Are You Fat-Phobic? and would you change your mind if you knew people in larger bodies are using more willpower than your normal sized body clients?

Have you ever thought about how being fat-phobic is the same as being prejudiced against any other person who cannot help the way they are?

Would you change your mind if you knew people in larger bodies are using a million times more willpower than people in normal sized bodies and their appetites STILL increase?

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In an era when obesity prevalence is high throughout much of the world, there is a correspondingly pervasive and strong culture of weight stigma. Overweight and obesity are incorrect terms for many reasons, I prefer to use the phrase ‘people living in a larger body’. Weight stigma refers to the discriminatory acts and ideologies targeted towards individuals because of their weight and size (The World Obesity Federation). Weight stigma is a result of weight bias. Weight bias refers to the negative ideologies associated with people living in a larger bodies than overweight or obese.

Weight stigmatization assumes that a person’s body size is within the control of that person. The World Obesity Society fails to mention this and the rest of the information below!

A person’s body becomes larger due to no fault of their own. They were just taught to try and consciously control their eating (taught to restrict eating) at a very young age. Once a larger body is established, is not only impossible to permanently change by changing behaviours (e.g. eating and exercise) using this type of approach, eventually makes the appetite increase even more.

The person then has to spend all their time and effort fighting this appetite using a phenomenal amount of willpower. Willpower is something people who weren’t taught to restrict their eating at a young age and so developed a larger appetite don’t have to do. They are protected by the eating instinct that they retained from childhood.

Why would a person in a larger body simply ‘change their behaviour’ if they know it is going to make their appetite increase? Them not making changes to their behaviour is a sign of high intelligence and motivation to do the best thing to keep their appetite at bay.

Representative studies show that some forms of weight discrimination are more prevalent even than discrimination based on race or ethnicity.

Can you honestly say you believe people living in larger bodies are equal in every respect to a normal sized person?

By Alison Hall

Alison is founder/owner of HFI Training and founder/owner of Try Freedom (eating counselling).  If you have clients with large appetites and feel powerless to help them, please get in touch.