In response to this post.

The reason why we don’t talk about the classism of so-called weight loss behaviors (like exercising more and eating less/‘better’ foods) is because one of the goals of TITP is to stop the subtle reiteration of the idea that if fat people just behaved in some certain “correct” way instead of the assumed-to-be-different “fat” way then we’d become permanently thin.

(and, conversely, that thin people already behave in some “correct” way and if they engaged in an assumed-to-be-different “fat” way they’d become permanently fat)

The vast majority of fat people are fat because they were born programmed to be fat, not because of “fat behaviors.” The vast majority of fat people who engage in so-called weight loss behaviors gain back any weight they lose within five years, and most within two years. There is no known way to make a fat person permanently thin.

(citations: all over this blog. Check the FAQ in particular for links to clusters of citations from which I’ve pulled this information)

When we start engaging in discussions about how classist it is to expect poorer people to work out more or eat “healthier,” then we’re assuming that these behaviors are 1) only present in thin people, 2) if adopted by fat people would make most fat people permanently thin, 3) are the reason thin people are thin.

When, in truth, most thin people in gyms are probably a little bit thinner than before they started working out (or even get heavier if they’re building muscle). Just as fat people who go to gyms might get a bit less fat after working out, but not enough to make them look like the thin people who do the same exact workout, have the same exact diet, etc.

So yes, the gym/“healthy”-eating behavior culture of the healthists is extraordinarily classist. That’s fair. But this isn’t a blog about calling out healthism. This is a blog about calling out fat discrimination by explicating instances of thin privilege.

Being a regular gym member isn’t the intersection of thin and class privilege. It’s just class privilege.

-ArteToLife