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Similar here, I figured that the high water mark before the tide receded would be somewhere in the vicinity of HAAS Fat Activism and the push for acceptance of "Otherkin." I hoped dearly that it would be be WELL before we hit the "MAP is a valid and acceptable sexuality" movement.
My suspicion is that the very visible entrance of Trans women into female sports leagues combined with the push for gender reassignment of prepubescent children is what snapped normies into a posture of resistance.
Note that I don't think the resistance is particularly well organized or even coherent, but with NYT taking the position that "it is in fact acceptable to consider the implications of these policies and one is not required to accept activist claims at face value" at least there's some room to breathe for those who actually WANT there to be a discussion on the matter.
But the left has no option to just retreat on this point, and as we've seen even the most milquetoast of defiance is treated as a nigh-existential threat, so generally I just find myself wondering which angle of attack they will implement next.
It feels very weird, though, to be on TheMotte talking about a culture war issue where the right is seemingly the one with momentum and the left is now on defense. Only took the combined might of the most popular author on the planet, the largest newspaper on the planet, and some of the more popular GOP governors and pundits.
The Cathedral as a whole appears to be proceeding with it's general plans quite unhindered, mind.
The fat activists have been pretty successful. The fact that "fat shaming" is regarded as something that shouldn't be done is really quite remarkable.
Good for them! We shouldn't be fat shaming people. The problem with fat activists is that they are celebrating unhealthy behavior or even denying that its unhealthy at all.
And I suppose from an aesthetic perspective it's awful as well, much like the deliberately ugly statues, public art, and brutalist buildings we are now forced to endure.
The problem with shaming is it ignores the role biology plays too. Long-term results for most dieters are abysmal. Trying to lose weight long-term means having to make restrictions that are possibly infeasible. Some people who have bad genes are quite literally unable to stop eating, or have really slow metabolisms, or bad balance of ghrelin vs. leptin, etc. These people are screwed
And yet the obesity rate was much lower in living memory, and people who follow the procedure of ‘just shoving fewer groceries down their maw’ lose weight. Yes, that entails being hungry sometimes and passing on dessert most of the time and probably learning to drink water. But pushing people to actually do those things is a plausible justification for fat shaming.
Isn't this what a diet is. yet the stats are pretty miserable. ppl lose weight and then regain it
Don't you know people with healthy diets? I have relatives who eat muesli and yoghurt in the morning, a salad with some prosciutto berries for lunch, some potato chips (that is to say fairly traditional ones with just potato and salt) and cheese in front of the television, then beef, rice and vegetables for dinner. Or maybe salmon or lamb instead of beef.
They're not fat and never have been. It's not dieting so much as having a healthy diet. If we started people on that sort of diet rather than American style plastic food, there'd be no problem. These people have no attraction to McDonalds or whatever, they look upon it with disgust.
n=1, but I pretty much only eat pizza and other take-out food, and have for the majority of my life (I'm in my 30s now). I'm not fat and haven't been since I was a kid. It's not my metabolism or genetics, either - I quickly gain pounds if I let myself indulge snacks too much for a few weeks. In that eventuality, I just eat slightly less for a few weeks and go back down. I know the CICO observation is trite at this point, but it's true. It's trivially true. You simply won't get fat if you just don't eat excessively.
I suspect the sort of disdainful attitude you're describing/exhibiting (e.g., "plastic food") is just class signaling and virtue signaling, frankly. Pizza and burgers, for example, are just wheat, tomatoes, cheese, and meat. But combine them into the form of pizza or burgers and all the sudden it evokes an image of a lower class person who's perhaps not that bright, not that health-conscious, doesn't really understand nutrition, doesn't really want to put in the effort to be "healthy" (unlike you, dear observer, of course), and probably also has Coors Light instead of craft beer in his fridge.
I'm not against pizza or burgers in principle. If you make them from good ingredients than that's fine. I was more thinking of the aisles in the grocery store full of plasticky sweets. There'll be a row of soft drink next to a row of chips with flavors unknown to nature. Stuff like gummy bears.
Furthermore, it is true that poor, lower-class people are fatter than rich people, generally speaking. In this case, my classism and disdain is based upon fact. I won't say that the diet I describe above is ideal - these are also people who buy and unironically eat kale and non-alchoholic kombucha which is just repulsive. Nevertheless, it is possible to buy high-quality ingredients that taste good and don't cause significant obesity. Sugary Starbucks drinks aren't healthy either, despite being middle-class as opposed to lower class.
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