Why is it socially acceptable to make fun of someone if.....

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Some people have jobs where they walk all day at work and have to bend and squat and lift things. Even though I am on my feet for four hours at work walking around and bending, I still go for my half hour walk to stay in shape. Is that exercise or just walking? I see that as no different than doing it on a treadmill. I'm thinking about joining a fitness center so I can do my walks there since it be cold out pretty soon and rainy. That's how I lost weight last time too when I used a treadmill.

Eating less did make me lose weight when I was a teen and I laid off the sweets and junk food (I cut back), plus I was in PE and softball. But then my body stopped dropping weight because I guess it reached it's point where it decided that was it.

Agreed. It's one thing to make fun of yourself, but when it's about some other kind of person (and I don't care how "optional" being that way is considered to be by people who aren't that way, that's just a cop-out used by people who want to be able to keep laughing at whatever kind of people that is and not feel guilty about it) then it's just wrong. Except in certain very specific situations that are too detailed and exact to get into here (but aren't any of the ones being brought up to justify laughing at people for those things).

Also I think there are some inaccurate assumptions going around here. Like "X kind of people sometimes make fun of me because I'm Y, so it's harder to be Y than X." When that's not necessarily the case. (Although either way, no matter which is harder it doesn't justify making fun of the other kind of person.)

Those are fixable situations, for the people who want to fix them. I'm happy at the size that I am, and as a working class hero.

I was 150 lbs by the time I was 10.

The "eat less, weigh less" mantra is spewed so damn much,
I took it to heart when I was 16 and became anorexic.
Eight months later without so much as a cracker,
I was STILL fat.

Nowadays,
I eat maybe 1000 calories of healthy foods (I'm vegan) and exercise for an hour each day.

I'm 5' even, 215 lbs and GAINING.


I get sick of all the stereotypes.

It is not particularly good behavior to mock other people for any reason. If a person has a low income or limited prospects it may be due to factors beyond his control. Mockery is both unnecessary and unjust.

ruveyn

I mock voluntarily stupid people. I also mock lazy people (who are actually lazy and not made to seem so by ADHD or whatever). I mock cruel people, and bigoted people. I mock racists and homophobes and bullies.

Honestly, I do quite a bit of mocking. And I'm really rather good at it, I mean, with my scintillating wit and all....

It may or may not be "right," but I'm only human and cannot be expected to act as a paragon of virtue all of the time. I firmily believe certain people deserve much mocking.

Why does the OP think that fat people aren't mocked?

Mockery isn't justifiable, whatever anyone might assume about people upon observing them.

I know someone like this. I lived with her for 2 months and ate every meal with her. She ate less than anyone else there and was the least winded when on top of walking 10 miles / day, we'd do things like climb to the top of a tower. Stereotypes are stupid. Just because losing weight takes reasonable effort for one person doesn't mean it's the same for another.

But even if it is a choice for a person, why would anyone mock them even then? Because they want them to conform to their idea of what that person should be? I've been on the butt end of that kind of thing for far too long to ever want to dish it out to anyone else.

It baffles me why it's ok to mock someone for being gay, but not for being black, even though they are just different forms of the same thing - prejudice. Actually, its probably because morality is based on what is socially acceptable, rather than what is right or wrong. Being poor, fat, gay, etc are socially unacceptable, and therefore, it's ok to ridicule such people. Apparently.

I speak from experience:

If you ever find yourself asking "Why can minority X be mocked for being minority X, but minority Y cannot be mocked for being minority Y" odds are good it's not because they're not actually mocked, but that you just haven't noticed yet.

Or fat people can be proud of their size. Sorry. I couldn't resist.

[quote] At least fat people always have the option of losing weight,
"No sorry that is wrong" they don't always have the option to loss the weight,
in some cases there is a problem that they can't, that would be like saying "you can
gain the weight" and i believe you are saying you can't, right?

People make fun of fat people all the time. Normally they preface it with a rant about how you're not allowed to make fun of fat people. (Which isn't what the OP was doing, in case anyone thought I was targeting them.)

I'm a larger person, and I don't have a problem with it. I don't sit around and eat fast food all day, either. I eat healthy and exercise and I've actually lost 20 lbs over the 4 months. I'm sick of all the fat bashing around here. I'm not really all that interested in men, anyways. I don't care what they think about my physique. My size makes me feel strong and powerful.

People don't make fun of people with below average jobs where I live. The financial climate is very bad here, and people are lucky to get an extremely low-paid job for 6 hours a week. The only thing people here get made fun of over is not going out and getting drunk (youngsters more so), not wearing clothes that fit the fashion rules, and....other things I can't think of at the moment.

Well as far as I can tell none of those always have an easy or probable solution....not the below average job/lives at home or the weight thing. It is possible those senerios could be fixed but it depends on various factors. No two peoples situation is exactly the same or would have the same solution.