Criticism
The fat acceptance movement has been criticized for adding no value to the debate over human health, with some critics going so far as to accuse the movement of "promoting a lifestyle that can have dire health consequences".
Proponents of fat acceptance in response often point to studies which show that being fat in and of itself is not a health problem and that long-term weight-loss is not possible in the majority of cases. They also point out that fat shaming does not lead to better health, rather it leads to psychological issues like eating disorders. They point out that the criticism cuts to the heart of the debate. Whether or not modern culture's concern with healthy weight loss has a foundation in scientific research, or whether science is used as an medium to control deviance, it is a part of society's attempt to deal with something within it that it finds disturbing.
Read more about this topic: Fat Acceptance Movement
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“People try so hard to believe in leaders now, pitifully hard. But we no sooner get a popular reformer or politician or soldier or writer or philosopher—a Roosevelt, a Tolstoy, a Wood, a Shaw, a Nietzsche, than the cross-currents of criticism wash him away. My Lord, no man can stand prominence these days. It’s the surest path to obscurity. People get sick of hearing the same name over and over.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer.”
—Richard Holt Hutton (1826–1897)