Super Heavyweight Olympic weigh lifter Holley Mangold has signed up for the next season of biggest loser.  I’ve received a lot of e-mails and messages from blog readers asking me how I feel about it.  I had considered Holley a fit fatty role model and even participated in her fundraising for the last Olympics so it was rough for me when I found out that she had chosen to go on the Roman Colosseum Gladiators  the biggest loser.  It took me a while to sort out my feelings but here’s what I’ve got.

Holley is allowed to choose to try to lose weight.  I do not believe that I can be in integrity by demanding the right to practice Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size while simultaneously attempting to limit other people’s choices.  Holley has information and world class coaches available to her and she has made her decision to, in her words, “be the in-shape, smaller girl.”

Holley is allowed to go on the biggest loser.  Whether it’s because she genuinely believes it will help her with her next Olympic bid, or they gave her a bunch of money, or she wants to solve social stigma through weight loss and by bowing to the tremendous social pressure to be thin, or whatever her reasons are, it is absolutely her right to choose to go on the show.

I think that the Biggest Loser is a horrific show that emotionally and physically abuses fat people as entertainment. For a first hand account, I highly recommend Golda Poretsky’s Interview with former contestant Kai Hibbard (“I believe that  . . . most of the contestants, felt like it was okay to treat us like we were subhuman when we were there, that the ends justify the means.  If they were going to make us thin, then it was totally worth it to humiliate us and treat us poorly all the way along.  I just don’t feel that way.”)  But Holley isn’t required to subscribe to my beliefs about the show.

So what it comes down to for me is that Holley Mangold is not a role model for me.  And she’s not required to be, Holley never asked to be my role model, she never agreed to be my role model.  I picked her and, it turns out, I chose poorly – or more specifically, she used to meet my criteria but no longer does.   So now the only question is what to do about it.  Holley’s choice to lend her name to a franchise that I strongly believe serves to stigmatize and oppress me and other fat people leads to my choice to no longer lend my support to Holley.  Like all of my decisions around money and activism, I do my best to support things that support me in return.  Now it’s time to go role model shopping.

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

Yesterday I wrote about the issue of people who suggest that fat people are responsible for accommodating their size bigotry by wearing what they think we should wear.  You can read the whole post here.  It got a lot of positive reactions and some really strong reactions, both on the blog and around the internet where it got picked up, from people who said things like:

• What’s wrong with wearing flattering clothes?
• Why is it wrong to want to look my best?
• I’m short and I prefer to wear heels because they make my legs look longer.
• Some clothes look better on some bodies than others, that’s a fact.
• I like to wear make-up so that my skin looks better and I feel more confident
• I prefer to hide my rolls.
• I like to wear shapewear to smooth out my stomach bumps

I said it in the original piece and I’ll say it again – people are allowed to wear what they want for whatever reason they want, including an attempt to get as much societal approval as possible, or to try to get as close as possible to the current stereotype of beauty.

I was not trying to tell people how to live or what to wear.  What I was suggesting was that it might be worth thinking about the social constructs that dictate what is “flattering.” Why do we, as a society, think that certain looks are better on certain bodies? Why is being seen as taller also seen as better (up to a certain point where women are seen as “too tall” and given suggestions on how to not appear less tall.)  Why are long legs “better” than short legs? What’s wrong with rolls and cellulite?  How do racism, sexism, ableism, ageism and homophobia play into our ideas of “flattering.”  Why do we, as a society, value clear skin – even if the make-up we wear to give the appearance of clear skin causes breakouts and ultimately skin damage.  Why does “looking our best” mean working toward being as close as possible to a single stereotype of beauty.

In short, why do we believe that looking our best means spending our time, money, and energy making our bodies look different through what amounts to a series of optical illusions?  Why can’t we learn to perceive beauty in every body instead of trying to make every body fit a single perception of beauty.

Again, I’m not saying it’s wrong to do these things – I’m suggesting we consider the roots of why we do them, and decide if we feel like that’s ok, which is a decision each of us gets to make.  Then what’s important is to be able to make our choices while not trying to push our ideas onto other people, or judge them through our lens.

As I said in my piece “F*ck Flattering” – you get to dress how you want for whatever reason you choose.  You can pick clothes because you like them, because you think they will gain social approval for you, because they highlight your shape, because they disguise your shape, because your significant other likes them, because your mom hates them, because you think they are flattering, because you think they are unflattering, or for any other reason.  It’s your body and they are your clothes and you are the boss of your underpants and also the boss of your regular pants.

Something that we are not often told is that we do have the option to throw off our jacket and give flattering the finger with our arm fat waving unrestricted in our tank tops, our breasts comfortable in a bra that neither lifts nor separates (or no bra at all), our skirt showing every roll of our stomachs, and our leggings showing every dimple of cellulite on our thighs.  We get to choose how we dress our bodies and why, we can choose to wear things that are flattering by some definition of flattering or not.  But no matter what we choose, I think it’s important to remember that we do not owe anybody flattering, and nobody owes it to us.

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

There is a post over on This is Thin Privilege written by a girl who was told that she couldn’t wear the same shorts as a thinner student because she didn’t “present” the same way as the other student.  This highlights a particular kind of fat bigotry wherein fat bodies are judged to look “wrong” doing the same thing that thin bodies do, just because they are fat.

Wrong can take a lot of meanings in this context, one of the first is the idea that they look obscene (remember the Lane Bryant ad that showed about 25% of the skin of a Victoria’s secret ad but was controversial because it was judged look obscene  -obscene here meaning “omg big boobs!”?  Or, as in the example from above, fat bodies are seen as un-presentable, or needing to be more covered/hidden than other bodies.

And how many times have we heard the “fat girl” rules of fashion – black clothes absorb light and hide our shape (aka “slimming”), choose clothes based on their ability to make you look as much like the thin ideal as possible (aka “Flattering“) and that anything else is an affront to everyone who sees us and a moral failing on our part.

This type of situation is often about a bigot asking to be accommodated by a fat person.  The assumption being that if someone doesn’t like fat bodies, doesn’t like looking at fat bodies, doesn’t think that fat bodies should do certain things or dress in certain ways, then the people with those fat bodies have a responsibility – nay, an obligation – to “fix” the situation by doing what the fat hater wants us to do.  As if the solution might not be for them to get the hell over their bigotry, or at least practice the ancient art of looking at something else.

When the teacher told the student that the shorts were inappropriate on her fatter body but not on the thinner body, what he was actually saying was “I’m a size bigot, accommodate me.”  Our society is set up to accommodate fat bigotry in many ways, perhaps the most insidious is convincing fat people to take an active part in it by policing ourselves and other fat people for failing to follow the fat girl rules of dressing.

Fat people are allowed to make clothing choices for any reason they want – including dressing for maximum societal approval, as long as they are only choosing for themselves and not trying to tell other fat people what they should wear (hello Underpants Rule, my old friend.)  My suggestion is not that all fat people dress a certain way, but that we should considering being very conscious as to why we make the choices we make, and what that means. So if we choose to dress for societal approval we are keenly aware of why we are doing it so that we don’t get confused and think that there is anything wrong with our actual bodies – rather than realizing that there is a lot wrong with society and that our bodies are fine.

When it comes to the idea of fat bodies looking “wrong,”  the choices I make about what to wear have been less important than my ability to realize when a bigot is asking me to accommodate them, and the fact that I am under absolutely no obligation to do so. If you struggle with feeling like fat bodies (maybe even including yours) look “wrong” then a big part of the problem may be that the media doesn’t seem to be able to show us with heads and faces, let alone as positive role models.  So I suggest taking some time each day to find pictures of fat bodies and work to increase your skill at perceiving beauty.  Here are some places to start:

The Adipositivity Project (NSFW) by Substantia Jones (I’ve been an Adiposer a couple of times!) She even has an awesome Calendar (I’m Miss May!)

The Fit Fatties Forum has photo and video galleries of people of various sizes doing everything from belly dancing to sword fighting

More of Me to Love has cool things  in their fun stuff section (and they do a monthly deal for my members)

VoluptuArt has amazing pieces to look at and buy.

Jodee Rose’s artwork (NSFW) is phenomenal  Her pinup work and Her portrait work are both amazing and she did the logo for More Cabaret!

I have a gallery on this blog.

More Cabaret has a gallery

Uppity Fatty on Tumblr (NSFW)

Pink by Aerosmith is a really cool video of lots of different bodies and ages.  Possibly NSFW.

Feel free to add your own in the comments.  Go forth and admire some fatties!

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

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

If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

I am on the mailing list for the IDEA Health and Fitness newsletter.  I think that I got signed up automatically when I renewed by fitness pro certification but I don’t really know. Usually their stuff is just low-level annoying but today’s subject line read “Obese Clients:  Are you Meeting Their Real Needs?”  Covering my eyes with my hand and peering through my fingers I clicked on the link.  (TW – the quotes from the article, which may be triggering for all the reasons you might imagine – are indented.)

It started with a thud

We talked to obese (and formerly obese) consumers—and the fitness pros who work with them—to find out how they feel, what they think of the fitness industry and how we can better help them become healthy and vibrant.

Maybe let’s not start by assuming that fat people are not healthy and vibrant when they walk in the door.  Plenty of people, of all sizes, choose personal training to enhance an existing program.  If my goal is to increase my bench press by 30% and my new trainer’s goal is for me to become vibrant (whatever the hell that means in the fitness world), we’re going to have a problem, though not as big of a problem as we’re going to have if they think that they can ascertain my level of health from my body size.

Few [Fitness professionals] understand the powerlessness experienced by those who are more than 50 pounds overweight,” says Lisa Williams of Lawrenceville, Georgia. “I think it’s difficult for them to realize the self-talk that goes on in an overweight person’s mind [and] that constantly keeps them in a defeated, negative mindset.

What with the who now?  Unless Lisa is psychic, then she is just making assumptions and wild guesses about how everyone who is more than 50 pounds “overweight” feels and why, and that’s just a horrible idea.  First of all, plenty of fat people feel powerful and aren’t constantly in a defeated, negative mindset.  For those who do feel powerless and constantly in a defeated, negative mindset, blaming it on their weight is a convenient if completely fallacious way to shift the blame away from the tremendous amount of shame, stigma and stereotyping that fat people have to deal with – plenty of which is at the hands of the fitness industry and fitness professionals.

Gwenevere Bridge of Asheville, North Carolina…says. “Most [Fitness Professionals} have always been athletic, and their bodies are light and strong. They spend their time either trying to top their own fitness, by tricking out their routines, or just blithely maintaining a [fit] lifestyle, which is where the overweight person would like to go.” Bridge, who is working with a personal trainer, believes fitness professionals should look at obese bodies as “injured” because of “restrictions” caused by excess fat.

It seems like Gwenevere is making the super common mistake of assuming that her  experience being fat is every fat person’s experience.  Fat people’s experiences are as varied as any group that shares a single physical characteristic and a ton of stigma, stereotyping and prejudice.  Gwen’s experience is not so statistically significant as to be extrapolatable to all fat people.  So we can’t assume that all fat people aren’t athletic, aren’t trying to top our own fitness, or aren’t blithely maintaining a fit lifestyle.  Also, while Gwen is allowed to do anything she wants with her body including trying to lose weight and suggesting that people see it as injured, it would be great if she did not recommend that all fat bodies be treated as injured, or assume restrictions due to size.

Manning says being obese is like “starting at the bottom of the mountain.” “You make slow gains and most likely hit obstacles and have a few setbacks,” he says.

Oh holy crap.  Being obese is like having a certain ratio of weight and height as defined (and redifined) by the BMI chart – that is what obese people have in common.   Apparently IDEA doesn’t know it, but there is actually a super secret club for people who make slow gains and most likely hit obstacles and have a few setbacks in the pursuit of fitness goals, it’s called “Everybody Who Pursues Fitness Goals” and they meet in the locker room.

Nobody, of any size, is obligated to pursue fitness at any level for any reason ever.  People who choose fitness as a hobby are no more laudable than people who choose anything else for a hobby.  If you want to pursue fitness and you want to work with a trainer,  then you deserve someone who will work with you on your fitness goals, not try to be a therapist or a psychic, and check their own stereotypes at the door.  If you are interested in talking about fitness from a weight neutral perspective, in a group that would only use the phrase “run to the couch or the cookie” as part of a delightful scavenger hunt, you can check out the Fit Fatties Forum www.fitfatties.org

You can comment on the article here (I certainly did!)

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

 

Aziz Ansari is a comic whose work I really like.  I’ve seen him do stand-up and act on Parks and Recreation and I’m a fan of his.

I am a fan of stand-up comedy in general.  I’ve even done a little myself and though I’m certainly not great at it, I’m thinking about getting better and doing more because I think that comedy can be a place for social justice work, a place to talk about difficult things when people’s defenses are down, and I think that helping people laugh – whether it’s to get a point across or just helping them find the funny for a little while –  is a worthy pursuit.  Because of all that, I have a much wider berth for what is ok in comedy than I would for regular conversations. I’m still not a fan of getting cheap laughs by playing off stereotypes for any group – I like my comedy to be smarter than that (paging Eddie Izzard to the stage please.)

For those reasons I’m not a fan of roasts – I don’t see them having a social conscience or doing anything other than giving those who are roasting an opportunity for cheap laughs at others’ expense.  I find them typically rampant with racism, sexism, homophobia, trans* phobia and fat phobia which I don’t think are hilarious.  Before someone freaks out about freedom of speech, let me be clear that I’m not saying that they shouldn’t be allowed, I’m saying that they’re not my thing.

Apparently comedian Aziz Ansari had enough at Comedy Central’s roast of James Franco.  He used his time to take the other roasters to task for their racist and homophobic jokes based on cheap stereotypes.  Yay!  Then he punctuated his point by making a fat joke based on cheap stereotypes.  What the hell dude?

Aziz got almost all the way there, then he tripped on his own prejudice right at the finish line. This happens sometimes with people – they can see their point of view (“I should be legally able to get a divorce even though my religion says it’s wrong”), but they can’t see the issue if applied to other people (“Gay people should not be legally allowed to get married because my religion says it’s wrong.”)

I think that when you find these disconnections, the first step is often to gently point out what’s happening – sometimes that’s all that’s needed to help someone see the disconnect.  Regardless, I think it’s important to note that it happens and that there’s really no justification for it and any attempt at justification ends up sounding like “But, but, but, I want to get cheap laughs by continuing to pile the stigma, shame and stereotyping onto fat people! *petulant foot stomp*” which is a pretty difficult position to defend from a place of logic. So if people try to rationalize this away and you notice that they end up sounding like idiots, it’s not you – it’s them.

If you want to let Aziz know that it’s no more ok to make jokes based on cheap stereotypes of fat people than it is to make those same jokes about any other group of people, you can communicate with him in the following ways:

You can leave a comment on the Youtube Video 

Tweet Him  @azizansari

Find him on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/azizansari

Find him on Tumblr  http://azizisbored.tumblr.com/

Like my blog?  Here’s more of my stuff!

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If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen

Reader Julie e-mailed me a question that I get a lot  – how can a thin person best be an ally to Fat Activism?  First of all, thank you for asking – I always really appreciate when people ask about this and I want to take my best shot at answering the question.

Let me start by saying that is exactly what it is – my best shot.  I can only give you my opinion about how to be an ally to me as a fat person and fat activist.  Of course the community of fat people is as varied as any community comprised of those who share a single physical characteristic and a ton of stigma and oppression.  Unsurprisingly, that means that we have different ideas about fat activism, we ascribe to different theories of anti-oppression work and different interpretations of those theories, and we have different ideas of the best way to be an ally – and an activist for that matter.

And that’s just fat activists, there are fat people who aren’t interested in fat activism at all, including those who prefer to attempt to solve social stigma through weight loss, or believe that they don’t face stigma for their size which is absolutely their right.  I don’t say this to discourage you, I just want to be up front about the fact that if you want to be an ally it’s a reality.  It’s also not unique to fat activism – it is a situation that faces everyone who wishes to be an ally to oppressed communities. So, to recap, I’m happy to give you my thoughts, but I would also recommend asking other fat activists as well.

I believe that for those thin people who are interested in doing fat activism work there are levels that you can choose based on where you are at personally as well as in any given situation.  They aren’t hard and fast and you can totally skip around but they form a start.

Level 1 – Personal

Start with yourself, consider doing the following:

• Listen Part 1 – listen to what fat people are saying, read our blogs, come to our talks, ask questions to those who are open to that, seek out diverse opinions – fat people of color, fat queer and trans* people, fat people with disabilities, inbetweenies and super fats etc.
• Listen Part 2 – avoid making every conversation about fat shaming into a conversation about how thin people experience self hatred/body shaming etc.  Yes, it happens.  Yes, it sucks. Yes it’s wrong and yes it deserves to be talked about, but not in every space where fat issues are talked about.  Part of being an ally is knowing when to make the situation about the group you are being an ally to, and learning ways to empathize other than telling stories about how something like that happened to you.  ( Just so you know, this one is super tough for me in spaces where I’m trying to be an ally.  I’m a storyteller and that’s how I was taught to empathize and I still struggle with it!) Though I think that there is one, I don’t think you even have to believe that there is a contextual difference between thin shaming and fat shaming to understand that the issues of thin people do not have to be addressed in every fat activism space all the time.
• The world bombards us with stereotypes about fat people, it wouldn’t be surprising if some of them have made their way into your subconscious so no need to freak out with the guilt when it happens.  Just notice when you have “scripts” play about stereotypes of fat people (ie:  you see a fat person at McDonalds and start to think negative things about them) and interrupt those thoughts (ie:  notice how many thin people are also at McDonalds, remind your self that this 20 second moment of someone’s life is not indicative of anything, and isn’t enough information from which to extrapolate, remind yourself that people get to eat whatever they want.) Lather, rinse, repeat.
• Stop body snarking – stop making negative comments about other bodies, including yours
• Stop giving attention to body snarking – don’t click on best/worst bodies lists or articles about how stars have gained weight or lost weight and don’t discuss them.  Refuse to participate in conversations about it.  Walk away, or give your opinion of Mylie Cyrus’s performance but don’t compare her body to Lady Gaga’s and point out that it’s not cool.
• Stop engaging in diet talk  -including food moralizing (good food, bad food, sinful food, guilt-free food etc.) and a “crime and punishment” view of food (I ate a cookie so I have to do x amount of time on the elliptical…)

Level 2 – Your Social Circle

• Post fat activism things on your social media
• Bring fat activism up in conversations:  when people are discussing dieting, talk about your Health at Every Size practice, when the subject of weight comes up, bring up things that you have read or heard about in fat activism
• Interrupt body snarking; It would be my suggestion that you do so gently, I tend to use global statements to help defray defensiveness – something like “I wish we lived in a world where all bodies could be respected” or “I wish we lived in a world where women weren’t encouraged to attack each other” etc.  Something that can start a conversation without saying “I wish you would shut the hell up with your negative body talk!”
• Make your plans fat friendly:  Does that restaurant have tables with chairs that don’t have arms?  Does that theater have arms that raise?  When you announce the plans, put these things in the announcement subtly so that your fat friends will know, without asking, that it’s a fat friendly environment (ie:  we’ll be going to Jack’s restaurant – we’ll be at the big table in the back with the comfy armless chairs.)
• Remember that the problem isn’t that your fat friends need these things, the problem is that the business should have planned to accommodate people of all sizes and didn’t.

Level 3 – Your Community and Beyond

• Insist that everyone should have what you have:  If you can get on a plane and fit comfortably in a seat, ask why everyone doesn’t get that experience. If you can shop at a variety of clothing stores with a variety of styles and price levels, ask why everyone doesn’t have that option.  (This is part of the concept of thin privilege.) Write an e-mail insisting that they start providing the service that you receive to people of all sizes.
• Join projects – when you see fat activists creating petitions or starting letter writing campaigns add your voice.  Sometimes fat activists get shut down based on the premise that our activism is an attempt to “justify our fat,”  I think the fact that thin fat activists aren’t subjected to that criticism can have real advantages.
• Put your money where your activism is:  If a venue doesn’t accommodate fat people (doesn’t have chairs without arms, doesn’t have armrests that raise, etc.) don’t spend your money there and tell them why – insist that they fix it. Walk into Lulu Lemon or Abercrombie and Fitch and let them know why they’ve lost you as a customer until they want your fat friends as customers (yes, even though businesses are allowed to choose target demographics.)
• Speak up against potential fat shaming at work – company “biggest loser” or other weight loss contests, wellness messaging that thin is good, fat is bad etc.
• Work to create size-based anti-discrimination policies, ordinances, and laws. Work to proactively create spaces that are size friendly at your job, places that you volunteer etc.

So that’s a start, if you have other thoughts on being a thin fat activist, please feel free to add them to the comments. If you are, or want to be, a thin fat activist then thanks, I appreciate it.

Like my blog?  Here’s more of my stuff!

Become a member: For just ten bucks a month you can keep this blog ad-free, support the activism work I do, and get deals from cool businesses Click here for details

Interviews with Amazing Activists!!  Help Activists tell our movement’s history in their own words.  Support In Our Own Words:  A Fat Activist History Project!

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

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

If my selling things on the blog makes you uncomfortable, you might want to check out this post.  Thanks for reading! ~Ragen