Dear Fatphobic Fitspo People,

Fat acceptance is NOT about minimizing and trivializing the hard work and effort you have put in into becoming YOUR ideal body type. You’ve made sacrifices and worked very hard to reach a certain body type with which you feel happy. Nothing is wrong with that.

Fat acceptance is about knowing that it is PERFECTLY OKAY for anyone else NOT to want YOUR body type.

MOD RESPONSE:

Actually, I do trivialize the ‘hard work’ fitspo people put into 'getting their ideal body type’ relative to how moralized, vaunted, classist, and inherently ableistic the current cultural perception of that is. Not to mention that it still doesn’t contradict the inherent thin privileged nature of 'getting your ideal body’ since 95% of diets fail, so the vast majority of fitspo 'ideal bodies’ were thin to begin with.

The vast majority of fitspo is just thinspo existing under the umbrella of the popular cult of healthism. Fitspo is inherently thin privileged and represents a whole lot of other privileges besides (as it conforms quite neatly to Western beauty ideals, which are classist, racist, and ableist in addition to sizeist).

That’s why I personally am against fitspo and have a problem with pretty much everything it stands for. Let me be clear: I do not care what people do to or with their bodies. I do care that the inspiration to get their 'ideal’ body relies on the demonization of people like me (and other oppressed groups), and that many of the rewards the average fitspo participant seeks are privileges bestowed on thin bodies by the cult of healthism.

I also care that the fitspo inspirist’s 'hard work’ while chasing after thin privilege is made out to be like the hard work people put into getting degrees, or helping the less fortunate, or creating a work of art, or merely existing in a world that hates them. Be proud of yourself all you like, but don’t you dare demand that I or anyone else is required to recognize what you do is on par with the aforementioned activities.

You might be used to patting yourself and other fitspos on the back all day long but I’m not going to cookie attitudes that rely on the demonization of people like me and the vaunting of healthistic thin privilege. Just finish your workout and want to tell me what you did? Cool, whatever. I work out too, I know it can be fun to build yourself up to go farther and faster, if that’s what you’re into. But it does not make you (or me, or anyone) a better person. It just makes us people who occasionally hamsterwheel for our own purposes. End of story.

-ArteToLife