On the anecdata question, I’ve known people who are perpetual motion machines, and people who won’t change the channel if the remote is two inches away from their hands. Just like who is and isn’t healthy internally, I couldn’t tell which would be which simply by looking. The perpetual motion machines come in all shapes and sizes, just as the slothful do.

And then there are people like me who can be utterly lazy, but then have huge sudden bursts of activity. Then again, I’m an in-betweeny, too. Hmmm….nah. Not statistically significant. ; )

A little bit of anecdata here: is it strange that every lazy person I’ve known in my life were skinny? For example: Hubby is notoriously lazy, and out of my 4 children, the laziest one is just like him: all skin and bones. And yet the busiest, most hardworking people I’ve known were all fat. Is it just me, or is that weird? (Open question, anybody is welcome to answer.)

I HEART you and this post. This should be the gold standard of the FA movement.

I mean truly what I see is that you’re asking for all humans to be treated the same. I always thought when I was a little girl that that is what we’re suppose to do anyways. However, as I got older it seemed to be saying, humans should be treated the same, but some people are a little less human.

Melissa, while there are doubtless people who truly believe that some people are inherently more worthy of respect than others, I think that for many other people (maybe even the majority, though I am not sure) the problem is putting that belief into practice. We often don’t even see when we treat someone unfairly – and a lot of us (myself included) get defensive when it is pointed out to them that we did in fact discriminate against someone (in the sense of treating that person differently from others) because we did not intend to do that. I have done it. I have had other people do it to me, also – even some of my close friends still don’t see fatphobia, for example.

want to dispel the misconceptions and unfair stereotypes of fat people. That doesn’t mean that if you are lazy and do over eat that you don’t have a place in “my” movement. Not at all. But just because _______ fat person overeats and doesn’t exercise doesn’t mean it’s true for all fat people. But those of you that do overeat and are lazy? You deserve respect, too.

I have got a tiny, tiny criticism here. I am sure you did not imply that they are related, but overeating and laziness are two separate issues, and I think it is important to make that very clear. (Laziness and not exercising are also separate issues – in fact, I for one know some people who are workaholics and who don’t exercise, and I doubt that most people woud say workaholics are lazy).

I am nitpicking here, I know. Your post is great – it is only that this issue is very important for me because I *am* in fact a binge eater, and yes, sometimes I am lazy, and sometimes I don’t exercise. But the three things are independent. I have a very hard time getting that into my own head – I have spent far too much time in my life calling myself lazy and without self-control for overeating, and that makes it even more important for me to get those things pried apart.

{{{HuGs}}} You’re absolutely welcome. And thank YOU, for teaching me through your blog. It’s a nice give-and-take, don’tcha think? ~NF

Thanks for the post!