When reader Vivian asked me what I thought of a piece from Medscape called “New US Obesity Guidelines: Treat the Weight First”  I geared myself up to read something terrible.  I didn’t imagine just how horrible it would be.

In the article Dr Caroline M Apovian discusses a paper, of which she was the lead author, that suggests guidelines about how to care for fat people who have actual health issues:

The guidelines advise treating the weight first with lifestyle modification and medication and then managing the remaining comorbidities that have not responded to any weight loss, including hyperglycemia, hypertension, and dyslipidemia.

She also recommends that if patients are taking medication that has a side effect of weight gain (including those for depression, epilepsy, and schizophrenia) including “insulin, sulfonylureas, thiazolidinediones, beta-blockers, or certain specific selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like paroxetine”  they should be tapered off of them – even if the medication is working for their health issue and even if the tapering process may cause unnecessary physical and mental health issues – and put them on “alternative agents that don’t increase weight.”

So what these guidelines are actually saying is that only thin people should get evidence-based treatment for their health issues.  But don’t worry, because according to Dr. Apovian, they’ve really got a handle on this whole weight loss thing:

In the end, you’re going to give the best guess of which drug the patient should go on….If the patient doesn’t lose 5% of their weight in 12 weeks, stop the drug and try another. Unless you can really get a clear idea of what you think the patient is going to do best on, you’re going to be prescribing by trial and error….This is the question I get asked the most often. Unfortunately, the research isn’t there to help us beyond that.

Oh yes, this definitely has the ring of good evidence-based medicine, and doesn’t sound at all like completely uncontrolled experimental medicine. Not to mention that weight loss drugs cause everything from uncontrolled anal seepage to addiction and death and all for a minimal weight loss (4.5 pounds in a year!) which their own studies show patients begin to regain almost immediately.

She goes on to lament that the drugs aren’t covered by insurance and that doctors aren’t prescribing them enough (I’m thinking that’s perhaps because doctors know about their lack of efficacy and horrible side effects, but I’m just spitballing here.)

“Certainly, insurance coverage will help tremendously, but if we don’t have doctors out there who are trained to deliver the treatment in the manner we indicate in [both the 2013 and the current guidelines], we are not going to be able to utilize them even if they are covered by insurance….We’re trying to get a cadre out there of doctors who can use these medications. Once that happens, insurers will start covering them. The disadvantage now is the price.”

I would think that the disadvantage is the uncontrolled anal seepage, addiction, death, and total failure of the drugs but hey, what do I know? If you’re wondering how in the world a trained doctor could put people’s health and lives at risk while trying to sell them expensive dangerous drugs that don’t work, then you might consider this:

Dr Apovian serves on advisory boards for Amylin, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Arena, Nutrisystem, Zafgen, Sanofi, Orexigen, and Enteromedics. She has received research funding from Lilly, Amylin, Aspire Bariatrics, GI Dynamics, Pfizer, Sanofi, Orexigen, MetaProteomics, and the Dr Robert C and Veronica Atkins Foundation.

Hmmm, she’s on the advisory boards of companies that make weight loss drugs, and she’s written guidelines that recommend a massive increase in the use of weight loss drugs.  That’s curious. I think that this is what happens when healthcare for profit and a cultural hatred of fat people collide.  This is the real “war on obesity” they want us thin, but they don’t mind if we die, as long as we’re not fat and they stay rich.

If these guidelines are adopted it means that fat people will have to fight even harder to get evidence-based medicine instead of “interventions” that are bought and paid for by diet companies. We’re going to have to wonder if our doctor is prescribing us a subpar medicine because they are following guidelines that tell them they should be more concerned about our body size than our actual health.

We’ll have to worry that they are withholding treatment that a thin person would be offered, unless and until we are able to manipulate our body size to their satisfaction.

Those who agree to take the diet drugs will have to worry that their ability to get actual healthcare rests on expensive, dangerous drugs with a poor track record that are being prescribed to them on a trial and error basis, and that 12 weeks from now when the drugs don’t work they will be prescribed a different expensive, dangerous drug, and again 12 weeks later, all while still being refused the evidence-based healthcare that they would have been prescribed 24 weeks ago if they were thin.

Those who agree to take the drugs will have to wonder what will happen when, as all the research shows is a near certainty, they regain the weight – will their doctor cease any evidence-based interventions to start another yet another trial and error weight loss drug?  We’ll have to wonder how many weight loss drug companies have our doctors on payroll (unless, of course, Dr. Apovian is our physician, then we know that it’s basically all of them.)

To me this is justification for my approach to dealing with healthcare practitioners, which is to constantly ask questions, ask for the research upon which their treatment suggestions are based, ask to be given the same interventions that a thin person would be given, and doing my own research.  I claimed the leadership role position in my personal healthcare and treat doctors as people who support and work with me on that, and not as gods who are above providing me with an explanation.

Of course my being in a position to do that is also a reflection of my various privileges. As long as I can do that I will, and I will continue to fight for those who aren’t in a position to question this sort of bought and paid for medical malpractice, because the alternative is just far too terrifying.

If you want some suggestions on how to deal with this at the doctor’s office, check out this post!

If you want to share your thoughts with Dr. Apovian:

Find her on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/drapovian

Or on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/drapovian

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

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A very consistent question that I get from people who e-mail me is about how to deal with a conversation they have to have that may be derailed by fat phobia.  Whether it’s talking to someone at HR about their problematic workplace wellness issue, or talking to someone at their kids school about weight-based bullying, or talking to a health care practitioner about a health issue.

One of the issues with fighting fatphobia is when you are trying to address it with someone who holds size-based prejudices and is part of the problem.  So things that should be obvious (like the fact that workplaces should not engage in appearance based discrimination, that bullying is unacceptable behavior, that coming to the doctor for a broken arm should not involve weight shaming) can become blurry in the mind of the person holding the prejudice  (“I think bullying is bad but omgdeathfatz blah blah blah”)

I’ve found that if I know that I’m going to have to engage in one of these conversations, it can help to do some prep work and have a plan.  Here are some suggestions that have worked for me, as always your mileage may vary, please feel free to take what you like and ignore what you don’t.  Also, please remember that I’m not suggesting that this is the best method to have a dialog about Size Acceptance or Health at Every Size, I’m suggesting that it’s one option that you can use if you have to address fatphobia with someone who is fatphobic.

First, I would suggest starting off the conversation by gaining a baseline agreement. Perhaps start with something like “I’m sure that we can both agree that bullying has no place in school,” or “I’m sure we can agree that a hostile work environment doesn’t support productive employees” or “I’m here because I think my arm is broken. I understand that you can help me with that, is that correct?”  I think it really helps to start with this kind of baseline agreement.

Next, make the case in three points. I used to do a lot of  Queer community activism, training large groups of people to work with hostile media (media who wanted to get a “bad quote” and make us look bad.) When I did that we used something called the media circle (I’m not sure who created it and my Googling has failed me, if you know I would love for you to let me know so that I can credit them.) It was taught to me as a method of couching a message in a way that keeps others from pulling you away from your core message. It works great to teach a whole bunch of people who are going to be at a rally.  I’ve found that it also works great in conversations where fatphobia may be involved.  It’s composed of three things:

1. The problem
2. The solution
3. What I want done about it.

So for example

1. The problem that I’m here to talk about is that kids in this school are engaging in appearance based bullying.
2. The solution to that is education about the issues with bullying, and a zero tolerance policy from authority figures.
3. I’m here to ask that you implement those things in your classroom.

The reason it’s a circle is because if someone says something that tries to pull you off topic, you go back to number one. So, if the teacher says something like “well, we do have to worry about health and weight” you simply say “That’s not the issue here. The problem that I’m here to talk about is that kids in this school are engaging in appearance based bullying…” and go back through the circle.

Another example:

1. The problem is that our employee wellness program is not evidence-based/is potentially triggering to people  who may have, develop or are recovering from eating disorders/is discriminatory/ encourages appearance-based discrimination/creates a hostile environment
2. The solution is to implement a Health at Every Size Based Approach.
3. I’m asking that you provide: evidence for the efficacy of this program in improving long-term health/help me understand how you are mitigating the issues with tiggering/help me understand how this program doesn’t discriminate on the basis of health status disability/discuss a HAES approach to workplace wellness

One more example

1. I think my arm is broken.
2. I was told that I should see a doctor.
3. I came here to have my arm treated.

So once you gain agreement and go through your three media circle statements, you can tell the story that brought you here. You get to choose how much detail you want to go into. I would suggest that it’s important that you not, in any way, attempt to apologize for or justify your size. You are not in the wrong here, your body is fine and not up for discussion. If the person you are talking to tries to make your fat body, or larger bodies in general, the issue, just take it right back into the media circle. “That’s not what I’m here to discuss, the problem is…”

It can also help to have resources to offer. For help with that you can check:

Here for some general resources

Here for bullying resources

Here and here for help at the workplace

Here for help at the doctor’s office

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

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Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development (casting, finding investors etc.).  Follow the progress on Facebook!

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

I saw a video today about a woman who was bullied because she was fat. It was one of those click-baity  “You won’t believe what she says next!” things.  It turns out that what she says is that she used to be much fatter.  In this case we’re told that it’s wrong to bully fat people if they are in the process of getting thinner.

Much was made of a study that found that bullying fat people may lead to weight gain. People suggested that if bullying was going to make us fatter, then maybe people shouldn’t bully fat people (of course plenty of people took to comment sections to argue that nothing should ever get in the way of people’s right to bully fat people.)

Then there are people who suggest that we shouldn’t bully fat people as long as they are “trying” – whether that means eating the way that the person who thinks that they have the right to judge wants us to eat, or moving our bodies in ways that are fatty judge approved, and usually requiring a side of self-loathing. This is also known as the bullshit Good Fatty/Bad Fatty dichotomy.

Then there is the line of reasoning that “it’s ok to be fat as long as someone is healthy.”  Though these people don’t seem to run around asking thin people for the results of their latest cholesterol test in order to decide whether or not they deserve to be treated with basic human respect, so I’m thinking that, even if it wasn’t completely ridiculous to suggest that there is a level of health at which people lose the right to basic human respect, this is just thinly veiled bigotry.

There’s also the suggestion that fat people who have a “valid reason” – PCOS, medication that causes weight gain, a health condition etc. – don’t deserve bullying.

Now, of course I’m all for not bullying fat people.  But when we suggest that some fat people don’t deserve to be bullied because they meet criteria above, we are also (intentionally or not) suggesting that people who don’t meet those criteria do deserve bullying. And that’s crap.

These ideas are perpetuated in lots of ways and for lots of reasons – by well-intentioned people who don’t think through the implications of suggesting that a subset of fat people should be protected from bullying, to bullies trying to justify their right to bully a subset of fat people, to fat people themselves who are trying to escape the stigma, bullying, and oppression that they are experiencing by suggesting that they are better than “those other fat people” for the reasons listed above, thereby throwing those “other fat people” under the proverbial bus. Herein we often find the intersections of sizeism with healthism, ableism, classism, racism et al.)

When we say  “Bullying fat people is wrong” we are making a statement of fact that needs no qualifiers.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become 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.  Click here for details

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Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

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If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

 

 

 

Welcome to another “Say Something Sunday,” a day dedicated to personal Size Diversity activism. I’ve got some suggestions below and/or of course you can do your own thing.  If you do participate, I’d love to hear about it in the comments (whether you do it on Sunday, or some other day!)  If you have ideas of things to do for Say Something Sunday I’d also love for you to share those in the comments.

I did the math and if everyone who views the blog each week did one piece of Size Diversity Activism a week, it would add up to over 1.5 million body positive messages put out into the world this year.  Multiply that times the number of people who might see each of those messages and things start to increase exponentially. To be very clear, nobody is obligated to do activism so if this doesn’t appeal to you that’s totally cool, I’ll be back tomorrow with your regularly scheduled blog post!

My ideas for this week (these are just suggestions, feel free to change them to make them work for you, and if they don’t appeal to you feel free to do your own thing!)

Decide to claim a space for body positivity – whether it’s your home, a group your part of (crafting, walking, game night whatever).  Start to create a culture of body love where negative body talk is not tolerated.

Write a thank you letter or e-mail to someone who helped you see and/or fight back against our culture of dieting and body hate.

Speak up against “Good Fatty/Bad Fatty” messages that you see her hear.

If you want to do more of this kind of thing, consider joining the Rolls Not Trolls group on Facebook, it’s a group created for the specific purpose of putting body positive things in body negative spaces on the internet and supporting each other while we do that.  It’s a secret group so if you want to join just message me on facebook (I’m Ragen Chastain)

Happy Say Something Sunday!

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become 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.  Click here for details

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Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development (casting, finding investors etc.).  Follow the progress on Facebook!

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

I got a question today from reader Kimmie  “I have a lot of friends and even some family members who I think could be helped by Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size, but I don’t how to bring it up without acting like they do when they tell me that they think I should diet.”  This is a question that I get a lot. When it comes to introducing people to Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size (which are, it is important to note, two different things) it can be a sensitive subject.

To start with they may be a entirely new concepts for the person to whom you are introducing them, and they may go completely against what they’ve been told. If you read this blog very often, you already know that I’m not into telling people what to do when it comes to their personal choices (Underpants Rule!)  My approach (and recommendation) is always to couch it as something that I do and/or an option, rather than something that someone else “should” do.   Here are some techniques that have worked for me:

Casual Exposure

We live in the age of Facebook and Twitter, and along with 400 comments you don’t care about on the post that you accidentally “liked”, it also allows us to offer our list of followers exposure to a new topic with relatively low risk.  Start posting blogs that you like about SA/HAES, or updates talking about how you are practicing it in your life or the how much you like it etc.

Work It In

When other people are talking about their diets, or participating in a rousing game of body hate, you can bring up your SA/HAES practice.  Remember that your choice is just as valid as anyone else’s choice – telling people what you are doing does not obligate you to seek their approval.  I recommend having a quick definition like “I’m committed to having a healthy relationship with my body and for me that means no negative body talk.”  or ”I practice Health at Every Size – so I focus on behaviors rather than body size.”  You can answer questions if you want but remember that you aren’t required to “defend” your choices.

Bring it Up

You can also bring  it up in conversation. I’ve found that this works especially well if I am setting boundaries/asking for support.  For example “I’ve decided to practice Body Positivity.  For me that means that I’m not going to engage in negative body talk about my body or anybody else’s.  I would love your support in this but if you aren’t willing to support me then it is important for our relationship that you respect my choice”. Of course you can modify the words for yourself but that’s the idea.

I really can’t stress enough how much more comfortable I’ve found it to be if I don’t try to convince, persuade, defend, or seek approval in these personal conversations. In addition to avoiding doing the same things to others that we ask not be done to us, it also means that we don’t get bogged down in a big debate.  We can be clear that we respect other people’s personal choices, and  that we require that they either respect our personal choices or keep it to themselves.  If they want education and we feel up to educating then we can do that, and if we don’t feel up to educating that that time then we don’t have to, but regardless we can be grounded in our choices.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become 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.  Click here for details

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Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development (casting, finding investors etc.).  Follow the progress on Facebook!

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

I’ve been thinking a lot today about the ways in which we are encouraged to view our bodies as “the enemy.” There are lots of ways to think about our relationships with our bodies, and none of them are wrong. I have no interest in telling people how they have to relate to their bodies, I do want to talk about an option that has really helped me.

I used to think of my body as the enemy – I bought into all of the diet company language of  “struggling with my weight,” I was perpetually angry at my body because it resisted my attempts to manipulate its size and shape.  I lived every day in a body that I hated. And, in hindsight not surprisingly, I was miserable.

Things turned around when I realized that my body does so many things for me every day (breathing, blinking, heartbeat, smiling, waving, hugging etc.) and all I ever did was deride it for how it looked. I wondered what would happen if I treated my friends like I treated my body, and I came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t have any friends.

I decided to start treating my body like a friend, like a partner, like it was worthy of my love and gratitude – because it is. This wasn’t about my concept of beauty and how I did or didn’t fit into it. This was about realizing that this is the body that I live in 100% of the time – the body that I wake up with, the body that I go to sleep with, the body that I do everything in between with.

Hating that body and treating it like an enemy unless and until it fit some height/weight ratio or stereotype of beauty was not working out for me.  Treating my body like a friend who deserves my gratitude and full-throated support did work out, and continues to work out.  Changing my relationship with my body changed everything for me.

It hasn’t always been easy, and there have definitely been rough patches in our friendship – that time a neck injury led me to not being able to use my right arm, the struggles I have with running etc.  During those times I try to think of it as me and my body against a problem, rather than me against my body.

That said, as someone who is currently able-bodied I have a lot of privilege where this is concerned and I want to acknowledge that my process around my relationship with my body includes that privilege.  I certainly can’t speak to the experience of people who have disabilities/chronic pain/mobility limitations etc.

[Edit: I didn’t do a good job of discussing all of my privileges. I wanted to come back and try to be much more clear.  I apologize for the screw up.]

I have privilege in this area as a cis-gendered person (thanks to captainglittertoes for pointing out my omission in the comments, though I’m sorry that I put it on you to do it.)  There are complications in the relationship with the body that Trans people deal with and ignoring that (as I did in this post) can serve to further marginalized trans people.  Also, in fat community I’ve seen Trans people pressured to “accept their body” including being pressured to forgo choices that would change their bodies like hormones, and surgery.  And that it super fucked up.  Trans people should be supported in Size Acceptance community – not to mention in all community – in making the choices that are right for them, and having full access to the what they need to implement those choices.  Anything less is oppression.

Among the massive amount of privilege I receive as a white person, my body isn’t stigmatized in this culture for its color, nor am I subjected to ridiculous arguments about how I “have it easy” because fat Women of Color are “more accepted.” It’s one of the reasons that fighting racism is intersectional with, and necessary to, the fight for Size Acceptance.

Again, my failure to discuss this in the original post is an excellent demonstration of my privilege (I don’t have to, and can choose not to,  think about these things because I’m not experiencing them) and in exercising that privilege I took part in marginalizing Trans people and People of Color.  I fucked up and I apologize.

I don’t think I made it clear enough that as a fat women who enjoys being involved in fitness (and yes, even taking into consideration the street harassment and hatemail that I get because I am a fat woman participating in athletics), part of the “good fatty” privilege that I have is that there are people who treat me better than they would someone my size who chooses different hobbies, and I am part of our culture’s ableist, healthist and completely erroneous reinforcement of the idea that if you participate in fitness then that somehow makes you a good/better/more moral person. My choice of hobbies is reinforced as a good and positive choice by society where other fat people’s choice of hobbies are not and that’s also totally screwed up.

I was completely in the wrong to leave this discussion out of my original discussion and I deeply apologize.

[end edit]

In fact,  I can’t speak for anyone but me – so your experience may be different, and your mileage may vary.

What I’m suggesting is that if you’re tired of being your body’s biggest enemy, maybe it’s time to make a new friend.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become 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.  Click here for details

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

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development (casting, finding investors etc.).  Follow the progress on Facebook!

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

 

I talk a lot about the issues with how fat people are treated by society, and ways that we can fight that.  I think that’s important work (though certainly nobody is obligated to do it.)  But there is something else we can do if we choose  – we can create spaces that reflect the world that we want to live in.  We can decide that our home, our game night, our walking group, our crafting group, our whatever group is a body positive space.  While we’re working to change the world outside, we can also work to change our world.

Last year I got to experience that kind of space.  If you’re a longtime reader of this blog with a really good memory, you might remember my very brief foray into hoop dancing a few years ago.  Well, last year Rowan and Blythe, the amazing women behind Punk Rock Hoops, invited me to be the keynote speaker at Hottie Hoop Camp.  Five days at a beautiful beach house on the Texas coast with super cool hoop dancers, giving a keynote about body positivity and teaching a class on cabaret-style dancing sounded like a great time to me.

Nothing could have prepared me for just how incredible an experience it would be.  Blythe and Rowan work hard to create a space that is intentionally body positive and inclusive.  I won’t speak for any identities that I don’t hold, but as a queer, fat women committed to body positivity who is not a hoop dancer, I couldn’t have asked for more from the event and the group of women who were there.

I experienced complete body positivity for five whole days.  It was bliss. Around 50 women were at HHC and I didn’t hear any negative body talk at all, in fact in five days I never heard anyone say anything snarky about anyone else – not even one time. There were people there at all different levels and I can’t even count how many times I saw someone compliment someone else on a move and the person doing the move immediately offering to teach it to them. Again, I can only speak to my experience and my identities but I was absolutely inspired by the way that space was curated.

I met women who I’ve danced with in shows (looking at you Onyx Swirl) who I’ve hung out with, who’ve spoken at conferences I coordinated, who I connect with on social media, who support me and my work (one of the super fantastic women I met even found me a place to stay in Arizona while I prepare for my IRONMAN, Thanks Allison!), and whose work I support as well. I have such deep gratitude to those who coordinated the event (Rowan, Blythe, Alejandra, Allison, Ruby and the kitchen staff, Trey, anyone I’m forgetting at 4:49am) and to all of those who took part!

If we want a world without body snarking, where all bodies are celebrated we can create a little of that for ourselves right now.  Just like we have the opportunity to make the rules for our online spaces, we have the opportunity to create spaces offline that are intentionally and specifically body positive.

In the same way that culture has allowed fat hate and body hate to proliferate, culture can shut it down.  We can create spaces where negative body talk, body snarking, etc. are simply unacceptable, where anytime someone engages in it, someone else simply explains: “Oh, we don’t do that here, in this space we celebrate all bodies.” We can fight negative body talk and fat hate in our society from the inside out in spaces that we create, and we can start right now!

By the way, if you happen to be a curvy hoop dancer, the Punk Rock Hoops Curvy Hooper Video Challenge for 2015 is happening now –  you can check it out here! (Even if you’re not a curvy hooper, the videos on that page are amazing and so very worth watching!)

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become 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.  Click here for details

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

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development (casting, finding investors etc.).  Follow the progress on Facebook!

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

I saw a recipe on Facebook today from a fitness company called “Set Your Fat on Fire Fitness.”  It made me think of all the things the diet companies have told me to do with my fat:

Let’s Start with Setting My Fat on Fire

Then another favorite of weight loss schemes, often those that involve exercise: Torching my fat!

How about the ever popular melting my fat away:

I saw an ad for a cosmetic surgery that wanted me to let them freeze my fat:

Of course this is about the idea that I’m supposed to think of myself not as a fat woman, but as a thin woman covered in fat.  I’m supposed to hate the fat which, in turn, is supposed to make it ok for people to sell me “self improvement” with language suggesting that I should burn, melt, freeze away or otherwise dispense with the part of me that is fat so that I can start living my glorious life as a thin woman.

Except that’s complete and total bullshit.  I’m not a temporarily inconvenienced thin woman in need of some kind of overwrought, hand-wringing, fire and ice intervention.  I’m a fat woman and I have no interest in trying to become a thin woman – I love my fat body and I’m not interested in melting it, freezing it, or setting it on fire.  I’d rather hang out with hot body and do cool stuff.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become 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.  Click here for details

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

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development (casting, finding investors etc.).  Follow the progress on Facebook!

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

There’s yet another study that claims to prove that you can’t maintain a fat body and “good health” (at least by one definition of health.)  There are a bunch of problems with the study and the way that it is being portrayed in the media.  It uses BMI, it’s a tiny sample size, and they didn’t look at behaviors or fitness at all, the reporting about it treats correlation and causation as if they are the same thing.

The study looked at metabolic health markers over time, but didn’t look at behaviors. That’s a problem because the studies that do exist show that behaviors are a much better predictors of future health so it doesn’t make much sense to study body size and health without factoring in behaviors, but people just keep doing it – either because they don’t care since they know that it will get lots of attention without much scrutiny, or they are trying to get a specific set of results, or they’re incompetent, or who knows what.

Angela Meadows did a beautiful job of breaking down the science behind study here.  What I want to talk about are the implications of doing this research, and the way that it is applied.

First let’s talk about what’s true about health.  The truth is that health isn’t an obligation, a barometer of worthiness, entirely within our control, or guaranteed under any circumstances. What constitutes “healthy” has been repeatedly changed (including body size, metabolic health measures, and who is eligible for surgery etc.) after lobbying by companies who profit from those changed measurements.

Public Health should be about making true unbiased information and options available to the public, not making the individual’s health the public’s business.

In the United States “health” is a for-profit industry which means that the companies providing “healthcare” often have a primary fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders rather than the people who they are supposed to help.  We also live in a society where “everybody knows” is treated as the same thing as evidence-based medicine such that true, unbiased information about health can be very difficult to find.

This kind of “you can’t be fit and fat” research and rhetoric is often used to justify “interventions” on fat people that either just don’t work, or don’t work and put our lives at risk, often by groups that pretend to be our advocates while making money hand over fist on these so-called healthcare interventions.

But perhaps the most insidious use of this so-called research about fat people and health is the way that it’s used to try to stop fat people from demanding to be treated with basic human respect.  As if there’s some level of health at which people stop deserving that. (There’s not, just in case that wasn’t clear.)

The way it’s being used to insist that if it can somehow be proven that fat people are less healthy than thin people then it’s also proven that we are less worthy of basic human respect (we’re not, just in case it wasn’t clear.)

The way that it’s used to create a good fatty/bad fatty culture that tries to pit us against each other for scraps of decent treatment. The way that it’s used to promote sizeism, healthism, classism, ableism, and all of the intersections therein – like the idea that if fat people can be healthy then we should be required to be healthy to deserve to be treated well, or have the right to speak up for ourselves – that health should be a requirement for credibility in any discussion about Size Acceptance, or our right to make choices or ourselves.

From a personal perspective I’m interested in what the research says about health, from a Public Health perspective I’m interested in people having access true, unbiased information about health (and not at all interested in the choices they make).  What is most important to me from a global perspective is that “health” is not used as a weapon in the ill-advised “war on obesity,” not used to try to bully fat people into accepting inappropriate treatment or forcing us to participate in experimental medicine. I want to be sure that health is not used as a barometer of worthiness or credibility.

When it comes to the treatment that we deserve – to our rights to basic human respect, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to our rights to self-advocate and make our own choices, whether or not we can be fit and fat doesn’t actually matter at all.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become 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.  Click here for details

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

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development (casting, finding investors etc.).  Follow the progress on Facebook!

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

I got a Facebook message from a blog reader who gave me permission to share this anonymously:

My mom passed away today after a long fight with cancer.  She was dieting literally right up to the end, still putting things off until she was thin. It made me think about how my life could have been if I hadn’t found blogs like yours.  I’d love for you to share this with your readers so that maybe my mom’s passing can help someone.

I’ve completely been there.  I wasted years of my life with one simple thought:

“I need to concentrate on losing weight right now.  I’ll [do things I want to do] when I reach my goal weight.”

Days, weeks, and months and years, that I will never get back, tracking every bit of food, calculating points, eating nasty pre-packaged food, giving up sugar, wheat, dairy, meat, drinking weight loss shakes, no popcorn at the movies, no cake on my birthday, punishing my body at the gym.

Believing that everyone who tries hard enough becomes thin, that thin was something that it was important to be, and that being thin is the golden ticket to everything, believing in magical weight loss thinking – that I was just x pounds from everything I could ever want.  Believing that I should sacrifice my current life for my future thin self.

Looking back, I could easily have ended up like my reader’s Mom, still trying to lose weight on my deathbed  – I’m not criticizing her mom – she made decisions for her and I have no idea how she felt about her life.  For me, though, it’s scary and sad to think of the life I would have had if I hadn’t made the decision to stop dieting and starting living.

So, of course, I’m not trying to tell anyone how to live.  I’m just suggesting that it might be worth thinking about – whatever you’re dreaming of doing when you’ve lost x pounds, or when you’re thin, what if you just did it now?

[EDIT: I somehow managed to delete this final paragraph before this was published, added back in now.] Now, this decision won’t change the fact that because of any number of injustices many things that we would like to do are not accessible to us, and I’m not saying for a minute that the decision negates those, makes them somehow our fault, or makes them not worth fighting. All I’m saying is that, if there are things we want to do and the only thing that stands between us and them is our belief that we should wait to do them until we are thin, we have the option to do those things right now.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become 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.  Click here for details

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

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information on topics, previous engagements and reviews here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

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

I’m training for an IRONMAN! You can follow my journey at www.IronFat.com

A movie about my time as a dancer is in active development (casting, finding investors etc.).  Follow the progress on Facebook!

If you are uncomfortable with my offering things for sale on this site, you are invited to check out this post.