I freely admit that this is an “overthinking it” blog.  I’m going to talk about a cartoon Panda as if he is a real person and a fat activist.  I know it’s a stretch, I’ll understand if you don’t want to come along for the ride! (Also, if you’ve not seen the original Kung Fu Panda, this post contains spoilers).

I love Kung Fu Panda.  Love.  It. Today I made someone drive 30 minutes to get this movie so that I could show it to a friend so that friend and I can go see the sequel tomorrow.

The first very cool thing about this movie is that the main character realizes that he can be an athlete without being thin. He then not only isn’t ashamed of being fat, but he actually uses his size:

He belly bumps, he sits on someone, he uses his size to gain advantage.  He could never do that if he was busy being ashamed of his size and trying to look smaller than he is.

His enemy asks “What are you going to do, sit on me?”.  Po responds “Don’t tempt me”.  What better way to shut down this fat shaming than to turn an insult into empowerment?

The quintessential exchange is:

“You cannot defeat me, you’re just a big fat panda”.

“I’m not a big fat panda.  I’m THE big fat Panda.”

Indeed, he is a fat panda.  It’s just a descriptor, he could just as easily have said “you’re just a black and white panda” but the enemy assumes that since fat has so much negative connotation it will make him feel ashamed. When fat is just a descriptor it takes the power away from those who want to hurl an insult.  When I’m having a business meeting with someone I’ve not met I tell them “I’m a short, fat, brunette”.  Plenty of people have told me “Oh, don’t call yourself fat!” but nobody has ever said “Oh, don’t call yourself brunette!” I purposefully use fat as a descriptor because I think it’s important for me to reclaim the word with no negative charge.  It’s my way of telling the bullies that they can’t have my lunch money any more.

Then of course there is the pure joy of watching him defeat someone who assumes that he is less of an adversary simply because of his size.  Skidoosh.

So maybe we fatties can take some advice from Po:  Take an attempt at shaming and turn it into a statement of pride.  Use fat as a descriptor, not as a judgment. Own our size and find ways to use it to our advantage.  Be the big fat whatever that we are.  For me it sure beats the alternative.

I’m not a big fat dancer.  I’m THE big fat dancer.

How about you?

For a little inspiration here is the final, end of the first movie battle. MAJOR SPOILERS:

When people disagree with my blog, there are three main points that they tend to make:

1.  I am a liar.  It is impossible to be healthy and obese.  I covered that here.

2.  I’m must hate thin people and encourage thin bashing.  I find this incredibly offensive.  I covered it in detail here.  And Here.   And Here. And about a hundred other places.

3.  It’s fine for me to think what I want (even thought it’s obviously wrong and stupid), but I’m incredibly irresponsible for putting it in a blog because people will read it and choose Health at Every Size like I did and then they’ll die of fatness and it will all be my fault. Oh, where to begin with this one.

The diet industry in this country makes nearly 60 billion dollars a year convincing people they should want to be thin.  They are assisted by almost every major news and media outlet buying into the conflation of weight and health and giving us 386,170 negative messages about our bodies every year, along with extraordinarily irresponsible reporting. Then there is the multi-billion dollar beauty industry.  Self Magazine put 34 weight loss stories on their cover in 2010 alone.  That’s almost 3 cover stories every month for just ONE magazine, and that doesn’t take into account the fact that they choose nearly every model in every picture based on a single standard of beauty . Billions of dollars and billions of work hours going into convincing people that they should want to be thin and that thin and healthy are the same thing.

I am one woman blogging a few hours a week.

What I’m getting at here is that if my message is that much of a threat to the mainstream then I think that they should consider how weak their message really is, and whether or not they want to keep pushing that message.

Even more to the point, my readers (with the possible exception of the people who stumble onto this blog and make this kind of comment) are not idiots.  They are capable of weighing evidence and making their own decisions.

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve said on this blog that I’m not trying to tell anyone how to live, simply demonstrating an option. People are allowed to make choices that are different than your choices or my choices, and that in no way invalidates your choices or my choices. We are all the boss of our own underpants, and we are not the boss of anyone else’s underpants.  Why everyone except these commenters is able to grasp that I will never know.  Of course you don’t have to agree with me but I think that this is just a big sack of not-my-problem.

After a workshop that I taught, a participant told me that she was told she shouldn’t take dance class by a dance class instructor because she doesn’t have a “dancer’s body”.  It struck a chord because I’ve heard this countless times.

Dancer’s body.  Swimmer’s Build.  Athletic physique.

Complete, Total and Utter Bullshit.

These ideas are constantly touted by two groups of people:

1.  People who want to sell us something “Buy my Taepilatyogalletboxing System and get that dancer’s body you’ve always wanted”

2.  People who rely on feeling superior to feel ok about themselves: “I have a dancer’s body so it doesn’t matter how well you dance, you can’t possibly be a dancer because you don’t have a dancer’s body.  I am therefore better than you and so my fragile sense of self-esteem and exaggerated sense of self-importance both remain intact”

Except that nobody actually has the right to declare anything about anybody else’s body. Nobody is required to do any kind of athletics or exercise, but anyone who wants to should be welcome.

Do you dance?  Do you want to?  Then you have a dancer’s body.

Do you swim?  Do you want to?  The you have a swimmer’s build. (Let’s try to remember that everything from minnows to whales swims, you know what I’m saying?)

Are you an athlete?  Do you want to be?  Then you have an athletic physique.

People can try to tell us otherwise, but happily we get to decide if we’re going to let people who are trying to sell us something or trying to put us down to make themselves feel better keep us from doing what we want to do. And we get to choose how we do it – do we want to find a comfortable accepting environment (even if it’s our living room)?  Do we want to crash the party with our “non-traditional” bodies?  It’s all up to us.

Like the blog?  Consider becoming a member! For ten bucks a month you can support size diversity activism, help keep the blog ad free, and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.

What do member fees support?  I get hundreds of requests a day (not including hatemail) from academic to deeply personal. I get paid for some of my speaking and writing (and do both on a sliding scale to keep it affordable), but a lot of the work I do isn’t paid so member support makes it possible (and let me just give a huge THANK YOU to my members, I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support!)   Click here for details

Here’s more cool stuff:

My Book:  Fat:  The Owner’s Manual  The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here for detail

Dance Classes:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details 

If you are uncomfortable with my selling things on this site, you are invited to check out this post

I know that with all of “war on ob*sity” stuff you hear it’s hard to believe, but stick with me here for a minute.  First let’s clarify who the War on Ob*sity is actually against. It would seem to be against ob*se people, but that’s not quite true.  “Ob*sity” as currently defined is the result of a mathematical formula involving a ratio of weight and height called “BMI”  We’ve discussed before why the BMI is BS.  Part of the reason is that there are so many exceptions to the rule. Since BMI doesn’t take muscle mass into account, many hardcore athletes (most of the NFL for example) are ob*se based on the formula.  Nobody wants to get rid of athletes or force them to lose muscle to conform and so they are given an exception. If you are mathematically obe*e but without what is considered an excess of adipose tissue, you are excepted from the war.

So let’s just be honest: Nobody wants to eliminate ob*sity, they want to eliminate people who are visibly fat.  There is no war on ob*sity, there is a war against fat people.  And the front lines of this war are everywhere we look and listen – magazine covers, billboards, commercials, infomercials, ads on the internet, random strangers on the street, health care and wellness professionals, talk show hosts etc.

Knowing that, today I’m going to ignore the mountain of scientific evidence that says that  intentional weight loss doesn’t work.  I’m going to ignore all of the evidence that Health at Every Size does work.  I’m going to ignore the many healthy fat people and unhealthy thin people who exist and disprove the efficacy of conflating weight and health.  My question today is: Even if we would all be healthier if we were thin, is the War on Ob*sity a good idea?

Have you ever had something that you hated: a purse, some shoes, a knick-knack that was a gift from someone?  Did you take good care if it?  Were you inspired to dust it and polish it and keep it beautiful.

Me either.

The war on ob*sity has branched out to cover not just the appearance of bodies, but also their health, intelligence and worthiness. The War tells us that if our bodies are fat then they are unhealthy, ugly, unattractive and not worthy of love. We are told that we are not thin because we are lazy, don’t make healthy choices, and lack will power.  We are told that thin is the same as healthy and that we can’t have health without attaining a “healthy weight”.

95% of dieters gain back all of their weight plus more within five years. Yet if we are part of this vast majority,  we are shamed, tsk’d and called weak failures.

The war on ob*sity tells us to hate ourselves.  Then it says that we have to take good care of ourselves.  Then it says that it doesn’t matter if we take good care of ourselves, we have to lose weight or we should keep hating ourselves until we hate ourselves enough to take good enough care of ourselves to lose weight.

It’s ridiculous.  It’s a system that sets us up to fail, participates in our failure, then makes us feel horrible for failing, all the while profiting the diet industry to the tune of almost $60,000,000,000 (yup, that’s sixty billion dollars) a year.

So back to my original question:  Even if we would all be healthier if we were thin, is the War on Ob*sity a good idea?

I think that the answer is no. And I say it’s time to opt out of the war  all together because even if we would be healthier if we were thin, the war  still doesn’t make sense.  Here’s how I think we can do it…

1. Notice how often this happens.  Decide tomorrow to see how many messages you get about ob*sity – from television, the radio, the internet (how many diet ads are on the pages you look at) etc.  Notice how many of those messages are placed forward by someone who either wants you to buy their product or has something to gain by maintaining the status quo (ie: they derive their self-esteem from being “better” than fat people)
2. Appreciate your body! Your body is amazing – think of all of the stuff that it is doing for you right now:  you are breathing, your heart is beating, you are blinking, the list goes on and on.  Your body deserves to be loved and appreciated!  Just as it is.  Right now.  Right this minute.
3. Do things that make you feel good.  If you don’t feel as healthy as you would like, then I would absolutely encourage you to make choices to take care of your amazing body.  Not necessarily so that you change its size or shape, or to fit into a bikini.  Just for the joy of feeling good and taking care of your amazing body.
4. Stop judging others by their weight. Stop assuming that very thin women have eating disorders.  Stop assuming that fat people are lazy or unhealthy.  Strike words like “skinny bitch”, “fat pig” etc. from your vocabulary
5. Don’t push your idea of health onto other people.  Practice healthy choices for yourself and stop telling other people how they should live unless they are asking directly for your thoughts or advice.  Your experience is just that – YOUR experience.  Don’t confuse your experience for everyone else’s.
6. Speak out when you see other people partaking in these behaviors.  Every time someone says something like this they are reinforcing to someone else that they are unhealthy, unattractive and unworthy.  The idea of making someone hate themselves healthy is ludicrous.
7. Tell your story.  A lot of people don’t even know that Health at Ever Size is an option for them.  That’s the entire point of my blog. I don’t want to tell people what to choose for their health, I just want to make sure they know that HAES is an option.

Speaking of telling my story, an article about me is appearing in the June issue of “All You” magazine (which is found in Walmart Stores).  It was beautifully written by Virginia Sole-Smith from The Beauty Schooled Project.  I love her blog and I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank her for the article and all of the support!

I am at La Guardia airport, leaving after spending a week in New York City.  It has been an incredible experience. I watched my Best Friend graduate from NYU at Yankee Stadium (I’m so proud of him that I could burst), and got to hear Bill Clinton speak (and he gave a great speech).  I got to do a workshop with the ever fabulous Golda Poretsky of Body Love Wellness,  at the ever famous Re/Dress plus-sized clothing store in Brooklyn. I got to see all kinds of neighborhoods in NYC that you wouldn’t see as a typical tourist. Got to spend a ton of time with my BF and his boyfriend just relaxing and hanging out which I rarely get to do.

But one of the reasons that I am happy to go back to Texas is space and the taking up of it by me. NYC, while amazing in many ways, does not suit me.  It seems to be an increcible city largely based on inconvenient travel, strangers touching and jostling you, and trying to occupy as little space as possible.  During my week here I had multiple experiences on trains and subways (sometimes very crowded ones) and I noticed that space is at a premium and people try to take up as little as possible – hunching over, collapsing their chests, abandoning their posture.  Nobody said anything about my size (or, at least, not to my face) but then again I never took a seat unless it was beside friends.  Things may have been different had I been sitting alone since I take up ALL of a seat and so someone sitting next to me would be stuck touching me (which I wouldn’t enjoy either, part of the reason that I chose to stand).

What makes this more interesting is a discussion that I had with a stranger on my way to NYC.  I was in the airport in Chicago standing on an escalator.  As I got off a woman said to me “I love the say that you stand. You just…take up space”.  Then a panicked look crossed her face and she stammered “I didn’t mean, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, I just…”. I cut her off and thanked her.  She said that I looked “regal”, thanked me for inspiring her and then walked on to her flight leaving me feeling super awesome.

This experience was with me as I watched people try to take up as little space as possible.  Maybe it’s because I’m a dancer or maybe it’s just me but a big part of feeling good about myself and happy in my body is standing up straight with good posture and that equates to taking up space. I do not apologize for the space I take up and I do not hesitate to make sure that my body has the space it needs (for example, as a short fat person often times if I sit in a booth in a restaurant the height is perfect to dig into my stomach as my boobs rest on the table.  Yeah…no.  I’m absolutely moving to a space that appropriately accommodates me. This is my body and space is it’s birthright and if you feel that it’s not fair that I take up more space than you, there is nothing stopping you from trying to get to my size or wearing a parka so we’ll be even.

This probably brings up the airplane discussion which I already talked about here.

I guess my point is that if you live in a place that encourages you to be small, or if you try to make yourself small as a way to deal with society, or it’s just a habit, that’s absolutely a valid choice.  But maybe consider looking for opportunities to just take up some space. Whether you take a trip to the country or just move the furniture in your living room, consider standing up straight, throwing your shoulders back, moving around and really loving taking up space.

Steve Blair and his many studies at the Cooper Clinic have found that fatt individuals who exercise regularly have roughly the same health profile as lower weight people who exercise, and a better profile than thin people who don’t exercise.

For many people “exercise” is a dirty word because it’s been a punishment, a horrible experience (hello dodgeball in Jr. High Gym), and/or the only reason they’ve ever exercised is a failed attempt to try to change the size and shape of their bodies, or because they think that they have to do it “exactly right” to get the benefit.

Many people look to “fitness professionals” to help them, but there are plenty of people who claim to be fitness experts without any training or certification at all (Jillian Michaels, for example, in addition to lawsuits for weight loss supplements, has had her credentials called into question by a fitness specialist in the LA Times) and they can say anything that they want. I can’t tell you the number of fitness infomercials I’ve come across that have made me want to laugh and cry with their obvious lack of knowledge about the human body.

I’ve been an AFAA certified fitness professional (the same body that now certifies Jillian Michaels). and while I did not maintain my certification I will say that I personally would never trust a “fitness” professional who said any of the following:

“work your lower abs”

This one drives me crazy because it shows a shocking disregard for human anatomy.  There is simply no.  such.  thing.  Your rectus abdominus is a single muscle responsible for flexion of the torso. This is the one they mean when they talk about your non-existant lower abs.  The entire rectus abdominus fires every time you flex your torso.  Your internal and external obliques are responsible for lateral flexion (side bends) Your transverse abdominus compresses the abdomen and stabilizes the vertabrae, and your erector spinea extends the trunk. Say it with me:  there is no such thing as lower abs.

“[Abdominal exercise of the moment] will give you a flat stomach/6-pack”

We have to stop buying into this.  The shape of your stomach is a combination of the muscle below and fat and skin above. There is no exercise that will target and change the shape of your stomach.  The ability to have a “6 pack”, which is just the ability to have visible abdominal muscles, is the product of being genetically able to have/maintain low enough body fat for the definition of those muscles to be visible (which includes the ability to maintain the low body fat necessary and where you might hold your fat), and then doing whatever it takes for you to have/maintain that.  There is a really great blog about it here (trigger warning:  the comments are not so body positive)

“Lifting lighter weights with more repetitions will help you tone without bulking up”

Sweet merciful Zeuss can we please stop saying this.  This myth is FRIGHTENINGLY pervasive and completely wrong. First of all, I wish that strength goals could be tied to how strong we want to be (ie:  how heavy is the grand kid who you want to pick up?) and not some kind of “ideal body shape” but that’s another blog.  Lifting a 2 pound weight a hundred times is basically a waste of time and energy, unless you are lifting it fast enough to get some kind of cardio benefit.  You are either over-taxing the muscle enough to make it stronger, or you are not. The resulting muscle shape is a product of genetics.  Truly “bulking up” is a product of genetics, a serious weight routine, diet, supplementation, and for some people even steroid use [Big thanks to reader Suzanne who pointed out that my original phrasing made it sound like I thought supplementation and steroid use were the same thing]. I often wonder if people would be happier if they spent less time worrying about having a visible bicep and focus instead on what they want their body to be able to do.

“Working your [thigh muscles, upper arms, stomach etc.) will melt the fat around them.”

This one just makes me giggle while realizing that way too many weight loss ads use the term “melt the fat away”.  If you are a fitness professional, you have to have a wanton disregard for the workings of the human body to espouse this particular belief.  No, Virginia, moving a part of the body does not create heat that “melts” the fat around the muscles.

If you want to be healthier you might first consider that health has many facets:  behaviors, genetics, stress, environment, access.  Obviously not all of these are under our control and no amount of healthy behaviors can guarantee health.  So my suggestion, which of course you can take or leave, is to consider choosing movement you like and then do it several times per week and see how you feel.  If you have more specific goals or want to get more technical than that then do some research and buyer beware, because people say some crazy things.

The seedling for this post came from this post, whose seedling was my previous post.  Weee, fun for everyone!

I say seedling because the author of that post, which I really liked by the way, has a different definition of “good fatty” than I do, and despite the semantic difference it really got me thinking.

To me a “Good Fatty” is a fat person who is viewed (by the faction of our society who have decided that they are Judgey McJudgersons of health) as taking “appropriate steps” to lose weight or, at the very least, “struggling” with their weight, thereby earning a modicum of very contingent respect from someone who would otherwise be a fat hater.

If you read this blog regularly you know that I support and respect other people’s decisions about their bodies and health just as I require respect for my decisions.  This is not about bashing people who have chosen weight loss.  The “Good Fatty” title as I understand it is not a self-identity, but rather a conferred title indicating that the the fat person is behaving as the fat hater thinks they should.

There was a comment on my post about all of the fat hatred that was spewed at me from some fitness forums:

…we are not really “fat hating”, in fact, if we see someone who asks for help how to lose weight etc we will cheer them on etc and help…

This is classic “Good Fatty” language.  What this person is really saying is:  You deserve the abuse and bullying that you are receiving because you won’t do what I think you should.  You are a bad fatty.  If you just behave in ways that make me happy, then I will declare you a good fatty and I will stop abusing you.  However, if you tell me that you eat healthy and exercise but you don’t achieve the body size I expect, I’ll call you a liar to your face and turn the abuse faucet right back on.

This is where my Good Fatty conundrum comes in:

If my blog gets a message about health out there I hope is it that health is not the same as weight.  It is multi-dimensional and there are some aspects within our control and some aspects outside of our control, and that if you want to be healthy then focusing on healthy habits rather than the size of your body is a completely legitimate option.

My conundrum is that I also write about the life that I choose as an athlete/dancer.  I try to be clear that my lifestyle is driven by my dancing –  I workout far more than is necessary for just maintaining health –  but I think sometimes people get confused and think that I’m trying to prove I’m a “good fatty” or that I’m trying to say that I think people should choose the same thing that I do, or that I think I’m better than people who make different choices. That’s definitely not what I’m about.

The truth is that I don’t write for people who want to tell me that they think I’m a liar, or that I can’t possibly be healthy, or that I’m a Bad Fatty.  I don’t write to try to convince anyone of anything.   I write what I think is true and I hope that I reach people who have been let down by the weight loss industry that lies to people so that they can make  60 Billion Dollars a year with a product that only succeeds in weight loss only 5% of the time and often actually DECREASES people’s health as they yo-yo diet and destroy their metabolisms. I write for people who get stigmatized by a society that confuses weight and health and has turned fat people into everything from metaphors to scapegoats.  I write for people who want to be hear a different voice, new ideas, or be supported int their choices about their own bodies.

People may try to label us as good fatties, bad fatties, or whatever they want. They may try to convince us that we must gain their approval in order to avoid their abuse.  I think that we always have the option to decide that we aren’t Tinkerbell and we don’t need anyone’s applause to live, opt out of the labeling system for ourselves and each other, and demand (and give) human respect that is not contingent on anyone’s weight, or the choices they make for their bodies and their health,  even if they aren’t what we would choose.

When I say that my eating philosophy is to first and foremost listen to my body which leads to a diet with a variety of foods in reasonable amounts and everything in moderation, people tell me that it’s obviously not healthy to eat that way since I’m not thin and that I should choose one of these options instead:

• Drink two thin chocolate beverages that contain laxatives, eat one meal a day that is low fat and low carb

• Eat reconstituted soy protein five times a day and one meal of low fat protein and green vegetables
• Eat a certain number of calories regardless of where they come from
• Eat a bacon double cheeseburger but hold the tomato and the bun
• Take pills whose label suggests that I “wear dark pants and bring an extra pair to work”
• Eat an extremely limited low calorie diet 6 days a week, binge on the 7th day
• Eat breakfast cereal 4 times a day, eat a meal of lean proteins and low carbs for dinner
• Eat a ton of cabbage soup and on Tuesday eat as many bananas as I want but nothing else

I think that the main difference between my diet and all the others is that people make money selling those other diets and mine is what I think we would come to if we weren’t being inundated with messages from the people making sixty billion dollars a year selling us snake oil.

Let’s look at some of the history of the industry to see how we feel about their trustworthiness:

Ephedra

To me this is the quintessential story of how the diet industry works:

Ephedra was used in diet supplements to help speed the metabolism. In 1997 concerns started to build over serious side effects. That lead to the proposed ban by the FDA on products containing 8mg or more and stricter labeling at lower doses including the disclosure of the known health risks which included heart attack, stroke and death.

Instead, the Ephedra Education Council was created by the supplement industry to lobby against the restrictions.  They bankrolled a “scientific review” by a private consulting firm which found that Ephedra was safe.  They used this report and their deep pockets to lobby against the labeling requirements.  They also attempted to stop a study confirming the wide discrepancies between the label and actual amount of Ephedra in supplements from being published.

Metabolife – the manufacturer of the best selling brand of Ephedra supplement – kept 14,000 complaints about adverse effects from the FDA and spent over $4 million lobbying against state-specific legislation in Texas.  Meanwhile on the National Stage Senator Orrin Hatch questioned the scientific basis for the FDA’s proposal (because his degree in history and background working in the Mormon church really qualifies him for this).  Oh wait, turns out he forgot to tell anyone that his son was working for a firm hired to lobby both Congress and the FDA on behalf of Ephedra, and that the same five pharmaceutical companies and their industry trade association that paid his son’s lobby firm also donated $172,500 to a charitable foundation that the \Senator had started.  Oops.  In 2000 Business Week reported that that the FDAs regulation efforts were “beaten down by deep-pocketed industry lobbying” and the FDA withdrew the proposed labeling changes and restrictions.

When professional baseball player Steve Bechler died and the medical examiner reported that Ephedra toxicity played a “significant role” the FDA re-opened its case to regulate Ephedra. Senator Orrin Hatch participated in what Time Magazine called a “dazzling display of hypocrisy” when he said “it has been obvious to even the most casual observer that problems exist”, and then declared FDA regulation of Ephedra “long overdue.”  Finally in 2004 after over 15,000 complaints and a number of deaths, the FDA  issued a final rule banning the sale of Ephedra-containing dietary supplements.

The question of if anyone should be allowed to lobbying the government agency  that is in charge of our health and safety is a whole ‘nother blog.

Fen-Phen

Diet pill marketed by Wyeth.  In 1994 Fred Wilson, a Wyeth official, indicated concerns about fenfluramine’s labeling because it showed only four cases of pulmonary hypertension when a total of 41 had been observed, however action was not taken until 1996.  In 1995 the same company introduced Redux in the hopes that there would be fewer side effects.  Leo Lutwak, the FDA’s medical officer insisted that the drug contain a black box warning of pulmonary hypertension risks and refused to approve the drug without it.  So under pressure from lobbyists the FDA management moved the drug off Lutwak’s desk and assigned it to someone else who approved it with no black box warning for marketing in 1996.  In the end 300,000 claims were settled including some posthumously because pulmonary hypertension can be fatal.

The Snackwells Effect

Ah the non-fat craze.  After we decided that “the problem” was not, in fact, sugar, but before we decided that “the problem” was carbs, I mean meat, wait make that gluten, we were sure that fat was the scourge of our society.  Companies started to make everything low fat and fat free and the Snackwells Effect refers to the subsequent finding that  people consumed more calories of low fat and fat free foods than they did of full fat foods. It’s also worth noting that many of these foods were much higher in sugar than their full-fat counterparts.   I don’t actually think either of those is the worst thing about the low fat craze.  I think the worst thing is that it encouraged the widespread chemicalization of food and the belief that eating food chock full of chemicals but with a lower fat content was somehow nutritionally better than eating whole foods.  I think that’s crazy but we’ve talked about that before.

Olestra/Olean

I’m giving this part of the low-fat/fat-free crazy special attention.  Olean is a fat substitute that appeared in a number of Proctor and Gamble products, perhaps most notably “WOW” potato chips.  And by that they meant “WOW  these chips have a health warning label but people are still buying them!”.  In fact, the bag that these puppies came in legally had to say that they “may cause abdominal cramping, loose stools and inhibit the absorption of vitamins and other nutrients”.  This is somehow healthier than potatoes and oil?  Products with Olean are still available.

So if you’re still wondering why I don’t jump on the new bandwagons and take Alli (a diet pill whose label suggests that users  bring a extra pair of pants with them to deal with unexpected anal leakage), or give up gluten because it’s the diet demon of the day, or whatever the hell diet Oprah is schilling right now, then suffice it to say that I don’t trust these people for reasons that I hope are now obvious.  Even if their suggestions made any kind of sense I’d still be wary.  Luckily my Health at Every Size/Intuitive Eating plan makes WAY more sense to me than anything else out there so it was an easy choice to skip putting my life on the line for a pill that may only be on the market to keep a Senator’s son employed with a high-paying lobbying firm.

If you were reading the blog last year you’ve already seen this one but as I hear more and more people bemoaning swimsuit season I thought it was worth repeating.  (Also, Golda Poretsky who inspired the post and I are doing a workshop in NYC on the 21st that I’m super excited about! Check here for details)

Do you know Golda Poretsky?  You should.  She is a very cool woman doing great work in the Body Positive Community. Her site is Body Love Wellness and I highly recommend it.

Yesterday she tweeted;  “Rec’d a link to “How Not To Look Fat In A Swimsuit”. Wld ♥ to see “How Not To Obsess Abt Looking Fat In A Swimsuit & F-ing Enjoy Yourself”

Well Golda, your wish is my command!

Seriously, let’s talk about this.  It seems that almost every woman I know, of any size, starts to have panic attacks the first time she sees swimsuits out on the floor of her favorite store;  their pesky cheerfulness belying their greater purpose of  prodding us into going on insane cabbage soup diets and considering a move to Alaska.

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t personally spend much time at lakes, rivers, oceans, pools or water parks.  It has nothing to do with my size or how I feel about wearing a bathing suit.  I am half Irish and half German so my skin can only achieve two colors:  translucent and lobster.  I’ve tried every sunscreen in the world and nothing works.  But don’t cry for me Argentina, I don’t really enjoy being in the sun so it all works out.  I’m a chlorinated, heated water, ambient temperature controlled, indoor pool kind of girl – I’m not high maintenance, I’m highly maintained.

That being said, I will strut around my gym in a bathing suit with no worries.  Here are a few reasons why:

1.  It’s my BODY.  I live with it 100% of the time.  It does awesome things for me like breathing, and walking, and swimming and I decided long ago that I am not going to allow anyone to convince me to hate or be ashamed of  something that I am with 100% of the time for the rest of my life.  I get to choose how I feel about my body – nobody else can make me feel good or bad, it’s on me.

2.  Because it’s a pool and when you go to the pool, you wear a swimsuit. It’s not for vanity – it’s practical.  The last time I was at the gym ready to make use of the pool there was a “thin to average size” (probably a size 8 or 10)  woman in a large t-shirt with a towel wrapped around her legs and all the way to her ankles.  She scooted to the edge of the pool and, in a move that I can only describe as ninja-esque, threw the towel behind her as she jumped into the water as fast as she could whilst grabbing a kickboard off the side.  But her Crouching Tiger Hidden Swimwear moves could not mask the fact that she was wearing control top pantyhose under her suit.  She looked at me and said “Nobody should have to see these legs without hose on”.  Before I could reply, she realized that her shirt was caught on the side railing, then her pantyhose got caught on her kickboard.  While I swam laps she spent most of the time dealing with being in the water with a giant shirt and pantyhose.  I am simply not willing to put up with that kind of inconvenience, or  have my technique interrupted by a ginormous swatch of cloth which, when it is wet, hides nothing anyway; and pantyhose which I will not wear under any circumstances in the world, ever.

3.  I do not care if people are offended by my body.  People are allowed to be offended by whatever they want and it’s really none of my business.  I’m offended by people who I perceive to be too easily offended, but it turns out nobody gives a damn which is as it should be.  It is my BODY, if we all treated each other with basic human respect it would be impossible to be offended by someone else’s body.  The very idea is ludicrous to me. Regardless, it is not my job to protect people’s delicate sensibilities – there are at least three alternate cardinal directions in which they can look if they don’t want to look at me, they are free to choose one.

4.  Hypocrisy is an ugly thing.  It always seems like the same group of people who are  telling me that I should lose weight and are subsequently  offended by my body in a swimsuit.  While I would prefer that they just shut up, I insist that they choose – you can’t complain about my weight and then complain about what I do to stay fit.

5. It is maddening to me that the diet industry makes 60 BILLION dollars a year convincing women to hate themselves.  They create fear and uncertainty by saying things like “Swimsuit season is just around the corner, are you ready to wear a swimsuit?”  Well, let’s see here…  Swimsuit?  Check.  Body to put it on?  Check.  Yup, I’m all set thanks.  Plus I think I’ll keep my money you bloodsucking leeches.

6.  People can see me.  So they know how big I am whether I’m in a swimsuit, or jeans and a t-shirt.  If they are shocked at my size in a swimsuit, they should have been paying better attention.  That’s just a big sack of not-my-problem.

I realize that my swimsuit preferences are not everyone’s which is awesome.  Not everyone, regardless of size, is comfortable with how much skin a swimsuit shows.  Here are some more ideas  to help you stop obsessing and start having fun in the sun (or the oh-so-flattering incandescent glow of the overhead lights at the gym).

1. Alternative Swimsuits.  These are often created for women who want to keep to specific religious clothing guidelines or who just want a more modest look.  I did a quick Google search and found http://www.modestkini.com/.  I’m not affiliated with them at all so I make no guarantees, but it will give you an idea of what’s out there (and some of their plus size swimwear is actually modeled by plus-sized women.  Woot!)

2.  Fabulous Cover ups:  If there’s a particular part of your body that you prefer to keep covered for whatever reason, an (aptly-named) cover-up might be just the thing.  Here are some examples (again, no affiliation, check out the vendors before you buy!)

3.  Safety in numbers.  Go with a group of people who make you feel good about yourself and focus on the fun and not on any body insecurities you might have.  Think about how fantastic your body feels when you are swimming, or going down a water slide, or splashing in the waves.

4.  Reality check.  One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain “I’ve had thousands of problems in my life, most of which never actually happened”  When I’m worrying about something I try to remember that I am wasting energy on something that is not actually part of reality.  So instead I…

5.  …Expect the best, plan for the worst.  Think about what your true fears are about going out in a swimsuit.  Write them down and then create a plan to deal with each of them.  Are you afraid people will say something mean to you?  Create some scripting and practice it until you feel comfortable (you might check out my “How Dare You” post). Afraid of chaffing?  Hie thee to Google and read up on the various lotions, powders etc. that can help with that, or look into swimsuits that can help. Worried people will talk about you behind your back?  Maybe get over that – I actually think that’s the best possible outcome because frankly I don’t want to hear it anyway.

In the end of course it’s your choice.  For my part,  I’m not willing to allow my options for fun, activity, movement etc. to be controlled by what other people might think or say.  If my own fears or insecurities are getting in the way I try to find a way over (modest swimsuit), under (cover up), or through (F this, I’m wearing a two-piece) the fear and insecurity because I’ve found that very often the pure joy lies just on the other side.

I’ve had a lot of people comment about the way I’ve handled this week’s onslaught of fat hatred.  I was actually thinking about that tonight as I  followed a link to one of the forums that generated the bullying, abusive comments and I read the following quote:

“I researched her and believe that she is very active and extremely accomplished both physically and otherwise,  but she doesn’t seem to understand that being fat cancels that all out.  If she is fat she will never have any credibility, and nobody will ever care what she says and that’s how it should be. She needs to get that being fat means she doesn’t matter.”

This is really more plain stupidity than I want to address directly, but here’s what popped into my mind:

I recently read that a study by the University of North Carolina showed 56% of NFL players are “obese”.  (Based on BMI which we know is a crap measurement but that’s what we use nowadays until we decide to abandon lazy medicine for the actual pursuit of health).

The average NFL Salary is almost a million dollars a year.

William “Refrigerator” Perry was an NFL player.  He stood 6’2 and weighed 382 pounds, his body mass index was 49.4.

I am a competitive dancer.  At 5’4 and 284 pounds my body mass index is 48.7.

The Fridge was flexible:

I am flexible:

He trained

I train

He had functional strength

I have functional strength

He was an admitted alcoholic who would sometimes drink 2 cases of beer a night and vodka by the gallon, and he paid no attention to healthy eating and nearly died because of it.  His behavior was rewarded:  He was revered as an athlete, paid millions of dollars, and made into an action figure.  Being fat certainly didn’t cancel out his accomplishments.

I practice Health at Every Size, eat reasonably, workout and dance very regularly, never started drinking and am in perfect health.

I got called a “Fucking Fatass” over 150 times in the last two days. Twenty three people said they wanted me to die, and one person said that they wanted to punch me over and over and watch me die.  Perfect strangers called me a “Fat Cunt”, “Fat Fuck”, “Stupid Fuck” and told me  “I hate everything about you.”

But I got off easier than the Fridge.  Everyone loved him and he apparently hated himself so much that he nearly killed himself through sheer neglect of his health.  Apparently there are people who hate me but I love myself, take care of myself, and enjoy perfect health.

The moral of this whole story for me is that I get to choose how I feel about myself and how I treat myself.  I am, in fact,  THE ONLY person in charge of this.  So, it follows that what other people think or say about me doesn’t affect how I feel about myself or how I treat myself unless I allow it to.

To be clear, I expect my decisions about my health to be respected and I think a really good place to start with that is by respecting the decisions of others. If you choose to hate yourself or your body because of how other people treat you, or if you choose to neglect your health because you want to rebel against society or you just don’t feel like it, or for whatever reason, you can absolutely do that.  It doesn’t hurt, disrespect, or negate anyone else’s choice and so I  respect your decision.

I’ve made my choice and once I sorted out how I will choose  to feel about myself and treat myself, the rest is about living openly and honestly and demanding and fighting for the basic human respect that I deserve and require.  More difficult than it sounds to be sure but but much easier, in my experience, if I start by respecting myself.