I think that the War on Obesity should come with a side effect warning.  Something like:

Caution:  The war on obesity is highly toxic. Discontinue the war and call your local Health at Every Size Practitioner if you start to think that dieting’s 5% success rate seems like good odds.

The war on obesity may cause issues with your judgment. Until you know how the war on obesity affects you, you should avoid stating your stereotypes about fat people as if they are facts, or as if anybody should care what you think of fat people.

In extreme cases the war on obesity can lead to a complete loss of your ability to treat people appropriately or make good choices.  Discontinue the war on obesity immediately if you find yourself spending time stalking and harassing fat bloggers, joining groups devoted to the bullying of fat people, or claiming that the research doesn’t matter because Dr. Oz is just so inspiring.

On second thought, the war on obesity is simply too toxic and it is our recommendation that it be permanently removed from the shelf.

The Fat Activism Conference is this weekend! 
This is a virtual conference so you can listen to the talks by phone and/or computer wherever you are. Whether you are looking for support in your personal life with family, friends, healthcare providers etc. or you’re interested in being more public with your activism with blogging, petitions, protest, projects, online activism, or something else, this conference will give you tools and perspectives to support you  and your work, and to help you make that work intentionally intersectional and inclusive, so that nobody gets left behind. Click here to get all the info and register!

Like the blog?  More Cool Stuff!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Like my work?  Want to help me keep doing it? 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

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!

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, you can 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.

One of the consequences of rampant size bigotry, discrimination and bullying in society in general is that it bleeds over to healthcare providers and healthcare concepts. For example, a study concludes that “There are unacceptable levels of weight bias among UK students training to become nurses, doctors, nutritionists and dietitians.” [trigger warning:  this study is not necessarily Health at Every Size]

This leads to a number of issues, one of which is that the misinterpretation of correlational relationships as causational relationships means that people believe that being fat causes diseases.  The fact that the media has jumped on this band wagon means that even though the Congressional Budget Office is clear that obesity is NOT the reason for the increase in healthcare costs, people keep insisting that it is.

That means that when a fat person gets sick, they not only have to deal with whatever illness they have, but also with the shame of being a “bad fatty” who brought this on themselves, and is increasing everyone’s health insurance etc.  And that’s bullshit.  And here’s why:

First is the issue of correlation vs. causation.  My first semester of my first research methods class we had to say “correlation never ever, never ever, never ever implies causation” every day during class.  It’s the cornerstone of good research.  Correlation means that two things sometimes – but not necessarily always – happen at the same time.  Causation means that we can prove that one thing causes the other.

Let’s say that every August there are more murders and more ice cream is eaten. We cannot conclude that eating ice cream causes murders. If there are a rash of murders we cannot say that there is an ice cream epidemic. And we cannot conclude that taking ice cream off the shelves will cut the murder rate.  They could both be caused by a third factor (maybe heat makes people cranky and they either eat ice cream or commit murder) or they could be completely unrelated and the correlation could be a coincidence.  (More thorough explanation is here.)

The same diseases that are correlated with obesity are also correlated with being under a lot of stress for a long period of time.  Like, for example the stress of living under constant stigma with the government waging war on you for how you look.  Since no study can control for the effects of stigma on fat people, no study can claim to know that diseases are caused by being fat. Not to mention the fact that there are health issues that cause both weight gain and other diseases, and that both weight and many diseases have strong genetic components.  This issue is not nearly so cut and dried as media hacks and people making money from its perpetuation would have you believe.

But more importantly, there’s absolutely no point in speculating how someone got a health problem, or blaming someone for a health problem.  They are a person with a health problem, it’s time for them to make decisions about their treatment and have those decisions respected, including the decision of who to tell, by the way.  (Those wishing to make a “but my tax dollars” argument can head over to this post.)

There are no such things as “fat people” diseases. Thin people get all the diseases that fat people do. People get to make their own decisions about priority of health, path that they want to take to reach their goals etc.  In order to avoid being massive hypocrites, people either support the idea that other people get to make their own decisions about their bodies, health, and habits, and have those decisions respected; or those people must be willing to let anyone who thinks they know better (what will make us healthier, what will make us cheaper etc.) dictate what they eat and how they exercise.

Health is multi-dimensional and includes behaviors (past and present), environment, genetics, stress, access, and more.  Some of these components are within our control and some aren’t.  We cannot control the end result and if we develop a health issue we will probably never know for sure exactly why it happened.  More to the point, it doesn’t matter.  People of all sizes get sick for all kinds of reasons.  Once someone is sick it’s time to skip shame, blame, and bullshit and move to getting them the care they choose.  If you can’t help get them the care they want, or find another way to support them, then please feel very free to move silently on your way.

If you are fat and sick there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.   Nothing.  You deserve compassionate care of your choosing. You do not deserve any of the things that our culture’s stigmatization and oppression of fat people might create – that’s the result of bigotry, and you don’t deserve that either.

The Fat Activism Conference is only a week away! 
This is a virtual conference so you can listen to the talks by phone and/or computer wherever you are. Whether you are looking for support in your personal life with family, friends, healthcare providers etc. or you’re interested in being more public with your activism with blogging, petitions, protest, projects, online activism, or something else, this conference will give you tools and perspectives to support you  and your work, and to help you make that work intentionally intersectional and inclusive, so that nobody gets left behind. Click here to get all the info and register!

Like the blog?  More Cool Stuff!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Like my work?  Want to help me keep doing it? 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

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!

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, you can 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.

Today I read a ridiculous concern trolling article written about Stacy Bias’s super fabulous Rad Fatty Merit Badges. The article title appears on Facebook as “Badges Rewarding Fat People Make Me Retch” and is a testament to concern trolling, condescension, stereotyping, fat shaming, and healthism. The author actually trots out the tired old tropes of “normalizing obesity” and its boa-wearing extra fabulous cousin “glorifying obesity,” and then says “I’m not being unkind.”  Ok, let me just stop you there Chloe.

First of all, whether or not Chloe is being unkind is not her call to make. While I can see that it’s convenient to make up both sides of the conversation that’s not actually how it works. To borrow from the brilliant Deb Burgard it’s rather like stepping on someone’s foot in an elevator and then, when they point it out, refusing to move your foot and insisting that you are not stepping on them.  Those of us who Chloe is concern trolling, stereotyping, and condescending to get to decide if she is being unkind. At best she could go with “I’m not trying to be unkind” in which case she missed not only the bullseye but the target and the giant hay bale on which it hangs.

I’m not as worried that the author is unkind as I am that she’s just ignorant – making assumptions about everything from behavior, to wardrobe, to thought processes based on body size, confusing body size with behavior, comparing living in a fat body to blowing cigarette smoke at someone. People are allowed to be ignorant, it’s just unfortunate when they prove it so publicly.

She also advises people “the next time you see a bigger person in the gym or trying to exercise make sure you find a way to encourage them.”  Noooooo. No No No No.  World of no.  Galaxy of no. Universe of no.  No.  Do not annoy fat people who are working out because you want to get your “Save the Fatties” merit badge.  Do not be that guy.

This is one of the most frustrating things to me as a fat person -that we are constantly told that we are not the best witnesses to our experience and that thin people, who are all experts on weight and better than us by virtue of their thinness, should be allowed to speak for us – telling us who we are, how we think, how we should feel, and how we should look.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that every thin person does this on purpose in the way that the author of this ridiculous article did. My point is that our fat-prejudiced society elevates the voices of thin people and devalues the voices of fat people, whether we want it to or not, including caring what thin people think about things that fat people do to deal with the oppression we experience.  Fat person created fat merit badges, news outlet publishes random thin person’s rant about it.  Who cares? This isn’t about her.

I think that it is vital to the fat rights movement that we stand up to people try to substitute their idea of what it’s like to be us for our actual experience, and insist that we be seen as the best witnesses to our experience  – and to our reactions to fatshaming – and have our voices heard.

Did you miss the
Fat Activism Conference?
It’s not too late!

You can still register to get access to all the recordings, transcripts, speaker handouts, and the conference goody bag! Get recordings of all 30 speakers talking about everything from “Re-Imagining Fashion from an Inclusive Framework” to “Activism for the Introverted and Anxious” to “Building Fat Patient Power While Accessing Healthcare” and more. The pay what you can option is still available so that money is not a barrier.

Click Here to Register!

Registration closes October 9th (though of course you’ll have time after that to listen and download.)

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support fat activism and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

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

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

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

I was in ye old fat girl store trying on a dress.  I was in the open part of the dressing room checking out the pleasing way that the dress hit my ass when a store clerk came in and this happened:

Store Clerk: Don’t worry, some spanx will smooth that right out.
Me: The FUCK?!
SC:  Wide eyes, slow blink.
Me:  Please tell me that I am not in a store that specifically caters to my size, being told that my body would be better if it were squished into some other shape.  Please tell me that you haven’t been told by your superiors to give that message to fat women.  Please tell me THAT IS NOT HAPPENING!
SC:  Sorry, I thought that you weren’t happy the way the dress looked.
Me:  Boy did you read that one wrong.

If you are someone who wears shapewear then please hear me when I say that I totally and completely support you in doing that- this is just about my feelings about my body and the shopping experience that I want – I have no interest in telling anybody else how to live.  I will fight to the death for your right to wear whatever you want, I would ask if you are willing to get on board with stores that cater to fat people creating a shopping experience that is a little less easy to construe as body shaming.

In that vein, allow me to say this:

Dear stores that sell clothes to fat people,

My top is not out of control, my tush doesn’t need to be trimmed or toned, nor, while I appreciate alliteration, do I require Tighter Tummy Technology.  I don’t need lift or definition in a sports bra – I need to finish my run without two black eyes. I do not need the people who work at your stores to suggest shapewear to help me “look my best” wearing the dress that I’m no longer buying because the person working at your store suggested that I don’t look my best in it right this minute.  I am unwilling to trade my ability to take full breaths for super-duper slimming zoned compression of any kind. I would, in fact, be happy to die without ever again hearing or reading the phrases super-duper slimming, or zoned compression unless it is a new basketball defense.  I came here to shop for clothes at one of the very few stores that caters to people my size.  I did not come here to be bombarded with advertisements that suggest I should try to use the “miracle” of Spandex to smush my body into some other form – if I wanted to feel like crap about my body I would go to every other store that exists, turn on the television, read the comment thread in almost any article on the internet, or read my hatemail.

I am aware that other women want these products and I celebrate their right to purchase them, but it seems to me that if they want that, they’ll be looking for them so you could tone it the hell down because right now your campaign to tone, tuck, tighten, and trim me really puts the “b” in subtle if you know what I mean.

I’ve already talked about my feelings regarding the concept of “flattering.“ I wear clothes for a lot of different reasons – to cover my body, to decorate my body, to keep my boobs smashed down while I workout, and for many, many other reasons. I do not wear clothes to make my body look like a different body, I do not believe that I need to mold my fat into some different size and shape.  I am not asking you to stop selling these items, I am asking for the ability to find clothes that don’t try to “control” any part of my body, and I am asking for a shopping experience that seems a little less like the constant body shaming I get from people and businesses that aren’t trying to get my money.

Thank you.

The Fat Activism Conference is only a week away! 

This is a virtual conference so you can listen to the talks by phone and/or computer wherever you are. Whether you are looking for support in your personal life with family, friends, healthcare providers etc. or you’re interested in being more public with your activism with blogging, petitions, protest, projects, online activism, or something else, this conference will give you tools and perspectives to support you  and your work, and to help you make that work intentionally intersectional and inclusive, so that nobody gets left behind. Click here to get all the info and register!

Like the blog?  More Cool Stuff!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Like my work?  Want to help me keep doing it? 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

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!

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, you can 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.

One of the most frustrating things to me is when I’m discussing Health at Every Size and I bring up a ton of research and someone answers with “everybody knows [insert unproved/disproved assumption here]”   I don’t know about you but I find it exhausting to be constantly assaulted by sweeping, generalized opinions that are being stated as fact by ill-informed people unwavering in the face of facts and evidence contrary to their opinions.  The diet industry has done a really good job of turning people into walking commercials for the message that makes them 60 Billion dollars a year.

Before we get too far, remember that Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size are two different things (the former is a civil rights movement, the latter a paradigm for health) and that being treated with basic human respect should not be contingent upon “health” or “healthy behaviors”  by any definition.  What I’m talking about here are discussion of the evidence around HAES by those who are interested in discussing it. I think that people end up being in this position of defending what “everybody knows” for all kinds of reasons including:

• They honestly (but mistakenly) believe that what they are saying is proven fact
• It makes them feel better about themselves to speak as in absolutes as if they know for sure what is true for everyone
• They lack the intellectual humility to be aware that they could be wrong
• They had an experience and they mistakenly believe that their experience will/should be everyone’s experience
• They know that they could be wrong but they lack the emotional intelligence to admit it

In any event, dealing with the constant barrage of this can be incredibly frustrating. It’s times like these that I reflect on Galileo.  At the core, he was a guy who was looking at the research and saying “I know that everyone believes this but the evidence doesn’t support it.”  So of course the establishment said: “Wow, thank you for bringing this up, we need to look into this!”

Wait, no they didn’t.  They told him to sit down and shut up and  put him under house arrest for life.

Obviously that put a damper on his social life but it didn’t make him any less correct – the Earth does in fact move around the sun.

Galileo is a reminder to me that just because the majority of people and those in power believe something and repeat it endlessly. defend it viciously, and consider it heresy to disagree with them, that does not make it so.

Nobody can prove that fat causes the health issues that it gets blamed for. Nobody knows for sure why nearly every health problem that is correlated with being fat is also correlated with being under constant stress.  Nobody knows for sure the long term health effects of living in a society that constantly stigmatizes you and tells you that you can’t possible be healthy. Nobody knows what would happen to fat people’s health if they didn’t live in a society that constantly stigmatizes them.  Nobody knows of a single study in which more than a tiny fraction of people have maintained long-term weight loss, and nobody knows what that weight loss means for people’s health since it has not been studied.

That’s a lot of “nobody knows”.  So the way that I deal with the constant barrage of BS is by reminding myself that people can say “everybody knows you just eat less and exercise more and you’ll lose weight” or “everybody knows that we’re fatter because of fast food/sedentary lifestyle/hormones in food/alien invasion” or “everybody knows that we would all be thin if we would just give up carbs/give up sugar/go vegetarian/go vegan/go gluten free/drink most of your meals/swallow a tape worm” but the evidence does not support their hypotheses and so the truth is that “everybody” knows nothing – “everybody” is talking out of their ass.

We all have opinions and we are entitled to base our choices on our opinions but that’s where it ends.  Nobody has the right to tell me that personal responsibility means that I am personally responsible for making my choices based on their opinions, and I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.  So whenever I see one of these comments I picture them dressed up in 17th Century Garb writing with a quill “the sun revolves around the Earth”  It puts it right back in perspective for me.

Like the blog?  More Cool Stuff!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Like my work?  Want to help me keep doing it? 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

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!

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, you can 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.