Hae’s is very anti-science. They sourced their materials from over 50 year old research, if they even cite sources.
They claim that they’re protecting Black people and that’s why this is started. It was white men fetishizing fat women who started it as a kink. Adipose tissue is directly linked to more disease. Not sure how anyone can support them. Yo-yo dieting is dangerous but so is caring an extreme amount of weight on your body…
Do you have sources for any of this? Because just a cursory google search doesn't show any of that. What it shows is that, like many studies, the sample size in the studies is limited and is not a good representation of the general population. And as far as I can tell, the studies look to be from the last 20 years, not the last 50.
Additionally, studies that are 50 years old are not necessarily inaccurate. Simply outdated.
HAES was started in the fat acceptance movement and was popularized by Lindo Bacon, PhD, a weight science research and associate nutritionist at the University of California.
Excessive adipose tissue (which is just body fat) has been linked to certain diseases, like type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hepatic steatosis. Adipose tissue itself does not. Everyone has adipose tissue. You need it to survive. However, correlation does not equal causation as further studies into this have shown.
And all of this arguing about whether or not HAES is good or not (I genuinely don't know. Again, this was a cursory search. Took me maybe fifteen minutes) blatantly ignores other factors. Notably that most people who are considered overweight feel uncomfortable in a doctor's office. They often feel like their doctor is judging them and as a result were significantly less likely to trust their doctor. And of course you have the horror stories of people with actually life-threatening medical problems being told to lose weight and the problem will go away. Or they're told they have to lose weight before getting a life-saving surgery. Or outright being denied medical help.
It also ignores the biological, social, and economic factors that contribute to someone being overweight.
For one, when an individual is starved - either by choice or circumstance - the body's natural response is to hold onto any calories it can find. How? You guessed it, as adipose tissue. This change can be felt up to three generations later. You know what happened in the last century that may have starved our predecessors, making our bodies (and our children's bodies) more likely to retain fat? The Great Depression. Two World Wars. The Holocaust. The 2008 Recession. We are exceptionally well primed to retain body fat and keep ourselves alive should another starvation or famine occur.
Eating healthy is also very expensive. And I don't know if you've noticed the stagnant wages for the past 40 some odd years. There isn't a lot of wealth to go around. So eating well is not an easy thing to do. It is a luxury most people don't have. What they do have is fast food and tv dinners. Perfectly fine sources of food that give them the calories they need, just not in the ideal way.
If someone has any level of stress in their life, it's going to affect the way they eat. Not to mention access and education on food. Food deserts aren't uncommon. Most notably in indigenous communities.
Being fat or overweight or obese or whatever word you want to use is fine and, in most cases, perfectly healthy. I don't know if HAES is a good movement or if it's trustworthy or if its methods are even working. But if it can help people feel more comfortable getting medical help, I am fine with it. If it can help people actually get the medical attention they need, then that is amazing.
If you can't understand that, then I don't know what else to say to you.