_ The thing that gets me with fitness is basically this – we prize weight loss so highly, it’s revered as if it’s the pinnacle of sporting excellence – it doesn’t matter how fast you can run, how high you can jump, how strong you are – you know – actual athletic development is seen as secondary to changing the way you look – and through all of this, the most amazing physical feat we can achieve – our own personal development – our success as an individual is measured by our ability to conform to the beauty standard?!?! The anarchist in me is horrified by the fitness industry! Dieting in my mind perfectly equates to subjugating the masses. You want a docile population? Encourage them not to eat. Make it a status symbol to be so tired and hungry you can’t even think straight any more. I don't want to waste my life, thinking that success at living means pandering to that shit. _Somehow, we don’t view that as a life wasted. We celebrate it. We ask how did they do it? We view it as being good, being ‘healthy’, as if health actually was something you could control.
Ever hear about the whole foot-binding thing in China? It wasn’t just a fashion. It was implemented by the ruling class to prevent a rebellion. The men can’t unite and fight if the women-folk are unable to walk. Want to enforce it effectively? Make it fashionable. Obsessing over our weight hurts all of us. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve spoken to who have seriously and in some cases permanently damaged their health out of some misguided desire to be thin. As if it were an aesthetic choice. I see thin people complain about how they eat too much, how they can’t control their cravings and it never even occurs to them that maybe having uncontrollable cravings is a sign they aren’t eating enough; I see them tell their thin friends to eat less. And then they complain they’re tired, they’re not sleeping, they’re not recovering from their exercise programs, and they’re unable to give up their stimulants. Who is this supposed to be helping? If anyone actually gave a shit about health, they’d acknowledge that obesity is not a diseased state, and they’d ask if it’s so bad for you, why doesn’t your body fight to reject it? They’d ask where are the population studies that show a group of people who are predominantly thin and who aren’t also malnourished? They’d acknowledge that all mammals store fat, and that it’s a sign your body is working right, not that it’s broken. They’d acknowledge that the main reason we desire six-pack abs is because they’re rare, and they’d realise that a rare trait does not represent what’s healthful for a species. If it actually was about health, nobody would talk about weight. They’d talk about health.
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