Gaining

Is it my imagination or are feedees getting fatter than ever these days?

I think they are! Since the pandemic started people are using grubhub, Uber eats, and insta cart to get food and groceries delivered to their home. That means they don’t have to leave their house and they can stay sitting on their butts while their feeders get the food and groceries off their front porch for them! I say it’s the only thing good that’s come out of the pandemic!

Its easier with all of the foods and technology our generation has versus previous ones

I think it's an attitude thing too. There's this idea that no one should be allowed to fat-shame you, so if you want to get fat you absolutely should.

I think that legal marijuana in a lot of places may be a factor too. A good number of the fattest feedees I've seen around the net are proud daily users.

Also a much better support network.

One or more generations ago, seems the pioneers had few, if any, people around for encouragement. Yes, during the Internet times, plenty of people (many anonymous) in distant locales, often vanishing.

Now over, what?, the past decade or so?, it’s very common for feedees to support and encourage each other directly. So many people seem to be into feedism that it’s almost edging towards mainstream.

Most any pursuit of which i can think that humans get into often gets more and more extreme as time passes. This fits that pattern.

I think another factor might be that many high achievers continue gaining, or at least continue to be in the scene or creating content. Plus, at least here in the US, obesity continues to rise. All this to say our intuitive/mental benchmarks are probably changing.

And our benchmarks for gaining challenges change, too, as people accomplish more difficult ones.

Possibly another factor is earning potential—or at least stuffing sponsorships—for content creators (maybe income is higher for rapid gaining and large stuffings?). I’m just speculating though—I don’t have any real knowledge/experience.

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

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

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