No incentive for care

Melissa McEwen of Shakesville cites another article about fat hatred, that our intense condemnation of obese people is harmful to those people. It isn't the fat, it is the condemnation that is harmful. McEwen says this condemnation is abuse and campaigns against childhood obesity are child abuse. Further damage is done because, she says,

there is no incentive to take care of a body you hate.

How good I feel about my fat body is absolutely and inextricably related to how well I take care of it, from the food I put in it to whether I go see a doctor when there's something wrong. That's not a fat issue: That's a human issue. Many of my thin and in-betweenie friends and colleagues have the same experience around their body image and self-care, because we all live in a garbage culture of judgment that conspires to make everyone feel flawed and inadequate in some way.

If we want fat people—or any people—to treat their bodies well, then we must encourage them to love their bodies, no matter what they look like.

No one has ever gotten healthier, in any way, by being constantly treated like garbage. And no one has ever gotten bullied into feeling better about themselves.