Gaining

greentrees8733:
I dunno if I’d relate stigma change *directly* to obesity rates...

AskDrFeeder:
That's a good point. As more people--feedist or not--get fat there's less of a stigma about it.

greentrees8733:
I dunno if I’d relate stigma change *directly* to obesity rates. I think stigma change relates more to explicit efforts to reduce stigma, like social movements (eg body positivity, body neutrality). But I think there’s probably a second-hand relationship in that as more people become overweight and obese, more people realize the need to change fatphobia/fat stigma.

Originally, I was trying to link our *perceptions* of what’s normal to rising feedee weights.

Of course, our perception of normal is also heavily influenced by media, including social media.

I guess my speculation is that *our*—as in the feedist community’s—sense of what constitutes being fat or really fat changes with overall rates plus what the community shares, while other people are more influenced by media portrayal.

Again, all of this is speculation

Edxl:
Another thought that came to me: some of the very fat feedees seem to have the desire to be 'the fattest ever', or more realistically to be seen as extraordinarily fat. And for others, for whom this is a business, there is customer pressure to keep gaining more or to be bigger than the competition. As more very fat people show themselves online, and more feedees get big, that must make pressure to get even bigger. Maybe a decade ago at 400 pounds that would be 'enough' but now it doesn't seem so extreme, so be it from personal desire or market pressures a feedee that size may feel that they have to get bigger. (and at the same time, they see others living their lives succesfully at even larger sizes so it helps confirm that they could too)

Katriona:
I'm here for more than ten years a d the people are definitely fatter... 400lbs seems to be normal... Back in the day it was exceptionnal. And that's really cool.

bigdj1977:
That is absolutely true for me on a personal level. Twenty years ago when I was in my early twenties and weighed in the mid to high 200s, 400 lbs. seemed to be super fat. Now that I actually am in the 400s it seems pretty “normal” and I know that I will get fatter over time.