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What do you think of the term "short king" as a term that's supposed to champion body positivity for men? (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 months ago by BmeBenji@lemm.ee to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Body positivity is such a strange concept to me. There's efforts to reclaim words while simultaneously calling them bad if used as an insult. Ideally, people wouldn't be offended by someone describing their body with common descriptors, but socially there is so much value attributed to certain body types that it's almost impossible to avoid having an emotional response of some kind to various descriptors.

For example, It's not bad to be fat, but calling someone "fat" is almost universally considered a bad thing. The same definitely seems to go for the idea of being "short."

I'm asking this question because I can't put my finger on why but something seems to be different about the use of the term "short" from the use of the term "fat." I think that part of it is how, to me at least, the term "fat" is so generic and hard to nail down to a discrete definition, implying that the word really doesn't have a clear connection to reality. On the other hand, height is a single-dimensional number. You either are above a certain threshold, or you aren't.

I recently learned that May 6th to May 10th is "short king week" because it's 5'6" to 5'10" which then prompted me to search for the origins of "short king" and apparently the person most-credited with popularizing the term is Jaboukie Young-White who claims the term was meant to include all men under 6 feet tall. The average adult male height is 5'9" leaving men considered roughly average to be called "short" which is still considered an insult by many.

I dunno. As a term that was intended to champion body positivity compared with how the term is actually used, what do you think of "short king?"

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[–] 13esq@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It's not bad to be fat

It objectively is and it's a terrible comparison to being short.

Being fat is terrible for your health and will limit your chances in love. It's not politically correct to admit it, but most people simply aren't attracted to people that are overweight, and whilst appearances shouldn't matter, they absolutely do.

The difference between being short and being fat is that you can't control your height. Controlling your weight might not be fun, but you can essentially choose what weight you are.

Bullying is obviously never ok, but if you're not ok with the idea of being called fat, then you can choose not to consistently over eat for long periods of time.

Inb4: I understand some people have severe health and mental issues that are the primary source of their obesity and I empathise hugely with these people, but most overweight people simply lack will power. Losing weight is like giving up smoking, you can want to do it, but you don't until you say "enough is enough" and actually mean it.