(putting it here in case youtube filters the comment again. I had a lot to say that wasn't talked about on the stream that i felt was important.)
Attempting to rewrite this because youtube filtered the whole essay length comment, apparently. I have a lot to say about the kurzgesagt fatphobia videos.
The first video is full of terrible science, not the least of which is the complete neglect to mention the effect fatphobia itself has on fat health. Not just the medical neglect, but the psychological effects of inhabiting a stigmatized body itself does terrible things for your body. They restate a bunch of extremely bunk correlation stuff (i really recommend the Maintenance phase episode: is being fat bad for you? it goes over some of the more egregiously bad science in the video). The other big tell that they don't give a shit and don't do their due diligence is the fact that they base their whole video around BMI: a completely worthless calculation of a person's height divided by their weight that for some reason the medical field keeps using as a basis for health when it really really does not work. They take "food addiction" totally for granted, a big fat lie that only serves to blame fat people for their bodies and is a driving engine behind a lot of eating disorders. It individualizes systemic problems of poverty and food quality and makes a basic need into a christian dance with temptation and pleasure. Ultimately all that's happening is food companies make their foods taste good so you'll want to eat it more and buy more, maybe the thinnest basis for an "addiction" I've ever seen.
One of the things later in the video makes me sincerely think not a single actually fat person helped write the video. they present this ludicrous idea that somehow, most people only talk about fat bodies in terms of aesthetics and not in terms of health. I've had strangers on the internet tell me they hope i die of a heart attack, kurzgesagt. I think people are well aware actually. They just use these "facts" to get me to shut the fuck up.
Medical neglect causes fat people to die. The fact that they gormlessly regurgitate stats about how fat people are more likely to die when they get cancer and then fail to mention the impact of medical neglect on this is woefully irresponsible. It honest to god reminds me of when people use trans suicide statistics to try to dissuade people, especially trans kids, from transitioning.
The ozempic video is eugenics propaganda. Within 30 seconds it takes completely for granted that the goal of eradicating all fat people from the internet is not just necessary but a totally normal thing to want. What's genuinely crazy to me is that they do present a lot of very accurate info: Dieting doesn't work and is extremely hard, most diets are crash diets and are terrible for your health and don't keep you skinny long-term, and even "successful" long term attempts at weight loss don't drop people more than 5-10% of their body weight. Instead of coming to the conclusion that fat bodies like to be fat, that some of the info they've been taught about fat health might not be wholly accurate or doesn't present the full picture (or might be largely funded by the weight loss industry which presents an obvious conflict of interest in how research is conducted) they instead take the stance that human biology itself must be wrong, somehow. Actually, in spite of every mechanism the human body uses to put on and keep on weight, ozempic must be used to fix fat bodies and turn them into skinny ones. Even the fact that ozempic is stated in the video to have fairly common negative side effects and the fact that it doesn't work long term does not dissuade kurzgesagt from the goal of eradicating fat people forever. At the end they straight up tell you that ozempic has to be done together with the long term lifestyle changes that earlier in the video they tell you barely actually work to keep weight off.When the time comes for fatphobes to reckon with the fact that significant weight loss is simply impossible for a vast majority of people, they will not stop wanting to eradicate fatness. Kurzgesagt has all the tools available to realize they made a horrible video and to learn more accurate info on fat health. The answer isn't adjusting one's values, the answer isn't healthcare accessibility and social change. The answer is more piety, more penance for being fat, more dieting, more weight loss drugs. Simply try harder. Complicated socio-economic factors that contribute to fatness be damned, you as an individual simply haven't tried hard enough to change your body. Nevermind that people have been trying to "cure" fatness for decades and we're still around.
Fatphobia and transphobia have this thing in common where there's a fuckton of medical misinformation which, yes, is important to address, but ultimately serves the function of justifying bigotry and eradication. when they fearmonger about social contagion, when they fearmonger about obesity epidemics, they want you to want a world without trans people and fat people, and they want you not to think about what people from those demographics tell you they actually need.
These are all very true and good points! If people are wondering what this is responding to and what's gotten deer so worked up, it's ^^ this!
