. It’s your own doing, my guy.
Were you kicked out of your family because you’re fat? Were you fired from your job because you were fat? Were you denied healthcare because you were fat? When was the last time someone targeted fat people for a mass shooting?
Fat acceptance is just an attempt at finding victim hood within habitual self-flagellation.
But also, I’ve never fat shamed anyone, I’ve never picked on someone because of their weight, or “judged” them. People who do that are assholes. I’m just upset that pride is being routinely co-opted by other movements like furries, fat acceptance, and all this other nonsense that, again, nobody was ever actually hurt over. I’m sorry you feel judged at the beach, but gay people are routinely murdered because they’re gay and pride is a protest.
There are rare circumstances when weight is influenced by a medical condition, but generally it’s people eating too much and not moving enough.
Do you have any idea how many medical conditions keep people from not moving enough (thereby causing people to eat more calories than they need)? It’s NOT rare. Hell, lower back pain is one of the most common reasons people go to the doctor, and guess what’s a lot harder to do when your back is screwed up? Exercise.
I am a bicyclist. I love riding. I ride any chance I get. I also currently have chronic problems in my upper, middle and lower back, including a herniated disc in my low back, and it’s aggravated by bicycling more than anything else. I’ve been seeing doctors for 20 years for my back problems, since I was a teenager. I had back problems when I was a size 2, and I have back problems as a size 12.
People will probably want to respond to my comment by saying that diet is a bigger factor in losing weight than exercise, or that people should adapt and find other ways to be active if they can. What I am saying is that weight, medical conditions, and eating more calories than a person can burn – they’re all connected and it’s a very common problem.
Not being extremely mobile or having chronic pain does not require you to eat more calories than you burn. I have a torn disc and take nerve meds so I obviously don’t lift weights or run like I used to, but Im allowed to moderate my calorie intake.
Age and a slowing metabolism are more pernicious, but even those things don’t “force you to eat more calories than you need”. Nothing is forcing anybody to do that.
Exactly, I think people eat way too much, too fast. Since a year I’ve reduced my portion size, it had a great effet on my weight.
Just because something is harder to do, doesn’t mean not doing it is okay. Overeating when overweight is abuse, full stop.
There are people that have a harder time quitting smoking, there are people that struggle not to cut themselves.
Nobody should look at an 8 year old with a cigarette and say “it’s probably just genetic.” Nobody should look at a junkie passed out in an alley and say “yasss, they’re just living their truth!” Nobody should be incensed when they go a hospital complaining about abdominal pain and the doctor recommends they remove a piece of rebar they fell on.
We also extend some sympathy to the cigarette smoker, to the self harmer. Quitting smoking is HARD. It takes a ton of effort, nicotine is literally addictive. Self harm is indicative of any of a number of mental and emotional issues. Those are a nightmare to address
But at the end of the day, they should just grow up and do it, right? Just don’t smoke. Just don’t cut yourself. Just don’t eat to excess. Simple.
Never mind the literal good deserts some people find themselves in. The decades of misinformation from lobbying groups. The fact that everyone has their own one weird trick,so you don’t know who to believe. The fact that the cheapest food is often the least nutritious. The fact that, increasingly, people have to work more hours to get by, leaving less time for things like cooking a proper meal.
There are real societal factors that play into the obesity epidemic. We didn’t get where we are because everyone was collectively like “let’s just get fat, yeah?” - we were all brought to this point by the influences of the world around us. Personal responsibility is all well and good, but it’s also not the whole game.
I think we are in many ways talking past each other. Of course it’s hard. Of course there are tons of things that make the right choices more difficult. Of people deserve support in making the right decisions. Of course making major societal changes to address the risk factors for obesity is a noble goal.
Movements like this are just cheering people on while they put a gun in their mouth, and it’s fucking disgusting.
Overeating when overweight is abuse, full stop.
Cool, now I’m a self abuser. Good to know.
Your comment is abhorrent and misses the point completely.
As someone who also struggles with weight gain… yes, it is a form of self-harm.
But I never brought up the idea that people are being forced to eat more calories; you did.
I explained how medical conditions, health, and mobility are intertwined with calorie intake and expenditure and that it’s a common problem.
Have you tried recumbent bicycles? they are a lot easier on my lower back, and there are some real fun designs out there like trikes that could make bicycling a reality again. Or swimming, when I hurt my knees and couldn’t run/bicycle without pain, I started swimming laps, and holy cow is that a lot of exercise if you’re not used to it.
Additionally, refined sugar is addictive. I know my previous comment might lead you to believe I have no sympathy for wider folks, but I truly do. I’ve lost 100lbs over a year once. I gain back when I go through periods of depression, and then I force myself to lose weight again. Over last holiday season I was separated from my family and spent it entirely alone. I gained about 25-30 lbs. Since then, I’ve restricted my calorie intake to around 1200-1500 calories a day, with around an hour of exercise also each day. I’ve lost ~25 lbs since starting that in March. I know how hard losing weight can be. I’m also a (former) addict, so I know how hard quitting something that’s ubiquitous throughout society can be (alcohol). But it can be done. Sugar is addictive just like alcohol is, which is why Jenny Craig modeled her fitness groups after AA.
The problem is that losing weight is uncomfortable at first. You’re hungry because your stomach is all stretched out, despite taking in enough calories for the day. It takes time for your stomach to shrink to the proper size, so for the first couple weeks, you’ll be eating all your body needs, but it will feel like you’re not. and it’s uncomfortable. Weigh this discomfort against all the discomfort that being overweight has constantly provided, and decide which one you’d rather live through. The temporary discomfort of feeling hungry and not knowing what to do with your hands after you’re done eating for the day (and only for the first couple weeks of dieting), or the constant discomfort all over your body and in your own mind, every day that you’re overweight.
You don’t have to exercise to lose weight, you don’t even have to drastically change your diet.
Eat. Less.
You can lose weight on a diet of pizza, donuts and laying on the couch if you simply eat less calories than you burn.
You quite frankly sound like one of the many enablers that wants to make every excuse possible about why it’s impossible to lose weight rather than taking responsibility for the countless poor eating decisions that lead to obesity. No one is born fat and no one wakes up fat, take responsibility.
You also completely ignored the point I was making so that you could tell a stranger to eat less.
It should be separate from pride, but on the “it’s a choice” aspect: How is weight gain different from many mental afflictions? It’s a mental issue that causes detrimental effects to your lifestyle.
I agree with you, being someone who has fought with his weight my entire life. The excess calories are there to fill a need, with mechanisms similar to substance abuse or gambling addiction. “Just stop eating too much” can feel like an unachievable goal.
Any weight loss of an obese person should be combined with psychiatric care, because if you don’t identify WHY you are eating so much, you might just trade one addiction for another one.
You’re gatekeeping the word pride, lol. Try just not being a dick.
Whats wrong with being a dick? None of us would be here without dicks. Say no to dick shaming. Dick pride.
Having a dick is all well and good, but I don’t think I’d want to interact with a person who was entirely 100% a penis. Big difference between having and being.
A) that’s just like, your opinion, man.
B). You against GMOs too?! Like, someone worked hard to breed him (and me) at near 100% dick. We bananas wouldn’t even be edible if not for selective breeding to increase phallusy-ness!
People in this comment section being shining examples of why some fat people would feel uncomfortable at the beach.
Too many of them think protecting these folks from bullying and harassment on one beach for one day is some kind of threat to civilization. Typical moral panic.
Too many of them think that you can bully a fat person into losing weight.
They’re all completely in control of their weight, and clearly waiting for just the right arrogant condemnation to make a change. /s
Definitely not an environmental problem at all.
Fat-shaming is definitely an issue across the political spectrum, unfortunately.
May well be, but I saw comments like “This is how the left loses voters”, and generally the pointless mean-spirited bigotry does come from the right
This users left Reddit but Reddit never left the users.
The Venn diagram between people commenting here and people going to beaches is probably just two circles not touching at all.
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Weight is gained or lost in the kitchen.
Exercise has everything to do with health, and very little to do with weight.
They need cooking classes, and education around how to properly estimate calories.
While true, exercise is very important. For example if you are sedentary then that visceral fat screwing up your pancreas is extra risky because you also build up insulin resistance.
Even if they don’t lose that much weight, it at least mitigates some of the risks increased by being overweight.
They need cooking classes, and education around how to properly estimate calories.
Nope. I count every calorie. I’m shooting for 2300 but struggle to hit that. I usually end up at 2600 or more. I cook 80% of my own food. I bake my own bread. I make my own snacks. I know exactly why I’m fat. I can’t stop being hungry. I feel full around 800-900 calories, no matter what I’m eating. (pizza is an exception, because I feel full around 1200 calories, so I avoid it.)
Imagine walking, chest deep, against a slow moving river, every second of the day. You can push against it and it works, but it’s hard. One slip up and you’re floating backwards. You know how to make progress, but it’s takes a shit load of effort and one mistake and you just. Fucking. Can’t. Today.
Add that into everything else wrong with my life. I only have energy for so many things. I have to triage. Kids, wife, bills, personal happiness, other responsibilities. Can’t do them all.
Trust me, I hate myself with every bite, but it’s the only way to shut up that hungry voice.
Your situation is valid, but you’ve missed about a half dozen important components.
First. You need to eat slower, 900 calories to feel full is more of a time thing than a volume thing.
Second. You need to be eating more protein and fiber. Which also help with fullness.
Third. You need to give your body time to reduce the size of what it thinks it needs. Your stomach actually gets used to a certain quantity of food, and it needs to re-adjust to a lower amount.
Fourth. Hunger sucks. Drinking water helps. Especially before a meal it will help you with the first point here too.
Fifth. Hunger is a mental thing, you can overcome it with practice, you’re not actually malnourished. As a child I used to participate in these 30 hour famine fundraisers where you didn’t eat anything between dinner on Thursday and lunch on Saturday, only clear fluids were allowed. You can just practice ignoring hunger and get better at it.
You could try eating more fiber (beans, fruit, etc) it’ll help naturally increase GLP-1 (same as ozempic) but without the cost and side-effects. You also most likely have a Leptin issue (fiber helps with this as well). I urge you to both look at Leptin and GLP-1 with relation to fiber and or therapies that will help you resolve your hunger issue. There’s adequate scientific literature to support eating more fiber helping these two, but you might need pharmacological therapy if changing your diet would be too disruptive. Lastly, you’re doing great and individuals who are overweight but exercise will live longer than skinny people who don’t. Hope that helps.
Thanks.
I do eat fruit. Freaking love it. At least 1 apple a day, they are my fav, and often more. I try to eat veggies as much as possible and skip meat when possible. Fiber hasn’t been a huge focus for me, but it’s worth a shot. I’ve got a refried beans recipe I freaking love. I wish my kids liked it. My veggie chili is also great, but, you know, kids.
Stop. Eating. Carbs.
I lost 60 lbs when I finally managed to convince myself that carbs don’t give a satiety response.
Calories are burned through exercise though. Come on. You know how they’re connected.
yes, but they’re still right. Of course CICO (Calories in, Calories out) is a thing, but the Calories out part (e.g. exercise) does not have as much leverage as he calories in part.
it’s just so very easy to take in thousands of calories in 1-2 hours (think burger, fries, milkshake and alcoholic drinks). On the other hand, most people will struggle to burn more than say 800kcal/hr - and that’s why we say weight is gained or lost in the kitchen.
If you’re going to get that pedantic about it though, you may as well say weight is lost in the bathroom.
It’s a matter of scale, that physical activity moves energy usage maybe 10 to 15 % during the exercise compared to sitting still. However, there’s a lot of reasons to exercise for the sake of your pancreas and heart.
Besides, 84% of weight lost is by breathing it out, so not technically the bathroom.
Sure, but trying to lose weight without exercise is still hard mode. I’ve done it with and without the exercise part.
We are very high endurance animals, we don’t burn much calories through exercice
Unless you’re an elite athlete, your body consumes more calories per day just to exist than you will burn through exercise.
It takes 30 minutes of decent exercise to work off the calories in a single can of pop. An bowl of chips can set you back an hour.
It’s not even hard to eat 4 hours worth of exercise in a single afternoon snack.
That doesn’t make exercise worthless for weight loss.
Of course not and that’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying that trying to outrun a bad diet is never going to happen.
You could run a marathon every day and then still gain weight because you ate three birthday cakes, five burgers a bucket of fries and a whole pizza for breakfast , lunch and dinner.
Enablers hate admitting it, but weight is lost in the kitchen.
If you want to lose weight, eat less, if you want you can also get fit. That’s the difference between being a healthy weight and being fit and healthy.
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I’m not overweight but did you know that, as a country, we can do more than one thing at a time?
People who are overweight can’t just suddenly start exercising it often causes severe injury.
You can’t outrun a bad diet.
I may be ignorant of this, but weren’t plus-sized people already allowed on beaches? I’ve been to beaches along the Gulf of Mexico all of my life and have seen plenty of fat people there, and gone with my friends who are fat and never seemed to have any trouble.
It’s not about being allowed or not. It’s about creating an inclusive space for plus size people to comfortably sunbathe without being oggled and judged for their size, a privilege that others have more frequently.
Great in theory, but fat people will always be oggled at and judged for their size. All this will do is make a big spectacle and draw attention to those who really just want to be left the fuck alone to live their lives.
It also adds to the HAES bullshit. Being obese is unhealthy, that’s not up for debate.
Imagine if they had a smokers acceptance day where we all had to give them a pat on the back for damaging their lungs. It’s so stupid.
No one has to accept or celebrate your lifestyle they just have to tolerate it.
And as you’re saying, if you want to be super fat, good for you, but people are going to look and that’s not their problem.
I agree with what you’ve said here.
At the same time, encouraging obese people to go outside and get some exercise without worrying about how they look to others seems like something to encourage.
If they can go out to the beach and it wasn’t so bad, maybe they can go out to the gym on another day.
This wouldn’t happen for everyone, but if it helps a few people, then I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing.
My city has one or two trans bars. Cis people are allowed of course. But most of the clientele is some flavor trans or nonbinary.
It makes me feel so much less conspicuous when I look out at the crowd and realize I don’t stick out at all. I imagine this could serve a similar function to fat people who want to go to the beach.
That makes sense and works because it’s in an enclosed and private space. Fat day at the beach will quickly turn into a zoo exhibit for cruel people because the world is horrible.
Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s the price that ANYONE pays going to the beach? Generally, you are wearing more revealing clothing, or more accentuates your body parts (wet swimsuits do not hide much). So everyone can be ogled, in fact in my experience from my youth having lots of teenage boy friends, the more slim or conventionally attractive people tend to be ogled much more than those who are not.
On second thought, I shan’t got to the comments section. T’is a silly place.
Really putting that tolerant left on display lol
oh look it’s one of the three conservative jokes.
Should probly identify as an attack helicopter that hates his wife, make this comment the trifecta of dumbfuck.
I’m an anarchist, and something has scratched you, liberal.
congrats, you identify as the only thing dumber than a conservative
This isn’t even a “tolerance as a social contract” moment, because avoiding reading the comments section on a controversial topic is in no way intolerance anyways.
This actually makes me sick. People on average are fatter than they used to be AND THAT’S NOT A GOOD THING! Do people really want to let the corpos win by shoveling slop in our mouths without care to the effects on our health?
I get that it’s hard to lose weight, and not feasible for everyone atm, but it’s not something to celebrate.
Why does it necessarily have to be a celebration? Are quiet hours at shopping centers celebrating sensory disorders?
It’s not about celebrating, even if some people will use it as such. It’s about allowing different people the comfort to experience a thing that most of our society takes for granted.
I’ve never met a fat person who doesn’t want to change their lifestyle. Sure, there are a few who claim that, but in my experience, that’s a defense mechanism from all of the people who look down on them daily. Something like this is only a good thing, offering encouragement at no significant cost.
I’m a larger person. I definitely want to lose weight and get in shape, but it’s that hurdle of getting over your own self that’s the hardest part for me.
I know that once I get into a rhythm and habit, it’ll be fine and I’ll even like it at some point, but I can’t really get myself to start, even though I know I need to.
Also, I actually like that Walmart has the “sensitive” shopping hours.
It’s like giving up smoking. A huge amount of smokers wish they didn’t, but they don’t stop until they say “enough is enough”, draw a line under it and commit to quitting instead of making 101 excuses about how hard it is.
I hope you get to your “enough is enough” point soon.
One of my close friends from college went deep down the fat acceptance rabbit hole shortly after college. I had to unfollow her on social media. She went from being a slightly overweight girl to a morbidly obese woman. She had a podcast she’d promote saying things like it’s ok to eat cake for breakfast if you want it; weight is just a number and all kinds of asinine things.
My weight has fluctuated over the years, but any time I’m putting on weight, I know it’s unhealthy and I need to start going to the gym and eating better. Seeing her posts would drive me up the wall. She had one where she said something about how the gym is toxic, and you’re just fine the way you are, and you can be healthy without exercising. She also was selling some plus size clothing pyramid scheme and claimed to be a model for the company. I don’t think it was a defense mechanism, just another ridiculously bad side effect of echo chambers on social media.
She had a podcast she’d promote saying things like it’s ok to eat cake for breakfast if you want it
I mean, it is. I don’t think eating cake for breakfast is so much worse than eating it after dinner.
I lost a lot of weight with basically calorie counting. I ate whatever I wanted until I hit my limit. If I wanted more, I’d do some exercise to burn off the extra calories.
It taught me a lot about portion sizes and nutrition though (entered everything into a nutrition app, not just calories).
But I’m pretty sure there were some occasions where I had some cake for breakfast, lol
(Also…a muffin, waffles, or pancakes and syrup for breakfast are probably no better than cake)
John Stuart called it in 2004.
He styles his name as Jon Stewart, unless that’s a picture of a book by the 17th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill.
The phase “My body my choice” springs to mind.
Is being fat unhealthy? yes. does it give you the right to decide what another person does with their body? no. “But the corporations are-” yes, I know. but it is entirely possible to campaign for better nutrition standards without treating fat people as subhuman.
I’m not telling anyone they have to force themselves to find fat people attractive or anything, but for gods sake they are still people. and what they do with their body is their business, not yours. That should not take away their right to be human.
I just wish we (as in I’m a trashy Americans) had the 100g (3.5oz) nutritional fact. Keeps the fucking bullshit “tic-tacs are sugar free” bullshit.
It’s become an epidemic though, and IMO it’s like saying do what you want with your body, do drugs if you want to. Then let corporation market drugs as they wish.
The last part of your comment is a mystery to me. Where exactly did I imply the industry should be allowed to do whatever it wants?
My post isn’t about you, it’s about “my body my choice” proponents, like you.
We need to teach people, like in school, the basics of nutrition.
That will go a long way.
Sigh, way too much to unpack here
Why not have smoking days where smokers can smoke inside of restraunts? Why are we not inclusive of smokers?
Because second hand fat isn’t a thing.
It kinda is for the children of fat folk
We should try socialism. Then we wouldn’t have any fat people since there wouldn’t be any fucking food for anyone. Am I doing this right?
Ah yes all the European countries are starving
Compared to America, Europe might look socialist. I assure you it’s not.
Far more than the US in every way
Please note that nowhere have I pointed out or implied Europe lol
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“I was going to vote for Democrats this year, but then I heard that one of the eight public beaches in New York City had one day a year for fat people and now I’m MAGA all the way!”
Lol yeah idk what the hell they’re on about.
You voting for beach days?
Don’t tell idaho, their bars will have a “Super awesome straight skinny guy beach days” every Saturday…
Oh come on, stop it with this perpetual culture war.
