Fat Vegan- You're Bad for Business

How hard is it to find a fat vegan? Not as hard as you may think. Though there's never been a study done on the weight of adult vegans, adult vegetarians are only 10 to 20 pounds lighter than their meat eating counterparts. For many people that's enough to get a slight pudge down to a slim belly, but what does that mean for the obese vegan? If you are 100 lbs overweight and going vegan makes you lose 20lbs- guess what? You're still 80lbs overweight. You're still a fat vegan. And, apparently, you're bad for business.

According to Dr. McDougall, " Fat vegans, however, have failed one important animal: themselves. Furthermore, their audiences of meat-eaters and animal-abusers may be so distracted by their appearance that they cannot hear the vital issues of animal rights and the environment; resulting in an unacknowledged setback for a fat vegan’s hard work for change." So sorry fat vegans- apparently everyone's too busy looking at your belly for anything you say to be valid. 

Now, McDougall isn't all wrong- it's true that there exist many bigotries concerning fat people all over the world. - most of them simply untrue, but people will judge you based on how you look. Let's also be clear that those people, the ones who only care about the most superficial topics, aren't likely to go vegan anyway- especially since they're likely already thin. 

I went vegan for the animals- not my waistline. I eat well, I exercise, but I'll be damned if I'll let someone tell me that I'm too unattractive to be vegan- or that I'm so unattractive that I put others off of going vegan. I know dozens of vegans and every single one of them looks about the same as they did before going veg. 10 or 20 lbs makes little difference if someone's natural body shape is bigger. 

The bottom line is that I shouldn't have to torment myself to be thin just because someone else doesn't like how I look. These types of sentiments- encouraging vegans to obsess over their waistlines and the number on the scale isn't a healthy out look for anyone. Yes, we should try to be healthy, but not everyone even cares so why make them? It's their body, let them be. And for those who do- they're already trying to lose weight and eat as healthfully as possible, so why barrage them with messages that they're not good enough? 

I planned on making this a much longer blog post with  much more scathing and relevant comments, but considering i'm bipolar and borderline suicidally depressed at the moment, I'm going to go eat some fucking cookies- and if you think that makes me bad for your image then screw you.