When I was on that BBC show (Who Are You Calling Fat?), the producer came to me after we finished wrapping up to get my answer on something and brought a camera crew to chat with me.
She asked “What does the audience do when they have a family member or someone that they love that's really unhealthy because they're fat? How do you tell a fat person to lose weight?”
My response “Listen up here…..You mind your damn business.”
Are you their doctor? No, so mind your damn business.
And if you are their doctor, are you able to offer evidence-based weight neutral care for that person? No. Then maybe you need to educate yourself and mind your damn business if you're going to prescribe a diet. They don't work.
But some people say, “But someone I know eats food that isn’t healthy. They eat food and they're fat! How do I get them to stop eating food?”
Well, this is how you do it…..Mind your damn business.
When I work with people, coaching them in my Fierce Fatty Academy, the number of stories that I hear from people who say, my family told me, “Do you really need another helping? Do you really need to eat that?”
It has really stuck with them. It caused trauma and all other negative outcomes which by the way didn't include becoming thin.
People also say, “But what if I've never seen them exercise? They've never exercised in their whole life. Well, should I tell them that they need to exercise and they need to lose weight?”
This is what you need to do…...You need to mind your damn business.
Who are you? Are you the boss of them?
They might just not be an exercising type. They might exercise when they don't have the prying eyes of someone who's judging them on them.
Maybe they do other things. Maybe they don't and it doesn't matter. You don't need to move your body to be a worthy human being or even to be healthy.
“What if the fat person that I love doesn't like being fat and is trying to lose weight? Well, then should I help them? Should I say, Oh, this diet is really good. You can do it. You can lose weight.”
In this circumstance….. you should mind your damn business.
If you have a fat person in your life who doesn't want to be fat then unless they talk to you about this subject and want your advice or input then don’t tell them that they shouldn’t want to lose weight. Just let them do what they want to do.
However, you can model your own positive behavior by not dieting and loving your fat body.
So did they come and ask you for advice? No. Then, mind your damn business, right?
So the reason why it's so important for people to mind their business when it comes to fat people's bodies and presuming they know the health status of someone that they love is that you are actively harming them.
You care about their wellbeing, you care about their health?
Well, then you need to educate yourself on what fatphobia, shame, and stigma does to fat people.
It is so damaging.
Your job is to unlearn fatphobia and to understand that if you want to fight for better health of someone you love, then you need to work to dismantle diet culture and our culture's deep fear of fatness.
If you really cared about fat peoples health, then you need to do work on yourself and not give them advice about how to reduce their body size because you are further stigmatizing, marginalizing and shaming them.
And that is not good for their health.
P.S. Are you sick and tired of hating your body? Learn the exact steps to take to get to a place of body love and the 3 BIGGEST mistakes all people make in this journey here by getting The Fierce Fatty Body Love Roadmap for free: https://bampowlife.kartra.com/page/roapmap
Let's continue the conversation in my free group! >> https://tinyurl.com/fiercefattyfriends
