I have never met a fat woman (not curvy or a little chubby, I'm talking 200-300 lbs) that did not have some kind of previous health issue or psychological trauma, or didn't give birth. So I googled something and turns out that some conditions that make you fatter are either female only or more represented in women, such as PCOS (1 in 10 women, it only affects women), pregnancy (of course only women), thyroid issues (1 in 8 women, and men are only 20% of the total cases). Women are also more prone to depression and anxiety, and the medication to treat them can also cause weight gain.
Of course not all people with these issues are fat but I'm more and more convinced that the "eat less, move more, only a few people have the excuse of hormonal issues" is a projection from males.
It seems like most women have hormonal issues behind their weight fluctuations, while men are probably just lazy.
Except, it is mostly women who get fat hate online and mostly from men, who do not bully their male peers as much. Women too are very harsh towards fat women but fat males are not as much hated.
This makes me think that there is not "one fatness" but "male fatness" and "female fatness", where in women is a lot of times just one (of the many) consequence of syndromes, in males it might make sense to "scold" them.
Why is this not talked more often? Why are we bullying literally sick women for just living, meanwhile fat males just keep playing video games? And when they start doing literally one workout, and drop 30 lbs, they're like: I Lost weigh, so you have no excuse? Uhm sir were the lbs lost from your brain?
This totally changed the way I see fat shaming, it's like men know they let go except they shout at women? I know, it's not a big surprise but I had never thought about it this way.
And I'm not against an active lifestyle. I just find it mean to judge women because many women with PCOS and thyroid issues and depression work out (despite being harder for many reasons) and do their best, but if your body wants that % of fat, it is going to keep that % of fat, while most men lose weight way easier. It was eye opening to me.
If we look at basic biology it's actually pretty clear and logical that women gain weight and build fat reserves easier.
Pregnancies and nursing take a LOT of energy and without a few reserves you (and your offspring) will not survive them, especially during times of food insecurity. Pregnancies and breastfeeding make you need an additional 500 kcal per day. More, if you breastfeed an older child exclusively.
Where are they supposed to come from, if not from the mother's body if she isn't able to find enough food every single day? And yet we still have insane people telling pregnant women to DIET and avoid eating more during the pregnancy so they won't gain too much weight and expect them to go back to their pre-pregnancy bodies within 6 weeks after giving birth. That's unnatural and it puts the health of the mother and child at risk for an insane male-made beauty standard. Plain and simple.
In nature, pregnant or nursing females without reserves die or eat their young when they can't find enough food. We may live in modern times with full fridges and access to enough food but our bodies don't know that. They still prepare for the worst. Pretty much every ancient culture understood that and the ideal woman and beauty standard wasn't thin to the point of starvation but a woman with boobs, bigger thighs and butt and often they also showed a little belly fat. Because that's what a healthy woman, who is likely to have healthy children and live to see them grow up looks like.
Add the medical issues and our usual hormonal fun (predisposition towards weight gain, cycles etc.) to that and you just can't hold women to the same standards when it comes to weight fluctuations.
All of the women I know personally whose bodies became visibly 'fat' to the tune of 200-300lbs had one of the 3 non-pregnancy conditions you discussed and in addition some gave birth. Every single one.
for those saying people are fat because they eat too much even though they don't have any underlying health issues: just remmeber there are "invisible" disorders that mess with people's apetite and their relationship with food. depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc. and not everyone gets properly diagnosed. so your fat-friend-without-an-excuse-for-being-fat might just be an undiagnosed anxious person whose anxiety manifests through their eating habbits. don't oversimplify health issues.
It's not necessarily an excuse to be obese though. There's nothing wrong with being a little chubby, but it's not that uncommon to see fat people blaming genetics or some condition while constantly eating junk food and barely moving. It does suck that losing weight is harder for women due to the reasons you mentioned, but it's rare for outside influences alone to cause literal obesity. One should always strive to be healthy (which includes being at a healthy weight), and it's important to be in contact with a doctor if certain factors make doing that difficult.
While I agree that migogyny is the reason for why fat women get hate and never fat men, I don't agree at all with your coping & excuses for why women can't help getting fat, but men can. Everybody can help it. Men who are fat are indeed lazy, but women who are fat are just as lazy. I've been both pregnant & on antidepressants. But I train jiu jitsu, I try to jog most mornings, and I try to stay away from junk food for the most part. And if you're disabled to the point where you cannot work out, you simply need to eat less and/or more healthy food. Kcal in/kcal out. If you're expending more kcalories than you're ingesting, you will lose weight.
Never forget there was a hit song in the 90s about murdering a woman for being fat.
Of course all the beer bellied scrotes in the youtube comments are praising its 'comedic value' but you know they'd be up in arms if a woman cracked jokes about their bodies, let alone suggested killing them.
I have a tendency to stay "fat" because I have never been able to get that signal in my brain to stop eating until I eat too much food. I have always resented seeing "normal" people eat half to one-third of the quantity that I needed to eat to stay reasonably satisfied, and I'd still get hungry in an hour. It is only until 6 months into prozac that I realize that I don't feel that obsession with food. However, prozac tends to make my body want to gain weight even if I "starve myself." It's not a myth - the medication can be weird like that. My weight is not spiraling out of control, but I can see what others are saying about the weight gain issue. Exercising causes me to fall asleep.
Have you heard of first law of thermodynamics?
I know a lot of fat chicks who are just fat, without being sickly in some way.