Four LuLaRoe consultants interviewed by Bloomberg reported that they were pressured by founder DeAnne Brady or her sister Lynnae to go to Tijuana, Mexico and have so-called weight-loss surgery.

Sam Schultz, the sisters’ nephew explained “Lynnae charges $5,000, but it only costs $4,000. You pay her through PayPal, she gets a cut, then takes you to Mexico.” Consultant Courtney says “the sisters referred to themselves as the Tijuana Skinnies.” Stacy Kristina, a LuLaRoe consultant, told Bloomberg “I was told by DeAnne herself that she likes her leaders to be a size small or medium.”

Let’s be clear about what’s going on here: Not happy enough with cheating fat consultants out of their money through her pyramid scheme, LuLaRoe’s leader was making $1,000 a pop for sending fat independent consultants have a surgery that may leave them thin, or maimed, or dead – and nobody knows which until it’s all over.

Read The Full Piece Here!

If you value my work, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time contribution or by becoming a member.

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Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members)
Click here for all the details and to register!

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

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

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

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

Golda Poretsky (of Body Love Wellness) tweeted;  “Rec’d a link to “How Not To Look Fat In A Swimsuit”. Wld ♥ to see “How Not To Obsess Abt Looking Fat In A Swimsuit & F-ing Enjoy Yourself” several years ago.  The result is this post, which is a Danceswithfat annual tradition. Today I saw my first bullshit “swimsuit season is coming” diet ad, so today is the day I post this.

Seriously, let’s talk about this.  It seems that a lot of the people I know, of any size, start to panic the first time they see swimsuits out on the floor of their favorite store;  their pesky cheerfulness belying what seems like their “true purpose” of prodding us into paying the diet industry for products that don’t work, and considering a move to Alaska.

I’m doing more open water swimming these days (which involves a wetsuit) but when I am in the gym at the pool, I  wear my bathing suit with no worries.  Here are a few reasons why:

1.  It’s my BODY.  I live with it 100% of the time.  It does awesome things for me like breathing, and heartbeat, and swimming and I decided long ago that I am not going to allow anyone to convince me to hate or be ashamed of something that I am with 100% of the time for the rest of my life.  I get to choose how I feel about my body and I choose to

2.  Because it’s a pool and when I go to the pool, I wear a swimsuit. It’s not for vanity (though it would be fine if it was!) – it’s practical.

3.  I do not care if people are offended by my body.  People are allowed to be offended by whatever they want and it’s really none of my business.  I’m offended by people who are offended by my body, but it turns out nobody gives a damn which is as it should be.  It is my BODY, if we all treated each other with basic human respect it would be impossible to be offended by the mere existence of people because of their body size.  The very idea is ludicrous to me. Regardless, it is not my job to protect people’s delicate sensibilities – if they don’t want to look at me they are welcome to follow any of these options.

4.  Hypocrisy is an ugly thing.  It always seems like the same group of people who are telling me that because I’m fat I have some obligation to exercise (which is bullshit by the way) are subsequently offended by my body in a swimsuit.  The message apparently being that they want me to exercise, but in my house with the shades drawn and wearing an outfit fashioned from a bed sheet.  Screw that.  Don’t like it?  Your problem.

5. It is maddening to me that the diet industry makes over 60 BILLION dollars a year convincing us to hate themselves.  They create fear and uncertainty by saying things like “Swimsuit season is just around the corner, are you ready to wear a swimsuit?”  Well, let’s see here…  Swimsuit?  Check.  Body to put it on?  Check.  Yup, I’m all set thanks.  Plus I think I’ll keep my money you bloodsucking leeches.

6.  People can see me.  So they know how big I am whether I’m in a swimsuit, or jeans and a t-shirt.  If they are shocked at my size in a swimsuit, they should have been paying better attention.  That’s just a big flaming sack of not-my-problem.

I realize that my swimsuit preferences are not everyone’s which is awesome.  Not everyone, regardless of size, is comfortable with how much skin a swimsuit shows.  There is no obligation to rock a bikini or a swimsuit of any kind in order to love your body.  Here are some more ideas to help you stop obsessing and start having fun in the sun (or the oh-so-lovely incandescent glow of the overhead lights at the gym).

1. Alternative Swimsuits.  These are often created for women who want to keep to specific religious clothing guidelines or who just want a more modest look.  I did a quick Google search and found http://www.modestkini.com/.  I’m not affiliated with them at all so I make no guarantees, but it will give you an idea of what’s out there (and some of their plus size swimwear is actually modeled by plus-sized women.  Woot!)

2.  Fabulous Cover ups:  If there’s a particular part of your body that you prefer to keep covered for whatever reason, an (aptly-named) cover-up might be just the thing.  Here are some examples (again, no affiliation, check out the vendors before you buy!)

3.  Safety in numbers.  Go with a group of people who make you feel good about yourself and focus on the fun and not on any body insecurities you might have.  Think about how fantastic your body feels when you are swimming, or going down a water slide, or splashing in the waves.

4.  Reality check.  One of my favorite quotes is by Mark Twain “I’ve had thousands of problems in my life, most of which never actually happened”  When I’m worrying about something I try to remember that I am wasting energy on something that is not actually part of reality.  So instead I…

5.  …Expect the best, plan for the worst.  Think about what your true fears are about going out in a swimsuit.  Write them down and then create a plan to deal with each of them.  Are you afraid people will say something mean to you?  Create some scripting and practice it until you feel comfortable. Afraid of chaffing?  Hie thee to Google and read up on the various lotions, powders etc. that can help with that, or look into swimsuits that can help. Worried people will talk about you behind your back? Maybe that’s the best possible outcome since you don’t have to hear it!

In the end of course it’s your choice.  For my part,  I’m not willing to allow my options for fun, activity, movement etc. to be controlled by what other people might think or say.  If my own fears or insecurities are getting in the way I try to find a way over (modest swimsuit), under (cover up), or through (F this, I’m wearing a thong) the fear and insecurity because I’ve found that very often the pure joy lies just on the other side.

If you value my work, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time contribution or by becoming a member.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

 Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight-neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!
Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members)
Click here for all the details and to register!

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

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

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

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

Recently, The Guardian gifted the world with a piece-of-trash article using the International pastime of bashing fat people who don’t hate themselves. The article, “It’s not fine to be fat. Celebrating obesity is irresponsible,” by “journalist” Lizzie Cernik, demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the concepts of body positivity and size acceptance and puts forth a blatant double standard based on sizeism, healthism, and ableism.

Let’s break this drivel down.

“Body positivity began as a powerful antidote to the media’s obsession with skeletal models and beachball-breasted glamour girls…But as we move away from the skinny goals of the mid-2000s and embrace different shapes and sizes, one group of campaigners has taken things a step too far. Fronted by plus-sized models and social media influencers, the fat acceptance movement aims to normalize obesity, letting everyone know that it’s fine to be fat.”

Not even close there, Lizzie. Fat acceptance came first. Groups like the Fat Underground started clawing for fat people’s rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness in the 1960s. “Body positivity” is the newcomer, a watered-down version of fat acceptance. BoPo not only inherited the issues of fat acceptance — including a lack of marginalized voices including People of Color and disabled people/people with disabilities — but then created more issues by putting limits on who is “allowed” to love their body and who “deserves” to be treated with basic human respect.

Next, we have the tired healthism-as-as-veil-for-fatphobia argument: “While nobody should ever be bullied for their weight or food choices, it’s important to make a distinction between health awareness and cruelty.

The problem with this is that “health” is a difficult concept to nail down, especially since research tends to follow the biases (and profitability) of the time. The distinction we need to make between health awareness and cruelty revolves around the perceived risks doctors are willing to make regarding fat bodies. These include the belief that thin people should be given evidence-based interventions for health issues and fat people should risk their digestive health, quality of life, and lives to have a dangerous (and highly profitable) stomach amputation surgeries.

For a breakdown of the rest of the issues in the article, click here!

If you value my work, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time contribution or by becoming a member.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

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Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members)
Click here for all the details and to register!

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

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

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

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

Yesterday a Facebook friend of mine posted a video of a fat woman doing some seriously difficult workouts, including box jumps (standing in one place and then jumping up onto a box – remember this, it will become important in the near future.) I’m not going to post the video here because it was posted by her trainer and I don’t know the situation with permission.  Just trust me that she was fat AF and she was killing those workouts!

As always, and I don’t care if people get sick of my saying/typing it, nobody of any size is obligated to participate in fitness. Fitness/exercise/movement/health/body size are not obligations, barometers of worthiness, entirely within our control, or guaranteed under any circumstances. Running a marathon and having a Netflix marathon are morally equivalent activities. The Good Fatty/Bad Fatty dichotomy needs to die.

That said, there are a couple of interesting things I noticed right away. First of all, nothing in the video or the description said anything about weight loss. (The video was posted by the woman’s trainer and the caption was simply “Negative comments will be blocked from all my posts!“)  But sweet fluffy lord the comments. 

There were plenty of positive comments, which was nice. No negative comments (in my experience that means that her trainer has been doing the deleting he promised to do, so good for him.) But despite the fact that none of us know what her goal is, SO MANY people assumed that it was weight loss.
So. Many. People. 

People were assuring her that she would lose the weight (some seeming to suggest that it was ordained by god?) People actually asked for before and after pictures. We are so brainwashed by fatphobia that many of us literally can’t imagine a fat person working out for any other reason than to lose weight. People can accept that a thin person might workout to gain strength, stamina, and/or flexibility, to improve at an activity they enjoy, to reach a fitness goal, fatphobia tells us that if a fat person is at the gym, they could only be trying to manipulate their body size,

But that’s not all, because fatphobia also tells thin people that a fat body is a sign that the fat person occupying it needs to be given a heaping helping of paternalism and unsolicited advice. On my friend’s FB page, one of the first comments said something like “but at her size, isn’t jumping up on the box bad for her knees.” (I’m paraphrasing because the comment has since been deleted and I neglected to screen shot.)

I replied something like “I know you mean well [Of course I don’t know that, but I try to give the benefit of the doubt] but please don’t do this. A fat body is not a sign that someone needs paternalism, fat people and the trainers we choose are perfectly capable of making decisions for our knees.” The comment, and my reply to it, have been deleted, but I’m not sure if it was by the OP or the author of the comment. Either way I am grateful. (If you’re curious about fat people’s knees, I wrote about that here.)

It’s one of the ways that people maintain their fatphobia, even when fat people are participating in “good fatty” behaviors. Since they can’t say “That fat person needs to exercise” (and, of course, that fat person does not need to exercise) instead they say: “Fat people need to exercise…but not like that!”

But it’s not just among fat athletes. Everywhere a fat person goes, they are likely to experience this kind of paternalism and concern trolling. Sometimes it’s comments on food “You know, if you order that sandwich wrapped in Kale leaves it saves blahbbity blah calories.” As if most fat people haven’t been subjected to constant, harmful diet culture our whole lives and don’t know how to count calories faster than your fancy app.

Sometimes it’s about clothes – people trying to “help” us by insisting that the focus of dressing ourselves should be creating some kind of optical illusion that we are thinner/differently shaped (aka “flattering.”

Regardless of the subject, fat bodies are not a representation of failures, sins, or mistakes. Fat bodies do not exist to be the subject of public discussion, debate or judgment. Fat bodies are not a signal that we need help or input to make decisions about our health, or lives, (or knees!) Our fat bodies are the constant companions that help us do everything that we do every second of every day and they deserve respect and admiration. If you are incapable of that, then at the very least please keep your thoughts to yourself and those who have actually asked to hear them.

If you value my work, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time contribution or by becoming a member.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

 Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight-neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!
Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members)
Click here for all the details and to register!

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

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

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

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

I’ve said before that I consider the number of trolls I have help to demonstrate why the work I do is important, and how effective I am at it. And much like, as Helen Lewis first stated in Lewis’ Law, “Comments on any articleabout feminism justify feminism,” comments on articles about size acceptance justify size acceptance. Recently a troll went out of their way to prove it.

Regular readers may remember that last year I finished my second marathon, setting the Guinness World Record for heaviest woman to complete a marathon. I used the information and experience I had gleaned to write a piece for the Better Humans platform called “Your Slow, Fat Marathon – How to complete a marathon regardless of your size or speed”

Before we go any farther, a reminder that nobody of any size is obligated to participate in fitness of any kind, participating in fitness doesn’t make someone better than those who choose to do something else with their time – running a marathon and having a Netflix marathon are morally equivalent activities. My point is that everybody of every size who wants to participate should be welcome, and I wrote the article for those who may want to participate.

The piece received a really great reception and, of course, some concern troll comments, but there was one in particular that I found both hilarious, and illustrative of the pervasive nature of fatphobia and thin privilege:

As someone training for their first marathon, the advice here is terrible. Author was lucky not to seriously injure themselves! Don’t run a marathon if you’re seriously overweight and not willing to train properly.

Start with something at your skill level and build up to it. You wouldn’t hang a highschool student’s art in the louvre!

Let’s take this bit by bit.

As someone training for their first marathon, the advice here is terrible

This person, who has never toed the starting line of a marathon, let along crossed the finish line, feels that they know more than someone who has trained for and completed two. So much so that they actually chose to start their comment by proudly declaring that they have never completed a marathon. This is one of the ways that fatphobia is so insidious, the idea that being thinner than someone else makes someone more of an expert, regardless of experience or knowledge.

The article I wrote gives advice on a wide variety of topics from deciding if marathoning is for you, to choosing a race, training plan, clothes, and what do to on race day. While this commenter dismisses the advice as “terrible” they don’t address any of the actual advice. What about my advice is terrible? Do they think you should train wearing all cotton clothes? Do they think it’s a good idea to train on pancake flat paved trails and then do a trail marathon in the Rocky Mountains? Do they think you should start out your marathon with a wild sprint? For all we know, this person is two training runs into their marathon program which is fine, but does not an expert make.

Author was lucky not to seriously injure themselves!

This is a version of the VFHT (Vague Future Health Threat,) except instead of trying to use the specter of future health issues to enforce fatphobia (which is also healthist) to try to control the decisions of fat people, this person is using what could have happened to try to control the decisions of fat people. While it wasn’t a serious injury, I tore a ligament in my second marathon owing to the fact that it was much hillier than I expected and I had trained on pancake flat trails (a mistake I made that I talk about in the article.)

While I certainly hope they don’t, for all we know, this commenter will get injured if they ever actually do a marathon. Plenty of people have ligament tears and other injuries while training for and completing marathons, but – as usual – when it happens in thin people it’s seen as an acceptable risk, when it happens in fat people it’s seen as a reason that we shouldn’t participate. That’s bullshit.

Don’t run a marathon if you’re seriously overweight and not willing to train properly.

Let’s be clear that “seriously overweight” is not a thing. Over what weight? Should people who are “seriously over-tall” also take a pass? People come in lots of different sizes for lots of different reasons, all of us get to choose what we want to do with our bodies.

Can you imagine having never done something but still feeling like you can and should definitively tell others whether or not they should do it? This person will just have to hope that a seriously over-exaggerated sense of self-importance doesn’t cause leg cramps if they want to get through their race.

I also can’t tell you how many thin people I’ve heard brag to each other about completing marathons despite not having trained properly, and absolutely nobody – let alone someone who hadn’t ever completed a marathon – jumped in to tell them that they shouldn’t have done it. Yet another big, fat double standard.

Start with something at your skill level and build up to it. You wouldn’t hang a highschool student’s art in the louvre!

Apparently, this person is also an expert on art? Ignoring the fact that you would hang a high school student’s art in the Louvre if it was good enough, this last bit shows just how little this person understands about marathoning.

A marathon is not the Louvre. A marathon is a distance that thousands of people of varying sizes, ages, and abilities decide to travel for almost as many reasons as there are participants. I’m willing to bet that this person – should they ever actually complete a marathon (and good luck to them!) – will not come close to winning, but will feel that they deserve to participate in a marathon, while those who are slower and or heavier should start with something at their “skill level.”

Not to mention that assuming that fat people’s skill level doesn’t include a marathon, assuming that fat people who are attempting a marathon haven’t done shorter races, and comparing completing a marathon to having your art hung in one of the most prestigious galleries in the world all clearly demonstrate that, even if this person had ever managed to complete a marathon, they are no kind of expert.

I do want to thank this commenter for, however inadvertently, helping me demonstrate the need for the article I wrote. For those of us who are fat, or slow, or fat and slow, walkers, runners, and rollers who want to participate in events from 5Ks to marathons, the sad truth is that we may have to deal with people like this. The good news is that we don’t have to listen to them.

If you value my work, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time contribution or by becoming a member.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

 Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight-neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!
Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members)
Click here for all the details and to register!

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

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

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

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

19-year-old Vega Blossom was food shamed as she waited in line to buy cupcakes behind a particularly slow customer while the person behind her loudly complained. As Vega stepped up to the counter to make her purchase, she heard the woman behind her say, “Thank god, now let’s hope this fat bitch doesn’t buy all the cupcakes.”

In an epic move, Blossom decided to clap back — by buying all the cupcakesin the store.

“Hopefully, this was a lesson in treating others kindly and maybe a lesson in karma as well,” Blossom said.

Food shaming as a form of fat shaming has happened to every fat person I know, including me. Fatphobes comment on our food at a restaurant, our snacks at work, and our grocery carts — even though they are often at the same place eating/buying the same food. When this happens to us we usually think of the perfect thing to say — ten minutes after the situation is over. Sometimes this is done on a grand scale.

Remember when Geoffrey Miller, an Associate Professor of Evolutionary Psychology (and member of several college admission committees) tweeted out “Dear Obese PhD applicants: if you didn’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth”? (Pro tip — this is not even close to #truth, let alone truth, but the fact that fatphobes sit on admission committees can and does stop fat people’s progress in academia.) Well, in response the always brilliant Cat Pausé started Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs, which now has 18 glorious pages celebrating amazing people and showing just how wrong old Geoffrey is.

Click here for some excellent clap-backs from fed-up folks

If you value my work, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time contribution or by becoming a member.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

 Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight-neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!
Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members)
Click here for all the details and to register!

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

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

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

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

I often hear people say that they disagree with Size Acceptance – meaning that either they want to try to manipulate their body size, or they support other people in trying to manipulate their body size. While our personal practice of Size Acceptance is certainly a part of it, that’s not actually the main point of Size Acceptance.

Size Acceptance is a civil rights movement that asserts that fat people have the right to exist in fat bodies (regardless of why we are fat, what the so-called “consequences” of being fat might be, or if we could become thin,) without shame, stigma, bullying, or oppression. Size Acceptance says that the rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and basic human respect are NOT size dependent.

You either agree with that, or you are wrong. Those are the only two choices. Now, that doesn’t mean that you have to practice Size Acceptance for your own body. People are allowed to do whatever they want with their own bodies – try to manipulate their size, amputate their stomach, whatever. To be clear, making the choice to be involved in diet culture doesn’t happen in a vacuum and the idea that fat people can/should lose weight is harmful to fat people, and thus, so is the decision to engage in diet culture. But that doesn’t mean that people can’t still do it.

Size Acceptance doesn’t require someone to stop trying to manipulate their size, keep their digestive system intact, take a pass on swallowing a deadly balloon, decline dangerous diet drugs that could kill them, or abandon their internalized oppression (though if they do choose to participate in diet culture then they aren’t practicing Size Acceptance in their own lives and they, rightly, will not be welcome in many Size Acceptance spaces.)

When it comes to Size Acceptance, you don’t have to practice it for yourself, but you do have to practice it towards others.

If you value my work, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time contribution or by becoming a member.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

 Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight-neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!
Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members)
Click here for all the details and to register!

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

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

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

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

Five years ago, Disney and Barney’s announced a partnership for the Barney’s holiday window in which they would dramatically alter Minnie Mouse’s body — making her a 5’11, size zero in order to “look good” in a Lanvin dress. There was an uproar, the result of which was that Disney and Barneys changed the campaign, making it a “dream sequence” with Minnie eventually waking up wearing the dress on her actual body.

However, when Disney announced the changes in a press release, they claimed they had planned to do it the whole time and added: “We are saddened that activists have repeatedly tried to distort a lighthearted holiday project in order to draw media attention to themselves.”

They were talking about me. I was one of the attention seeking activists.

I had started a petition against the campaign that garnered over 140,000 signatures (including actors, models, and Walt Disney’s granddaughter) and drew international media attention.

It wasn’t the first time I’d been called an “attention seeking activist” by a person or company I had called out for oppressive behavior. When activists point out the bad behavior of a company, the response is often to attack the activist. One of the most common ways that activists are attacked is by being labeled as “attention seeking.”   Sadly, it can be a successful strategy. Often, people are uncomfortable with change and activism, so they are all too happy to roll their eyes at these rather than engage with the real issues.

Knowing this, I wanted to write an open love letter to any activist who has ever been called “attention seeking.”

To read the letter, just click here!

If you value my work, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time contribution or by becoming a member.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

 Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight-neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!
Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members)
Click here for all the details and to register!

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

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

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

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