Whitney Thore and The Life of Fat Women

Sometimes there's far more wrong than being fat. That applies to Whitney Thore, she has many problems in addition to obesity. Hey that's true for my life, I deal with a lot more then being five hundred pounds on both the emotional and physical front. Just becoming deaf, is pretty big, and maybe I should post about that a bit. 

  My concerns about this show, is that it puts fat women in such a bad light. It doesn't offer us help or anything concrete to look to.  It's entertainment but what kind of messages about fat people is this show putting out? Is the public going to become more sympathetic to us or less?  Whitney has a lot more problems then just the obesity. The show also shows the limits of the "fat and sassy" stuff. Remember the years when I got in debates with size acceptance people for talking about the limitations of HAES and when I told Marilyn Wann to go visit a nursing home with super-fat people?

On a recent show, Whitney Thore was shown taking a trip with a Fat Women Traveling Group. It exposed a lot to me. Here's a caveat, being so different, I would not fit into the fat woman group either. I am on the autistic spectrum and have anxiety disorders.  Obviously people who can afford travel and a trip like that are in different shape to me. The women seem nice but I am not into twerking and there's no bathing suits that would fit me. Damn I loved the tricycles, I want one, wish I could afford one. You know I found a bicycle company about a year ago for fat people, they even go up to 550lbs.

You can see her problems right there next to them all. She's pretty, she's actually made up well, and all the women were wearing very nice clothing, and looked great. But you can see the personality stuff. You can tell they almost feel sorry for her. Such as when she is talking about her Frenchman. You can see their unease and worry. The immaturity is glaring.

One fellow fat traveler, Rebecca was trying to warn her, like you are falling into this same trap with the guy in France again like with Avi. Rebecca had dated and been conned by Avi too. Being fat you have to be careful in the dating world and I had exploitive men try to come after me too when I was young.

If you are Super-fat, toxic men will try and mess with you. I had strange men attempt stalking on me and other crazy stuff. As past readers here know, I was raised uber Catholic even though I deconverted from family's church which meant I was a late life shy virgin and so not as likely to have sex with them. I also was too autistic for the exploitive men to understand or get with.  These men fortunately rejected me for my weirdness and for being a bookworm.

I was able to avoid exploitive men though or being used by one, and married my first love, but these special circumstances protected me. Many fat women sadly have to deal with these kind of men. Well all women do but with super fat women the risks are higher. How come Whitney doesn't talk honestly about this? She encourages the exploitation of fat women by toxic men in her own man and baby hunger. She's a walking cliche of the desperate fat spinster. She dates men who dump her for thin women, ignores the guy [Lenny] whose actually physically attracted to her and makes the worse dating choices possible. 

 She's definitely no feminist rebel against the system on our behalf. She's taking the crumbs and that makes me mad. I wish we had a fat strong women who wouldn't take crap from men. This is the worse personality for young fat women to watch and be instructed on love lives. This may sound weird from deconverted me but perhaps the nuns and others who instilled all these high ideals in me about love, protected me from some of the worse.  

Toxic men do prey on super fat women. They tried it with me and failed. Rebecca was trying to break through Whitney's wall, because it seemed like she learned her lesson and Whitney was just repeating the same mistake. I got frustrated because I wanted Rebecca to be more direct but she did at least get Whitney to ask if the Frenchman was another AVI....Well yes.

The other women do seem to have more sense of self, and career success and a presence. I do envy their confidence. I see Whitney lacking. Whitney tries too hard. While Whitney has a TV show and fame, she lacks this inner peace and stamina inside, that the other fat women have. It is something I have had to work on, like I got to the edges of it via ACON recovery and going no contact from abusers. I do think of recovery messages all the time in my head. I think Whitney should go into therapy. She is messed up inside too from feeling like she is "not enough", that will mess people up. 

Whitney I think has something odd with the parents she needs recovery from. They don't seem overtly "abusive" [Whitney was never hit, or yelled at or stuff like that as far as we know] but there's some weirdness with Babs I pick up on. I read Babs as having some elements of covert narcissism that have carried over to Whitney. Babs comes out with passive aggressive stuff all the time with a dark undertone. One thing to notice with Babs is while she appears "nice" there are a lot of disguised comments, like compliments with a bite, is the best way I can describe it. Babs has poor boundaries too always saying sexual things that are over the top too, Babs doesn't touch people but crosses people's boundaries that way--the apple may not have fallen far from the tree.

Whitney could have been in a golden child role. Whitney obviously believes she has to perform to please them. She is in this weird trap. It's given her drive, and ironically fame, but she is having problems with all her relationships and doesn't have a calm or peaceful presence.

You can tell she is comparing herself to these women and considering herself not to be "enough", the jealousy is busting out from her to the immense. I am a 4 on the Enneagram, we can be jealous types and it is a "shadow" I have to deal with but damn she is so jealous of them, it's insane, like green eyed monster has taken over, and scared not to be the center of attention. This goes with her lack of inner fortitude. Something is missing there. I see a nice group of women, and she is there to compete and one up them all. They can pick up on it too.  They can see her emotional abuse fueled shame and other problems. They ask her to teach them some dancing but instead she twerks around and destroys personal bodily boundaries slapping all the women on the butt.

I do think there could be some implicit personality disorder as discussed here. The top theories are BPD and NPD, she seems to show multiple narcissistic traits, and that "hot" and "cold" stuff.  She seems to fear abandonment and is unable to spend time alone.  This explains a lot of the weirdness with Buddy where one minute he's the greatest thing since sliced bread and the next she turns on him putting him down. The clinginess, endless demands, loudness, crossing of boundaries and the constant quests for every room to have her as the center of attention, all speak to some sort of personality disorder.

She idealizes Buddy and then trashes him all within 20 minutes. I am often curious at Buddy's past, did he face abuse growing up? It makes me wonder why he is in the abusive dance with her too. One thing with people abused when young is the dysfunctional relationships and even friendships can continue late into adulthood.  This happened to me. Someone taught Buddy that this was how one was supposed to be treated though I think sobriety and probably "recovery" classes are waking Buddy up. I was in a depression recovery and peer group a few years and it helped wake me up to get out of abusive relationships including friendships.

She treats her friends horribly. I feel bad for Ashley and Heather because I keep thinking betrayal is coming girls, unless they remain "mirrors".

I question this show a lot, but sometimes even ask "Why was this person chosen as the example for living happy while fat?" It could be called "My Big Fat Miserable Life." She has a TV show and fame, and you can tell she doesn't feel like "enough" and she has some problems. I think she needs to address. Being super fat can mess people up. You know I deal with some crazy stuff because of it but she's not in a good place at all. 

Fat, sassy and active is possible at stable midsized weights. some of the women at the Fat Ladies Traveling group were midsized and looked like they could maintain a life, though some better focus on weight stability to make sure this does not change. Some were above 300, and probably most likely would face some health issues. 

Rebecca however is near disability, and large enough to be disabled if she is not very soon. I could wear Rebecca's clothing, I have more of a hanging stomach from my fatter past. She looks like she weighs in the high 400s to even low 500s. My last weigh in was 515lbs. Rebecca seems to be a very nice person, and I wish she was the star of this show. 

As people here know I have CFS and complex autoimmune problems most people have never heard of even beyond the Lipedema stage 4.  Yesterday I went to get a blood test, did some gardening --tearing out my cucumber vines that died, two veggie stands, a small estate sale, and cooked curry for dinner. I am exhausted today and in bed, because my swelling got out of control. Add in autism. Autism and autoimmune diseases go together too. 

I am seeing a nutritionist for the extreme uric acid they now think is from a rare inherent condition instead of anything I am eating and focusing now on getting more help. The rehab and clinic thing is complicated. I'm talking now to a nutritionist and others about what I should do. I may need to explore going to a pain clinic. Every time I try to be active at all, the pain gets out of control. The joint and other pain is hurting me. I am being what my brain calls "lazy" right now but laying in this bed has dampened down the pain. It creates this weird cycle in my head that troubles me. There's times I am literally limping at the end of a day.

One issue for me in the size acceptance world, as people here know who have read my much early articles on this blog from the early 2010s, is too many of them denied the health effects of severe obesity.  While I have seen some improvements in this arena, Whitney is definitely still stuck in the old mode. Does being superfat have to be tied to denying reality? Sure I can't stand the diet brokers and fat bigots either but isn't she playing into their hands?

I remember those days still where I told Marilyn Wann on a online message board under another name that I was 700lbs and dying. She invalidated me. I did have many things wrong and I went on to live for 25 plus more years. 

Whitney doesn't know it but she is very close to being disabled. 50 more lbs. and she may not be able to walk. I was very tall, almost 6 feet when young so could carry a lot more weight. I lost a massive amount of height and am only 5 foot 7 inches now. Whitney is short as hell so 400lbs on her, would be equal to 500lbs on a taller person. Whitney's clothes would fit me but would all be "too short". If she is as "wide" as me, she is in big time trouble. I still hold to my theory that she has Lipedema. I could be wrong but I noticed the tell-tale sign of leg lumpiness, though she doesn't seem to have the ankle cuffs, when she attempted to go tubing on her birthday.

Her body is breaking down you can see it, and age worsens this. One thing that is unusual about me is I am into health food, and will not eat processed food, desserts, or "normal American food", I already would be dead. I don't see Whitney eating vegetables, salads or cooked food, but microwaved crap out of cans. How come we never see WHAT she eats? That seems to point to some possible problems with food addiction, we don't know her eating and other habits. If she was open with those, it would help others too. How come she shows no interest in cooking, eating, or nutrition? Whitney could even prove what she eats via her show and talk about weight in a honest fashion. If she has satiety issues and hunger problems she could talk about it. I told my nutritionist, I can stick to regular meals during the day, but I have intense hunger all the time. Lay it out on the table. Why hide everything? If she didn't hide stuff she could either get help for medical problems underlying the obesity, or get help for any would be food addiction. 

Whitney could lose her show, from a health crisis alone, a hurt leg, cellulitis bout, or other health issue. She can't keep up now, and age alone will end all the feigned athleticism. She could end up on a walker too. I think she needs a cane now for balance and to walk around safely, but some may disagree with me. I have watched her at the gym and she seems to do little cardio. I am not in shape, but determined even when I did the gym, that one needed to do a sustained activity for 15-20 minutes at least to get some heart and lung benefits. I don't see her doing this. She does a lot of weights and grunts and pulls but no sustained cardio. That was always strange to me, when they showed her exercise segments.  

She is in denial about how bad of shape she is in. They do this to people in size acceptance world, I used to protest it and HAES. There was a healthism in that world and still is where only the healthy are embraced, I used to tell people in NAAFA at 700lbs I was sick and dying, and they'd get pissed because I wasn't presenting the picture of the happy sassy fat woman. As people know my own history with the size acceptance movement is very fraught with controversy. Don't get me started how the fat and sassy crap doesn't work for those of us on the autistic spectrum.

Whitney is stuck dancing as fast as she can. She would do a service more to other fat people and herself if she got real. I have needed endless medical support to even stay alive this long. You don't want to know how many specialists I see. I have something like 7 doctor appointments in the next month. She actually has more health resources then me, she doesn't have autoimmune disease, she can breathe properly [the gym wasn't even possible for me until I was on a strong enough COPD medicine], she has money, she has a loving family. She needs to go to some damn doctors and therapists instead of playing at being a trainer. She is close to being disabled. When that happens, there will be no more show. She could help a lot of fat people having such a platform. It could have been used for so much better.