i wanted to answer this because idk about the other mods but i am very into fat liberation as a fat person, and i wanted to talk about how you can be that way but also have negative feelings about animal fatness.
so to start, yes, this cat is overweight.
being too fat is bad for a cat. purely from a mobility standpoint, being too fat causes cats to struggle to keep themselves clean and to play as much as they want to. it also tends to exacerbate arthritis and makes anesthesia more risky. there are a lot of health conditions associated with fatness in cats, including long-term pain (cw for that article, which does conflate overweight cats/dogs with fat people and uses the medical term ob*sity to refer to people).
it also makes cats less adoptable. in my shelter, many of our long-term cats are overweight. people think they’re less cute. unfortunately, people are also undereducated on how to properly care for fat cats and help them lose weight safely. fat cats that just stop eating or go on a very restrictive diet are at risk for something called fatty liver disease, so if your cat is going to go on a diet you should always talk to your vet first to make sure you’re doing it safely.
so, how is this different from humans? well, first of all, cats are not people and fat affects our bodies differently. with cats, getting fat does seem to be a more straightforward case of calories in, calories out. this is not true for people, where the calories we eat often are not the deciding factor in our body size. for a person, going on a diet is often actively unhelpful as it sends our bodies into starvation mode and causes them to conserve fat. for cats, there are actually long-term diets specifically formulated for healthy, sustainable weight loss. that is really not possible for humans.
another thing is that cats do not have self-determination the way people do. people are allowed to make choices, even choices we may not like or agree with, regarding their medical care and overall health, and that should not carry moral weight (a person is not bad because they are fat OR unhealthy). however, with cats, we accept the responsibility of managing their care, and that means making decisions on their behalf in the interests of their welfare, even decisions that they may not like. that is why, for example, we take our pets to the vet even though it may stress them out. in that stewardship role, we have a duty to make sure they are the right weight to be healthy and pain-free.
and finally, because humans have so many ways to be, we have the ability to live full lives whatever our body weight. i, as a fat person, can say “okay, i can’t run a marathon, but i can go hiking and look for birds as much as i want, so my body is satisfactory for meeting my needs”. another fat person who is less mobile might say “okay, walking distances is tough for me, but i’m super happy to stay home and play video games, so my body is ALSO meeting my needs”. yet another fat person might say “walking distances is tough for me AND i want to outside into nature, so i use a walker and focus on boardwalk trails”. we have so many options, so many accessibility tools, so many ways to work with our bodies to do the things we want to do. the biggest obstacle for us is society’s anti-fat bias and the way it’s build in to so many institutions. but our physical body is not the thing holding us back, it’s structural.
that is not the case for cats. a cat that can’t jump around and play, or groom itself properly, isn’t getting to be a cat. cats have a much more limited way to be. cats live in the moment – they can’t say “well, i’m in a lot of pain, but at least i’m with my human who i love”. they just know the pain. they can’t rationalize or weigh pros and cons like we do.
all of this is to say that fat humans are great and it’s great that we exist and society should love and respect us as much as thin humans. fat cats, though, are not getting to live the way they deserve to, and we owe them responsible ownership. keeping a cat at a healthy weight is part of taking care of it.
amandla
dailybridgerton
titsay
izzy806
origamiaround
theartofmadeline
stormborns
