thisisthinprivilege:

biyancuh: thisisthinprivilege: Because it is. What we consider “healthy” is not the same as what is considered healthy in other cultures, nor what was considered healthy at other times in history. Hell, our own definition has changed considerably just since I was born. (This is also how we can tell that things like gender and childhood are socially constructed.) And we know that much of what the public considers healthy right now does not actually give the benefits people think it does (such as the fact that people “overweight” and “obese” by the BMI chart actually live longer than people it lists as “normal” weight). How would you not consider that a social construct? “Healthy” in our culture is constructed from a lot of false ideas and false assumptions about people’s bodies. This isn’t just a HAES idea. (Indeed, there are a lot of parts of the popular idea of “health” that HAES subscribes to.) If you read the actual medical and scientific literature that’s out there, you’ll find all kinds of things that contradict our idea of health. And, of course, the popular idea of health leaves out a lot of people, especially people with disabilities, and makes it something they can never attain, but are told they should strive for constantly. -MG rebloggable by request Woah woah woah. Yes, the definition of WHAT IS HEALTHY FOR YOU is a “social construct,” but what is healthy for your BODY is a construct based off research, experimental results. Other cultures may have differing opinions on what’s healthy /for someone/, but they absolutely cannot dispute science and what is physically healthy. What bloodletting healthy? Were lobotomies? Trepanation? You can’t just DEFINE what is good for you physically — in that case, why don’t we just throw all medical research that’s ever been done away. Okay, so, to be clear: what you’re SAYING (I hope) is referring to the /idea of what is healthy/, not what is ACTUALLY, medicinally, healthy. Is gastric bypass surgery healthy? Is affixing inflated tubes around perfectly well-functioning internal organs healthy? Weight loss diets, especially yo-yo dieting? Consuming large amounts of fake sugar? Over-exercise to the point of repetitive stress injury, in the name of weight loss? Spending a quarter-time job on dieting and exercising in combination with a stressful full time job, family, and other obligations? Putting kids on diets? Diagnosis #1 of all fat patients being fatness, and Treatment #1 to lose weight, regardless of their complaint, regardless even of whether weight gain was caused by an underlying factor? Being told to lose weight during pregnancy if you’re over a certain BMI? Being labeled as high-risk and oftentimes banned from every birthing practice except surgery because you’re over a certain BMI? Because these (and many more) are all things that are currently considered ‘healthy’ by many researchers engaged in modern medical ‘science.’ Our collective scientific handle on what is ‘healthy’ is not anywhere near accurate. It’s largely skewed by political considerations like the vast amount of funding available for anti-obesity research, and the agendas of certain politicians who want to link unhealthy lifestyles with whatever kind of lifestyle they personally oppose, moral panics like the obesity epidemic, commercial interests, and private biases. If what we know about medical science was the size of a frisbee, half of that frisbee would be under dispute, and what we do NOT know would be the size of the entire fucking planet. I know people who buy into the cult of healthism are prone to buy into this ridiculous worship of current medical science, but please, PLEASE, think a little more critically first. -ArteToLife

Let’s define ’ physically healthy’ as “freedom of disease or pain.”

The IDEA that fat = healthy is not always correct. That, I agree with.

Gastric bypass surgery is performed on the morbidly obese to prolong their life. MORBIDLY OBESE meaning the amount of body fat they have is leading to conditions that threaten their life.

Morbidly obese is not the same as being fat or overweight. Gastric bypass is not performed on anyone just because they feel the need to be thinner. It’s performed on people who are good candidates for the procedure.

It’s fine to be overweight, but it’s NOT okay to allow your body to get into a state (through any means) that your organs are impaired.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23496241 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23447004

Yo-yo dieting, fake sugar, stress injury, overexcersing, over-dieting, putting kids on diets are side-effects of media’s obsession for a certain standard of beauty. Medicine and medical research do not propagate it, the consumer market does. That doesn’t mean that scientific data is false. That biology is false. It just means people buy what the media feed them.

If the weight gain is caused by an underlying factor, that doesn’t mean that underlying factor isn’t treated. It means that that’s the CAUSE of it. Physicians not blaming THE INDIVIDUAL for being overweight. They’re trying to prevent any future physical complications (that can lead to death, or if not, a shorter lifespan) from arising. And like I said, being overweight is not unhealthy, but going past a certain threshold of excess body fat IS.

As for pregnancy, no doctor or government is going to *ban* you for getting pregnant. They will ADVICE you against it, for your baby. If you’re unfit to be pregnant, in the sense that you can possibly cause pre-natal and/or developmental harm to the baby, PLEASE do not get pregnant, no matter what reason! Whether it’s because you’re too fat, too skinny (yes, overly underweight pregnancies are advised against too), too old, too young, or because you’re a fucking alcoholic. As for birthing, I can also be banned from natural childbirth because my vagina is too tight, or because I’m too short or too skinny. It’s to prevent excess bleeding, tears, and damage to the baby and the mother.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23483719

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006985

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23078042

As for funding – many different institutions have funded many different researches of similar objectives, that still have the same outcome. Yes, they can bias towards a certain conclusion or opinion, but their experimental results cannot lie. So there are the slightly biased results, and the straightforward results, that still say the same thing in the end. As for physicians and medical institutions, a huge reason why they do not want you to die (other than maybe because they’re decent people), is because they don’t want to get sued for malpractice, nor do they want their patients to die and have that on their record. So don’t tell me that that is financially motivated.

It’s okay to be fat and be proud of your body. That’s great – women should be proud no matter what shape, size, color they are. But for certain women, please think again when your pride starts to put yourself at risk for organ failure, or put your unborn child’s life at risk. PLEASE.

Health and medicine is a very real thing. There are lasting, effective, practices that exist because of a good reason: they work.

As for the person who sent an ‘ask’ a bit later: I’m not talking about articles summarizing research, I’m not talking about Pop Tarts packaging saying “10% less fat!” I’m not talking about Dr. Oz. I’m talking about plain research papers. The really long, detailed, published research papers.

(via thisisthinprivilege)