I hate the diet industry so much for making the lovely enthusiastic women I work with throw so much energy into obsessing about their weight. There’s really no other place on Earth I’ve been where it’s been more clear that there are more important things to worry about than counting calories and points.

And you know, that’s fine, but why do you have to do it on the pages of Newsweek? Try a therapist’s office, or the coffeehouse with your best friend.

It’s just difficult for me to read, without getting angry, an article that is chock full of anti-fat stuff, written by someone who’s bought the booga booga and rolled the WLS dice, titled “I don’t share your opinions of fat people” but containing not much evidence that that’s true.

Oh, I completely get your point and while I’m not angered by her inability to speak up, I do feel saddened that Northrup feels and acts this way. I would also love to see Newsweek publish a story by a fat person who isn’t ashamed or insecure about their size. There’s plenty of us on this site alone. But I guess I just can’t find fault with Northrup because at one time, I was her. At one time, I think many of us were a lot like her, actually.

(I do have to point out some well-meaning editor probably titled the article and not Northrup. They probably edited the story too, ,so it might not be as she originally presented it.)

Funny how people can see different stories in the same words!

It’s just difficult for me to read, without getting angry, an article that is chock full of anti-fat stuff, written by someone who’s bought the booga booga and rolled the WLS dice, titled “I don’t share your opinions of fat people” but containing not much evidence that that’s true. Setting aside entirely any criticisms or judgments, it’s just not easy to read, and it feels a little bit like a bait-and-switch.

I hope Northrup finds her center and comes to a place of feeling able to speak up when she disagrees.

Any people here who grew up poor and moved up in the world? Do you take some time to talk to people like your cleaning staff at work? Do you feel ashamed to be near people in those professions, even if this is what your mom or dad or grandparents did for a living? If you do speak to them, do you feel proud of yourself for being so “nice”?* Some people here will know exactly what I’m talking about. Identity crisises come to all sorts of people who think that they need to shed their “old” unacceptable selves, and in the process lose who they are. Think about it and try to have some compassion.

*I do talk to our cleaning staff, and sometimes I feel like I am being “nice” in doing this and it makes me feel very creepy about who I’ve become, but that’s the truth.

Actually, I disagree. I think that acknowledging your faults in a public forum like Newsweek is something to be commended. And as a double bonus, she’s bringing awareness and attention to the some of the various ways in which fat people face discrimination and marginalization.

I think folks here are misconstruing what I see to be Northrup’s larger and overarching point. I don’t think she’s reveling in her weight loss nor is she saying “If I can do it, so can you!” I think she’s genuinely trying to sort out who she is and who she wants to be. Keep in mind folks, this woman lost more than half her body weight within a very short time. The world treats fat people differently than they treat thin people, a fact many here sadly know. There’s bound to be self-identity issues that arise with such a dramatic transformation. Clearly the discrimination showed towards fat people bothers Northrup deeply – else why would she choose to write this article – but I don’t think she knows how or is armed to confront it.

I have to admit: After I lost 60 percent of my body weight and became a newly thin person, I didn’t tell many people who I just met about my weight loss and let them assume I’d always been that skinny. I did this primarily because I obsessed enough about my weight and how I looked and didn’t need the added emphasis, and also because I wanted people to see me as more than my weight.

But I also did it because I had always been so criticized for how I looked, so ostracized for my fatness and even harassed and felt physically threatened by people for being fat that after I lost the weight,I wanted to get as far away from the stigma of fat as I could.

It’s taken me decades to reconcile some of my own body image issues and to realize that fat isn’t a physical sign of failure and that being fat didn’t mean that I was a second-class citizen. Why are we criticizing someone who appears to be wrestling with many of the same issues even the most seasoned and hardened body-size activists have probably all faced?

I don’t see this article as negative in the slightest. Northrup should be commended for her honesty and courage to publicly acknowledge her own shortcomings. I see her and this article as a first step in her own journey towards a degree of size acceptance.

This is also not to open up a whole can of worms, but I wonder how many of us have had the same feeling. I almost feel like I need to consider fatness part of my identity in order to take pride in it and be comfortable with it.