Posted on 04/08/2017 12:41:35 AM PDT by grundle
Marge Swanson, a fat acceptance activist who helped pioneer the concept of thin privilege, is dead from a heart attack. She was 34 years old. Swanson championed the notion that weight and health have no inherent connection. She enjoyed dying her hair bright colors, wearing glasses and dating African American men.
“It’s not that I’m thin-phobic,” she once told an audience on a college campus. “It’s just that curvy women have been enslaved and victimized by capitalists for far too long and yeah, I’m upset.”
Swanson was born the middle of five children to a working class family in rural West Virginia. She was overweight as a child, and by her senior year of high school weighed over 350 pounds. She would later describe her teenage years as the most difficult period of her life.
“People can be so intolerant of others,” she later wrote. “My classmates were such judgmental, privileged assholes.”
In college, Swanson found acceptance among a group of intersectional feminists. “First I learned to love myself, and that helped me become a happier person. Then I learned about white supremacy and thin privilege, and I got pissed.”
After finishing college, Swanson moved into a studio apartment. She had trouble securing a full-time job due to “systemic ableism,” so she started a blog. Within a year, she had attracted a worldwide audience. Swanson became a big voice in the fat acceptance community, where she sought to raise awareness about the impact of fat phobia, which includes expressing concern over someone’s size (“concern trolling“) or associating obesity with health issues.
“I don’t want to compare struggles, but Harriet Tubman fought a similar battle,” Swanson once told a reporter. “Women in larger bodies are seriously underrepresented among athletes and models. Oppression and discrimination are the only logical reasons why this is occurring.”
Some doctors, who Swanson called “psychological terrorists,” affirmed her message of self-acceptance but warned about the practice of endorsing unhealthy body types amidst skyrocketing obesity rates. Additional concerns were raised about the fat acceptance movement’s use of dangerously unscientific or misrepresented concepts, like the belief that weight and health have no clear relationship. The promotion of obesity, some have said, is no different than advocating for anorexia.
“When people learn that I’m 412 pounds, they assume that means I’m inactive or unhealthy,” she wrote in her blog last year. “I’m actually one of the most health conscious people you’ll ever meet. The myth that obesity has any relationship to health is absolutely ridiculous.”
In 2015, Swanson was diagnosed with heart and gallbladder disease. The reality of her mortality, she claimed, only deepened her commitment to fight against weight related injustices.
“I may have a few bad cells, but my health has not been affected,” she told fans on her website. “Thin privilege is a far greater menace to health than having a few extra curves.”
Seems pretty normal to me for an inactive, unattractive, unhealthy, 412 pounder to die of a heart attack at 34.
I threw in "unattractive" as a comment about her soul not her appearance.
no need for the disclaimer
The fact she weighed in at 412 is defacto definition of unattractive female
Although at opposite ends of the spectrum, she and Jim Fixx had the same ideas.
Curvy? Nah, she’s just big boned.
Big-boned?
She’d better have had big bones — Normal bones would snap like twigs carrying all that weight.
Thanks for sharing good luck on the next 100. Not sure what it took to get from 430 to 330 but you will know.
Post 78 was here first. I just hadn’t read the whole thread.
How do you get fat in WV? I thought everyone was dirt poor and only ate once a day if by luck they found some roadkill.. :-0
Uh-oh, I like those tiny tomatoes in salads and other things…can’t get skin off or seeds out, but at least they are organic. Cashews? I made a lovely Cashew-Basil Pesto over rice noodles last year, friend can hardly wait for me to do it again. Otherwise, I can, and do, give them to squirrels who seem healthy enough. Could live without kidney beans forever…if you remember other beans he mentioned, please let me know. I throw dried lentils into a lot of veggie dishes and soups to thicken and add protein.
Answering my own question, here’s list of poisonous fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds:
http://scribol.com/lifestyle/food-and-drink/10-everyday-fruits-and-vegetables-that-are-poisonous/
How sad.
I refuse to read your post, or if I accidentally read it, I refuse to accept it.
Now, on to the irony of a Fat Acceptance Advocate dying of a heart attach at 34...!
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