Reader Tara brought this concept to my attention today and I have to say that when I first read her comment I was hoping it was just one goofy local news thing.  But it wasn’t.  If you’ve banked some Sanity Watchers points this week you can Google Sandy 15 and see what I mean.  In case you don’t get the clever, clever reference joke, the Sandy 15 is a reference to the freshman 15 (the idea that college students gain 15 pounds their freshmen year).  The idea of the freshmen 15 is problematic on many levels including but not limited to putting a focus on weight at a time when girls have a high chance of developing an eating disorder.  The Sandy 15 is just stupid and not just because it’s only been a couple of days, not a year.

My blue ribbon loser article was by Fox [Edit:  Reader A Elizabeth corrected me – the article is by the Associated Press, Fox picked it up as did many other outlets.]  The article talks about a woman who went to the grocery store with “good intentions” of buying cucumbers and apples.  But since there was, you know, a freaking hurricane, her store hadn’t received new supplies.  So she *gasp* bought chips and salsa, and Oreos.  She even “sheepishly” admitted to eating boxed macaroni and cheese. I’ll say it again because it’s so distressing that you may not have been able to process it the first time – this woman ate boxed mac and cheese.  Oh the humanity!

A dietician even made a punny – calling the combination of a lack of fresh foods, people baking as an at home family activity, and having Halloween candy around for trick or treaters as “the perfect storm.” Get it – perfect storm…hurricane – get it?

The article actually says “Even fitness trainer Simone de la Rue gave into a burger, french fries and margarita on Tuesday – for lunch, no less.”  For lunch.  FOR LUNCH!  We should strip her of her fitness certification, or we should maybe just kill her and put her out of her misery. No wait, later in the article they say that she is “making up for her indulgences with a few extra workout videos streamed on her iPad.”  She can live to fitness train another day.

Our genius dietician suggests household chores with vigorous scrubbing (seriously) and that next time people should be ready with some low-sodium bean based soup in the pantry.

So let’s review – there was a massive natural disaster, people died and there may be more, some people have lost everything and are living in shelters,  people are literally dumpster diving for food, but let’s make sure that people with internet access should know that they should feel ashamed of what they are eating, and more shamed if they aren’t overcoming whatever emotions, tragedies etc. they are dealing with to scrub something in their house vigorously enough to feel like they’ve burned enough calories to assuage the guilt that there is no need for in the first place.

The fact that anybody thought this article was ok to write and that a major news outlet was willing to print it tells me that we have gone far, far over the line when it comes to confusing healthy eating habits with a relationship with food that is built on what eating disorder specialists consider disordered eating patterns.  When it comes to our ideas about eating and health, our culture is massively messed up. When people who are dealing with a natural disaster are most worried about calorie counting, there is a problem.

Imagine a conversation about food without the concepts of guilt, good, bad, evil, sinful, etc.  Where eating is not used as a way to manipulate body size.  Where the discussion is about, as Linda Bacon says “Eating in a flexible manner that values pleasure and honors internal cues of hunger, satiety and appetite.”

So what can you do?

• Opt out of this for yourself.  There are lots of resources to help you find new ways of eating, I recommend Michelle at The Fat Nutritionist and Golda at Body Love Wellness for a start.
• Speak out against this when you hear about it – leave comments on articles, comment on conversations, speak about your HAES practice like others speak about their diets
• Sign the HAES pledge

Happy HAES Holidays Teleconference Workshop – Registration is Name Your Own Price – Nov 13 and 15

During the holiday season I get a ton of e-mail from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police or their partner’s office party. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season and into the new year. All calls will be recorded so registrants can listen  Details and registration are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

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

The Dance Class DVDs:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.

An industry whose product is legally required to state that it doesn’t work every time they try to sell it doesn’t make sixty-billion dollars a year without some pretty good marketing.  You might think losing every deceptive trade practice lawsuit that has been brought by the Federal Trade Commission would slow down sales a little bit.  But the diet industry has managed to slap a “results not typical” label on all of their stuff and just keep raking in the dough.

Part of it is because the diet industry knows that biology dictates that almost everyone can lose weight short term and almost everyone will gain it back long term, and they’ve done a tremendous job of taking credit for the first part and blaming their client for the second part –  though neither is accurate. This is what leads fat people to argue vehemently that Weight Watchers works because they did it six times and they lost weight at the beginning every time – of course they also gained it back but they don’t associate Weight Watchers with that. Part of it is because fat people are subject to a tremendous amount of shame, stigma, bullying, and oppression and so people are desperate to find a way out of that and if they can’t lose weight, at least they might get partial credit and a temporary pass if they are perceived as “trying to do something.”

One of the marketing ploys that the Diet Industry uses is the Dieting Trifecta of Doom.  They have set up three “seasons” a year to market around that allow them to constantly remind us that we will never look good enough.   The events are:

1. The holidays are coming
2. The new year is here
3. Bikini season is coming

Right now we are in “The holidays are coming.”  I know that because I received an advertisement from a local diet company affiliate that suggested that I might want to lose weight so as not to embarrass my husband at his company Christmas party.   Looking past the fact that it’s not 1950, I have a girlfriend, and we’re both self-employed, this one seems like a particularly low blow – it sounds like they realize that more and more of us realize that beauty, health, and happiness come in sizes that include ours – so they  want to make us fear that we’ll be an embarrassment to our partners so that we’ll buckle and give them our money. I guess this is what you stoop to when your product doesn’t work.

Soon we’ll start hearing about weight loss New Year’s Resolutions and every diet company in the world will run some sort of special.  When that wears off we’ll start hearing about how we have to get ready for bikini season. When summer is over it will be “the holidays are coming”  all over again.

I think it’s important to notice that the diet industry has purposefully created a cycle of three artificial seasons to make us spend the whole year sure that we don’t look good enough now and terrified that we won’t look good enough for the next artificial season.  Happily, we can opt out of the cycle. For example, it’s November, I’m fat, and my body is already “bikini season ready” and the way I know is that I have both a body and bikini, so there you go. I will not be sucked into the vortex of the Diet Company Trifecta of Doom.

Happy HAES Holidays Teleconference Workshop – Registration is Name Your Own Price – Nov 13 and 15

During the holiday season I get a ton of e-mail from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police or their partner’s office party. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season and into the new year. All calls will be recorded so registrants can listen  Details and registration are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

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

The Dance Class DVDs:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.

An article that I will not be linking to called “There, I said it…I’m Glad My Kids Aren’t Fat.” by Alana House appeared on Australian website Mamamia.  While I appreciate the ability to pack that much punctuation into the title of one article, the rest leaves something to be desired.

To summarize – she’s glad that her kids aren’t fat because then they would have to deal with the actions of bigots like her.  She talks about shuddering at the sight of fat kids.  She doesn’t understand the difference between correlation and causation but she’s happy to make completely incorrect declaratory statements predicting doom anyway. She goes on and on about wanting to lose 10kg, swearing that she will lose it even though she’s promised “sooooo many times before, but I really mean it now”. She assigns moral value to gnocci (it’s evil, in case you were wondering) and she freely admits that her kids eat junk but since they stay thin that’s just super cool.

It’s everything that this ridiculous war on childhood obesity leads to – it’s overstating, hysterical, completely based on “everybody knows,”and dangerous to kids.  It would be nice if, instead of wringing their hands and screaming “WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN,” someone would actually think of the children.

Newsflash Alana:  If you let your kids eat what you describe as “junk,” then you call that food evil, your kids are likely headed toward an unhealthy relationship with food.  If you obsess about your own weight, promising over and over again that you are going to lose “that last whatever the hell number of pounds” and you never feel that you are thin enough, that’s what you are modeling to your kids.

If you feel like being proud that your kids aren’t part of a group of people who are stigmatized and oppressed “feels like some shameful secret” then maybe instead of writing an article full of bigotry and assumptions, it’s time to stop and think about why it feels shameful.  I’m just spit-balling here but maybe it’s because you’re a massive bigot and, try as you might to justify it as “concern for health” or whatever, deep down you know that you are a bigot – that you are contributing to the shame, stigma, and oppression that is heaped onto fat people because of how we look and you’re teaching your kids to do the same. Maybe, just maybe, if feels shameful because it IS shameful.

We must, we must, WE MUST remove weight from the discussion about health, especially kid’s health. We have to stop trying to build public health on a foundation of stigmatizing, shaming, and oppressing a group of people for how they look. Bigotry is the opposite of public health, not the foundation of it.

Happy HAES Holidays Teleconference Workshop – Registration is Name Your Own Price – Nov 13 and 15

During the holiday season I get a ton of e-mail from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police or their partner’s office party. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season and into the new year. All calls will be recorded so registrants can listen  Details and registration are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

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

The Dance Class DVDs:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.

I received an e-mail today that said:

I just read almost all of your blog posts and I notice that you constantly say that health is not entirely in someone’s control, that people’s health isn’t anybody else’s business, that they can make health whatever they want it to be, and that health isn’t obligatory.  If you feel that way, why do you bother to talk about health at all?

I’ll start by clarifying what this person paraphrased. Health is multi-dimensional and includes things within and outside of our control including genetics, environment, access, and behaviors.  Health is not an obligation, nor is it a barometer of worthiness.  Nobody owes anybody else “health” or “healthy behavior,”  and those who aren’t interested in health are not better or worse people than those who are interested in health.  Prioritization of health and the path that someone chooses to get there are intensely personal and not anybody else’s business.  The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not health or healthy habit dependent. People who have health issues should be given options for care and accommodation as they wish, not judged or asked to prove that their health issues are not their fault.

When I talk about health, it’s not because I am trying to tell people how to live.  I’m not attempting to make a persuasive argument at all.  I talk about health because there are people who are interested in being healthy, there is nothing wrong with that, and there is an unbelievably successful misinformation campaign happening that is harming people, and the way to stop that and honor those people’s interest in health is by talking about it.

Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, the misinformation campaign tells people that the only way to be healthy is to be thin, and that trying to be thin by any means necessary is healthier than being fat. This does a disservice to thin people who are misinformed that they are healthy simply because of their weight, and it does a disservice to fat people who are told all manner of nonsense.

Fat people are told to participate in behaviors that, viewed outside of our current obesity hysteria, would seem preposterous… Everyone else is told to eat whole foods, farm to table, slow foods etc. –  except fat people who are told to consume reconstituted soy protein shakes 5 times a day, or eat a diet comprised entirely of highly processed food that comes frozen in a plastic bag and is microwaved, or eat 500 calories a day while getting urine-derived injections, or amputating our stomachs.  When it comes to movement, fat people are told that if moving our bodies doesn’t make us thinner then it doesn’t make us healthier despite the massive amount of evidence that tells us that exercise is great at making people healthier and horrible at making people thinner.

I talk about health because I believe that people deserve an opportunity to make choices knowing all the options, including those grounded in evidence, reality, and logic. All I care about is that people have access to the information they need to evaluate all of their options. “To increase your chance for good health, drink reconstituted soy protein shakes all day and workout 2 hours a day whether you like it or now- unless you don’t lose weight then you should drink less shakes and exercise more” is a very different option than “To increase your chance for good health move your body 3o minutes a day, 5 days a week in ways that you enjoy and try to get 5 servings of fruits and vegetables.” Of course I have no problem with those who have heard about Health at Every Size/Behavior Centered Health, had access to evaluate the evidence, and decided it wasn’t for them.  My concern is for all of the people hating their bodies and trying to lose weight by any means necessary because they want to increase their chance for good health and they don’t know that there is any other option.

I completely reject the idea that nobody should talk about health as an option just because it’s not an obligation, a barometer of worthiness, or an option that everyone is required to be interested in.  I believe that we should absolutely attack and destroy the social constructs that suggest that health is an obligation, a barometer of worthiness, or an option that everyone is required to pursue – but not at the expense of conversations about health for those who are interested.

Happy HAES Holidays Teleconference Workshop – Registration is Name Your Own Price – Nov 13 and 15

During the holiday season I get a ton of e-mail from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police or their partner’s office party. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season and into the new year.  Details and registration are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

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

The Dance Class DVDs:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.

Today would have been Bob Ross’s 70th  birthday. Did you ever watch The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross on PBS?  He was this gentle soul who loved painting and wanted to help everyone else love it too.  Stick with me, this is absolutely about size acceptance.

I have very vague recollections of seeing this show as a kid, but I’ve never been much for visual arts (I got excused from high school art class for sucking) so I didn’t pay much attention.

I was at a friend’s house and the show was on.  Before I could reach the remote to change the channel I was mesmerized.  He gave me a whole lesson on life while he created a beautiful painting in less than 30 minutes.

The way that he approached the painting was so carefree.  He didn’t say “now be very careful and think before you apply the paint”.  He said “Just brush it on – there are no mistakes here, we just have happy accidents”.

He talked about how anyone could paint and, sitting there on my friend’s recliner playing Scrabble on my iPhone, I began to actually believe him.  As he finished out the background I started to think that I wasn’t just an art class drop out, maybe this wasn’t completely impossible. I started to think that I could maybe do that…

Then he picked up some very dark paint with his knife and said that it was time to paint a mountain.  I could feel the fear well up – I was wrong.  I definitely could not do this.  I was about to ruin the imaginary painting in my mind.  There was going to be a big brown/black lump of failure on my imaginary canvas where a majestic mountain was supposed to be.

As he put it on he said “Be bold. Be fearless.   This is your mountain.  You can make it anyway you want.  You are in control”.  My fear and anxiety faded with his gentle assertions.  I could do this…

I looked him up on Wikipedia and it said that when asked about his calm, laid back demeanor he said:  “I got a letter from somebody here a while back, and they said, ‘Bob, everything in your world seems to be happy.’ That’s for sure. That’s why I paint. It’s because I can create the kind of world that I want, and I can make this world as happy as I want it. Shoot, if you want bad stuff, watch the news.”

I was also delighted to find that one of the criticisms against him was that “Ross tended to paint from his imagination, rather than from a careful study of nature. His trees, for instance, are not accurate depictions of real trees.”  Of course anybody who does anything is going to collect critics, but what a fantastic thing of which to be accused!

I talk a lot about loving ourselves and our bodies and creating an authentic life  which is not always the simplest path, especially for fat people who live in a culture steeped in weight bigotry and oppression.  Letting go of all of the negative messages that we got, ignoring the ones that we are getting; discovering, growing and protecting our self-esteem; living honestly and authentically, loving ourselves; appreciating our bodies, loving someone else; these can all be scary things that I hope to support people doing – somehow through his 30 minute show on painting Bob Ross made it all seem possible.

I didn’t “meet” Bob Ross until after he passed away, but he is a hero of mine. How amazing would it be to live up to his legacy –  that someone somewhere who thinks that liking themselves is impossible reads our work or hears us speak or sees us living authentic lives and thinks…”I could maybe do that…” that we could be the Bob Rosses of Size Acceptance.  That our critics will accuse us of creating our lives from our imaginations, rather than a careful study of what is (aka what “everybody knows.”)  I can think of few compliments or criticisms as great. So happy 70th Bob Ross, and thanks for the happy little trees, the happy little clouds, the happy little accidents, and the hope.

Happy HAES Holidays Teleconference Workshop – Registration is Name Your Own Price – Nov 13 and 15

Normally I get between 100 and 200 e-mails a day.  During the holiday season that climbs to 200-300 from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season and into the new year.  Details and registration are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

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

The Dance Class DVDs:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.

So I’ve been shopping for clothes lately at ye Olde Fat Clothing Stores.  In one store I couldn’t find tights that weren’t “control top”, another only carries “control top” leggings.  I keep getting e-mails about “Tighter Tummy Technology.”  Padded sports bras promise “glamour” and “lift” but  wouldn’t hold my boobs down walking to my car, and yoga pants with spandex inserts to “tighten and flatten” abound.

The straw that broke the fatties back was on the Lane Bryant website, when I accidentally clicked shapewear instead of sleepwear (Trigger Warning: body shaming feel free to scroll past)

People are allowed to wear whatever clothes they want, my question is – must we have this constant drumbeat of advertising that as fat people if we aren’t going to lose weight we need to wear clothes that make us look like we did, or that makes us all look like fat hour glasses with flat fronts?

If you are someone who wears these clothes and 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 Glamour or lift in a sports bra – I need to finish step class 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 advertisement that suggests 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, or read the comment thread in almost any article that exists on the internet.

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 at the gym 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.

Happy HAES Holidays Teleconference Workshop – Registration is Name Your Own Price – Nov 13 and 15

Normally I get between 100 and 200 e-mails a day.  During the holiday season that climbs to 200-300 from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season and into the new year.  Details and registration are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

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

The Dance Class DVDs:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.

Reader May sent a question regarding wider social applications of The Underpants Rule, specifically as it relates to how much fat people “cost”. Here are my thoughts. (The block quote may be triggering although I don’t believe that was May’s intention. You can skip it and you’ll still understand the blog.  I choose to leave the actual question because I think that it makes it easier for some people to relate since they may be asking the same questions themselves.)

As much as I want to fight for the rights of the big beautiful folks (myself included), I do realize that there does come a point when some personal choices do cost others money. Did you know hospitals now have to have much wider beds and chairs (politely called “bariatric chairs”) for their very large patients? More hospitals also have electric lifts and slings to move a patient. And that ambulances have had to get specialized equipment to be able to move the obese? So my honest question is : who do you think should pay for these upgrades?

First, I think that those who take on the job of providing healthcare for the community should be looking for ways to remove barriers to healthcare, not trying to justify them.  The hospital needs equipment for all kinds of reason – to work with premature babies, to have an intensive care unit, to work with children, to work with people who use wheelchairs, and to work with people of size.  They signed up for this when they agreed to provide healthcare to the community.  The idea of “blaming fat people” for being fat as a way to justify not having the equipment that they need to give us healthcare is simply not-very-thinly-veiled bigotry.  Just like they should provide the equipment that people who use wheelchairs need – not ask them why they are in a wheelchair and then deny them help if was “their fault.”  Also, just for the record, they don’t need a “polite” name for a chair that fits my fat ass, they can just call it a chair – that’s what we call it at my house.

There is a sentiment here that body size is a choice and that it is changeable, and that people can choose whether or not to “accept” fat bodies, with which I disagree.  It is absolutely true that bodies come in many different sizes for many different reasons, there is evidence that weight is as heritable as height and research suggests that body weight is almost impossible to change long term.  In the end, it doesn’t actually matter why someone is fat – the hospital has taken on the job of providing healthcare to the community and they knew that the community included fat people when they took on that job, and so my question isn’t should they get the equipment they need to treat fat people.  My question is why wasn’t this factored into their business plans and cost of doing business in the first place?   I believe that they are responsible for having equipment to treat their patients of all sizes and needs.

I think that any time we try to identify a group of people based on how they look and then calculate their “cost” on society and/or figure out what we can blame them for,  we are going the wrong direction.  Our culture has taken to attempting to calculate the cost of individuals and figure out what we can blame people for as an excuse to deny healthcare or services in order to create the highest possible profits, even if that means that some people are completely unable to access healthcare. Next will they refuse to treat people whose issue can be considered their fault – they didn’t follow proper ladder safety, they were thin but sedentary,  they tried to do their own electric work etc.

I think our time and energy would be better spent working on access –  helping make sure that everyone has access to food options, safe movement options if they want them (that includes physical and emotional safety – if every person can’t go to the pool in a swimsuit with total certainty that they will not be shamed or bullied then we are failing to provide safe movement options,) and access to evidence-based healthcare that is affordable for each person.  At the end of the day, I think it’s important to remember that if equal rights and access seem to inconvenience others then it’s typically safe to assume that those other people have very likely been benefiting from the current situation, and that includes hospitals that have higher profit margins because they simply didn’t purchase what they need to serve patients of all sizes.

Healthcare should be about health not about finding ways not to provide healthcare.

Happy HAES Holidays Teleconference Workshop – Registration is Name Your Own Price – Nov 13 and 15

Normally I get between 100 and 200 e-mails a day.  During the holiday season that climbs to 200-300 from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season and into the new year.  Details and registration are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

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

The Dance Class DVDs:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.

Every time someone dares to suggest that society should stop trying to shame fat people “for our own good” in the hopes they we will all hate ourselves healthy, someone has to wring their hands and say “we don’t want to be irresponsible and say that obesity isn’t a problem”.  The truth is that it is absolutely irresponsible to say that obesity is a problem.

When people talk about the Obesity Epidemic or the Obesity Problem, what they are trying to do is make body size a proxy for health, and then make health a societal obligation and barometer for measuring worth and that’s wrong on both counts.  Body sizes aren’t really a problem. A label of obesity is the end result of a BMI calculation and it’s ridiculous to suggest that my weight in pounds times 703 divided by my height in inches squared constitutes any kind of health diagnosis, or that my health is anyone else’s business. We’re also taller than we’ve ever been but nobody wants to scream about the Tallness Epidemic or how they have the hot new thing to make everyone shorter.  (And isn’t it interesting that we’re okay with bodies coming in different heights, but not in different widths?)

Body size is not a diagnosis and we need to stop acting as if we can look and someone and tell what they eat, what activity they do and how healthy they are, or that how healthy they are is anyone’s business.  It also does a disservice to those who are interested in health – it tells fat people that healthy habits don’t matter unless those habits make us thin, and it tells thin people that they are healthy just because of their size. Both of those statements are dead wrong. This hits home even more when we realize how much this issue has been exaggerated – for example the CDC originally told the media that 400,000 deaths a year were caused by obesity – when they were pressed they admitted that the number was actually less than 30,000 deaths but they purposefully chose not to disclose their error or the correct number to the media or change their approach of trying to convince people to get thin as a way to prevent 370,000 deaths a year that they know are non-existent.

It surprises a lot of people to find out that the diseases that are very often linked to fatness have never ever been shown to be caused by fatness – only correlated.  And those diseases are also correlated with being under long-term stress.  It makes sense if you think about it – if obesity was really the cause of medical problems then we would expect that most obese people would have those medical problems and very few thin people would.  But that’s not the way it works.  There are healthy fat people and unhealthy thin people. There are people of every size with the medical conditions that get erroneously blamed on body size.  If thin people get a disease then it stands to reason that being thin is neither a sure preventative nor a sure cure.  If thin people who have these diseases are given treatments that do not include weight loss, why are those interventions not given to fat people?

There is definitely a problem (several actually), but it’s not obesity.

Stigma is a problem.

According to research from Dr. Peter Muennig, a health professor from Columbia:

“Women who say they feel they are too heavy suffer more mental and physical illness than women who say they feel fine about their size — no matter what they weigh.”

When you say that body size is the problem then you are telling people to have a problem with their bodies – betting that they will somehow hate themselves healthy. Knowing what Dr. Muennig’s research found, and knowing that we live in a world where people spend their time making sure that we get a ceaseless stream of body hatred, it would make more sense if people of size did suffer more mental and physical illness. But if that’s the case then the issue is not obesity, it’s social stigma, and weight loss is not the cure for social stigma.  Ending social stigma is the cure for social stigma.

Speaking of stigma, Dr. Muennig also tells us:

“Stigma and prejudice are intensely stressful. Over time, such chronic stress can lead to high blood pressure and diabetes.”

Like the stress of being constantly stigmatized by everyone from jerks on the internet to doctors perhaps?  How about we give ending social stigma around body size a try?  Couldn’t hurt, would probably help.

Making individual health the public’s business is a problem

Someone’s health, their prioritization of their health, and the path they choose to reach any health goals that they may choose are intensely personal and not a matter for public consumption.  Health is not entirely within our control.  Health is not a barometer for worthiness, it is not a societal obligation, it is not anybody’s business.  Public health should be about providing health options to the public, not about making the individual’s health the public’s business.

Access is a problem

We’re spending so much time buying and selling thin, that we’ve forgotten about actual health.  Sixty billion dollars went to the diet industry last year.  How many local, sustainable farms could we have supported?  How many community health centers could we have built.  How many food deserts could we have eliminated?  Instead we gave sixty billion dollars to an industry with a less than 5% success rate that has been sued repeatedly by the US Trade Commission for deceptive trade practices and LOST EVERY TIME.  We thought that was the best use of our sixty billion dollars to improve our health?  Seriously?

Studies show us over and over that healthy habits, not weight, are the best predictor of future health. Health is multi-dimensional and not entirely within our control – it includes genetics, access, stress, past behaviors and current behaviors, and health is never guaranteed.  Everybody is going to die and if you don’t get hit by a bus it’s pretty likely that things will go wrong with your body, and there is no magical weight that will stop that from happening.

Focusing on body size misleads people about health habits.  It also gets in the way of the proper treatment of actual health issues in people of all sizes.  Doctors neglect to do basic diagnostic tests on thin people because they assume that they are healthy, and people of size aren’t properly diagnosed because doctors are too busy giving a diagnosis of fat and a treatment protocol of weight loss. We can do better than this.  There is nothing to be achieved by a war on obese people that couldn’t be achieved by an initiative for providing access to healthy foods, enjoyable movement options and affordable evidence-based healthcare to those who want them.

Calling obesity the problem is the problem.

I’m Putting on a Happy HAES Holidays Workshop – Registration is Name Your Own Price

Normally I get between 100 and 200 e-mails a day.  During the holiday season that climbs to 200-300 from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season.  Details are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

Check Out my Book:  Fat:  The Owner’s Manual.  The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here to order

Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.

My readers in France may be particularly interested to know that this fall Coca-Cola will begin a small pilot program there for a new beverage that they’ve created in partnership with French drug manufacturer Sanofi. The pilot will contain four drinks made of mineral water, fruit juice and “nutrition additives” that they claim will “help strengthen hair and nails, embellish skin, lose weight, and improve vitality.”

Apparently Coca-Cola has gotten over the sting of Enviga, a green tea drink manufactured in partnership with Nestle that they claimed would burn more calories than had, which inspired a couple dozen lawsuits that ended with settlements and a disclosure disclaiming all weight loss benefits.

More concerning to me is the partnership with Sanofi.  They are the firm that manufactured the weight loss drug Rimonabant (aka Acomplia, Zimulti et al.). When reports surfaced that the medicine had serious psychiatric side effects they did the corporate version of sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling “I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, you can’t prove anything, la la la la la la la.”

They continued to refute the reports as the European Medicines Agency issued a press release stating that the benefits no longer outweighed the risks for the drug based on data that patients had twice the risk of psychiatric disorders as a group on a placebo  and Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits de Santé found five suicide deaths among patients participating in a rimonabant trial, and just one suicide in the placebo group of that study.  Sanofi-Aventis “remained committed to rimonabant, and said it was working to provide “additional evidence for the reevaluation of the benefit/risk profile.” Weeks later, Sanofi finally gave in, saying they had made their decision “in light of recent demands by certain national health authorities. As a result, the feasibility of the global clinical development program has been compromised.”  Keep it classy Sanofi.

Of course we’ve been hearing these claims for years.  We look back and laugh now at the diet advertisements of the past. Ads that promised the exact same things that the diet advertisements of the present promise. Same old, same old.  No evidence, no corporate responsibility  – just a quick buck from people desperate to move out of an oppressed group – to solve their social stigma with weight loss that the actual evidence says is not going to happen, at least not long term.

I’m going to guess that, unlike old New Coke which just lied about not sucking, the new New Coke may be lying about a lot more.

I’m Putting on a Happy HAES Holidays Workshop – Name Your Own Price

Normally I get between 100 and 200 e-mails a day.  During the holiday season that climbs to 200-300 from people asking about everything from how to set resolutions that aren’t about weight loss to how to deal with the family food police. I’ve put together a group of speakers to give you information to support you through the holiday season.  Details are here, registration is name your own price.

Like the blog?  Check this stuff out (and you can help support my work which I would really appreciate):

Check Out my Book:  Fat:  The Owner’s Manual.  The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here to order

Buy the Dance Class DVDs (hint:  Free shipping was supposed to end on Monday but I haven’t had a chance to make the changes to the pricing so there’s still free shipping until I get it done)!  Click here for the details

Become a Member and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses

I do size acceptance activism full time.  A lot what I do, like answering over 4,000 e-mails from readers each month, giving talks to groups who can’t afford to pay, and running projects like the Georgia Billboard Campaign etc. is unpaid, so I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to  support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month  To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.