A recent study by researchers at UCLA found that if girls had been called “too fat” by someone by age 10, they were more likely to be “obese” at age 19, and that the more people who told her she was “too fat” the more her chances of being “obese” increased.  The study included controlled for income, race, childhood weight and puberty age.

Full disclosure:  I reference A. Janet Tomiyama’s work often – including her work with Traci Mann –   I have tremendous respect for both of them as researchers doing great solid work in an area that is really controversial, and I’ve even briefly corresponded with Janet about a piece I wrote about her work for iVillage.

The study isn’t really what I want to talk about though, what I want to talk about are the reactions to this study and the hypotheses that people are drawing from it.  As I read articles about this around the internet the most common idea I’ve heard is that when girls are called “too fat” they probably resort to “emotional overeating” or “stress eating” and that leads to weight gain.

I’d like to suggest another hypothesis.  I think when girls are called “too fat” they resort to dieting (often at the recommendation of authority figures including their parents, teachers, doctors etc.) and that leads to them to gain weight.

Research from the University of Minnesota found that none of the behaviors being used by adolescents for weight-control purposes predicted weight loss, but they did predict significant weight gain.

Earlier research by Tomiyama and Mann found that most adults regain the weight they lost and many (from one to two thirds) gain back more than they lost.

We know that the most likely outcome of intentional weight loss interventions (whether they are called a diet, a lifestyle change etc.) in adults is weight regain – often more than what the person lost – and we have no reason to believe that dieting works better for kids.

So maybe the issue isn’t so much about trying to keep girls from “emotional overeating” (a questionable concept which is a subject for a whole other blog) but trying to keep them from dieting – which is to say trying to keep them from feeding their bodies less food than they need to survive (while those bodies are still developing, let’s not forget) in an effort to manipulate their body size.

I’ve also seen a lot of people using this as support for the idea of banning the use of the world “fat”. I vehemently disagree with this strategy.  The issue I see here is that, however well meaning, saying that we shouldn’t call kids fat suggests that being fat is such a terrible thing that we shouldn’t utter the word out loud. But fat kids actually exist, so making fat kids into Voldemort by making fat the “physical descriptor that must not be named” actually further shames and stigmatizes them, whether we call them fat or not.

Girls (and kids of all gender identities) deserve to live in a world that encourages them to love and appreciate their bodies and gives them the information and access to make choices about caring for those bodies, and I think a great first step would be to end body shaming and negative body talk and celebrate body diversity.

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May 6 is International No Diet Day!  In honor of INDD I took some time today to reflect on the many, many years I wasted dieting and came up with 10 reasons that I’ll never diet again – and let me clarify that my definition of dieting is any attempt to use eating and exercise to manipulate my body size. Let me also clarify that I am only speaking for myself here – your mileage may vary.

1.  I refuse to manipulate my body size to try to conform to a social stereotype of beauty.

2.  I refuse to attempt to manipulate my body size to try to solve social stigma, bullying or oppression.  The cure for bullying, social stigma and oppression is not weight loss, it’s ending bullying, social stigma, and oppression.  The problem is not my body, it’s people who bully, stigmatize and oppress me because of my body size.

3.  Of course health is not a guarantee, an obligation or a barometer of worthiness – we each get to choose how highly we prioritize our health and the path that we want to take to get there.  For me it’s important to know that research suggests that habits are a much better indicator of future health than body size.

4. There is not a single study of any method of intentional weight loss (whether you call it dieting, lifestyle change or something else)  has shown it to be successful for more than a tiny fraction of people.  Even the diet companies’ own studies show that they don’t work.

5.  Even if I managed to be part of the tiny percentage of people who succeed at long term weight loss, there is not a single study that shows that it would make me healthier, in fact, the little research that exists suggests that it wouldn’t

6.  During the time that I was attempting intentional weight loss my body size would decrease in the short term, then increase over time no matter how strict I kept to my habits (which, it turned out, is exactly what the research said would happen.)  I wasn’t able to stabilize my body size until I started practicing Health at Every Size.

7.  During the time that I was attempting intentional weight loss I had unhealthy relationships with food, exercise and my body.  A focus on appreciating my body and supporting it through healthy habits has lead to my having healthy relationships with food, exercise, and my body.

8.  Three words:  Uncontrolled Anal Seepage.  And a whole bunch of things that I was told were “healthy” as a dieter, often by doctors, that don’t make any damn sense

9.  I don’t want my money to be part of the over 60 billion dollars that we spend every year on the diet industry – an industry that has lost so many deceptive trade practice lawsuits that they are actually required to remind us that their product doesn’t actually work every time they advertise it.  I think that there are a lot better things we could buy for 60 billion dollars.

10.  Diets don’t work – I definitely gave dieting the old college try and it didn’t make me thinner, healthier, happier, or anything other than miserable.  I think I’m right, but even if I’m wrong I choose Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size.

Happy No Diet Day!

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Gabourey Sidibe recently gave a beautiful speech on confidence:

“I hate that [being asked about the source of her confidence] I always wonder if that’s the first thing they ask Rihanna when they meet her. ‘RiRi! How are you so confident?’ Nope. No. No. But me? They ask me with that same incredulous disbelief every single time. ‘You seem so confident! How is that?'”

“Gabourey, how are you so confident?” It’s not easy. It’s hard to get dressed up for award shows and red carpets when I know I will be made fun of because of my weight. There’s always a big chance if I wear purple, I will be compared to Barney. If I wear white, a frozen turkey. And if I wear red, that picture of Kool-Aid that says, “Oh, yeah!” Twitter will blow up with nasty comments about how the recent earthquake was caused by me running to a hot dog cart or something. And “Diet or Die?” [She gives the finger to that] This is what I deal with every time I put on a dress. This is what I deal with every time someone takes a picture of me. Sometimes when I’m being interviewed by a fashion reporter, I can see it in her eyes, “How is she getting away with this? Why is she so confident? How does she deal with that body? Oh my God, I’m going to catch fat!”

How are you so confident?” “I’m an asshole!” Okay? It’s my good time, and my good life, despite what you think of me. I live my life, because I dare. I dare to show up when everyone else might hide their faces and hide their bodies in shame. I show up because I’m an asshole, and I want to have a good time. And my mother and my father love me. They wanted the best life for me, and they didn’t know how to verbalize it. And I get it. I really do. They were better parents to me than they had themselves. I’m grateful to them, and to my fifth grade class, because if they hadn’t made me cry, I wouldn’t be able to cry on cue now. [Dabs tears] If I hadn’t been told I was garbage, I wouldn’t have learned how to show people I’m talented. And if everyone had always laughed at my jokes, I wouldn’t have figured out how to be so funny. If they hadn’t told me I was ugly, I never would have searched for my beauty. And if they hadn’t tried to break me down, I wouldn’t know that I’m unbreakable. [Dabs tears] So when you ask me how I’m so confident, I know what you’re really asking me: how could someone like me be confident? Go ask Rihanna, asshole!

In addition to desperately wanting a “Go ask Rihanna, asshole” t-shirt, I cried and cheered when I read the speech.  I’m also struck at how much this shouldn’t have happened.  She shouldn’t have had to learn skills as a response to stigma, bullying and oppression.  I’m happy that she made the best of a bad situation but let’s make sure that we call bullshit on anyone who is suggesting that the confident, talented, fat woman ends justify the bullying means.

Discussions about how difficult it must be to live in a fat body are often really about talking about how difficult it is to live in a world where you are subjected to tons of stigma, bullying and oppression because you live in a fat body.  I’ve certainly suffered because I’m obese, but not because of my obesity.

Then I made the greatest of all internet mistakes – I read the comments (feel free to skip the indented parts to save your rage points)

She doesn’t have to lose a truckload. I just want her to take care of herself physically as well as she does emotionally. ~Shannon N

Gabby I can admire you for having the ability to have self-confidence about who you are but from someone who has had a weight problem please try to get some of that weight off. ~Adrienne

At such a young age age, this girls life expectancy I threatened by high bloodpressure,stroke,diabetes,and heart disease. She needs help. ~Scot Solomon

This is textbook concern trolling. The idea that a fat person needs medical advice from random strangers no matter how non sequitur a discussion of our health might be, or how unqualified the commenter is to give such advice. It doesn’t matter what the fat person is talking about, or what they’ve accomplished to get in the news, random people will feel the need to dole out health judgment and advice in the comments.  I don’t know how I’ve not become desensitized, but I’m still shocked at the over-exaggerated sense of self-importance that could lead to someone typing these things.  Or the unmitigated prejudice that allows people to believe that they they can look at somebody’s body size and know how much they “take care of themselves.”   I think that these people are running on prejudice over facts but even if they were right, Gabourey Sidibe is in the news for giving an amazing speech, why does that make strangers think that they should chime in about her health?

It seems that fat people aren’t allowed to succeed at anything, except weight loss, without being concern trolled about our health.  Sadly we can’t stop the bullshit fairy from posting in every comment section, but we can see this for what it is – Pure unadulterated bullshit.  I don’t think for a minute that this is about our health – I think it’s about people wanting to feel powerful and using fat people to do that.  To paraphrase Marilyn Wann, the only thing you can tell from someone’s body size is what size they are and what preconceived notions, stereotypes and prejudice you have about people that size.  Similarly, the only thing that you can tell from a concern trolling comment, is that the commenter is a concern troll.

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I get lots of questions from parents asking how to help their kids have a positive body image and high self-esteem, and I get questions from people asking about how to help friend with body image and food issues.

I keep thinking of the flight attendants and their pre-flight safety speech – “put on your oxygen mask before you help your travel companion with theirs”.  Because if you can’t breathe, you’re not in a position to help anyone else.

I think it’s the same with self-esteem and body image issues,  and I think that there are two really good places to start:

Realize what’s happening

I think that the way to combat the subconscious programming that happens when hundreds of thousands of images are coming at us all the time is with intentional consciousness. For me it was about becoming very clear that this standard of beauty is arbitrary and that the people who are pushing it are generally using it to make me feel bad about myself as a way to convince me to buy their product.  I think it was my brilliant friend CJ Legare who I first heard put it this way:  They are trying to take our self-esteem from us and sell it back at a profit.  Just say know – know that horrible body image isn’t an accident, it’s the result of a highly profitable marketing campaign.  Know that the machine that oppresses us runs on our time and money and energy and so we can make it stop by taking away the fuel.

End Negative Body Talk Starting with Our Own Mouths

We can just stop.  Stop engaging in negative body talk of any kind – whether it’s overt (“she’s way too thin, she needs to eat a sandwich”, “at that weight she’s obviously not healthy”) or subtle and said as if it’s a compliment (“She has the perfect body… We hate her…”, “you lost weight- you look so good…”) We can choose never to put someone else down to make us feel better: Even if they’ll never know,  it still usually ends up effecting us negatively in the end.   Whether you are a  thin person who wants to create a body positive world, or a fat person who wants to live by the golden body rule, and not by the rule that the road to self-esteem is paved with blatant hypocrisy, or somewhere in between, may I suggest that talking badly about someone else’s body is just never the way to go.

While we are at it,   we can notice how we deal with our own bodies.  When we reject a culture of self-hate and put on our own body love mask first, we let other people know that loving their bodies is an option.  On the other side of the coin, every time we choose to talk out loud about how we hate this or that about our bodies (“I love my body, I just don’t like my…”), we add to the cacophony of body hate that already exists and we model body hate to other people, especially any young people who are listening. In talks that I give I’ve spoken to middle school girls who have told me that they’ve never, in their lives, met an adult  woman who wasn’t trying to lose weight, and that terrifies me for their prospects of them ever loving their bodies.  We can do better for ourselves and our kids.  If you’re struggling with how to say nice things about your body, try this!

There is one way that our metaphor of the flight mask breaks down:  On a flight we really can help someone put on their mask.  When it comes to body positivity it’s not so simple – we can give the option, and then people will make a choice for themselves. If we chose body positivity, then we show everyone around us that Body Positivity is an option that they can chose. If we put our own mask on first, then the person beside us may decide to put on theirs or they might not.  That’ s not our choice to make.  What’s important is that either way, we’re breathing.

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Sorry for the lapse in blogging, More Cabaret hosted our first all plus-size variety show in Los Angeles and it was awesome. Then we moved, that was less awesome but is more awesome now that we’re actually in the new house. Anyway, I’m back and I’ve missed you all!

I’m not sure why, but recently I’ve been receiving lots of e-mails and comments discussing one of the arguments that I often hear “against” the concept of Fat Acceptance.  Here are a couple examples from the e-mails I got (I tried to pick from each end of the spectrum):

 I just can’t get behind accepting fatness.  I like my body as it is, I don’t want to be fat and I will do whatever it takes not to be fat.

Fuck you fat acceptor fucks and your fat acceptance.  You will never make me be a fat fuck like you!

I used to think that people only made this argument to try to derail the actual conversation around Fat Acceptance, but just in case there are people who are really concerned about this, let me try to provide some clarity:

The Fat Acceptance/Size Acceptance movement is not a monolith and there are various perspectives as to what exactly FA/SA means.  Nobody speaks for the entire movement including me, we can each only speak to our own perspective.  That said, I’ve never heard anyone in any FA/SA space anywhere suggest that Fat Acceptance is about compulsory fatness for everyone.  I cannot imagine how people got the idea that if Fat Acceptance/Size Acceptance proponents get “our way” everyone will be forced to become fat.

This is about civil rights – life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and being treated with basic human respect – for people of all sizes.  With that in mind, here are some things that will and will not happen to people who disagree with me if I get “my way” as a Size Acceptance Activist:

Things that WILL NOT happen to those who disagree with FA/SA if I get “my way”:

• They will be forced to become fat
• They will be forced to give up their prejudices and stereotypes about fat people (don’t get me wrong, I think it would be just dandy if they did but I’m not trying to control people’s thoughts)

Things that WILL happen to those who disagree with FA/SA if I get “my way”:

• They will get to make choices for themselves and their own bodies, but not for others (For example:  public health will be about making options and information available to the public, not about making the individual’s body the public’s business)
• They will no longer be allowed to turn their personal prejudices into public policy (for example, they will have to stop waging wars that aim to eradicate everyone of a certain size.)

How about a short video to help answer the question – Does Fat Acceptance mean that everyone will be forced to become fat?

So to sum up, Fat Acceptance:  Yes to respecting body diversity, no to forced fatness.  I hope that clears some things up.

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

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

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

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.