Former fat people feel seen and welcomed after losing weight – 04/20/2023 – Equilíbrio

“You are making an apology for obesity, a disease. If you fight it, control it, I myself lost 25 kg”, says an internet user when reading a publication on social networks that cited the benefits of fat bodies being represented. The reaction is common. Weight remains an issue that heats up passions.

For specialists and studies, however, it is necessary to differentiate treatment for health reasons from exclusion and prejudice against people outside of thin standards. While fat people claim that they often feel excluded due to their physical shape, those who lose weight perceive greater acceptance.

Tourismologist Mariana Silva, 27, felt more accepted after losing 56 kg with the help of bariatric surgery. She had gained weight during pregnancy and the procedure was the way out to look in the mirror and like what she sees.

In addition to aesthetics, she felt more willing to perform simple tasks such as climbing stairs and performing physical activity. Despite the health benefits, what you hear, however, is that you are more beautiful.

“People tell me how beautiful I am, how thin I am. It’s admiration to see how you were and how you are now. People saw that I really managed it, I overcame it”, she says.

The fear of getting fat again, however, accompanies satisfaction with the weight loss process. “I control myself and I’m even neurotic, I weigh myself every week, if I gained 2 kg, I go back to eating healthy and I lose the 2 kg. The fear will always be there and I think it has to exist because from the moment I lose it, I’m going to gain weight again.”

A survey by Sbem (Brazilian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism) in partnership with Abeso (Brazilian Association for the Study of Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome), showed that 85% of obese people have already felt embarrassed because of their weight. The view is reinforced by the relationship between thinness and success present in the media, social networks and even in medical discourse.

Maria Edna de Melo, director of the Department of Obesity at Sbem, says that the search for aesthetic beauty ends up being confused with the treatment of obesity, which is a chronic disease. The mix between subjects also stigmatizes the treatment.

“Obesity and overweight are chronic conditions, but this predilection for thinner people, and not necessarily those of normal weight, is a very restricted acceptance of bodies, negatively impacts mental health”, he says.

The result, according to specialists, is more anxiety, depression and self-demand, which promotes a worsening of the condition or weight regain.

“There is a lot of body dissatisfaction, even after the person has already lost weight, has already improved their health. Society is not prepared for someone who had severe obesity, a BMI [índice de massa corporal] from 60, for example, lost a lot of weight, went to a BMI of 40, who still has significant obesity, but is in much better health”, says the director.

Activism against fatphobia, according to Melo, helps to break paradigms, since not everyone needs to be thin, but must be accepted. This, however, does not mean failing to treat obesity and overweight, he says.

The World Obesity Atlas 2023, released in March by the World Obesity Federation (WOF), shows that one in seven people in the world is obese. In 2035, the projection is that the disease will reach one in four and that more than half of humanity will live overweight.

The growing obesity pandemic requires the creation of targeted public policies and is a multifactorial phenomenon caused by the habits of the society in which it is inserted, as pointed out by a study published by Revista Saúde e Sociedade da USP (University of São Paulo).

For doctors, the reward system created by praise after weight loss and social acceptance, from the world of dating to the workplace, puts health in the background – and overcoming this is a challenge.

Douglas Francisco Kovaleski, professor at the Department of Public Health and the Graduate Program in Collective Health at UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina), says that the society that judges is also the one that encourages excessive consumption of foods that lead to increased of the weight. For him, aesthetic standards are still widely used as an argument for health.

“Today we see many professionals exaggerating the request for thinness, condemning it in a very harsh and even rude way, which characterizes gordophobia, which is when the fat person is blamed. The obese person becomes a pariah in society, he has no place to sit on the bus, on the plane, he is mistreated by the doctor in the consultation”, he evaluates.

Exclusion, according to the professor, intensifies the process of psychic suffering already present in these cases. “I cannot encourage them to be overweight, but the health professional, from the moment he treats the other as an equal, deserving of care, without a mistaken point of view of prejudice, helps to improve that person’s life”, he says.

Human resources manager Thais Fernanda Alvarenga, 30, has been trying to lose weight since childhood, when she was compared to her sister. In her teens, when she gained the most weight, she started doing magazine diets. What caused her to lose weight, however, was the dietary reeducation associated with medical follow-up proposed by her mother.

Weighing less, she found herself more accepted among her friends and more desired by boys. Today, she says that the “body mind-set” phase has passed, although the hereditary issue still worries her.

“These are not cases of obesity, but I think I’m the thinnest person in my family,” he says. “I changed my perception, because being compared and comparing your whole life with the standard of beauty interferes with self-esteem at a very high level. It interferes with your professional, emotional and affective life.”