It is an odd phenomenon but fit shaming is on the increase, why would that be?
I have had many positive experiences since I became a Vegan, began eating healthily and adopted a regular exercise regime back in June of 2014. The inevitable weight loss that goes with such a lifestyle is obvious but more subtle positive experiences have also taken place.
My overall health has improved immeasurably. My body is stronger than it has ever been, my stamina is now immense. My digestive system has reached levels of productivity that I could not have known was possible. Were I too swallow a house brick I`m positive that I would digest it with no great effort. My food bill has greatly diminished as plant foods are the cheapest and more economical foods available. Rice, Pasta, Potatoes, Pearl Barley, Lentils, Vegetables and all grains and cereals are now my staple foods and all of them can be purchased in large quantities for very little money. My skin and hair have improved and generally speaking, apart from my ongoing mental health problems my attitude and positivity has risen dramatically.
I was expecting some resistance to my becoming a Vegan, yes the usual arguments are heard over and over again. You won`t be able to get enough Protein. You`ll become B12 deficient. Vegans are weak and pasty, hug trees and chew on Mung beans all day and man has always and was meant to eat meat. I won`t elucidate any further because if you are a Vegan you will have heard this all before.
Just Before turning my life on its head and deciding that weighing 203 pounds, guzzling pizza, eating cheese every day and being generally indolent I had armoured myself against these arguments and was readily prepared for their assaults.
However, there was one attack, one negative that I had not foreseen and had certainly never even considered. That is, the hatred and suspicion that vast numbers of people have toward anybody who seeks to improve their health and live a life more conducive to the betterment of themselves but also to the advantage of others, be they animal or environment.
When I lived my previous life of gluttony and laziness and ate nothing but junk food the people around me seemed to have very little concern for my ever increasing corpulence and constant illness. My recurring Prostatitis and Irritable Bowell Syndrome were constant problems during this darker period of my life. Taking anti-biotics every day for six months had little effect on my Prostatitis until I sought the help of a natural method of curing it and within a week or so my recurring bacterial Prostatitis was gone and the agony that goes with it. Those around me were blind or maybe just were used to my terrible food intake and lack of movement.
As soon as I began eating healthily and losing weight the concern amongst my peers grew. Are you eating properly was the most common question as people watched me tucking into a large bowl of Pearl Barley with vegetables and spices with a litre of water. When I would regularly devour a large Dominoes Pepperoni Passion pizza with cheesy garlic bread as a side nobody showed any concern. No concern for a meal containing heart clogging fat, cholesterol, harmful chemicals and all manner of the gods know what. Yet, sit in front of people eating something incredibly healthy and filling and suddenly you are not eating correctly.
When the fat began to dissipate from my body leaving me with a visible jaw line for the first time since I was at primary school suddenly everybody thought that I was being unhealthy. My meals had never been so healthy I was running, cycling and walking four times a week and yet somehow I wasn`t "taking care of myself" as well as I had been when eating chocolate bars and four packets of crisps every day and watching TV during every spare moment.
How has our society become so warped and so twisted that it seems that being overweight, obese even has become normal? That eating a steady diet of junk food and doing nothing to move ourselves has become so every day that when people seek to change and become fit and healthy it`s the fit, healthy people who are seen as abnormal? Why is is acceptable for obese people to attack images of people, mostly women, who are fit and healthy and who live an abundant and positive life yet if you criticise somebody for being overweight and unhealthy then you are a demon and laws should be made to protect the unhealthy from being upset?
A study by professor Klim McPherson from Oxford University has shown that by the year 2020 80% of British men will be clinically obese leading to a rise in all of the chronic illnesses and diseases associated with the condition. This means that it will actually be normal within British society to be obese and to be fit and healthy will be abnormal. Fit and healthy people will actually be in the minority. In the not too distant future those who seek to be fit and healthy will be classed as individuals, subversives, aloof from the rest of society.
When we accept that obesity and ill health are normal then all hope is lost because how do you reverse the corpulence of a nation if those within it see it as normal? And this is why it appears to be fine for unhealthy people to attack those of us who actually care about our health and would actually like to avoid the terrible fatal illnesses that go along with mindlessly eating processed food and animal products.
It is becoming normal to be overweight, unhealthy and ill. I thank the gods therefore that I am not normal. I want better for my life and those that dislike me for it and attack me for it are of no concern to me.
In the not too distant future those who seek to be fit and healthy will be classed as individuals, subversives, aloof from the rest of society. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had this too say in his seminal work, "Human, All Too Human which sums up why those who choose a life of ill health and obesity seek to attack those that do not.
"The infuriating thing about an individual way of living. People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life ; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants for himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings".
I think that Nietzsche was right in this instance. As a Vegan and somebody who practices vigilance upon the way that I eat and upon the level of movement that I give to my body I am setting a very high standard for my life. A Vegan is somebody who is prepared to live every day in a way that consigns no living thing to suffer and to die. That is a standard that requires a deal of discipline and work. It is a worthy standard but more importantly it is the standard of an individual. Eating healthily and exercising regularly is yet another standard, a statement to the world as to how an individual should behave and live. Those that travel through life following like sheep, the rest of society stuffing themselves with animal products with no thought for the animal that suffered and died are offended and intimidated by Vegans because as Nietzsche says they are made to feel ordinary. They have not chosen to live by a high standard, maybe by no standards at all so being confronted by those of us who have raises a mirror to their own behaviour and the reflection of themselves that they see is not a pleasant one. It is the reflection of a slaughter house floor and their choice to cover it in the blood of their victims.
Healthy and fit people are attacked for the very same reason. It`s why somebody at home with a large belly tucking into junk food will watch a programme on people trying to lose weight and get fit and laugh at them, calling them idiots for having the audacity for wanting to be healthy and avoid heart disease, Diabetes and Cancer, how dare they!
It is accepted now in our society that it is not a pleasant thing to criticise, point at, or even make comment about somebodies obesity, I have even heard people saying that we shouldn`t use the word "fat" to describe a person. But, the same rules do not apply to those of us who are working hard to improve our physical and mental health, those of us who actually give a damn about our own bodies, after all you`ll only ever have one. It does not apply to those people who think that abusing and killing animals for our pleasure and raping and pillaging the earth is actually a good idea. Aren`t we terrible people?
As obesity becomes a normal condition for the majority of our citizens the hatred for the fit and healthy will only continue to mount. And a society with that kind of future is surely on a road to nowhere.
