Fat or Higher Weight?
Published 3.18.2025: Wait, it's not fat any more… it's "higher weight"? I must have missed something. Fat people (at least those pretending to have research props) no longer want to be called fat, now it's "higher weight"? The word obesity still has the 'e' represented by an * because somehow it's a slur and "made up word?" It's a medical word, not a slur, and all medical words were made up at some point… So much for wanting to pretend you have research props.
Obesity (and yes, I will write out the whole word, as I told my kids as they matured, there are no "bad" words, just words that are inappropriate to use in a given situation) is a medical term and it was first used in the 1600s, it's not a new concept and I refuse to be beholden to fat activism dictates. This newsletter is Regan Chastain trying to fill the Lindo Bacon void.
Obesity in the 1600s was a sign of wealth, because it took money to be fat, poor people couldn't be fat. Since then, the dangers of carrying too much excess weight has been realized. There's a reason gout was known has a wealthy man's disease, and if you believe doctors such as John McDougall (who is no longer with us) it was the fat wealthy that had heart and other metabolic diseases in antiquity. The poor in the fields, who were eating grains and other cheap starches, were "healthier." Healthier is in quotes because though they might not have suffered from metabolic diseases there were other afflictions that would kill them young. They just weren't eating themselves to death.
Chastain is still on her kick that weight doesn't relate to health, and that any research that doesn't include the effects or weight stigma and the effects of yoyo dieting in them are dismissible. Convenient, that attitude is, because it means you can dismiss the reams of data which show that obesity increases the risk of all sorts of diseases.
We interrupt this dissertation on Ragen Chastain (who really isn't that interesting) to note this from the YouTuber Sam At Every Size, which may be the definitive take down of the "residing in a higher weight body" or having a "higher weight" verbiage. Doesn't that language suggests that fat people could move from fat to releasing a thinner body? Sam points out that fat activists hate the notion that in every fat person, there's a thin person waiting to be revealed. BUT doesn't saying, "residing in a higher weight body" suggest that, in fact, there's a thinner person waiting to get out?!?
Anyway, I thought the commentary was brilliant — it occurs about 7 minutes into the video. I think I've highlighted Sam At Every Size previously, she is well worth watching, and usually has a new video out on Mondays at 9 AM Eastern.
Apparently I did miss something, because residing in a higher weight body language is not new, and seems adjacent to the "people first" language that obesity doctors use (people aren't fat, they are people who have obesity) that fat activists also hate.
Obesity (and yes, I will write out the whole word, as I told my kids as they matured, there are no "bad" words, just words that are inappropriate to use in a given situation) is a medical term and it was first used in the 1600s, it's not a new concept and I refuse to be beholden to fat activism dictates. This newsletter is Regan Chastain trying to fill the Lindo Bacon void.
Obesity in the 1600s was a sign of wealth, because it took money to be fat, poor people couldn't be fat. Since then, the dangers of carrying too much excess weight has been realized. There's a reason gout was known has a wealthy man's disease, and if you believe doctors such as John McDougall (who is no longer with us) it was the fat wealthy that had heart and other metabolic diseases in antiquity. The poor in the fields, who were eating grains and other cheap starches, were "healthier." Healthier is in quotes because though they might not have suffered from metabolic diseases there were other afflictions that would kill them young. They just weren't eating themselves to death.
Chastain is still on her kick that weight doesn't relate to health, and that any research that doesn't include the effects or weight stigma and the effects of yoyo dieting in them are dismissible. Convenient, that attitude is, because it means you can dismiss the reams of data which show that obesity increases the risk of all sorts of diseases.
We interrupt this dissertation on Ragen Chastain (who really isn't that interesting) to note this from the YouTuber Sam At Every Size, which may be the definitive take down of the "residing in a higher weight body" or having a "higher weight" verbiage. Doesn't that language suggests that fat people could move from fat to releasing a thinner body? Sam points out that fat activists hate the notion that in every fat person, there's a thin person waiting to be revealed. BUT doesn't saying, "residing in a higher weight body" suggest that, in fact, there's a thinner person waiting to get out?!?
Anyway, I thought the commentary was brilliant — it occurs about 7 minutes into the video. I think I've highlighted Sam At Every Size previously, she is well worth watching, and usually has a new video out on Mondays at 9 AM Eastern.
Apparently I did miss something, because residing in a higher weight body language is not new, and seems adjacent to the "people first" language that obesity doctors use (people aren't fat, they are people who have obesity) that fat activists also hate.