This isn’t a problem restricted only to western countries – this is a global problem.
More deaths are now caused by obesity than starvation. Our ancestors, who dealt with famine on a regular basis, could have never imagined that we would now have the exact opposite problem.
This obesity epidemic is going to cause huge problems for healthcare systems around the world and health organisations everywhere are struggling to figure out how to deal with this enormous problem.
Amongst the madness, technology has given birth to a strange new monster we’ve never seen before – The FatLogic Echo Chamber.
Fatlogic is an ideology. Many of it’s proponents will call it : Body positivity, Fat Acceptance, Fat positive or Intuitive eating.
Like all popular ideologies, all of them have large amounts of truth within them:
We do live in a fatphobic society. Diet culture is toxic. Women are bombarded with images of women with an unrealistic beauty standard. And women shouldn’t despise themselves for being overweight – to the point of eating disorders.
The problem is – the internet creates digital echo chambers that take all sets of ideas to their extreme end points and drag unsuspecting people into a toxic ideology that has the potential to ruin their life.
The truth is: The Fatlogic Echo Chamber is dangerous. And that’s why this article is necessary.
In this article I will explain:
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How the Fatlogic Echo Chamber Was Created By Algorithms.
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Why Most People Don’t Find Fat Attractive.
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Why “Healthy At Every Size” Is Nonsense.
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The Real Cause Of Everyone’s Suffering (Who you should be angry at)
I hope that every single overweight person who reads this article has the mental strength to accept the reality of the situation so that they can improve their lives for real instead of chasing the shadows of happiness.
It’s also my hope that those of you who are not overweight understand this issue in greater depth instead of simply proclaiming “Haha fat people are stupid”
I want to deal with this emotionally charged issue in a calm, logical manner that will bring everyone clarity.
How The Fatlogic Echo Chamber Was Created
The Fatlogic echo chamber believes the following:
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Being fat is not unhealthy
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People should be able to eat whatever they like, look however they like and continue to be treated equally to everybody else.
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Doctors are fatphobic and cannot be trusted.
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The body has a “set weight point” and losing weight is impossible for particular people. All weight loss attempts will eventually backfire.
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We should “eat intuitively”. In other words, we should eat what we feel like eating at all times.
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The only reason fat people feel unattractive is because of our fatphobic culture.
So that’s the Fatlogic ideology. But how did this echo chamber come to be? Well..
On the internet, we live in filter bubbles. The algorithms of Google, Youtube and Facebook purposefully display to us content that we’re the most likely to click on.
If you like football, Youtube will suggest videos about football. If you’re politically left-wing, then the Facebook groups you follow will continually show you left-wing content. And if you like the messages of the body positive/fat acceptance movement, then Google, Youtube and Facebook will show you content that fits in the body positive/fat acceptance ideology.
There are filter bubbles, composed of millions of users, found across the internet. Left-wing politics, right-wing politics, feminism, men’s rights activists, all of these groups are continually being fed content that they already agree with.
Every single filter bubble has a gravitational pull to the extreme centre. The more time you spend in one particular filter bubble, the more extreme your views will become. And that’s exactly what happens to those who are inside the Fatlogic filter bubble.
They start by consuming content with messages like “love your body” and “be kind to yourself”. After months and months of being pulled into the filter bubble, they find themselves watching content saying “doctors are fatphobic” and “obesity isn’t unhealthy”.
What was originally a message about body positivity was transformed into dangerous Fatlogic by algorithms on the internet.
Online echo chambers or filter bubbles, whether it’s TheRedPill, Feminism, Looksmaxing or Fatlogic all work in exactly the same way. They start with an initial set of assumptions and eventually take them to their end conclusions.
One of the central assumptions of the Fatlogic echo chamber is that human beings are a blank slate and we learn everything we know through a process of socialisation. An assumption that is entirely false.
So when you build an ideology on top of a false assumption, you get all kinds of strange conclusions when you take the ideology to it’s extreme end point.
For example, if obese people are unhealthy, it must be due to the fatphobic society that we live in and has absolutely nothing to do with the biological realities of eating unhealthy foods.
Don’t prevent your child from getting fat. Prevent them from the culture. Because one of the central assumptions of the fatlogic echo chamber is that everything is caused be social factors. Biology isn’t important.
Losing weight has nothing to do with health, it’s all about achieving the thin ideal in a fatphobic society. Because inside the fatlogic echo chamber, everything we do is learned through socialisation.
It’s worth pointing out that designs like these can easily be made by anybody within roughly 5 minutes on websites like Canva.com. Just because you see a message inside a pretty graphic, that doesn’t mean it carries any authority.
Inside the Fatlogic bubble, people continue to agree with each other, and without any push-back from outside the bubble, ideas begin become more and more non-nonsensical.
Inside online echo chambers, there’s no push-back from opposing points of view. And once again, because everything in society is learned through socialisation, we can supposedly “decide” what our own weight is. Because biological realities don’t matter.
In the Fatlogic echo chamber, like all echo chambers, certain factors of an issue are consistently emphasised and others are consistently downplayed.
Those inside the Fatlogic echo chamber will continually emphasise the negatives of “toxic diet culture”, but the suggestion that you could lose weight without resorting to a fad diet is never mentioned.
Eating large portions = fighting diet culture?
Fatlogic messages can be found on all prevalent social media sites, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr etc. Millions of teenage girls and boys, many of whom are struggling with their weight, are being exposed to these messages.
Why restrict my eating if being fat isn’t unhealthy? If all diets fail and it’s impossible to lose weight, why bother changing my eating habits? Why would I listen to my fatphobic doctor when they tell me to lose weight? If I can’t find a boyfriend/girlfriend it must be because we live in a fatphobic culture.
These are the dangerous conclusions people will be coming to after consuming Fatlogic content.
Why Most People Don’t Find Fat Attractive
(WARNING: The following section contains no sugarcoating whatsoever. If you’re an overweight person, this section may seem particularly heartless and brutal)
Who we’re attracted to is not random. Nor is it because we’re “taught” who we should find attractive by society.
Men don’t find certain women physically attractive because of the media images they see (although these do play a role). Instead, men find women attractive based on their ability to give birth to healthy children.
Clear skin, big breasts, full lips, sharp cheek bones and a waist-hip ratio of around 0.7 are all signifiers of a healthy woman capable of giving birth to a healthy child. Through a process of evolution, men who chose women with these physical traits spread more of their genes into the next generation through healthy children.
It’s called sexual selection. And it’s a selection process found throughout the animal kingdom. And let’s not forget, humans are animals too.
“When you are attracted to someone else, or when you’re decidedly not attracted to someone, you are engaged in sophisticated scientific enquiry. There’s nothing shallow about it; it’s as deep as it gets” Catherine Shanahan, M.D in her book “Deep Nutrition”
Top: The fiddler crab. Females choose mates largely based on the size of it’s claw. Crabs with large claws are more likely to have sex and pass on their genes than those with small claws.
Bottom: The peacock. Females choose mates largely based on the vibrancy of colour on the peacock’s tail. Males with less vibrant tails are less likely to have sex and pass on their genes.
Humans aren’t fiddler crabs or peacocks, but you can think of the waist-hip ratio in women and the shoulder-waist ratio in men in the same way as the fiddler crab’s claw and the peacock’s tail.
Pixabay/JenniferStr + Pixabay/NeedsPixels
Men don’t know why they find these things so attractive. They have no idea that there are ancient, subconscious evolutionary mechanisms at play every time they look at a woman, all they know is that they like what they see.
One study looked at the body measurements of 1068 female escorts from across 48 countries in Asia, North America, South America, Oceania and Europe and found that the average waist-hip ratio was 0.72.
Another study used congenitally blind men (men who have been blind since the day they were born) to use their hands to feel women’s bodies and judge which bodies they liked the most. The study found that, once again, these blind men preferred bodies with a waist-hip ratio of 0.7.
Men’s preference for women with a waist-hip ratio of 0.7 is found in cultures from across the world, including incredibly remote cultures that have never been exposed to western culture or western media.
On the other hand, women find men with a shoulder-waist ratio of 1.6 particularly attractive. This preference is also cross-cultural.
What does this mean for people who are overweight or obese? Carrying excess weight moves women away from the ideal hip-waist ratio of 0.7 and moves men away from the ideal ratio of 1.6.
In this way, being overweight or obese makes an individual less attractive in the eyes of the vast majority of people.
While some of this might seem quite obvious, I’m trying to get you to understand attraction from an evolutionary perspective. All too often we tell ourselves feelgood lies like “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” that completely ignore the reality that appearance, to a large extent, can be judged objectively. Most people roughly agree on what’s attractive and what’s not.
When it comes to faces, women with thin jaws and high cheekbones are generally rated as the most attractive. For men, a prominent jawline is generally considered a highly attractive feature.
When an individual gains excess fat, these important facial features are hidden behind layers of fat.
None of this is to say that appearance is the final word on attractiveness. Behaviour is also an incredibly important measure of attractiveness (particularly in men), and compatible personalities are far more important than appearance if you’re searching for a long-term relationship.
People can certainly have what you might call a “beautiful personality” that others can fall in love with.
The point being made here is that we’re evolutionary wired to have a negative reaction to excess fat. And that’s the reason we live in a fatphobic society.
“The genes hold culture on a leash” – E.O. WIlson
We don’t prefer thinness, we prefer health. After all, we also have a natural aversion to anorexic people. Once again, because the central assumption of Fatlogic is that human beings are born as blank slates, the only reasonable conclusion for our aversion to overweight people is that we were “taught” to feel this way.
Fatphobia is real. Society will generally treat you worse if you’re overweight. You’ll get hired less for jobs. You’ll be less popular. You’ll face discrimination based on your weight. And it will be harder for you to find a romantic partner.
But it doesn’t matter how much you might complain and campaign against fatphobia, it’s never going away completely because it’s ingrained into our DNA. (Trust me, it’s not the public you should be angry at. See Part 4: The real cause of everyone’s suffering).
Good luck trying change human nature. We judge people on their weight, height, facial symmetry, the clothes they’re wearing, the way they smell, and hundreds of other factors before they even open their mouth.
Should we become more mindful of our biological impulses to shame fat people. Yes, absolutely. We need to accept our natural aversion to fatness so that we can deal with the problem. While continuing to encourage overweight people to adopt habits that help them reach a healthy weight.
Why “healthy at every size” is nonsense
Weight is not correlated with health? Doctors and statisticians would disagree.
At the time of writing this, we’re in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic. One of main comorbidities that leads to death from this virus is obesity.
Aside from this, obesity increases the risk of the following health problems:
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(No, these conditions are not created by the psychological effects of “weight stigma”. They’re caused by the biological condition of obesity)
From the very start, to even use the phrase “healthy at every size” seems completely inaccurate when certain body weights, either overweight or underweight, are strongly correlated with poor health.
While being overweight doesn’t necessarily mean you’re less healthy than the thin person across the room, it does mean that you’re at a higher risk (on average) for all of the health problems above.
Of course, for those inside the fatlogic echo chamber, any doctor who suggests losing weight as a method of reducing the risks of these health problems is simply fatphobic.
It isn’t only doctors who seem to be aware of the strong link between obesity and health problems, health insurance companies charge obese people more because they’re more of a liability.
You can see how these kind of messages, especially when they’re wrapped up in humour, might be convincing to some people.
More worrying still, the emerging field of epigenetics has discovered that people who became overweight during their own lifetime are directly passing on genes to their children that make them more likely to be obese themselves.
Our ancestors weren’t obese. Type 2 diabetes was totally unheard of throughout history until the 20th century. Human beings aren’t supposed to be obese.
Obesity is a condition that affects the entire body – your internal organs, your ankles, your outer appearance and even your brain. Your body wasn’t built to endure so much excess fat.
Obese patients usually slowly deteriorate over time and die earlier (On average). Others will die suddenly of a heart attack or stroke at the age of 50 (Which are far more likely in obese people).
But even before their death, an obese person will usually have a massively diminished quality of life. No sport, no partying, bad sex, mood problems and low energy. Want to travel and see the world? Good luck. Want to go surfing? Good luck.
Obese people will also find it harder to keep protesting for a long period of time and run away when a protest turns dangerous. Fatlogic emphasises any possible small and insignificant benefits of being obese and completely ignores the overwhelming downsides.
If being obese is unhealthy and human beings aren’t supposed to be obese, then why are they? What’s going on here? How did we get into this mess?
The public is completely confused about the problem they’re facing. Confusing messages from all directions – Fatlogic, the diet industry, body positivity advocates, vegans and a thousand other places.
The Fatlogic echo chamber has their blame pointed in exactly the wrong direction. And those earning enormous profits from making the world obese and sick continue to plunge the world into an obesity epidemic while taking almost none of the blame.
This is who you should really be angry at.
The real cause of everyone’s suffering – The Food Environment
Pixabay/Joenomias
Imagine you’re a space alien doing research on the most potent drugs in the solar system. You’ve already written reports on cocaine, opium, alcohol, and nicotine. But on planet Earth, there’s one more refined substance that seems to dwarf them all.
There are few places where this substance isn’t imported and included with almost everything the residents eat and drink. It’s the first thing they ingest in the morning and the last they use at night.
It’s the centerpiece of celebration. Overweight children and elite athletes carry plastic receptacles filled with colorful, drinkable versions of the stuff as though they need it like air.
And although, at some level, they know it’s killing them, they just won’t stop.
Catherine Shanahan, M.D. in her book “Deep Nutrition”
In one experiment, rats were given two bottles to drink from. One contained cocaine, the other contained sugar water. Most of the rats chose the sugar water.
Rats being experimented on in a rat maze don’t know why the maze is there or why there is a bottle of sugar water ready for them. They just allow their instincts to interact with the environment.
In exactly the same way, human beings don’t understand the environment they’ve been placed in. This is an environment where sugar, a highly addictive substance, is absolutely everywhere. Many humans inevitably get addicted to the substance and suffer health problems as a result.
They then put their focus on blaming the humans around them for judging them and treating them differently. All the while, the controllers of the experiment look on from above and laugh, walking away with all the profits.
Aside from highly addictive products like chocolate bars and candy, sugar is even hidden in foods most people would consider healthy (Cereal, fruit juice, granola bars, peanut butter, almond milk..).
These processed foods are made by scientists in a lab to be as addictive as possible.
Your food is created by scientists, not chefs.
These food scientists even have something they call the “bliss point” This is the perfect ratio between salt, sugar and fat.
Sugar is refined to become far sweeter than sugar directly from the sugar cane.
When people tell you they have a “sweet tooth”, what they’re actually telling you is they have a sugar addiction.
Some scientists specialise their entire careers in something called “mouth feel”. This is the way that a food product feels in your mouth when you eat it. Every single bag of Malteasers, every Mars bar, and almost every box of cereal has been scientifically engineered to dissolve in your mouth in just the right way.
There are even more tricks the food industry uses to hook you.
Young children have these highly addictive products marketed to them directly through the use of fun little characters in order to hook them onto sugar early in their life.
Considering we’re surrounded by highly addictive food, is it really any surprise that we have huge numbers of obese people.
When it comes down to it, obesity is an addiction problem.
The food industry is the predator and you are the prey. By addicting you and confusing you, this entity has managed to trick you into stealing your resources (money) at the expense of your health, as well as the health of your children.
For our ancestors, sugar was scarce. Our bodies are evolved to consume sugar wherever we can find it.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in tribes on the African savana anymore and our new environment is crammed full of sugar. Our environment may have changed, but our biology hasn’t. It’s an evolutionary mismatch.
“They deliver a product that is perfectly congruent with our evolved taste buds” Gad Saad
We’re a world of food addicts. And what takes place in the Fatlogic echo chamber is addiction rationalisation.
“To an outsider the behaviour of an addict is completely irrational. Alcohol or drugs is obviously destroying their life yet they continue to engage in this activity. Even when the substance abuse is pulling the individual towards an early grave, or causing problems for loved ones, they persist with it.
Those who have never been dependent on an addictive substance will see this behaviour as highly irrational. They do not have the addict’s ability to rationalise the irrational in order to explain away their own self destruction.
This individual is not wilfully doing something to cause harm to themselves or other people. As far as they are concerned what they are doing is right. This is why directly challenging the substance abuse will often be ineffective because it just puts the addict on the defensive”
Rationalisation is one of the mostly deadly attributes of addiction. Addicts convince themselves that there’s nothing wrong with their behaviour. Addicts who have rationalised their own addiction will go on to convince others of their rationalisation.
And when millions of people are connected through the internet, addiction rationalisation can be done on a mass scale. Hence, the Fatlogic echo chamber.
“Intuitive eating” doesn’t make much sense when we live in an environment filled with addictive foods. Our “intuition” will constantly be craving unhealthy foods. We must make rational, calculated decisions with food because our intuition around food has been hijacked. You can thank the food industry for that.
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The Fatlogic echo chamber is created by algorithms on the internet and is largely motivated by addiction rationalisation
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Overweight people are universally seen as unattractive
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Obesity is strongly correlated with poor health and death
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Obesity is caused by an addiction to food. An addiction caused purposefully by the food industry.
I hope I’ve managed to unravel the confusing world of food and body weight by giving you the cold, hard truth about the situation.
And if you’re obese or overweight, I hope you’ll use this information to confront the brutal reality of the situation and make true change to your life, instead of believing the comforting lies of the Fatlogic echo chamber.
