Do Fatties Lack Personal Responsibility?
One of the things I hear a lot (especially if I forget the cardinal rule of being fat on the internet and I read the comments) is that I’m fat because of a “lack of personal responsibility.” But I don’t think that people really mean that I don’t take personal responsibility. If they read my blog they are well aware that I take complete responsibility for my health and well being, I just don’t happen to buy into the idea that I have to be thin to be healthy.
There is a whole issue that I’m not going in-depth on here about whether or not being fat is a choice. I’m not going into it because to me it doesn’t matter. I don’t believe that being fat is a choice for me, but it is a choice to opt out of the diet culture against the “advice” of culture, doctors, the First Lady of the United States, and all the marketing that a $60 billion diet industry can buy.
I’ve done tons of research, drawn conclusions, created a strategy, implemented it in my life, and had fantastic outcomes in terms of my health (mental and physical), self-esteem, and body image, and now I offer the option that worked for me to other people, who are free to take it or leave it. I think that’s pretty personally responsible.
I think that what other people mean when they say that I don’t have personal responsibility is that my idea of health doesn’t match theirs, and their definition of personal responsibility is that I am personally responsible for doing what is necessary to make them happy with who I am and how I look. That doesn’t work for me. I am not the boss of anyone else’s underpants – I get to make choices for me, you get to make choices for you.
The thing that makes being fat different is that people feel that by looking at me they can ascertain that I’ve made “bad choices” and have not been “personally responsible” and, therefore they feel that they have right to judge me and say rude, cruel and accusatory things to me about my health and its impact on our society.
Since their guesses are grossly erroneous, I suggest that their assumption is flawed. You cannot look at someone and tell their level of health or how much personal responsibility they are taking for it. Even if you could, it’s absolutely not your business if someone is making healthy choices for themselves – that’s why it’s called personal responsibility.
I can’t stop people from smoking or drinking two bottles of whiskey every day, being bad drivers or crossing the street without looking. I can’t make thin sedentary people exercise even if it would make them healthier and I don’t have a say in a million other things that may end up costing tax dollars.
I see my blogging as an exercise in personal responsibility. Personal responsibility means that I speak my truth honestly and authentically, or I don’t speak at all. It also means that I understand that it’s MY truth, not everyone’s truth, and that I could be wrong and I’m responsible for that, too.
I seem to have something that a lot of people want (high self-esteem, great health, great body image, great life), but it wasn’t always this way and so I share the things that got me here in case it’s helpful to someone. The only goal of my sharing is to give people an option, and then respect whatever they choose. To me that’s true personal responsibility and I hope that it catches on.
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I think what people mean by “personal responsibility” is that if we are fat now, there was a moment in time when we could have stopped it from happening and we chose not to through passive or active neglect.
I think other people dictating whether you or anyone is exercising personal responsibility can go fuck all because it’s called “personal” responsibility for a reason. My philosophy is educate, then get the fuck out of the way.
Nice piece.
Peace,
Shannon
Glad you liked it and I agree. We are the boss of our own underpants and nobody else’s. We can present an option but then it’s our responsibility to respect people’s choices, even if they aren’t the choices that we would make.
~Ragen
My weight increased when I made the lazy move of returning to working in health care. It’s such a laid back and not stressful field-so not! And everybody working in it is a lazy, lazy bum!
In case anyone can’t see the sarcasm dripping off that statement, it is there, dripping away.
The myth of the “lazy fatty” is one of the most enraging ones. I don’t happen to know any lazy fat people. The fat people I know are all very hard-working and industrious.
Health care is a high stress field. The night shift is very hard on the body. It turns the normal rhythms upside down. Yes, I tend to crave more sweets when I work the night shift. Yes, I should exercise more. But between doing my regular night shift job and clinicals on the day shift, most of the time what I would like to exercise is the muscles in my eyelids as I close them!
I am a very lazy lard-ass, no?
“their definition of personal responsibility is that I am personally responsible for doing what is necessary to make them happy with who I am and how I look”
I so agree with this and it’s SO true, on a range of topics from hair color to how much gas a car uses…
You are so right - this is definitely a pervasive thing right now.
~Ragen
I strongly believe that haters should take personal responsibility. Let them control what comes out of their mouths (and keyboards!) before they ask me to control what goes in.
I absolutely agree!
~Ragen
Even if fat was a “bad” thing, rude is worse than fat any day!
Very well stated.
Thank you!
~Ragen
ah, but what to do about the advice givers who are only pointing your weight flaw out to you for your own sake goddammit! and, the “well, you’re healthy now but just wait a few years” or, and this one was insane, from my stepmother who weighs 90 lbs but has uncontrollable high blood pressure. ” I feel like I’m enabling you to watch you go on sacrificing your health in this way”
Hi Priscilla!
I actually blogged about what I say in response to this little gem last week. You can find it here if you are interested:
http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/im-just-concerned-for-your-health/
Thanks! I think you you write with such eloquence and conviction. You’re a true inspiration
When people tell me they’re “just concerned about my health and think I should do this/that/the other in order to improve it”, I tell them “You do realize that your ‘concern’ adds stress to my life because now, not only do I have to meet my own expectations of health, I have to meet your expectations of health for me. Sorry, because my expectations and your expectations for my health are not the same, I’m going to go with my expectations for my health - I have to live in this body, you don’t, so you don’t get to tell me how to control my health.”
Wonderful response! I’m going to have to file that one in my bank of responses for the “concerned.”
Great article; you hit on a lot of important points. I love the “I’m not the boss of your underpants” thing. Perfect.
People mean well, but that doesn’t mean their stupid comments don’t hurt my feelings or scare me or just make me want to choke them. It’s actually really hard for me to be civil when people tell me shit like that. I’d rather worry about the fact I just got diagnosed with a f#cking NEUROLOGICAL DISORDER than my weight.
It is far better to be heavy and healthy-no, that is not an oxymoron-than to be starving oneself to thinness, or to be utilizing potentially life-threatening drugs or other dangerous measures to achieve extreme (or even not so extreme) thinness. Bulimia, using drugs both legal and illegal, overuse of laxatives, smoking to curb the appetite-all of these things are far more unhealthy than accepting and working with one’s body whatever size that body may be.