What would you consider a "good" reason to be fat?
I'll give you several.
Liking to eat is a good reason. Food is one of the most basic sources of pleasure. Both the rituals and sensualities of its consumption are the potential source of much satisfaction and pastime in life. It can lead to fatness, though, because over time our caloric needs have gone down (due to a reduced need for hard work in our everyday lives) even as food has become more abundant and delicious. Someone who likes to eat may be ambivalent toward the whole fat angle, but with the proper sense of perspective can learn to accept and even appreciate it. For instance, the health risks of being fat are overstated, society is slowly beginning to confront the prejudice which makes fatness so heavily stigmatized, and few individuals have a practical need for the extreme degree of physical fitness that fatness would inherently preclude.
The sensuality of fatness is another good reason—perhaps the best of all the reasons I have considered. The human body is intensely sensual, something that tends to be overlooked in our contradictorily hypersexed-yet-puritanical society. In between religious deprivation and overt sexuality, there are the myriad pleasures of the human body. The physical presence of body fat is the source for an entire group of these sensualities. The way that body fat feels, both by itself and in contrast; the way that it moves when the body is in motion; the heaviness and envelopingness of it; the continuous tug that it has, in a variety of natural positions; the feeling of fullness and vastness; all of these and more are great opportunities for awareness and appreciation of one's own body. Another whole group of sensualities relates back to the pleasures of eating and satiety, this time in contrast to their cumulative effect on the body in the form of adiposity.
Sex is another good reason to be fat. Both as a physical preference in oneself and/or one's partner, and as a fetish source, where applicable, fatness can play a central role in one's sexuality. That's no surprise, as eating and procreating are perhaps the two most fundamental actions an organism can undertake. It makes sense that they would go well together. Evolutionarily, fat has been used to great effect in both sexes for the enhancement of people's physical presence. Usually this fat was limited in quantity due to population dynamics, and so the excess of fat was not so common a thing in people until recently, but, when a mind latches on to fatness as an expression of sexuality, then it is natural for that person to find attractiveness in weights (for themselves and/or their partner(s)) that are higher or much higher than optimum.
Aesthetics is another good reason. The artistic inspirations of the human body are abundant and evident in every society both past and present. Far from there being only one body shape that can trigger these inspirations, all achievable human forms have aesthetic value and can provoke artistic exploration. Artistic preferences are difficult to explain; for instance, I like arches, and domes, and Ionian columns, what with their fluted shafts and scrolling capitals, and it would take me some effort to try and explain why I have these preferences, because I do not fully understand it myself. In exactly the same way, some people may simply be more “at home” aesthetically with fatter bodies than thinner ones. This becomes especially significant when you remember that the human body itself is one of the original media of expression.
Wellbeing is a good reason. Many fat people express considerable relief and satisfaction at their weight once they come to accept it. A common refrain is that these people feel as though their bodies are “stable” or “comfortable” or “happy” at whatever weight they specify. Some have even used the word “healthy.” One thing is for sure: Mentally, it's a lot healthier to accept where one's body is at than to self-loathe So, even if a person has no independent desire to be fat, if they feel as though their bodies are predisposed to a certain weight range, and cannot easily change their weight, then being fat and accepting that can be a sign of emotional maturity—another good reason to be fat.
Intellectuality can also provide good reason for being fat. If one associates fatness with positive and/or expressive qualities, then being fat becomes symbolic. Popularly, fat is associated only with negative qualities, and therefore people shy away from embracing fatness and even feel revulsion toward it. However, the same logic applies in the other direction. If fatness came to symbolize positive qualities, people would feel drawn to it.
Here's a provocative one: Health. This may seem counterintuitive, given the conventional wisdom that being fat will kill you in about twelve minutes, but fatness up to a point may provide a health benefit in some or most people. In my ever-vigilant battle to promote fat acceptance in society, I have learned not only that popular opinion greatly overstates or fabricates the health risks of fat, but completely ignores the health benefits or potential health benefits. I won't get into this one, because frankly I don't expect anyone to believe me unless I print a bibliography, and it's too late in the day for that. Still, for what it's worth,
I consider it a good reason.
Naturally, these reasons are not simultaneously applicable to everyone all the time, but they do not need to be universally applicable in order to be “good” reasons. They simply need to be well-grounded in reasons of the betterment or exploration of, or indulgence in, the human condition—which I think I have shown. Also, they need to be utilizable without causing undue collateral harm to other individuals or to society at large. We could make hay about that the “harm” angle—I've had that argument countless times. People who think they are very clever come up with claims such as “obesity makes you sick and that drains the economy,” or “obese people weigh more and move under their own power less, increasing petrol consumption,” but, in every case I have confronted, it turns out that the claim is variously unsubstantiated, oversimplified, or plainly wrong, leaving the antagonist with far weaker claims that easily fall within the realm of creature comforts or self-determination. Meanwhile, there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the good reasons for being fat which I mentioned above, and others that I did not, constitute strong arguments in their own rights in favor of individuals embracing fatness in themselves and/or others at their discretion.
Here is a final point that I know you will be able to appreciate, RD: When a society gets hung up on something, people tend to vastly exaggerate the subject and all its elements, usually with a specific direction of bias (or directions, in the plural, when there are factions involved). I think society is outright neurotic when it comes to body fat, far in excess of what a reasonable discourse would invite. The fact that somebody could waltz into this thread and say that they don't care for fat people—a patently ridiculous and hurtful statement, yet offered almost blithely and with utter obliviousness as to its deleteriousness—or that somebody else could make a defense of fatness followed by the completely unnecessary disclaimer that they themselves are not fat—are two more pieces of evidence in a long-overflowed and drowned cup that we spend far more time and energy inflating this subject in our minds and in our public discourse, well out of proportion and beyond all sense.
