Fat "acceptance" - from the PoV of a fat person

[cagefreesoylentgreen]

7. ^

Personally, I never question why someone might be overweight to any degree, and it's because of a story I learned from my father.

My father was a doctor in a West Texas town that had many veterans from World War II, mainly from the Pacific theater. One day, my father had a grossly obese older gentleman in his examination room. Of course, the gentleman suffered numerous health problems owing to his obesity, and my father prescribed that he go on a diet.

"Oh no, Doc, I swore when I got out of that camp, I'd never go hungry again!"

It turned out the gentleman was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and was incarcerated by the Japanese in a POW camp. Not only did many men die on the March, but I've seen statistics that suggest as many as three in four men died as prisoners of the Japanese from starvation, disease, torture, abuse, and medical experimentation.

My father was a young boy during the Japanese occupation of China in the late 1930s-1940s, and he also had up close and personal experience with the Japanese. And really, are you going to tell a death camp survivor he can't have his ice cream?

My father never told me exactly what he did for that older gentleman, only that "we worked it out." But since hearing this story, I've never judged anyone for their weight, because I don't know where they've been and I don't know their story. It's none of my business really. And I find it galling when people who'd otherwise never slam someone for their race or gender happily taking someone down for their weight.