system amoebae

Edit: Free Terf and fascist blocklist in the notes. Turned off reblogs due to bad fucking takes and increasing hostility, and my own personal frustration. This was over trans people facing hate and Streamers and people drawing attention to the fact they are playing a video game with an author is against them and getting pushback for it, they are not comparable things. Some people were also using it for transphobic propaganda. Fuck that.

Edit Edit: I am cis. I have turned off reblogs, and presumably will not have to hear anything else about harry potter unless I choose to. I am choosing not to engage with it. The same way with how streamers could choose not to engage with it. This? This is the whole fucking point of the post. I’m not trans, I don’t have to argue my rights to anyone. Trans people do. It was a basic, human thing, to not play one bad fucking wizard game. If you try to wiggle your way out of it or argue, you’re an asshole.

You don’t get to complain if a game you choose to stream makes some of your viewers not feel particularly welcome anymore. That is entirely on you.

Hogwarts Legacy will sell millions of copies, and if you really want to play it then you can choose not to stream it. You can just shut up and play it.

Purchasing the game contributes to Rowling’s wealth and cultural standing. JK Rowling directly platforms far-right anti trans groups like the one we saw in Glasgow a few days ago. She is shoulder to shoulder with bigots in Parliament. She is very much part of the problem.

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Did you know that in post-mortem examinations there is zero correlation between weight and levels of arteriosclerosis and related diseases found?

Did you know that people with an overweight BMI have the longest life expectancy, that those with an “ideal” and an “obese” have about the same life expectancy, and that being “underweight” raises mortality rates more than being “morbidly obese”?

Did you know that losing weight and then gaining it back is worse for your heart than remaining at the weight you started consistently?

Did you know that 95% of people who lose weight do gain it back, and there has never been a single documented weight loss program that has been demonstrated to keep the weight off for five years or more in the majority or even a significant minority of people? Like, telling people to lose weight isn’t much use if we don’t know HOW to make that happen.

Like I have read The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos and Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata and Big Fat Lies by Glenn A Gaesser (Ph.D!) And Fat!So? and several other books that I don’t own and so don’t remember all of their names I spent like four years reading every single study coming out and looking at the methodology and noting which ones had huge holes or terrible methods and which didn’t (the holes were almost always in the pro-weight-loss studies) and like

Big Fat Lies has 27 pages of bibliography. 27 pages worth of scientific citation. The book content itself is only 197 pages. That’s a page of references for every 7 pages of book. Reading the book is just reference after reference and study after study. Most of these doctors (like Linda Bacon, author of Health at Every Size) started out the same way. They wanted to use the scientific method to find a real weight loss program or health solution that worked and could be proven to work, and so studied everything they could about weight and fitness only to find out that we didn’t need weight loss in the first place. That all the studies calling for it were lacking or nonexistent. That weight and underlying metabolic health have very little relation. That the history of our relationship with health and obesity has little basis in fact and a LOT of basis in capitalism, politics, and fashion. No, really, the association between weight and health was first proposed by insurance companies looking for ways to charge people more by claiming risk. They also charged tall and short people more. And people with different skin colors. When they got in trouble for charging people for things they had no control over and had no bearing on their health, they set out to prove that weight was controllable and that fat was unhealthy to make money. 

These are also a lot of the same people who went on to invent the President’s fitness program, so if you went to public school you probably already hate them. 

It delves into most of the points raised by the OP and takes it one step further by investigating how many health issues attributed to obesity are, in fact, often byproducts of the stress of being fat and not the weight itself. While this commonly includes conditions like depression, anxiety, and disordered eating, it can also translate to heart problems as a result of the body producing more of the stress hormone cortisol, which can increase blood cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure–all common risk factors for heart disease. Cortisol can also promote buildup or plaque in the arteries. Some studies have started to look at the life expectancy of those who are stigmatized and bullied for being fat vs. those who aren’t. Spoiler alert: people who are tortured and traumatized for their weight don’t live longer.

And none of this even scratches the surface of medical bias and the subpar treatment many fat folks face when seeking medical advice for something completely unrelated to diet or nutrition.

If people focused less on stigmatizing fat folks and wailing about health while also upholding systemic barriers that prevent fat folks from being able to participate in fitness activities in the same way as their thinner counterparts, a greater number of people might find an active lifestyle more accessible to them, thus promoting better exercise habits and overall strength and fitness. Many, many people, including those medically considered “overweight” or “obese,” enjoy being active–whatever that might look like on an individual level–and participating in activities such as organized sports, but avoid doing so because of fear of ridicule or stigma, or various barriers that are systematically placed in their way. 

For instance: do you know how impossible it is to pursue a hobby in long-distance cycling while fat? How about kayaking? Surfing? Or equestrian? If you think any of the clothing or equipment necessary for these sports–such as cycling jerseys or one-piece suits, wetsuits, actual kayaks, or breeches–are easily accessible to people over a US women’s size 10/12, think again. And that is to say nothing about how fat folks can be ostracized or bullied for even trying to participate in fitness activities, even ones as basic as going for a jog or hitting the gym.

While thinness isn’t an indicator of health or physical fitness, the same also holds true: fatness isn’t an indicator of lack of health or physical fitness. They aren’t mutually exclusive concepts, but fat people are often barred from fitness or active spaces without experiencing some form of alienation or barriers to their participation, whether social, economic, physical, or otherwise.

(And none of this is to say that anyone, especially fat people, owe others fitness or “good” health, because that is how we slide firmly into ableism.)

We don’t owe the world anything period. Fatness doesn’t preclude us from being able to enjoy the same happiness and acceptance as thin folks, and we sure as fuck shouldn’t have to participate in health or diet culture to “earn” respect or acknowledgement of our basic human rights.