Explore More Summit -Bodies edititon

I have really enjoyed the Explore More summits in March which are free video talks on sex, relationships, etc.

There is going to be another, slightly different one, over five days from 4th December on bodies! So things like self image, healing, diet culture, etc.

If you want to join in, go to:
https://www.exploremoresummit.com/

LucyBee01 said:

I have really enjoyed the Explore More summits in March which are free video talks on sex, relationships, etc.

There is going to be another, slightly different one, over five days from 4th December on bodies! So things like self image, healing, diet culture, etc.

If you want to join in, go to:
https://www.exploremoresummit.com/

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I think I'll pass...

I visited some websites and articles by those 'experts' to see what I'd be watching and one common theme between them seems to be that they're pushing a paranoid delusion that society hates fat people and that they're so oppressed and marginalized. That Caleb Luna guy even goes so far as to say that preferring thin/otherwise-healthy sex partners is "body fascism", and I don't know if this is 100% true, but apparently that Ragen Christian woman denies that there's a link between poor health and obesity.

It's good that they're trying to boost people's self confidence but that event just seems like a circlejerk of new-age drama queens trying to spread divisiveness and push silly social agendas.

Blue said:

I think I'll pass...

I visited some websites and articles by those 'experts' to see what I'd be watching and one common theme between them seems to be that they're pushing a paranoid delusion that society hates fat people and that they're so oppressed and marginalized.

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Not delusional.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo201045

"Comparing judgments of obese people with a variety of other social groups revealed that obese people were rated as more disgusting than all but two of the social groups (drug addicts and smokers), and were among the groups who received the lowest favorability ratings..."

When a male politician is overweight (e.g. Trump, Chris Christie) they get heavily mocked for that, even when there are a million more relevant and awful things they could be targeted for.

When a female politician is overweight... well, it's almost a hypothetical question, because attitudes towards fat women are so toxic that it's very rare to see one holding elected office at a high level.

Overweight patients get bad medical care, as doctors routinely assume that all their problems are caused by weight and often miss other issues. "You just need to lose weight" has become the 21st-century "take two aspirin and call me in the morning".

And it's been well established that fat-shaming doesn't actually help people lose weight - in fact, quite the opposite - so it's hard to see it as anything but gratuitous cruelty.

Bramblethorn said:

Not delusional.

https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo201045

"Comparing judgments of obese people with a variety of other social groups revealed that obese people were rated as more disgusting than all but two of the social groups (drug addicts and smokers), and were among the groups who received the lowest favorability ratings..."

When a male politician is overweight (e.g. Trump, Chris Christie) they get heavily mocked for that, even when there are a million more relevant and awful things they could be targeted for.

When a female politician is overweight... well, it's almost a hypothetical question, because attitudes towards fat women are so toxic that it's very rare to see one holding elected office at a high level.

Overweight patients get bad medical care, as doctors routinely assume that all their problems are caused by weight and often miss other issues. "You just need to lose weight" has become the 21st-century "take two aspirin and call me in the morning".

And it's been well established that fat-shaming doesn't actually help people lose weight - in fact, quite the opposite - so it's hard to see it as anything but gratuitous cruelty.

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Ok I'm definitely wrong about average peoples perceptions of the obese to a point. Politicians should easily, and by a huge margin, be the most disgusting group of people.
No really, I'm serious. That's a surprising result.

I'm absolutely sure there is a general irrational bias in society favouring exponentially more healthy people (Beauty/Ugly bias, Halo effect and whatever else), my contention is that from my admittedly glancing knowledge of those speakers is that they seem to be a group of people who blow it wayyyyy out of proportion and manufacture outrage about it so they can feel good about combating a strawman. Even in that study you linked the mean 'disgust' rating is 4.29/9, hardly an overwhelming condemnation of obesity.

Getting mocked for being obese sucks and I can't disagree with it being a lazy go-to in the medical field but it's not like there's codified legislation in anybody's governments specifically degrading or disadvantaging obese people or even reflecting some kind of contemporary strongly hostile attitude toward them. Which is what I understood to be the general gist of those speakers when I was googling a few of them.

Blue said:

Getting mocked for being obese sucks and I can't disagree with it being a lazy go-to in the medical field but it's not like there's codified legislation in anybody's governments specifically degrading or disadvantaging obese people

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That's an incredibly low bar you're setting there; by that standard we could argue that racism no longer exists because it's not explicitly enshrined in law.

Also, at least one country does indeed have specific anti-fat laws - Japanese companies that have more than a certain percentage of overweight employees can be fined for it.

Bramblethorn said:

That's an incredibly low bar you're setting there; by that standard we could argue that racism no longer exists because it's not explicitly enshrined in law.

Also, at least one country does indeed have specific anti-fat laws - Japanese companies that have more than a certain percentage of overweight employees can be fined for it.

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No, we could argue that nobody is being targeted and systematically disadvantaged because the powers-that-be hate their race, and people arguing that interpretation of reality are plainly wrong and are either misinformed or being intentionally deceitful.

I'm just saying that if I were organizing a conference aimed at boosting obese people's self confidence, the last speakers I would invite would be people who are going to tell the audience that everybody hates them and societies primary factor in measuring people's worth is their weight (citing that black woman speaker in the white coat) and otherwise making them feel ostracised.

If Japan does have that policy then of course that's not acceptable. Maybe these activists could petition them or something?