An insurance company recently forced fat customers to choose between paying up to 20 percent more for health insurance (up to $2,000 a year) or exercising more and having their movement electronically monitored.  A study was just released touting the “success” of this program because “After one year, nearly 97 percent of the enrollees had met or exceeded the average goal of 5,000 steps a day – including the most resistant participants who disagreed with the financial incentives and found the program “coercive.”  They concluded that “Wellness interventions like this clearly hold significant promise for encouraging physical activity among adults who are obese.”

How fucked up is this?  Let me count some of the ways.

First of all, even if it was ok to coerce people into physical activity for the sake of insurance premiums (and I’m going to say that it’s not, but that’s another blog post)  it’s absolutely not ok for this to only be applied based on people’s physical appearance. If you’re an employee who is fat then it doesn’t matter if you run marathons in your free time, your physical activity has to be monitored by a pedometer connected to the internet or you have to pay 20% more than your completely sedentary but not fat coworkers.  If they are going to do this then the 20% discount (or, as I like to call it, 20% penalty) should be applied to everyone.

They don’t appear to have tracked these employees’ physical activity to begin with.  When they claim success, they are assuming that fat people didn’t walk the 5,000 steps before.  You can do that, but you shouldn’t call it research or science, you should call it bigotry because that’s what it is.

Exceptions were allowed if people got a doctor’s note.  Thank the gods that doctors are so careful to listen to what their fat patients are telling them and give them what they need. What’s that you say? It’s not opposite day?  Oh, in that case you’re probably screwed in the doctor’s note department.

The suggestion is that this needs to be done to save health care costs though health changes.  They admit that they don’t have any idea if this will lead to either. The study’s lead author states “Comprehensive evaluations are needed to determine whether participation in these programs translates to meaningful changes in health and costs of health care.”  So let me guess this straight, fat people are being forced to either pay 20% more than thin people or have their activity electronically monitored, and that program was implemented BEFORE anybody  even bothered to see if it will have any benefits?

Let’s just get super clear – we have reached the point where it is acceptable to people to say:  if you look like this, then you have to submit to electronic monitoring  or pay more for insurance than people who don’t look like that.

People who are ok with this because it’s only happening to fatties should really think again.  Not getting enough sleep is seriously detrimental to health – what happens when employees are told that they can either wear sleep monitors to assure that they are getting enough sleep or pay $2,000 more?  What about twice daily breathalyzers to make sure that an employee isn’t drinking too much?  Tests for nicotine?  How much electronic monitoring are you willing to submit to based on the guess that it will in some vague way save someone money?

People still scoff at the idea that fat rights activism is necessary – I imagine those are the people who aren’t asked to pay up or submit to electronic monitoring.

Pssst!  This is super secret – tomorrow I’m going to be launching the fundraising for my new project – In Our Own Words – A Fat Activist History.  If you want to be ahead of the curve, you can check it out (and maybe even support it?!) today: http://www.gofundme.com/InOurOwnWords

Like the blog?  Here’s more of my stuff:

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Dance Classes:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details

Readers have let me know about a number of really ridiculous things happening right now. Let’s talk about some of them:

A former Biggest Loser contestant is being sued by a company that endorsed her.  There were some copyright and conflict of interest issues, and the fact that she “gained far too much weight” which violated her contract which stipulated that she “agrees to maintain her current level of fitness and conditioning.”  Now, I ain’t no big city lawyer, but it seems to me that she agreed to keep a level of fitness and conditioning, not a body size.  This is often confused and it’s a pity.  People of various sizes have various fitness levels – the two are not synonymous.  You can’t look at someone and determine their strength, stamina, or flexibility unless they are putting on a display of flexibility, stamina, or strength.  Even if she had agreed to stay thin, had she or her sponsor read the research on dieting, they would have known that maintaining long term weight loss is a promise that almost nobody can keep.

Speaking of sizes and fitness levels, there was so much bullshit around Marion Barlolli’s Wimbledon win that it spun me into a state of pissed off that I haven’t reached in a long time. First a BBC commentator tried to win the Wimbledon Trophy for being a sexist jackass,  then a series of men took to Twitter to prove that sexism and misogyny are not just alive and well but are points of pride for some guys.  @Everyday Sexism collected a bunch of them starting at “Bartoli didn’t deserve to win because she is ugly” and  getting much, much worse.  Ok dude, your desire to have sex with someone or not has actually no bearing on their ability to do anything other than have sex with you (which you might just assume they don’t want to do.)  Seriously who are these guys who think that the entire world revolves around who they think is attractive?  Spare me. Spare all of us.

The pissed off continued when I found out that a former Australian Vogue editor is shilling a tell-all book.  I wrote about this for iVillage – to me what it comes down to is that she seemed happy to observe women slowly killing themselves for beauty and glorifying the process on the pages of her magazine. Now she’s happy to be paid to write about it in her tell-all book, all the while doing absolutely nothing to actually help these girls. Maybe she could donate all the profits from her book to an organization that helps people with eating disorders?  Maybe instead of buying the book, people could donate the $20 bucks they were going to spend on it to such an organization.  Maybe instead of being obsessed with reading about exactly how bad the world is for fashion models, we could ask ourselves what we can do to dismantle a system where a Vogue editor who watches a model starve herself during a trip would never decide that the natural thing to do is “lie her down next to a fountain to get the last shot” because the model could no longer stand.  When that happens, it’s time for an ambulance, not a creative pose. And to me it’s time for outrage, not supporting this woman by buying her book.

I call epic shenanigans on every bit of this bullshit!

But the news isn’t all bad.  A company called ByPost thought it would bring great hilarity to its Twitter feed to make a fat joke before suggesting that Twitter followers purchase postcards from them.  Why they thought this is really anyone’s guess, but I think they’ve learned their lesson.  In a great burst of human decency people went the fuck after them on Twitter and now they know how to apologize lots of ways in 140 characters or less, and why it’s probably a bad idea to hand the Twitter reins over to Skippy the marketing intern because Skippy is just so funny.

Also, the Big Fat Flea Market is going on this Saturday.  This is the Size Diversity Task Force’s big yearly fundraising and it helps fund scholarships for our Vegas Retreat (you should come!), the Guinness world record paper mache project, and all manner of other awesome activism.  You can attend live in LA and if you aren’t in LA you can watch the Livestream and even get a personal shopper (#findmyfatclothes) which is especially cool since Hips and Curves donated 74 stunning plus sized corsets in addition to the bags and bags of awesome clothes we have.  You can also participate in the raffle with it’s over $1,100 in prizes:  Donate to the SDTF and receive raffle tickets: $1=1 raffle ticket, $5=6 tickets, $10=14 tickets, $20=35 tickets, $50=100 tickets  PayPal: sizediversitytaskforce@gmail.com

Finally, a public service announcement:  If you read News from the Fatosphere you may have noticed that you’re not receiving it any more.  That’s because on the 30th of June it was moved from Google Reader to Feedly. All you need to do is go to Feedly.com, sign in with your google reader email and password, and follow the instructions to migrate your account from GR to Feedly.  If you don’t currently get the NFTF feed and want to do so, you can sign up at feedly.com for a new Feedly account. You will need either a gmail address, or a Google account for this. Then, once your account is set up, just type ‘notes from the fatosphere’ into the add content box and you’re done.

Like the blog?  Here’s more of my stuff:

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Dance Classes:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details

I often get messages from people who are looking for help because their friend or family member has done something that hurt them.  Maybe they were fat shamed at a family dinner, or a friend who they thought understood size acceptance posted a fat phobic Facebook meme.  Sometimes it’s a friend or family member who challenges them every time they post something size positive.

I think it’s important to remember that Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size are revolutionary movements.  If you espouse these things then at some point you are almost certain to meet resistance from someone in your life, maybe lots of people in your life. How you handle it is completely up to you and there are lots of options.

I have one friend who ended a friendship because the person posted a fatphobic Facebook meme again – after they had a conversation about how much those things upset her.

I have another friend whose boyfriend believes that to be healthy you have to be thin and doesn’t support her HAES practice at all.  He also tells her that he loves her for who she is “in spite of how she looks.”  I asked how she made that work and she said that they just “agree to disagree on the whole fat thing”

For me it comes down to a basic question.  One of my favorite songs is Defying Gravity from Wicked.  One of my favorite lines from that song is “Well, if that’s love it comes at much too high a cost.”   I always think of that lyric when this kind of situation comes up in my life.  I ask myself – at what cost to myself am I willing to maintain this relationship?

It may differ from relationship to relationship – for some people the concept of family is so important that they are willing to deal with poor treatment because the person is their mother – that’s totally reasonable.  I’ve never been like that – I have a threshold of respect and if people can’t meet that threshold then they don’t get to be in my life no matter who they are.  Anything else it just too high a cost for me.

In my dating days I had a number of criteria that were deal killers if they weren’t met – for example the person had to be supportive of my size acceptance practice, love me for my body and not in spite of it, and not give money to organizations (including churches) that actively tried to limit people’s civil rights legislatively.  I have friends who didn’t meet all those criteria and I was ok with that – that wasn’t too high a cost, but dating someone who didn’t meet those criteria was just too emotionally expensive.  I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, I may have missed out on dating some incredible people, but for me it has all worked out in the end.

My point is that, as a revolutionary, there will be situations to negotiate with people who don’t get it, and you get to decide how to negotiate those situations and, like so many other things, it’s nobody else’s business how you do it.

Like the blog?  Here’s more of my stuff:

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It’s really ok –

to take a rest

to take a break

to take care of yourself.

Have a great weekend, I’m taking a break from blogging until Monday!

~Ragen

Almost every fat person I know has a story where they went to a doctor for a health problem and were given a body size solution.  Knee pain? Lose weight.  High Blood Glucose?  Lose weight. Strep throat?  Lose Weight.  Hit by a van?  Lose weight.

The problem is that weight loss hardly ever works in the long term so even if it would help, it still doesn’t meet the criteria for evidence based medicine.  It’s like telling people with knee pain that they should learn to fly.  Maybe it would help but we have no reason to believe it’s possible so we don’t tell people to jump off their roof and flap their arms as hard as they can.  Weight loss only has about a 5% better chance of working than flying, yet doctors send people home with diet sheets every day.  That’s not just poor medicine, it’s actually incredibly harmful because while fat people are basically jumping off their roofs and flapping their arms really hard, their actual issues are completely ignored and untreated.

If we, including the medical establishment, accept the simple fact that weight loss almost never works, then we could actually start treating people’s health issues.

Knee pain?  Here are some strength and flexibility exercises and movement pattern correction that improve knee function (like we give thin people with knee pain.)

High blood glucose?  Here are some interventions that are shown to help control blood glucose (like we give thin people with high blood glucose.)

Strep Throat?  Here are some antibiotics (like we give thin people with strep throat)

Hit by a van?  Here is medical care that directly addresses your injuries (like we give thin people who get hit by vans.)

It’s not that complicated.  We have to quit giving people a “prescription” that has the opposite of the intended effect almost all the time.  It’s not just bad medicine, it’s remarkably  stupid.   If Aspirin made your headache worse 95% of the time, but the doctor kept prescribing it, would you keep taking it? If Viagra gave guys more erections in year one but resulted in impotence from year two on would doctors still prescribe it?

This has got to stop.  I’ve written before in detail about ways to talk to your doctor, but one basic thing that you can do is ask for the evidence basis of their treatment- is there research in which a majority of people have successfully lost the amount of weight that your doctor wants you to lose, and is there evidence that the weight loss had the health benefit that the doctor is looking for.

If the answer is no (and it will be no) then consider asking them how they feel weight loss meets the criteria of evidence based medicine.

Or, simply insist that you be given a treatment plan for which there is a basis in evidence – sometimes a simple way to do this is to ask what treatment protocol you would be given if you were thin and presenting with the same issues.

The fact that every day fat people’s actual health issues go untreated as we walk away with a prescription that hasn’t worked in 50 years of studies, almost always producing the opposite of the intended effect should be considered medical malpractice. If we let go of the idea of weight loss fixes everything, imagine all the things we could actually fix.

Like the blog?  Here’s more of my stuff:

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Dance Classes:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details

Let’s start with something that happened on my Facebook page today, and then we’ll talk about it. I posted my blog from yesterday including the phrase “One of the most frustrating things to me as a fat person is that we are constantly told that we are not the best witnesses to our experience and that thin people -who are all experts on weight and better than us by virtue of their thinness – should be allowed to speak for us.”

Kayla posted:

Not all thin people are like that. This person who stole the photo probably has quite the ego and needs to learn some compassion and acceptance. I am thin and I think everyone is beautiful no matter what their size is. Society keeps forgetting that being happy is the most important thing in the world, and if you are happy with your body, fucking rock it sista. I’ll be cheering you on.

Courtney responded:

You know what I hear when someone insists on going “not all ___ are like that!” ? I hear “but but I need to be validated that I’m a good person! Stop insulting people I identify with and validate me!”

This is not about you, thin people who are not like that. Keep up the good work – do you want a freaking cookie for treating us like human beings?

Before Kayla could reply, 10 more posts went up educating her about how the posts’ authors found her comment inappropriate/derailing/privileged etc. and comparing her comment to unintentional racism and misogyny.  (Several posts did go up suggesting that people were being too hard on Kayla.)

Kayla apologized:

I apologize that my support has caused a stir and I’ll remove myself from the conversation. I didn’t mean to cause such a problem.

Two more educational posts went up.

I want to talk about this but before we get into it I want to be clear that I am not in the business of telling oppressed people how to respond to oppression, and I’m not suggesting that the way I do it is better or worse than anyone else,  everyone who commented had every right to their comments and the beliefs and reactions that fueled them.

I see the situation differently.  My original phrase, though meant to point out that our society elevates the voices of thin people and silences those of fat people, wasn’t clearly stated and could easily have been read as a sweeping generalization of thin people, which is even more problematic since stereotyping is what I was railing against.

I see Kayla’s post as saying “You seem to have a belief about all thin people.  There are thin people who aren’t like that, there are thin people who support you, here is an example of that, I stand with you.”

Still, even if she did a poor job of being an ally based on the theories of oppression (and I don’t necessarily agree that she did), I choose to contextualize that within the reality that she tried while there are people who are epically not trying, on a global scale.  There are people who are stealing our photos, slapping stereotypes on them and using them to sell diet products.  There are people e-mailing me saying “Kill yourself you useless fucking fat fuck,” so when someone says “I think everyone is beautiful no matter what their size is…I’ll be cheering you on” I personally have a difficult time mustering a lot of offense, and I want to be careful not to take my frustration out on “imperfect” allies  because they are around, and the people I’m really angry with aren’t.

I am a very outcome-based activist so even if I am well within my rights to call someone out on the imperfection of their attempt to be an ally, my question is always “will that get me closer to my goals?”  The diversity work that I was trained on taught me that “calling people out” is likely to cause them to become defensive, more sure of the beliefs I am trying to challenge, and less likely to come to the work.  That has been my experience (though that doesn’t mean it’s everyone’s experience, or anyone else’s experience.)

Just to restate – my way is not the right way, not the only way, and not better or worse than any other way, my goals are mine and don’t have to be anyone else’s. After a lot of thought here is what I believe for me and my work at this point in my life:

I choose to believe that if someone isn’t completely against me, maybe they could be with me.  In a world where I get death threats for suggesting that fat people are human and should be treated as such, I choose to look for any glimmer of an ally and treat it like a precious spark which, if nurtured, could turn into a huge flame.  So if a thin person says “I know how you feel because sometimes I feel fat” I consider that an invitation to activism, so I’m likely to say “yes, see how this oppression that I’m fighting hurts us all? Here’s how you can help!”  There’s plenty of time to explain the difference between feeling fat and being fat, I don’t need to jump on their first overture as an ally to tell them how they’re doing it wrong and insist that they acknowledge their privilege.

I 100% agree that members of an oppressed group have absolutely no obligation to educate their oppressors ever.  I’m personally not super excited about groups of would-be allies trying to figure out how best to support me without my voice at the table, so let me be clear that I’m offering to help.  I can only give you my opinion which, obviously, is only one of many, but I’m here – ask me anything.

I think it would be fabulous if everyone understood thin privilege, how feeling fat and being fat are different, how the suggestion that fat people need thin people’s validation is problematic etc.,  but those concepts can be really dense and can take time to understand, so if someone can get to “everyone of every size should be treated with respect, free to enjoy their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and what can I do to help?” then I think we’re at a pretty good starting place and I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt (and possibly a cookie because they had to overcome a lot of societal shit and programming to get to the point and it may well be cookie-worthy) and gentle education in due time as we work toward larger goals.

In the end maybe Kayla will really appreciate all of the education that she received today and become an even stronger fat activist. Maybe she will feel attacked and be put off of fat activism all together.  There’s no way to know what will happen until it’s over and we can’t be responsible for other people’s reactions, so all any of us can do is respond to our oppression and our would-be allies in the way that makes the most sense and feels the most authentic to us.

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Heather is a plus size model – that picture to the left, that’s her.  Earlier this week a Facebook page called “Fit for Fertility” posted this picture with the text “Everyone has to start somewhere.”

To be clear, Heather is not a beginning exerciser – the person who runs the page had no permission to use the picture, and no knowledge of the fitness level of the model, she just assumed fat=beginner and put it up on her page (her page that she uses to sell her multilevel marketing diet products.)

People started sharing the picture, either because they were comfortable with blatantly stereotyping someone based on their body size, or because they assumed that the person who posted the picture actually knew something about the person in the picture and hadn’t simply stolen it and applied a cheap stereotype for her own purposes.

The picture started to get lots of hits and the owner of the page, Jaime Milano Smith, bragged on her personal page that the picture (that, remember, she had stolen) had gone viral “Is it dorky that I’m super excited because a picture I posted on my like page went viral? This is fun!”  To which someone replied “Congrats the exposure will be great for your business!! Keep up the great work.”

Heather found out and asked Jaime to take the picture down.  Jaime refused.  Heather’s friends, including the Rolls Not Trolls community, went to work leaving comments explaining that the picture wasn’t her property, that the person pictured wasn’t a beginner exerciser, and that she wanted it taken down.  Jaime chose to delete the comments, block the people, and leave the picture up.  Heather filled out a request with Facebook and they finally forced Jaime to take the picture down.

Jaime then took to Heather’s Facebook page and wrote, repeatedly,

Heather, you talk about bullies but that’s what you and your ignorant friends have been doing to me. You’re all hypocrites. I’ve reported all of your nasty, harassing messages and did you know bullying is illegal? I found that picture on Facebook, in fact it’s all over Facebook still. I’m wondering why you haven’t harassed those other pages that I actually got the picture from? It was a positive statement that was made. I’m not “fat shaming” how ridiculous?…

So let’s take stock of the things that Jaime feels she knows better than Heather:

• Who owns the copyright on Heather’s picture
• How long Heather has been exercising
• Whether Heather feels bullied by having her image used as an “inspirational” “before” picture
• Whether or not Heather has been fat shamed

This is one of the most frustrating things to me as a fat person -that we are constantly told that we are not the best witnesses to our experience and that thin people, who are all experts on weight and better than us by virtue of their thinness, should be allowed to speak for us – telling us who we are, how we think, and how we should feel.  A good example of this is the credence given to reports by thin people who wear fat suits of what it’s like to be fat, when in fact we have plenty of credible reports by fat people of what it’s like to be fat that are doubted or ignored (ie:  “I’m not “fat shaming” how ridiculous?”) EDIT:  To be clear, I’m not suggesting that every thin person does this on purpose, my point is that our fat prejudiced society elevates the voices of thin people and devalues the voices of fat people, whether we want it to or not.

I think that it is vital to the fat rights movement that we stand up to people who do try to substitute their idea of what it’s like to be us for our actual experience, and fight to be seen as the best witnesses to our experience and have our voices heard as Heather and the people who supported her did. To that end, I wanted to let you know about one of the two blog projects I’m super excited to be starting this summer:

Fat Activism History Project

This one has been in the works for almost two years.  I’ve been contacting many of the people who were part of the beginning of the fat rights movement. I’m going to be doing in-person interviews with them about their experiences, then posting those interviews on a dedicated YouTube channel where everyone can watch them for free.

My goal is to move forward through time interviewing as many activists as I can to build a non-academic verbal history specifically about fat rights activism in our own words that is accessible to as many people as possible (which is why I’m going with YouTube instead of a traditional documentary format)  I’ll also be looking into other uses including compiling a documentary style DVD to be used by school and workplace diversity offices to discuss the history of the Fat Rights Movement. I’ll be starting fundraising on this in a couple days, for now if you want to get involved you can:

Support the project by clicking here

Connect:  Help me connect with people who were involved in the early years, I’m especially interested in those who were part of The Fat Underground and authors from Shadow on a Tightrope as well as activists of color, queer, trans* and disabled activists and fat men.

In the meantime, I want to say thanks to Heather and those who got involved to help for their work on behalf of everyone who wants to be able to put photographic representations of our fat bodies into the world without having them usurped and used for the exact opposite purpose.  For the record I got Heather’s permission to blog about this and use the picture, and you can read her blog about it here and you can find her on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/fatgirlposing

If you want to let Jaime know how you feel, you can e-mail her at jmilano2000@yahoo.com

Like the blog?  Here’s more of my stuff:

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So there’s this song I love called “King of Anything” by Sarah Bareilles.

The video is posted below but the lyrics that pertain to this blog are as follows:

You’ve got opinions, man
We’re all entitled to ‘em, but I never asked
So let me thank you for your time, and try not to waste anymore of mine
And get out of here fast

I hate to break it to you babe, but I’m not drowning
There’s no one here to save

Who cares if you disagree?
You are not me
Who made you king of anything?
So you dare tell me who to be?
Who died and made you king of anything?

I think it’s important to remember that in typical relationships it’s usually within our ability to set boundaries for who talks to us about what subject and when.

Different areas of my life have very different boundaries:

When I give a talk or do a panel, I tell people that they can ask me anything and I’m serious about that.  It’s my goal to give people an opportunity to ask a question without being scared of hurting my feelings.  99.9% of the time people are intending to be respectful and the rest of the time I’m confident in my ability bring someone’s jackassery into sharp relief, while looking calm, logical and reasonable.

Outside of those talks, I have very different boundaries.  There seems to be a pervasive myth that since I “let myself get fat”, I must need someone to help me.  The truth is that Health at Every Size is my well researched decision, my body size is a reflection of many things within and outside of my control, but is not a barometer by which you can judge my health, intelligence or decision making ability.  I’m happy, and if I needed saving please rest assured that I would be yelling for help.

I actually enjoy discussing health, weight, health at every size etc., and I’m perfectly happy to have discussions about these issues even with people who have different opinions.  However, I’m unwilling to argue about my personal health choices, especially to someone who isn’t backing up their divergent opinion with some serious facts.

Comments on this blog are another really interesting area for me.  When I started out I thought that it was important to post all the comments that weren’t overt spam because I didn’t want to censor people, and I wanted to show the kind of violent, reflexive reaction you can get when you question the status quo or dare to suggest that fat people are human and should be treated as such. Plus I’ll admit answering those people is often entertaining for me.  At some point I realized that people are allowed to be jerks, but I’m not obligated to give them a forum to do that. I’ve decided that I don’t have an obligation to give someone an audience on this blog just because they managed to get their comment submitted correctly.

The same thing applies in my life – it doesn’t matter to me what someone’s intentions are, I decide who talks to me, about what, and how.  This idea that a fat body is suddenly a public body up for discussion and debate is bullshit.  The idea that a fat body is indication that we need advice is bullshit.  The idea fat people should have to listen to anyone who considers themselves well meaning is bullshit.

So this song goes out to everyone whose sense of self-importance is so exaggerated that they actually think should be obligated to care what they think.

Like the blog?  Here’s more of my stuff:

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Dance Classes: Get 3 classes on DVD or download individual classes  Click here for details

I thought that with everything that’s going on around Obesity being considered a disease,  it might be a good time to talk about some strategies for dealing with unwanted, unsolicited concern or advice.

Often this comes in phrases like “I’m just worried about your health” or “Somebody has to say something to you about this” or “Don’t you know that blah blah blah is unhealthy”  or “I knew a fat person who had a terrible health problems and I don’t want that for you.”  Sometimes these phrases are used by people in a tacky bid to soften expressions of hate for fat bias.  Those can often be dealth with using an eyeroll and exclamation (try “bullshit!” or “Jackass!) and/or reminding them that jerks raising your blood pressure is bad for the health they are so concerned about.

But sometimes they come from family, friends,  or people who feel that they are well meaning.  This can be difficult to deal with because, since people seem well intentioned, we can feel obligated to appreciate what they are doing or accept it as ok.

Like everything, it’s your choice how to deal with it, but for me this is not ok.  People are allowed to be concerned about whatever they want, but it is not alright for them to unburden that concern onto me. Whatever my level of health, it’s highly unlikely that it will be improved by having people tell me over and over that they assume it’s poor.

It can also be a quiet way to try to say that I am not a competent witness to my own experience, and let’s not forget that however well-intentioned it might be, this kind of “concern” is based on all kinds of myths, misunderstandings, and misinformation and conflates weight and health in a way that isn’t supported by actual evidence.

There are lots of reasons that people may choose to express their concern.  There are some who are truly  well-meaning, for others it’s about feeling superior, feeding their ego by trying to be the hero who saves the fatty, or something else.  For me it doesn’t matter why someone does it, it does not fit within what I consider acceptable behavior.  The way that I handle this is by setting boundaries.  Of course this is just how I handle it, there are many, many ways and they are all valid.

“I’m just concerned about your health”

Basic responses:

• Don’t be.
• I appreciate your concern, I’m happy with my path to health and I’m not interested in discussing it.
• I’m not soliciting outside opinions about my health.
• My health is none of your business.
• According to research out of Columbia, people who are concerned about their weight have more physical and mental illness than those who are ok with their size- regardless of weight.  So every time you try to make me concerned about my weight you may be putting my health in more jeopardy.
• My health is none of your business, but maybe it will comfort you to know that weight and health are two completely separate things and there are healthy and unhealthy people of all sizes.

The things I think but do not say when I’m having a bad day:

• I’m going to need you to start citing some credible sources or shut up.
• I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of hours researching this – are you an expert on this as well or can we just assume I know more than you about this than you and move on.
• Really. Coincidentally,  I’m concerned that all of your worrying will affect your health.  Please feel free focus your concern somewhere that is else.

“Somebody has to say something to you about this!”

Basic responses:

• I appreciate your concern but you are out of line.
• I don’t accept your premise, I’m fully capable of making my own decisions and I’m not looking for input.
• No thank you.

The things I think but do not say when I’m having a bad day:

• Perhaps,but it’s not going to be you.
• I disagree.

“I knew a fat person who had terrible health problems and I don’t want that for you.”

• I’m very sorry for your friend but people of all sizes and shapes get sick and it’s not appropriate to assume that everyone who looks like your friend will have the same issues.
• I’m sorry to hear that but I’m not interested in discussing my health with you.

The things I think but do not say when I’m having a bad day:

• Do you give these same warnings to people with the same hair color or  height as your friend?  If not feel free to go tell some of them and leave me alone.

Regardless of how you deal with it, remember that you have every right to set boundaries and decide who gets to talk to you about your health and how they get to talk to you.

Like the blog?  Here’s more of my stuff:

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

Dance Classes:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details

I’ve been thinking about the responses to the ADA’s misguided classification of obesity as a disease, and in retrospect I am really concerned that, at least in my own work on the subject, I didn’t do a good enough job making sure that I didn’t stigmatize people who are living with a disease.  I’m concerned that when I say “my body size does not constitute a disease,” people who are living with actual diseases might hear “I don’t want to be like you” or “I think that being diagnosed with a disease is shameful.”  Today I wanted to both apologize to anyone who may have been stigmatized by work, and attempt to clarify my concerns.  (Note: There are plenty of conversations to have about disease theory in general, but for this blog I’ll discuss diseases within the context of how they are currently treated by Western Medicine.)

Let me start here.  There should be absolutely no shame in having a disease.  None.  It does not matter what disease someone has, they should never be shamed for it.  I advocate for nothing less than shame-free, blame-free, future-oriented healthcare.  It does not matter why someone has a disease, it matters what happens moving forward.  We can never change the past so after a diagnosis it’s all about options and choices, not blame or shame.  People who are diagnosed with a disease should be given true information, all of their options, and compassionate care on their terms based on their choices.   There is no shame in being diagnosed or  living with a disease and I am extremely sorry that I didn’t do a good enough job saying that in my blogs on the subject.  I fucked up and I’m sorry.

To clarify, my concerns with obesity being classified as a disease center primarily around the fact that the sole diagnostic tool, and the sole measure of treatment progress, for the “disease” of “obesity” is a simple ratio of weight and height.  So when fat people go to the doctor for actual diseases I am concerned that they will be diagnosed with “obesity” as the primary disease and their healthcare provider will prescribe weight loss in lieu of actual health interventions that are proven to help the disease they actually have.  For example, if a patient goes to the doctor for Type 2 diabetes, they doctor might consider the T2D to be a symptom of, or secondary diagnosis to, the “obesity” diagnosis and suggest that they ignore interventions that are shown to help control T2D in lieu of attempting weight loss.  This is a dangerous practice that is already happening (I was once prescribed weight loss for strep throat), and I’m afraid that the ADA’s decision will lend legitimacy to the practice.)

The major problem with that is that there is not a single study where more than a tiny fraction of participants have succeeded at long term weight loss, and there are certainly no studies where more than a teeny tiny fraction of participants lost enough weight to change their BMI longterm.  Often “success” in a weight loss study is defined as 5% of body weight, or any weight loss at all (which for many fat people doesn’t create a shift in BMI which, remember, is the sole diagnostic tool and the sole measure of “progress” in treatment.)  Almost everyone loses weight in the short term and almost everyone regains the weight in the longterm and while they are busy not succeeding at long-term weight loss (which shouldn’t be a surprise since it’s exactly what the research tells us will happen) their actual health issues may go untreated.

The diseases correlated with being fat are not actually fat people diseases.  Thin people get them too and, when they do, they are given treatments that are shown to treat the actual disease. My concern is that fat people’s medical treatment will be compromised because they will receive different care than thin people who have the same diagnosis simply because of their size, again this is a dangerous process that is already happening and that I feel will be exacerbated by the AMA’s poor choice.

I also feel that calling body size a disease risks putting a very finite pot of research money to very poor use. The AMA’s bad decision gave 30% of Americans a disease, and I am concerned that the diet and pharmaceutical companies will jump on this to say that the sheer volume of people with the “disease” justifies spending a ton of money on weight loss interventions.  My concern here is that funding will be pulled from actual diseases and put toward weight loss research on the basis of the “prevalence” of this disease, which would be a crime against humanity as far as I’m concerned.

I hope that makes things a bit more clear, and I am reminded that activism requires constant vigilance to make sure that we’re not trying to solve one injustice at the expense of creating another.

Like the blog?  Here’s more of my stuff:

Become a member: Keep this blog ad-free, support the activism work I do, and get deals from cool businesses Click here for details

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

Dance Classes:  Buy the Dance Class DVDs or download individual classes – Every Body Dance Now! Click here for details