In their column “Unpopular Opinion” xojane gave Rutvi Mehta the opportunity to engage in the same tired healthism, sizeism, and body positivity bashing that has been floated by many before her. 

The piece is called “Body Positivity Has Become an Excuse to Be Unhealthy” and the subtitle “If you hide under the gauzy blanket of body positivity to conceal your laziness and passivity, I feel sorry for you.” Riiiiiiight.

She spends the first part of the article discussing her history with weight cycling, her dislike of her own body, her vague understanding of the body positivity movement,and her choice to try to solve her issues with her body by manipulating its size and shape.  Of course that’s all fine, and none of it is any of my business except to say that I respect her right to make choices for her body precisely like I want my choices to be respected. Unfortunately, Rutvi seems to be struggling with that concept. Let’s take a look, shall we:

If there is one thing you have absolute control over, it is your body.

With any luck at all, this is the point when people realized that Rutvi has literally no idea what she is talking about (unless she can tell me how to become 6 feet tall when I need to reach the top shelf, let alone knowing what the research about weight loss shows) rolled their eyes so hard they saw their own brains, and then stopped reading.  But just in case they didn’t…

The compliments I’ve gotten since beginning my weight loss journey were not regarding my actual weight loss. Every single compliment I received acknowledged my perseverance and the fruitfulness of my efforts. That is so much more important than how drastically the landscape of my body has changed. If you go for a run five days a week for a month, there will eventually be results. If you work for something, there will definitely be results. That’s just how it works (thankfully).

Rutvi is allowed to believe whatever she wants about her own journey. What she cannot do, at least while remaining in any way credible, is make sweeping statements that suggest that she knows how everyone’s body will react to exercise. There are plenty of fat athletes who run five days a week or more and don’t lose weight. An inability to understand that your experience is not extrapolatable to everyone isn’t an “unpopular opinion,” it’s a failure of logic.

There is no excuse for snarking about another woman’s body because you lack the discipline to change your own body to your satisfaction.

By the exact same argument, there is no excuse for snarking about another woman’s body (including making assumptions about her level of discipline) because she isn’t interested in manipulating her body, because she is satisfied – even thrilled – with the body she has, or because she has jiggly thighs (more on that in a minute.) I would suggest that there is simply no excuse for snarking about another woman’s body.

If your only excuse is to hide under the gauzy blanket of body positivity in order to conceal your laziness and passivity, if saying “oh, I can have that body in two months” each time a sinfully hot woman walks past is your justification to yourself for your jiggly thighs, if you roll your eyes at your friend when she says she is proud of herself for sticking to her workout plan, I feel sorry for you.

Yeah, Maria Kang called and she wants her ridiculous bullshit back. PEOPLE DON’T NEED AN EXCUSE TO LOVE THEIR BODIES. If you don’t think that people should love their bodies because of their size, or health (by any definition,) then you are a sizeist and a healthist. If you visit that sizeism and healthism on others and/or try to convince other people to do the same, then you are not someone who holds an “unpopular opinion,” you are someone who is actively participating in marginalization and oppression. Obviously I can’t tell anyone what to do, but I for one think it would be just lovely if you would knock that shit off.

I won’t pretend to know what Rutvi is thinking, or what her motivations are, because I don’t.  I will say that, whenever I see this kind of sizeism and healthism and lashing out by people who are trying to manipulate their bodies – at people who love their bodies without trying to manipulate them – I always wonder if the real reason they are lashing out is that we refuse to buy into their belief that they are somehow superior because of their size/health/fitness/weight loss attempts.

People don’t need an excuse to love their bodies while being “lazy” or “passive” by whatever definition anyone is using.  People don’t need an excuse to love their bodies and never work out. People don’t need an excuse to love their jiggly thighs. People don’t need excuses to believe that their fat bodies are hot just as they are. People don’t need excuses to not give a single fuck about someone else’s workout plan or whether that person is sticking to it.  (And if they are rolling their eyes, perhaps that person needs to ask themselves why they are telling someone – who obviously didn’t ask and doesn’t care – about their workout plan?)

Health is not an obligation, barometer of worthiness, entirely within our control, or guaranteed under any circumstances. Body positivity and “health” (by any definition) or “healthy habits” (by any definition) do not have to be related to each other in any way.

People are allowed to decide that their worth is somehow tied to how closely they are able to approximate the stereotype of beauty, or their “health” by whatever definition they are using, or how well they stick to their workout plan. What they aren’t allowed to do is suggest that everyone (or anyone) else has to buy into that.

If you need to engage in sizeism and healthism, if you need someone else to feel badly about themselves so you can feel good about yourself, if you need everyone to make the same choices as you in order to feel ok about your choices, then I feel sorry for you.

You are under no obligation to love your body, but you are absolutely allowed to love (or work on loving) the body you have – exactly as it is right now – no excuses needed.

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Recently a number of people sent me an internet meme.  It shows a fat person, shot from the back on a machine at the gym with the caption “Making fun of a fat person at the gym is like making fun of a homeless person at a job fair.”

So obviously my first response was “WT Actual F?” That was not lessened when I saw the comment that came along with the post (by a thin person) which said  “I hate the word fat, but I’m re-posting this because it’s important.”

Dude.  So you’re concerned about the use of an adjective that accurately describes my body, but not concerned with the idea that we need to be specific about when you should make fun of fat (or homeless) people, as if there are times when it’s fine and dandy to make fun of them?  No.  Just no.

This smacks of “Good Fatty/Bad Fatty” thinking – the massively misinformed idea that fat people who participate in behaviors that are judged as “good” or “healthy” (by the person who is operating under the delusion that they have the right to judge us,) deserve to be treated better than those who aren’t doing the “good” or “healthy” thing.

Because I have been involved in athletics I am sometimes privileged by people who think this way and so I want to be crystal clear that the Good Fatty Bad Fatty Dichotomy is complete bullshit, and it needs to die. Nobody is obligated to participate in movement or to eat a certain way or to perform “health” by any definition, doing so does not make someone better or worse that people who don’t do so, and fat people deserve basic human respect because we are human.

The fact that a body is fat does not indicate that that body is public property, or that the fat people should be ready and willing to accept the stereotypes and preconceived notions of others, or that fat people should be appreciative of backhanded compliments. To help make this clear, I fixed that meme:

Picture Description:  Original pictures is a fat person on a machine at the gym, photographed from behind with the caption “Making fun of a fat person at the gym is like making fun of a homeless person at a job fair.”  This image and caption are crossed out, the image is copied on the right with the new caption “Making fun of a fat person or a homeless person is a shitty thing to do no matter where they are.  Don’t be an asshole.”

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A website called The LAD Bible, which describes itself as “home to the best funny, viral and interesting photos from around the world,” posted a meme that fat shamed Wentworth Miller, an actor possibly best known for the television show Prison Break.

Miller responded directly [TW: Discussion of suicide]

Today I found myself the subject of an Internet meme. Not for the first time. This one, however, stands out from the rest. In 2010, semi-retired from acting, I was keeping a low-profile for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, I was suicidal.

This is a subject I’ve since written about, spoken about, shared about. But at the time I suffered in silence. As so many do. The extent of my struggle known to very, very few. Ashamed and in pain, I considered myself damaged goods. And the voices in my head urged me down the path to self-destruction. Not for the first time. I’ve struggled with depression since childhood. It’s a battle that’s cost me time, opportunities, relationships, and a thousand sleepless nights.

In 2010, at the lowest point in my adult life, I was looking everywhere for relief/comfort/distraction. And I turned to food. It could have been anything. Drugs. Alcohol. Sex. But eating became the one thing I could look forward to. Count on to get me through. There were stretches when the highlight of my week was a favorite meal and a new episode of TOP CHEF. Sometimes that was enough. Had to be. And I put on weight. Big f–king deal.

One day, out for a hike in Los Angeles with a friend, we crossed paths with a film crew shooting a reality show. Unbeknownst to me, paparazzi were circling. They took my picture, and the photos were published alongside images of me from another time in my career. “Hunk To Chunk.” “Fit To Flab.” Etc. My mother has one of those “friends” who’s always the first to bring you bad news. They clipped one of these articles from a popular national magazine and mailed it to her. She called me, concerned. In 2010, fighting for my mental health, it was the last thing I needed.

Long story short, I survived. So do those pictures. I’m glad. Now, when I see that image of me in my red t-shirt, a rare smile on my face, I am reminded of my struggle. My endurance and my perseverance in the face of all kinds of demons. Some within. Some without. Like a dandelion up through the pavement, I persist. Anyway. Still. Despite.

The first time I saw this meme pop up in my social media feed, I have to admit, it hurt to breathe. But as with everything in life, I get to assign meaning. And the meaning I assign to this/my image is Strength. Healing. Forgiveness. Of myself and others. If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. Reach out. Text. Send an email. Pick up the phone. Someone cares. They’re waiting to hear from you. Much love. – W.M.

I so appreciate him sharing so much of himself and the many ways that this will help others, rock on and thank you Wentworth Miller.  Facing an immediate and furious backlash, The LAD Bible issued an apology:

We posted two pictures of you last night to our Facebook page, but today we want to say we’ve got this very, very wrong. Mental health is no joke or laughing matter.​

​We certainly didn’t want to cause you pain by reminding you of such a low point in your life. Causing distress and upset to innocent or vulnerable people is simply not acceptable.”

The LADbible continues to cover how prevalent mental health issues are among our audience, as well as the damaging stigma that surrounds such matters.

We applaud your raw honesty and promise to now cover such matters in the responsible manner that our audience expects.

Responding head-on to our post is something we applaud as it will help others through similar challenges in their lives.

Once again, we got this very wrong, and we wanted to say sorry.

www.asfp.org
www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
www.activeminds.org
www.thetrevorproject.org
www.iasp.info
www.samaritans.org
www.mind.org.uk

I’m glad they apologized.  I’m glad they provided resources.  But I have a problem here, and that problem is that what I get out of this apology is that they think fat shaming Wentworth Miller was wrong because he was fat at a low point in his life, or because he was struggling with mental health issues when he was fat. It’s tragic that he went through that, but fat shaming him was wrong regardless of his situation.

So while I agree that “We got this very, very wrong. Mental health is no joke or laughing matter…causing distress and upset to innocent or vulnerable people is simply not acceptable,” I think maybe they forgot to add “Fat shaming is completely unacceptable in any circumstance.” And I guess they forgot to add resources for people who are the victims of fat shaming to their list.

It makes it sound as if they think that if he had been happy and fat, or fat and not struggling with mental health issues, it would have been just fine for them to create and disseminate a picture to fat shame him. And that’s just wrong. What they did wasn’t just hurtful to Wentworth Miller, it was hurtful to people who saw it who are fat and had to see yet another example of people suggesting that there is something wrong with our bodies, and that we shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public without expecting to be the butt of jokes.

I’ve said this before, and I’m going to keep saying it until saying it becomes unnecessary:

Fat people have the right to exist in fat bodies without shame, stigma, bullying, or harassment, and it doesn’t matter why we’re fat, what being fat means, or if we could – or want to – become thin.  The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the right to basic human respect, are not size (or health, or “healthy habit”) dependent, and suggesting that they are is oppression, period.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

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

Recently PS Mag posted an article called “The Youngest Casualties in the War on Obesity.” It opens with the story of Jaime, a 11 year old who developed an eating disorder after she her school publicly measured and announced her BMI, and she decided that lowering her BMI might make her more popular.

“I don’t think she even knew what a BMI was before that,” her mother says. But as soon as she did know, it was all Jane could think about…

By the time she graduated high school, Jane had been hospitalized three times for her eating disorder and attended three separate eating disorder programs, sometimes thousands of miles away from her family…

“I don’t believe that the public school weigh-in and BMI screening caused her eating disorder, but rather they were significant factors, among others, which triggered her illness,” she says.

In a decade we saw a 119% increase in eating disorder hospitalizations in kids UNDER TWELVE. That is straight up horrifying, but not surprising. We put fetuses on restriction diets, and then give babies low calorie formula, schools grade kids on their weight, people who claim to be experts on kids’ health don’t feel the need to have any evidence before implementing interventions on fat kids, the First Lady holds up those who emotionally and physically abuse fat people as role models, we perform medical experiments on fat kids without informed consent or permission. The outcomes are tragic and, more tragically, exactly what we should have expected.

The piece continues:

No one doubts that these policies are well-intentioned. It’s impossible not to want children to grow up healthy and happy. And the current data says that, for many children, this isn’t happening. Most children don’t eat the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables, nor do they play vigorously for an hour a day. Since children spend much of their day at school, it seemed logical to intervene there.

Stop the logic train, we had a bunch of people fall off. Research says that most kids don’t eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetable or get enough activity.  So schools decided to weigh them publicly and focus on body size as a proxy for health with no evidence to back up their approach.

What with the who now?  If kids aren’t getting enough fruits, vegetables and activity, then how about the school works to get them more deliciously prepared fruits and vegetables, and more options to engage in movement that are fun, non-humiliating, and help develop a life-long love of movement instead of leading to therapy sessions about the recurring nightmare you have of people hurling dodgeballs at you.

The truth about the BMI programs instituted in schools is that they were instituted without evidence as to their efficacy or of their chances of harming kids, and they continue despite the fact that there is no reason to believe that they work, and evidence that they are doing harm. According to research from the University of Minnesota “None of the behaviors being used by adolescents (in 1999) for weight-control purposes predicted weight loss[in 2006]…Of greater concern were the negative outcomes associated with dieting and the use of unhealthful weight-control behaviors.” Again from the PS Mag piece:

The CDC never encouraged states or school districts to mandate BMI testing in students. Even on its own website, the Center notes that BMI testing is not the answer: “There is insufficient evidence to conclude whether school-based BMI measurement programs are effective at preventing or reducing childhood obesity,” announced a 2007 study in the Journal of School Health…

“School districts are passing policies ahead of the evidence,” says Allison Nihiser, who works within the division of population health at the CDC.

So instead of embarrassing and shaming kids while ruining their relationships with food, exercise and their bodies under the guise of making them healthier, what could we do? Kathleen Kara Fitzpatrick, a psychologist who works at the Stanford University Eating Disorders Clinic seems to have a pretty good idea:

“We need to teach kids to value their bodies and themselves, regardless of how they look or how they feel about themselves. The right time is right now.”

What might that look like?  First of all, kids don’t take care of things they hate, and that includes their bodies.  If we teach kids to value their bodies and view them as amazing and worthy of care, we give them a shot at actually having a good relationship with their bodies.  If we give them lots of options to be involved in movement (competitive and non-competitive sports, walking, yoga, dancing, weight lifting, video games that involved movement etc.) and if we teach kids to find ways to make movement fun, and not consider it a punishment for the size of their body (or because they should be terrified of having a larger body,) if we teach kids to eat a variety of foods and not to be scared of any foods, then we help them to have healthy relationships with food, movement, and their bodies, and they deserve that.

If you’re looking for resources, The Association for Size Diversity and Health has a great list here!

We need to do better for our kids than this, and the first step to helping is to stop hurting them with these ridiculous body shaming, hand-wringing over hard evidence interventions. And we need to stop right the hell now.

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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!

In response to my recent post about how unlikely significant long-term weight loss is, someone on Facebook posted the following:

“If most people who try to quit smoking fail, does that mean doctors shouldn’t advise their patients to quit?”

This a a common argument that comes up every time I talk about the failure rate of dieting. I have to assume that it’s made by people who really haven’t thought this through. So today I thought this would be a good time to re-post this, as a public service to anyone who thinks comparing being fat and smoking makes even the tiniest bit of sense:

First, this is not an apt comparison. Smoking is a single specific behavior – every smoker smokes. Being fat is a body size, being listed as “overw*ight” or “ob*se” (terms that were literally invented to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies) is a ratio of weight and height and it’s been changed over time, including at the request of companies that sell dieting. Fat people are as varied in their habits and behaviors as any group of people who share one physical characteristic.

Now let’s talk about what a successful intervention looks like. Smokers become non-smokers when they quit smoking – when they stop doing a single specific behavior. In order for fat people to become not fat, they must change their body size. There are no studies where more than a tiny fraction of fat people are able to become thin in the long term, with the behavioral solutions of “eat less and exercise more” failing just as often as what are considered fad diets. Because being fat is a body size, not a behavior, there’s not a clear behavioral intervention as there is in smoking.

Then there are issues with attempts and failures. Even if we assume that smoking and weight loss have a similar failure rate (ie: the vast majority of people fail long term) the difference here is that a smoker is statistically healthier for every day they don’t smoke – even if they start smoking again. Dieting does not work that way. Each time we feed our body less food than it needs to survive in the hopes that it will eat itself and become smaller, we open ourselves up to health risks including those from weight cycling and from caloric deficit, as well as rebound weight gain (and there is no evidence to suggest a similar “rebound” affect in smoking.)

If we think that being fat is unhealthy, then statistically a weight loss intervention is the worst possible recommendation since the majority of people who lose weight end up gaining it back plus more. Since we know that smoking is unhealthy (and that every cigarette not smoked makes someone healthier whether they relapse or not) recommending quitting is statistically the best possible recommendation.

Regardless of what you believe about smoking and “obesity”, they are simply not comparable from a public health perspective and continuing to treat them as if they are does a disservice to everyone involved.

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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!

One of the things that I find incredibly frustrating in discussions that I have about weight and health happens when I point out that there is not a single study where more than a tiny fraction of people have succeeded at maintaining long term weight loss, and people agree with me. Stay with me, I’ll explain:

Typically it goes something like this:

Person:  There’s good research that shows that if fat people with knee pain lost weight, their knee pain would get better.

Me:  I have issues with the research you’re referencing, but let’s move forward as if it were valid. It doesn’t actually matter because there isn’t a single study of any intentional weight loss method where more than a tiny fraction of people are able to maintain any significant weight loss long term.

Them: I understand, I know that’s the case, but if they could just lose [insert pretty much random amount of weight or percentage of body size] their knees would feel better.

Me: But again, even if that’s true, there’s no research suggesting they could do that. The long term data we have shows that, by far, the most common outcome of an attempt at weight loss is weight gain – the exact opposite of the intended effect. So if you are suggesting that your patients lose weight because you feel their weight is causing their knee pain, you are suggesting an intervention that is most likely to make the “problem” you’ve diagnosed worse.

Them:  I understand, but isn’t it worth trying if the research shows it could help?

Me:  Think of it this way:  It’s a certainty that knee pain that occurs with walking would get better if the patient could levitate and fly, but absent evidence that we can help them do that safely, it’s unethical to suggest that they jump off their roof and flap their arms really hard because it probably won’t work, and they’ll probably end up more injured than when they started, but it would be so great for their knees if they actually flew. And let’s remember that people are only about 5% more likely to lose weight long term than to fly successfully, and even among the tiny fraction that succeed their weight loss is often only around 5 pounds.

It doesn’t matter what you think being thinner will do for someone, because you have literally no idea how to make them thinner – as we both agree, there isn’t a single study of any intentional weight loss method where more than a tiny fraction of people succeed, and “success” is often an incredibly small amount of weight (like the amount of weight that one might lose with a thorough exfoliation.) Do you agree that there aren’t any studies that support the idea that significant long-term weight loss is possible for the vast majority of people?

Them:  Yes, I agree.

…

…

Them:  But what if they are having back pain?  I mean, there are good studies that show that if they lost weight their back pain would be better.

What I’m thinking: OMGWTFHOWAREYOUNOTGETTINGTHIS?!

What I do: Slow blink while I control my urge to start screaming and throwing things. Then start the whole thing over. This is made worse by the fact that the diet industry has worked hard to link everything from knee pain to swine flu to being fat, so people seem to think that manipulating your body is the solution to almost every problem.

By the way, if you are a fat person dealing with knee pain, and you’re being told that weight loss is the only option, you are being lied to. I wrote a piece to help that you can check out here.

I’m always a little shocked when this happens, and especially when it happens with doctors.  They suggest I lose weight (most often apropos of nothing, just because I exist in a fat body and I happen to be in their office for an issue that has absolutely no relationship to weight.)  I point out that the complete lack of evidence and that the most likely outcome is weight gain.  I would say 8 times out of 10 they agree with me, then continue trying to convince me to attempt weight loss.

Such is the state of the “science” when it comes to weight and health. It seems like everyone still believes in the Wizard, even though they admit that they know it’s just a dude (or, preferably, Queen Latifah) behind the curtain. Seriously, weight loss doesn’t work so, if you’re thinking of recommending weight loss, it’s time to think again.

And, just to be clear, I’m talking about the science of weight and health, and you may not agree with me, but it has nothing to do with treating fat people with respect. Fat people have the right to exist in fat bodies and it doesn’t matter why we’re fat, what being fat means, or if we could (or want to) become thin.  The rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not size or health dependent (by any definition of health.)

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Like my work?  Want to help me keep doing it? Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support size diversity activism, help keep the blog ad free, and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

Book 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!