Imagine a world where smokers rebelled against societal norms by insisting that their hazardous habit be accepted by everyone. Imagine smokers glorifying smoking, building campaigns promoting smoking, and feeling violated whenever someone dared claim that their habit wasn't that healthy after all. To top it all off, let's assume speaking out against the imaginary Smoking Acceptance movement was censored and considered hate speech.
Comparison
This is, essentially, what the fat acceptance movement is -- or rather, what it has become. It is not about offering overweight individuals a helping hand, assisting them in losing weight, and improving their health -- it is about accepting, encouraging and, lastly, glorifying their self-destruction.
The main argument of the Fat Acceptance movement often cites genetics -- they claim that obesity is hereditary. That is, they argue that being overweight simply "runs in a person's family." While this is true, to an extent, it is also true that addiction is hereditary. According to addictionsandrecovery.org, addiction is 50% predisposition and 50% poor coping skills.
The same website states that children of addicts are 8 times more likely to develop an addiction: "One study looked at 230 people who were diagnosed with drug or alcohol addiction, and compared them to 60 people who did not have an addiction and concluded that if a parent has a drug or alcohol addiction, the child had an eight times greater chance of developing an addiction."
There is no need to further explore the countless logical fallacies that the Fat Acceptance movement is practically based on. Let's, instead, pose a legitimate question: Doesn't most, if not all, of what Fat Acceptance advocates try to convince us of apply to smoking? Why is it okay to glorify obesity and at the same time demonize smoking?
Screaming contradiction
The Fat Acceptance movement is, in and of itself, a hypocritical, screaming mess of contradictions. A paradoxical lunacy of a social movement and, above all, something that will harm overweight individuals more than anyone else and encourage them to continue self-destructing.
What has our society turned into? How on Earth have we reached a point that we are arguing over whether being obese or not is good for you? Until we collectively realize that not everything is supposed to be tolerated and accepted, we will not move forward.