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You started this conversation saying Health At Every Size is bogus and harmful. Now you're saying both topics are important. I agree. I'm going to assume you've changed your mind and now understand the benefits of Health At Every Size at improving people's health regardless of weight, and also that HAES makes it easier to lose weight if that's what they also want.
No, I'll be quite clear: being obese and lacking mental healthcare are both harmful. I've been consistent on that.
There is not "health at every size".
What I can extract and appreciate about that movement is that it champions the need to holistically address the many needs of folks with obesity, beyond simple calorie management. I've been consistent about that too. I believe every CICO content I've made mentioned mental healthcare.
Obesity is a very dangerous condition that should be removed with great urgency. But I acknowledge that CICO alone will likely not result in long term success.
Health is relative. Health isn't an absolute boundary between healthy and unhealthy, that's silly. Health is a polydimensional spectrum. If you want to categorise health "objectively", well then seeing as men live shorter than women, we'd be forced to classify maleness as an illness and put every man in the world on estrogen pills. And that's ridiculous. No, health isn't a single standard that's the same for everyone.
Health isn't a point, it's a direction. Like South. South is a direction. I see Americans say all the time that they're from the south. They mean Texas. But I live in Australia. From my point of view, they're from the north. But it's not like they're lying. In terms of America, they're from the south. It's true.
Health is like South. If you've lived your entire life overweight with poor health, then getting healthy can mean a lot of different things. If you start jogging once a week and get healthier, well congratulations, you got healthy. It's relative. It's unreasonable for you to demand somebody in that situation meet the ideal of human health. If you do that, if you belittle their progress and say the best they've done in their life isn't good enough, you'll kill their motivation and ruin what little health they've achieved.
And if you go around saying there's no such thing as health at every size, well then I'll tell you there's no such thing as men's health, because being a man is unhealthy. The two statements are equally ridiculous.
Being obese is a version of being without health. Getting rid of excess weight is a critical need.
Acknowledging mental health as a critical component of achieving a health body weight is not accepting being overweight as "ok". Identifying being overweight as "not ok" does not mean devaluing those with that condition, or making light of their needs.
Okay you're still saying someone can't be overweight and healthy, so like I promised, I'm gonna assert that there's no such thing as men's health. Being male will make a man die sooner. We need to give all men estrogen pills immediately and make sure they stick to the regimen. Being male is not okay, it's bad for you and it's driving up insurance costs for the rest of us. It's selfish. Making bad choices out of stubbornness and pride while everyone else pays. That's not okay.
Please note these are not my actual views, I'm just applying anti-HAES logic to other parts of our bodies in the same manner.
Gender is intrinsic to a person. Weather they've been born as their gender, or not, they are what they are, and are valuable as such.
Being obese is like say, having diarrhea. Every effort should be made to undo the situation, with the acknowledgement that there may be underlying causes that need to be addressed first. (Food poisoning, food allergy, etc)
Being obese is a condition, not an intrinsic identity. Gender identification, and gender dysphoria are not conditions to be discarded. Being a gender is not a condition. I would no even hypothetically suggest someone should change their gender due to an external force,... beyond their own personal journey and choice, as that is bigoted speech.
Folks ARE the gender they visualize, or are born with. Gender affirming care, or confidence in your chosen gender are not up for discussion.
Folks HAVE obesity. It's a condition. Even while having this condition, they are valuable, and important.
To throw your analogy in the gutter: the elderly also require more healthcare and support, and their age is intrinsic. They cannot change it.
Neither gender or age can be "fixed". Obesity can, and should. CICO is how it mechanically happens, mental healthcare is how it lasts.
Men and women tend to be different sizes, as I'm sure you've noticed. Body size and shape is part of gender. Trans people who are too big or too small to fit their ideal body shape suffer dysphoria. And in cis people, the symptoms of obesity bear an eerie similarity to stress symptoms. Part of the unhealth of obesity for many cis people is gender dysphoria. They have a body shape that doesn't make them happy, it stresses them out. However, not everyone in the world is a man or a woman. There are other genders, and some of those genders have an ideal size that is larger.
You say gender is nothing to cure, but then you say obesity is always a problem. And you say it to the face of an enby who gained weight on purpose and saw a reduction in physical dysphoria as a result. I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of myself until I was what the BMI scale calls overweight. When I was thin, the face in the mirror didn't look like mine. It looked like some ugly person I'd been told my whole life was me. I've grown happier and more confident, and I have fewer suicidal ideations
And I still pursue physical health at my current weight.
Good for you. Your gender is not to be fixed. Your perception of weight validating your gender is for your mental health care professional to review. Not me.
Your general care doctor will of course encourage you, but if asked about obesity specifically, will guaranteed recommend a healthy body weight to avoid risk factors and complications. Consider COVID hospitalizations, as one example.
Actually, my GP gave me medicine to help my appetite even though I'm clearly obese. I was struggling to finish meals and asked the doctor for help. Doctor checked that I understood the risks, made sure I knew the warning signs of diabetes and what to do about them, and gave me appetite pills. I have had my prescription renewed at various different GPs and none of them ever made an issue of it. Turns out, doctors are actually very supportive and attentive to the patient's individual needs, and it's only assholes on the internet who make a big deal out of weight. Americans' mileage may vary because their healthcare system is three insurance companies in a trench coat.
The question is, how many people are nonbinary like me, and feel pressured to live unhealthy lives because of people like you? If I hadn't transitioned from male to female, then I wouldn't have the socio-political literacy to have this conversation about gender with you. And that's most people. How many people are assigned thin woman at birth, are actually fat woman on the outside, but don't know shit about gender politics because they're not traditionally trans? It could be a few, it could be a lot. But I guarantee the people who are like me are suffering because of the judgement of those who say there's no such thing as Health At Every Size.