I talk a lot about how using body size as a proxy for health does a disservice not just to fat people but also to thin people who get the message that as long as they are thin they are healthy regardless of their behaviors.  I was thinking today about the similar disservice that fat stigma does to the entire population.

Being fat is an interesting experience because it is a highly stigmatized group who are thought to be able to move in and out of that group at will. (I don’t think that the research shows that at all, but I find that it’s the commonly held belief.)

Because of this, there is a general idea that the cure for social stigma directed at fat people is for those people to stop being fat.  In other words what we’re told is “Stop making people want to stigmatize you so much!”

Among fat people this this creates a couple of categories.  If we publicly agree that we deserve to be stigmatized for being fat, and we’re trying to “do something about it” in the form of attempting weight loss (aka being a “good fatty”) we can gain some provisional acceptance from the stigmatizing group.  If we refuse to buy into a thin=worthy model and refuse to attempt to conform and make our picture match someone else’s frame (aka being a “bad fatty”) then many people feel that we deserve all the hate and vitriol that they can spit at us.

We get 386,170 negative messages about our bodies a year. We are told that we can’t be attractive, sexy, smart, loved, or healthy until we are thin.  This is obviously wrong and we deserve to be treated better.

But there is one group who are affected by these things who don’t often get attention:  They are the people who are thin but spend their lives obsessed with not getting fat. They see what happens to us fatties and they don’t want it to happen to them. Some have disordered eating. Some are fixated on exercise.  Some weigh themselves every day in constant terror of being fat. Some spend their lives on diets trying to lose those “stubborn final 10 pounds”. Some miss out on experiences that they would have loved to have because they are afraid that it will make them fat or because they can never skip the gym.  Some lose their lives on the operating table getting fat sucked out of their asses.  I’ve heard that 8 out of 10 women and 6 out of 10 men are unhappy with their bodies. Women start dieting earlier (4 years old!) and stop later (or never).

So ending all the body shaming and body stigma isn’t just about making fat people’s lives better (although that alone is absolutely a worthy goal), it’s about making everyone’s lives better.  Imagine a world where we could all approach our relationships with our bodies purely from a place of care and appreciation.  A world where nobody hates their thighs, where bodies come in all shapes and sizes and that’s just peachy.  A world where people can make choices about their health rather than making choices based on the terror of facing massive social stigma.

We all deserve to live in that world. And we can all do things, right this minute to get us there.  Some example to get us started:

1.  Stop body snarking.  All of it. Right now.  There is just no reason in the world for you to comment negatively on someone else’s body.  Get your self-esteem elsewhere (how about intrinsically?)

2.  Interrupt body snarking and fat stigma whenever you hear and see them – whether it’s in your own mind or in public about your body or someone else’s.

3.  Consider approaching your body from a place of care and appreciation.

4. Consider spending the money that you would spend on diet programs on other self-care…get some massages, take classes that you’ve always wanted to take, buy a bike, hire a chef to prepare delicious foods that will nurture your body, take a trip to a spa, buy whole foods, whatever makes your body feel amazing.

5. Understand that almost everyone in our society is hurting because of the unceasing body shame and stigma. Even that person who you might think has “everything” – the perfect body, the perfect face –  may be living his or her life in terror of losing that.  Look for ways to support other people and lift them up. Today at the bank I saw a woman with beautiful long, curly silver hair (exactly the kind of hair I plan to have someday).  I told her that I thought her hair was awesome and she started crying.  CRYING. At. The. Bank.  She hugged me and told me that her friends said that you can’t have long gray hair and that she should cut it.  What the eff people?  We can do better.

6.  Rock my official shirt.  Oh yeah, I totally went there.  A few posts ago some readers asked me when I was going to have a DancesWithFat shirt they could wear. Thanks to lovely graphic design by Cristy C, I now have one. This is the first item that will help fund the upcoming Dances with Fat World Tour! Click on the image below and it can be yours.

I gave a talk today to the students at the Texas A&M School of Rural Public Health (They have a great blog that you can check out). They were awesome – attentive, open-minded and they asked excellent questions.  One of my favorite questions was a woman who asked what I thought was the number one most important change that could be made in public health.

My answer was that we need to take weight out of the equation and make public health about public health, not public thinness.  Right now the idea of “eradicating obesity” is a major part of public health effort and I think that every penny we are spending on that is a waste of money. So what would I spend money on? I’m glad that you asked…

Have you heard of “Food Deserts”?  These are areas where there is a lack of affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains.   You know that money that we’re putting into commercials that talk about how many calories a day breastfeeding burns and how it will stop your kid from being fat?  How about we spend some of that money making sure that moms, and everyone else, have access to affordable healthy foods.

There are people who don’t have safe access to movement options that they enjoy.  Even if they like jogging some people can’t do it safely in their neighborhoods.  Some people would love to swim but they don’t have access to a pool.  Some would love to dance but don’t have access to classes. Remember those horrible fat kid-shaming billboards from Georgia?  What if they used those millions of dollars to build some non-profit community fitness centers and help existing community fitness centers take sliding scale payments.  All the money the Ad Council spends on OMGDeathFatIsComingForYou ads?  Let’s spend that letting people know about those fitness centers and how they are fiercely anti-shame and all about health for people of all sizes.

You know every damn penny that we are spending having a war on fat kids?  How about we re-purpose that money to be for healthy healthy kids of all sizes.  Gym classes with all kinds of options  -the end of dodgeball as we know it – some kids can walk around the track, some can swim, some can dance, some can play computer games that require them to move, whatever will help them create a lasting love of moving their bodies or at last keep them from just hating the crap out of exercise. How about some school lunch offerings that are nourishing, appealing and affordable?

All those grants that we are spending for researchers to keep trying to figure out how to make us all fit the same narrow height/weight proportion?  Let’s re-purpose that money for research to make us healthier.  Let’s train doctors how to work appropriately with people of size – from a place of respect – treating health issues with health interventions. Let’s cure some form of cancer.  Let’s do SOMETHING a little more worthy of our time and money than ignoring the diversity of the human experience and trying to make everyone fit the same very narrow ratio of height and weight.

And it’s not just money.  Every second that we spend talking about the war on obesity, body shaming, body snarking, acting like someone else’s body size is our business, or confusing body size with diagnosis or health… What if we re-purposed that time to doing, oh I don’t know, anything else? I don’t think that people hate themselves healthy, because I don’t think that people take good care of things that they hate.  If we would back the hell off so that people weren’t obsessed with not being fat anymore, or not getting fat, or hating parts of their bodies, then people would have an opportunity to realize how amazing their bodies are, appreciate them and then care for them in their own way without constant stigma or constant threat of stigma.

I think any public health intervention that leads people to hate their bodies is a bad intervention.  I think that making everyone the same size is not the same as making everyone healthy. I do not believe that getting rid of fat people is a goal worthy of any time or money.  I think that giving people access to healthy foods, safe movement options that they enjoy, and love for their bodies are goals worthy of all the time, energy and money that we can possibly spend on them.  I have great hopes for the students of the Texas A&M School for Rural Public Health and for society in general that we will get past the scapegoating and stigmatizing of people of size and get onto the business of giving people access to a variety of options and then respecting their choices.

Reader Sabrina submitted the following question:

I know that you sometimes take questions from readers — I wonder what you think about how to introduce people to Size Acceptance (SA) and Health at Every Size (r) (HAES). There are [some people] who I think could really benefit from reading blogs like yours, and books on the topic. But I don’t know how to do it without being hurtful.

It’s a really good question.  Obviously this can be a sensitive subject and, at least for now, it may be an entirely new concept for the person to whom you are introducing it.  If you read this blog very often, you already know that I’m not into telling people what to do .  My approach (and recommendation) is always to couch it as something that I do, rather than something that someone else should do.  This post talks about how I specifically explain HAES so today I’ll talk more about how you might broach the subject.

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 practice Health at Every Size – so I focus on healthy behaviors rather than a number on a scale.”  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. This works especially well if you are setting boundaries/asking for support.  For example “I’ve decided to practice Health at Every Size.  For me that means that I’ll be focusing on what I decide are healthy habits and not on a number on the scale, weight loss, or what other people think I should do with my body.  I would love your support in this but if you aren’t willing to support me then it is important that you respect my choice”.  Obviously you’ll want to modify the words for yourself but that’s the idea.

I really can’t stress enough how much more of a powerful position I’ve found myself in if I simply explain rather than trying to convince, persuade, defend or seek approval.

Reader Elizabeth sent me this gem.  It hit home because I used to be an AFAA Certified Fitness Professional and I was just thinking about renewing my certification.

AFAA would like to invite you to attend A Taste of… Biggest Loser® Live Training (Live Online Workshop)

Already my alarm bells are going off.  The invincible ego of Jillian Michaels, the physical and emotional abuse of fat people under the bs guise of “saving their lives”.  This does not bode well.

What is it?
This one-day, live online workshop is designed to provide fitness professionals with an introduction to the knowledge, tools, and fundamental skills necessary to successfully work with larger-sized, overweight and obese participants.

I was not aware that a fitness professional working with me would be required to possess special knowledge, tools and fundamental skills just because of my body size.  Also, I sort of thought that the point of fundamental skills was that they are, well… fundamental, so ostensibly someone who is already a Fitness Professional would have a working knowledge of those skills.

In addition, the workshop will introduce AFAA’s signature Complete 10™ Workout which is a key component of The Biggest Loser® Pro program*.  This signature workout series is comprised of highly effective training routines that fuse high-intensity interval training, compound/functional resistance exercises, core strengthening and stretching/deep breathing into 10-minute, power-packed workouts.

The Biggest Loser is built around the contestants working out 5 or more hours a day.  What does a series of 10 minute workouts have to do with The Biggest Loser?  Are we maybe just smearing ugly lipstick on a pig here?

Program highlights include:
Information, review and discussion of the obesity health crisis

Oh dear god, I can’t even imagine the misinformation-palooza that this will become.

Review of AFAA’s Exercise Standards and Guidelines for the larger-sized participant

Because not only can you tell how healthy someone is by their body size, you can also tell their level of physical fitness.  No wait, that’s not true at all.

Realities and challenges of working with this special population

Oh what in fat hell… I could not be more offended by this statement. There are realities and challenges for working with me? I guess if you consider the fact that I am happy with my body and demand respect a challenge then a case could be made – but you’d better make it quick because I’m out the door to find another fitness professional. And “special population”…really?  If I’m a “special population” it’s because I’m an athlete, not because of the size of my body.

I taught group exercise from step to spinning to boot camp for six years in big name National gyms and  I can tell you that as a fitness professional it is absolutely part of your job to be able to create and modify workouts to suit the people you teach.  I can also assure you that no fitness professional worth their salt does that by looking at the size of someone’s body and taking their best guess.  That 250 pound woman could be an athlete in great shape and the 110 pound woman could be dealing with osteoporosis. That’s why you’re supposed to ask intelligent questions.

Lest you think I am anti-exercise let me assure you that’s not true at all.  I am, in fact, a great fan of exercise.  I think it’s extremely important for people to have access to safe movement options that they enjoy, taught by fitness professionals who can meet their needs.  I just seriously doubt that the people who put a group of starving fatties in a room full of cupcakes to test their willpower are the ones to get it done.  If you’re new to exercise or looking for some cool professionals I would highly suggest that you check out Jeanette DePatie  author of The Fat Chick Works Out, Abby Lentz creator of Heavy Weight Yoga, and Anna Guest Jelley, creator of Curvy Yoga. (If you know of someone I’m missing by all means make a comment! No, none of these people pay me to talk about them – I just think they are awesome.)

Regardless of who you choose, your fitness professional should always:

• Ask you about your goals and train to them (they should not make assumptions or hijack your agenda)
• Know how to modify their class, program etc. to suit your needs, or be honest that they don’t
• Respect your path to health, your choices, and your body
• Leave you feeling great about yourself and your body

Anything less and I would say it’s time to think about hitting the road and finding a better instructor.  Now I’m off to find another organization to certify me because I suddenly find myself disinclined to give AFAA any of my big fat special population money.

A reader pointed out this this article today [major trigger warning – article is bad, comments are worse] http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/is-overweight-the-new-normal-weight-2545505, including the quote “In our country where the majority of individuals need to lose weight, it’s become too easy to live large, making it harder to motivate people to take steps to shed pounds. Vanity-sized apparel; Lycra (read: stretchy) clothing; larger plates, bowls, glasses and utensils; wider seats in cars and movie theaters; and bigger portions are all examples of ways the environment has changed to make it more comfy being overweight.”

There are plenty of idiotic things about this article. Confusing the concepts of clothes that fit us with larger plates, bowls and glasses strikes me as particularly assinine. Never mind the fact that we live in a society where we are constantly stigmatized, at least I can get a drink in a big ass glass.

Apparently, Julie thinks that since constant shame and stigma  aren’t working, we need to go one step further.  If we were just confined to our houses – too big to fit in cars or movie theaters, unable to find clothing that fits, we’d all be thin.  Riiiiiiiight..

A package arrived for me this morning.  In it were three stunning dresses from Igigi by Yulia Raquel. They are dressing me for the America the Beautiful 2- The Thin Commandments premieres in NYC, LA and Austin. 

First I have to take a minute to get over how crazy it is that I just typed that, about my life.

Ok I’m done (but they are absolutely gorgeous, I’m just sayin’)  I tried on the dresses and they fit perfectly.  And as a calm came over me I was realized the massive folly of my previous relationship with dress clothes:

Like a lot of fat people I know, I spent a lot of years either buying clothes that were too small, with the intention of losing weight before I had to wear them, or not buying clothes because I was going to lose weight and I was told that it would only encourage me to be fat if I bought myself nice clothes in my current size.

Trying on those beautiful dresses that fit me right now reminded me of something important.  My previous relationship (and Julie’s opinion of fat people and) clothes was BULLSHIT! Pure unadulterated bullshit.

When I bought special occasion clothes that were too small it meant that instead of eagerly anticipating the event I spent a ton of time stressing about whether or not the dress was going to fit. Eating a dangerously small amount, running on treadmills for hours with no thought about my health (mental or physical), just panicking about having a dress that would fit at the event.  At the event I was often busy trying to suck in parts of me that, based on human physiology, cannot be sucked in. Too preoccupied with my ill-fitting dress to enjoy the event. Miserable. And dumb.

And the idea that I shouldn’t have nice clothes in my every day wardrobe also doesn’t make any sense to me.  I seriously doubt that feeling frumpy, uncomfortable and unattractive in one’s clothes will inspire them to take great care of themselves.  I absolutely disagree with the idea that people hate themselves healthy or thin.  I can say for sure that it never worked for me.

I’m not talking about what other people think of your clothes.  We’ve already discussed the “true purpose” of clothes. What I’m talking about is owning clothes that you like to wear, that you are comfortable in.

Which brings me to another point – when I hear that 60% of women are “overweight” or “obese” I always wonder – What the hell are they all wearing?  Maybe Julie thinks that the world is over-run with *gasp* “stretchy” clothing that accommodates fat people but if so then I’d like to see her research material.

I think it’s ridiculous that people like Julie as so terrified of people having an opportunity to live a happy life regardless of their size.  I’m willing to be that as fat stigma goes down, our health would actually go up.  (I’m backed up by research a study from Purdue by Schafer and Ferraro who found that people who reported weight discrimination “were the individuals who had the sharpest decline over time in their functional abilities.” ) So, if you can find some, I invite you to experience the joy of buying clothes that fit and that you like right this minute. Regardless of what you want to do with your body, I recommend that you consider that any path will be easier with a firm base of appreciation for your body – and consider that appreciating your body might include making it comfortable.

I talk about the fact that my metabolic health indicators are all really good and so I get asked a lot “What if you get diabetes/heart disease/sick?” This is known as the Role Model Problem – the idea that if we hold someone up as a “role model” – proof that fat people can be healthy – then if that person gets sick it’s proof that fat people can’t be healthy.

The truth is that neither statement is true.  The fact that I am healthy is not proof that all fat people can be healthy.  If I were to get every obesity related disease tomorrow it would not be proof that no fat people can be healthy.  There are healthy and unhealthy people of every size.

The problem as I see it is that in our culture we’ve completed confused the concepts of weight and health. Somehow we’ve forgotten that body size is NOT a diagnosis.

There are exactly two things that you can tell from the size of someone’s body:

1. What size they are.
2. What your own prejudices and preconceived notions about that size are.

Health is multi-dimensional and not all facets are within our control: current behaviors, past behaviors, environment, stress, genetics, and access – including access to nourishing foods, movement options that are safe and enjoyable, and good health care which we know can be an issue for fat people.

Our numbers aren’t entirely the result of our behavior, in some cases they are primarily the result of factors outside of our control. We know that marathoners can drop dead of heart attacks.  Again – there are healthy and unhealthy people of every shape and size.

To answer the question, if I were to have a health issue then I would treat it from a health perspective. Somewhat unbelievably to me, that would likely be a controversial choice.  Consider this:

Typically if a 120 pound woman goes to the doctor with high blood sugar, she is given health interventions that are known to control blood sugar, then in subsequent visits her blood sugar will be measured to test the efficacy of the treatment.  The treatments that she is given will be proven effective before they are prescribed to her and if they fail her case will be re-evaluated and new interventions prescribed.

If a 300 pound woman goes to the doctor with high blood sugar, she is told to lose weight, and in subsequent visits her weight will be measured to determine her success.  Based on all available research this treatment fails 95% of the time.  If the treatment fails she will be blamed for not doing it right and assigned the same treatment again.

How does that make sense?  Why is a thin person given interventions that are related to their health problems, but a fat person is given interventions related to their size?  If a thin person can have diabetes then being thin can’t be the cure. Confusing weight and health does a disservice to everyone.

So if I get sick I’ll look for interventions that have a likelihood of making me well.  But for now, thin people aren’t required to prove that they will never get sick in order to celebrate their current good health and I won’t live by a double standard.  I’m 34, fat and healthy.  Yay!  Someday I will be dead.  In between I’ll do the best I can with my circumstances and my body.

I’m back from my trip to Los Angeles, it was amazing.  I got to meet a new friend (Hi Julianne!)  I also got to spend time with the awesome Jeanette DePatie (aka The Fat Chick and if you don’t know her you should totally check her out!) I walked on the beach and played in the water.  I now have some pretty severe beach envy.

I spent an afternoon with the always fun Darryl Roberts finishing up the filming for my part in his new movie – America the Beautiful II – The Thin Commandments. As part of that we climbed the famous Santa Monica Stairs.  This was made extra interesting because I was wearing a dress and some slip on shoes.  (This isn’t me in the picture, as soon as I have a picture I’ll be posting it):

I am a huge fan of Darryl’s work and I’m super excited about this film and the number of people who are going to be exposed to the idea of Health at Every Size because of it.

The trip was topped off by a talk at USC for their Love Your Body Week which was great fun and made me even more excited about the possibility of a Dances with Fat World Tour!

Now to the meat of the topic today.  One question that came up a bunch of times this weekend was “But wouldn’t your life be easier if you were thin?”

First, I really reject this question on it’s face.  There are a lot of things that might make my life easier – if I were taller some things would be easier (reaching stuff) but some things would be more difficult (standing up on a plane).  There are plenty of ways that I could change that would make my life easier but that doesn’t mean I should make those changes.  They may or may not be possible, easier doesn’t necessarily mean better, and there are typically trade-offs. For example, there is a freedom that comes from living completely outside the cultural beauty norm that I really enjoy.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the answer is “yes” – that my life would be easier if I did not have to live under the constant stigma that comes from not conforming (or trying to conform) to the social stereotype of beauty.  This is still highly problematic:

First, even if being thin would make my life easier, nobody has any proven method to get it done.  Currently the best that science can offer me is a 5% chance for success and a 95% chance of failure including ending up heavier and less healthy than when I started.  I’m going to pass on that.

But it goes beyond that for me.  Even if it was proven possible, the cure for social stigma is NOT  for the stigmatized group to change and gain provisional acceptance. To me respect for all sizes is absolutely a civil rights issue.  As a fat woman there are two layers to this.  The first is my realization that I’m never going to be thin.  I don’t believe that’s a choice for me – just a matter of facing reality. The second is the decision to stop trying to be thin. That is a choice and a difficult one because it takes me out of the “Good Fatty” category (people who are trying to be thin and therefore get some modicum of approval from the stigmatizing group), and puts me firmly in the “Bad Fatty” category- someone who opts out of the diet culture completely and so is subjected to the full vitriol of the stigmatizing group.  So although my life might be easier if I were thin, or if I were at least seen as trying to be thin, I’m not interested.

Because where does it end?  If someone else gets to tell me what my body should look like, what else do they get to decide for me?  What other power do I have to give away?  I got a fortune in a cookie once that said “The person who trims themself to suit everyone soon whittles away to nothing.”  I think that if I want social change (and I do) then the first step is to stand up and say

No. I won’t do what you want me to do just to gain your begrudging, conditional respect and humane treatment, that I will only enjoy until you want me to change myself again to suit you. I will demand my civil rights now, as I am, and if you don’t give them to me then I will fight for them.

And you don’t want to mess with me because I can climb a whole bunch of stairs in a dress.

Tomorrow I’ll be on my way to Los Angeles.  We’re wrapping up filming of my part of America the Beautiful II – The Thin Commandments (The trailer is at the bottom of this post, I’m the one dancing),  and I’m giving a talk at the University of Southern California about options for health, happiness and self-esteem. In thinking about giving that talk I was reflecting on how I got to where I am when I remembered this:

I posted this to my LiveJournal on 10/12/2005 (the day after my birthday, making this the best birthday present I’ve ever given myself). At the time I had just quit a weight loss program and, in trying to get me to stay, and employee had asked me “Aren’t you tired of hating your body?” I realized that I was tired of hating my body and so I went to see a counselor for some help. This is the day that my destination became clear.  I didn’t know that path yet (it turns out that the Health at Every Size (r) method is what worked for me) but on 10/12/2005 I realized that who I was, was who I wanted to be. The post was titled “Hot Hottie Manifesto” and here is is:

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

I had the most amazing life experience today. For a long time I’ve been struggling with issues surrounding my inability to lose weight. I started working with a new counselor and I was lamenting about my problems and suggesting reasons why I was holding onto extra weight etc. She looked at me almost quizzically for a few seconds and then said “Truth – do you love your body?” And the answer was right there. Yes, I do. I totally love my body.  In that one moment it was  clear – the shame issues that I’ve been dealing with are about loving my body when other people think that I should be ashamed of it or trying to change it or that I must be unhealthy.  They have nothing to do with the way that I actually feel about by body.

So, a bit shocked, I told her that yes, I totally love my body. She said that she was surprised that I thought I had issues with my weight because her sense of me immediately upon meeting me was that I love my body in a way that few people are ever able to. I can’t describe how delightfully happy I am about this. I’m not sure where I’ll go from here but this is what I know a few things.

Truth:
I fucking LOVE my body.  My body is amazing. I would totally shag me. There is nothing conceited about this and I hope someday I can help other people feel this way about their bodies.

Truth:
I am badass dancer in the exact body that I’m in. End of story.

Truth:
The whole dieting, trying to lose weight thing is over. I’m going to support my body on its path.

Truth:
I’ll not be having anymore discussions with my dance coach or anybody else about changing my weight or size.

Truth:
I have been taking on other people’s issues about weight as if they were mine. I won’t be doing that anymore.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

So that’s it.  My big epiphany day and thanks to LiveJournal I can remember exactly how I was feeling.  I think it’s the most important thing that I’ve ever done for my health and my quality of life – it’s the day I opted out of the story that the diet industry was telling me and opted into a decision to find a way to acknowledge my amazing body and find a path that supported it, instead of punishing it and hating it. I was a difficult road to get here and some days the path is still rocky but I would not change it for anything and I will never go back.

Here’s the premiere for the documentary (trigger warning – there is eating disorder talk and pictures as well as some non fat-friendly speech).

There are some things about weight and health in our culture that confuse me:

Why is it accepted that some people who eat a ton of food can stay thin, but not accepted that some people who eat a small amount of food can be fat?

Since thin people get diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, why is becoming thin suggested as a cure?

Why bother using BMI as a substitute for metabolic health measures when we can easily test metabolic health measures?

Doctors treat thin people for joint pain with options other than weight loss, why don’t they give fat people those same treatments?

Why do we believe that doing unhealthy things (liquid diet, smoking, urine injections coupled with starvation, stomach amputation) will lead to a healthy body?

If the diet industry’s product actually “cured fatness”, wouldn’t their profits be going down instead of up as more and more people were permanently thin?

Isn’t it medically unethical to prescribe something without telling your patients that it works less than 5% of the time with a much greater chance at leaving you heavier and less healthy than when you started?

Why do people continue to think that shaming people will lead them to health?

Why do we accept wide variations in things like foot and hand size, nose and lip shape etc. but expect every body to fit into a very narrow proportion of height and weight?

If weight gain isn’t proven to cause diabetes, high blood pressure etc., why would weight loss be recommended as a cure?

Since weight loss ads have to carry a “results not typical” warning, shouldn’t doctors have to give patients a similar warning?

Why do people take the time to come to my blog and make death threats?

Does anyone really succeed at hating themselves healthy? If so is it worth it?

If we’ve been prescribing dieting since the 1800s and still can’t prove that it works, shouldn’t we be trying something else?

How is it possible that suggesting that healthy habits are the best chance for a healthy body is controversial?

I’m sure I’ve forgotten some but that seems like enough nonsense for now. Obviously some of these are oversimplified, but so is the relationship of health and weight in current culture and medical practice.  Sometimes things just aren’t simple. And at some point it’s time to say that what we’ve been trying is wrong, and it’s time to look at other options. It seems to me that it’s about time for some of that.

I was having a meeting with a publicist to talk about the possibility of a Dances with Fat World Tour (which nobody knows about yet because it’s super secret, shhhhhh!) and she asked me who I would like to debate in public appearances.  I said that while I was open to that I would prefer to have the opportunity to tell my story.  She thought that was odd and asked me why.

Well, it has a lot to do with Harvey Milk.

Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to a major office (San Francisco City Supervisor) and he was assassinated in his first year. His story was told recently in the movie “Milk” which I highly recommend.  In the special features one of the men closest to him in his campaigning years said “He was a regular guy.  His personal life was often in disarray, he wasn’t a genius and he died penniless.  But he changed the world.”  I think that’s real power.  He understood that the work he did wasn’t about him or his ego, but was about the movement.

While in office he brought together women, unions, senior citizens and the GLBT communities in San Francisco.  After his assassination over 10,000 people held a candlelight vigil for him.  In my favorite of his speeches he said:

Without hope the us’s give up. I know that you can’t live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you, and you have got to give them hope.

Harvey Milk is absolutely one of my life heroes and, as a bisexual woman, he is a reminder that people died for the rights that I enjoy today.  But Harvey’s main work wasn’t what he did to change the minds of those who disagreed with him – it was what he did to galvanize the community.  He made people realize that they had the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to which their adversaries laid claim.  He helped people realize that the treatment that they were receiving was not ok and that they deserved better and could fight for what they deserved. He gave them hope that their situation would be better someday.

I get e-mails from readers saying that it seems so hopeless that they’ll ever know a life lived outside of constant cultural stigmatization.  It gets hard sometimes for me too, some days I think I see the light at the end of the tunnel and then I get a bunch of death threat e-mails and suddenly it seems that the light is probably an oncoming train.

This is why, while I love a good debate, it’s not my first choice for a public appearance.  Because I’m not so concerned that Meme Roth or Jamie Oliver or internet trolls think fat people deserve to be treated well; and I’m much more concerned that fat people know that they deserve to be treated well.  It’s tough to lead a civil rights movement of people who aren’t sure that they deserve civil rights. And my goal is to let as many people as possible know that Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size are options so that they can make an informed choice.

You deserve to be treated well right now, whether or not you are trying to conform to the cultural stereotype of beauty.  You deserve respect, and you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Right now. In the body in which you currently reside.  Even if you want to eat differently or move more or whatever, I’m asking that you consider the possibility that your body is amazing and deserving of love and respect right this minute.  Remember that no matter what your body looks like, there’s an extremely decent chance that you are the standard of beauty in some culture somewhere.  Consider that the cure for social stigma is not weight loss, it’s ending social stigma.

One of Harvey Milk’s main political tools was getting people to come out of the closet to their friends and family.  It turns out the more out gay people someone knows, the more likely they are to see us as humans, deserving of equal eights. Obviously there’s no need for us to come out as fat, but I think that there is another coming out that we can do.  We can come out as fat and happy.  Allow me to demonstrate:

My name is Ragen Chastain and I am fat and happy.  I love my life, and I love my body.  I eat to nourish my body a lot of the time, and sometimes I eat because I like orange sherbet.  I went to the gym tonight for the pure joy of moving my body and I didn’t even consider weighing myself because I don’t care.  If you don’t like my body and/or want to make unsolicited suggestions about how I should treat it, then may I suggest you practice the ancient art of looking in another direction while keeping your mouth shut.  ~Ragen Chastain, Happy Fatty

I believe that in my lifetime I’ll know what it’s like to live in my body, in this culture, without constant societal stigmatization. But even if I don’t, I believe in doing whatever I can to move us as far down the path as possible in the time that I have.  I was 2 years old when Harvey Milk was shot and killed and I’ll bet he wouldn’t believe all the progress that has been made in queer rights.  So even if it looks bleak now, we have no idea what the landscape will look like 20 or 30 years from now.

There are people out there who hate their bodies solely because they don’t think that there’s another choice. They think that their shot at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness starts 50 pounds from now.  Somewhere there’s an 8 year old girl about to start her first diet because Michelle Obama is waging a War on her.

Those of us who have made it to the other side of all the hate and stigma can help.  We can let people know about the Health at Every Size (r) option.  We can debunk ridiculous studies that try to say that obesity costs the US elebenty gabillion dollars every two minutes. We can be an example of standing up for ourselves. We can let them know that if you are struggling with your relationship with your body it can get better.  There are options that will allow you to love your body more right now.  (Might as well try, if you find that you don’t enjoy loving your body you can always go back to hating it if you want.)

We gotta give them hope.  We gotta give each other hope. There’s a light at the end of this crazy cultural stigma and shame tunnel it’s NOT a train!

Here’s a video of the entire Harvey Milk speech. I can’t put into words how grateful I am for this man’s courage and what it has done for my life: