I saw a recipe on Facebook today from a fitness company called “Set Your Fat on Fire Fitness.” It made me think of all the things the diet companies have told me to do with my fat:
Let’s Start with Setting My Fat on Fire
Then another favorite of weight loss schemes, often those that involve exercise: Torching my fat!
How about the ever popular melting my fat away:
I saw an ad for a cosmetic surgery that wanted me to let them freeze my fat:
Of course this is about the idea that I’m supposed to think of myself not as a fat woman, but as a thin woman covered in fat. I’m supposed to hate the fat which, in turn, is supposed to make it ok for people to sell me “self improvement” with language suggesting that I should burn, melt, freeze away or otherwise dispense with the part of me that is fat so that I can start living my glorious life as a thin woman.
Except that’s complete and total bullshit. I’m not a temporarily inconvenienced thin woman in need of some kind of overwrought, hand-wringing, fire and ice intervention. I’m a fat woman and I have no interest in trying to become a thin woman – I love my fat body and I’m not interested in melting it, freezing it, or setting it on fire. I’d rather hang out with hot body and do cool stuff.
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There’s yet another study that claims to prove that you can’t maintain a fat body and “good health” (at least by one definition of health.) There are a bunch of problems with the study and the way that it is being portrayed in the media. It uses BMI, it’s a tiny sample size, and they didn’t look at behaviors or fitness at all, the reporting about it treats correlation and causation as if they are the same thing.
The study looked at metabolic health markers over time, but didn’t look at behaviors. That’s a problem because the studies that do exist show that behaviors are a much better predictors of future health so it doesn’t make much sense to study body size and health without factoring in behaviors, but people just keep doing it – either because they don’t care since they know that it will get lots of attention without much scrutiny, or they are trying to get a specific set of results, or they’re incompetent, or who knows what.
First let’s talk about what’s true about health. The truth is that health isn’t an obligation, a barometer of worthiness, entirely within our control, or guaranteed under any circumstances. What constitutes “healthy” has been repeatedly changed (including body size, metabolic health measures, and who is eligible for surgery etc.) after lobbying by companies who profit from those changed measurements.
Public Health should be about making true unbiased information and options available to the public, not making the individual’s health the public’s business.
In the United States “health” is a for-profit industry which means that the companies providing “healthcare” often have a primary fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders rather than the people who they are supposed to help. We also live in a society where “everybody knows” is treated as the same thing as evidence-based medicine such that true, unbiased information about health can be very difficult to find.
This kind of “you can’t be fit and fat” research and rhetoric is often used to justify “interventions” on fat people that either just don’t work, or don’t work and put our lives at risk, often by groups that pretend to be our advocates while making money hand over fist on these so-called healthcare interventions.
But perhaps the most insidious use of this so-called research about fat people and health is the way that it’s used to try to stop fat people from demanding to be treated with basic human respect. As if there’s some level of health at which people stop deserving that. (There’s not, just in case that wasn’t clear.)
The way it’s being used to insist that if it can somehow be proven that fat people are less healthy than thin people then it’s also proven that we are less worthy of basic human respect (we’re not, just in case it wasn’t clear.)
The way that it’s used to create a good fatty/bad fatty culture that tries to pit us against each other for scraps of decent treatment. The way that it’s used to promote sizeism, healthism, classism, ableism, and all of the intersections therein – like the idea that if fat people can be healthy then we should be required to be healthy to deserve to be treated well, or have the right to speak up for ourselves – that health should be a requirement for credibility in any discussion about Size Acceptance, or our right to make choices or ourselves.
From a personal perspective I’m interested in what the research says about health, from a Public Health perspective I’m interested in people having access true, unbiased information about health (and not at all interested in the choices they make). What is most important to me from a global perspective is that “health” is not used as a weapon in the ill-advised “war on obesity,” not used to try to bully fat people into accepting inappropriate treatment or forcing us to participate in experimental medicine. I want to be sure that health is not used as a barometer of worthiness or credibility.
When it comes to the treatment that we deserve – to our rights to basic human respect, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; to our rights to self-advocate and make our own choices, whether or not we can be fit and fat doesn’t actually matter at all.
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I got a Facebook message from a blog reader who gave me permission to share this anonymously:
My mom passed away today after a long fight with cancer. She was dieting literally right up to the end, still putting things off until she was thin. It made me think about how my life could have been if I hadn’t found blogs like yours. I’d love for you to share this with your readers so that maybe my mom’s passing can help someone.
I’ve completely been there. I wasted years of my life with one simple thought:
“I need to concentrate on losing weight right now. I’ll [do things I want to do] when I reach my goal weight.”
Days, weeks, and months and years, that I will never get back, tracking every bit of food, calculating points, eating nasty pre-packaged food, giving up sugar, wheat, dairy, meat, drinking weight loss shakes, no popcorn at the movies, no cake on my birthday, punishing my body at the gym.
Believing that everyone who tries hard enough becomes thin, that thin was something that it was important to be, and that being thin is the golden ticket to everything, believing in magical weight loss thinking – that I was just x pounds from everything I could ever want. Believing that I should sacrifice my current life for my future thin self.
Looking back, I could easily have ended up like my reader’s Mom, still trying to lose weight on my deathbed – I’m not criticizing her mom – she made decisions for her and I have no idea how she felt about her life. For me, though, it’s scary and sad to think of the life I would have had if I hadn’t made the decision to stop dieting and starting living.
So, of course, I’m not trying to tell anyone how to live. I’m just suggesting that it might be worth thinking about – whatever you’re dreaming of doing when you’ve lost x pounds, or when you’re thin, what if you just did it now?
[EDIT: I somehow managed to delete this final paragraph before this was published, added back in now.] Now, this decision won’t change the fact that because of any number of injustices many things that we would like to do are not accessible to us, and I’m not saying for a minute that the decision negates those, makes them somehow our fault, or makes them not worth fighting. All I’m saying is that, if there are things we want to do and the only thing that stands between us and them is our belief that we should wait to do them until we are thin, we have the option to do those things right now.
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This is our second week doing “Say Something Sunday,” a day dedicated to personal Size Diversity activism. I’ve got some suggestions below and/or of course you can do your own thing. If you do participate, we would love to hear about it in the comments (whether you do it on Sunday, or some other day!) If you have ideas of things to do for Say Something Sunday I’d also love for you to share those in the comments.
I did the math and if everyone who views the blog each week did one piece of Size Diversity Activism a week, it would add up to over 1.5 million body positive messages put out into the world this year. Multiply that times the number of people who might see each of those messages and things start to increase exponentially. To be very clear, nobody is obligated to do activism so if this doesn’t appeal to you that’s totally cool, I’ll be back tomorrow with your regularly scheduled blog post!
My ideas for this week (these are just suggestions, feel free to change them to make them work for you, and if they don’t appeal to you feel free to do your own thing!)
Post something like the quote below on your social media. Consider telling people that you will delete every comment that tries to disagree or argue about this because our right to exist should not be up for debate, then delete those comments:
Fat people have the right to exist in fat bodies without shaming, stigmatizing, bullying, or oppression. It doesn’t matter why we’re fat, what being fat means, of if we could be thin. There are no other valid opinions on this. It is not up for debate. Fat people have the right to exist.
Send a thank you e-mail, or letter, or leave a Facebook comment or Yelp review etc. to a company that accommodates you – whether it’s a restaurant with armless chairs, a clothing company that makes clothes you like in your size etc. Tell them why you appreciate what they do.
When you see sizeism happening in a group to which you belong (whether online or in person) interrupt it and say something.
Have a conversation with someone close to you who sometimes says things that are fatphobic. Let them know why it hurts you, tell them about your Size Acceptance practice, and give them concrete things that you’d like them to do to support you.
If you want to do more of this kind of thing, consider joining the Rolls Not Trolls group on Facebook, it’s a group created for the specific purpose of putting body positive things in body negative spaces on the internet and supporting each other while we do that. It’s a secret group so if you want to join just message me on facebook (I’m Ragen Chastain)
Happy Say Something Sunday!
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“Fat people have the right to exist in fat bodies regardless of how we got fat, what being fat means, or if we could be thin through some means – however easy or difficult. There are no other valid opinions on this – we have the right to exist without shaming, bullying or stigmatization, period.”
There is now a lively debate going on about whether or not this is true. And that is incredibly, completely, and totally fucked up. Let’s be clear about what that interaction is:
I (and other fat people) say: “I have the right to exist.”
Other people say: “Well, that’s debatable.”
No, it’s really not. The answer to someone’s insistence that they have the right to basic human respect regardless of their appearance should never be “Not unless you can prove it through a lively debate with people who believe that their own right to exist is above reproach.”
The fact that people are willing, if not excited, to debate the right of fat people to move about the world without being shamed, stigmatized, bullied, or oppressed; the fact that there are people interested in arguing that some people don’t have a right to exist because of how they look (people who can do so for fun, or as an academic exercise, or because they are bored, since their own right to exist does not hang in the balance,) is as enthusiastic an endorsement of the need for the Size Acceptance Movement and Fat Activism as I can think of.
A more subtle version of this is when people insist that they can be for the eradication of obesity but not for the stigmatization of fat people. Let’s rephrase this to get some perspective:
I don’t want to oppress fat people, I just want to eradicate them from the Earth. But, you know, in a non-stigmatizing way.
I love fat people, I just don’t think anyone should be one.
I want to not stigmatize you while actively trying to create a world without anyone who looks like you living in it.
To kick it up a notch, people blend in healthism and ableism with fat hate with ideas like:
It’s ok to be fat unless it is affecting your health.
Ignoring for now the complexities of health and body size, there is no weight or health status at which one loses their right to exist and be treated with basic human respect.
I’m fine with people being fat, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get disability benefits or accommodations because it’s their own fault.
Ignoring for now the complexity of body size and dis/ability, nowhere in the ADA definition of disability does it say “unless the impairment is the fault of the person, in which case no accommodations shall be given.” The idea that we should try to determine if a person’s disability is their fault before providing accommodations/benefits is absolutely horrifying.
There are any number of things about which it’s appropriate to have a lively debate. Fat people’s right to exist is not one of them.
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I got a lot of e-mails today from people who told me that they were absolutely shocked that someone would be comfortable suggesting something so obviously horrific as “Warn a Friend They’re Fat Day.” I think it’s, very sadly, a natural extension of our culture.
I think a big part of the problem here is that the media, the government, and the diet industry have systematically dehumanized fat people. When you see picture after picture after picture of fat people with our heads and faces removed so that we are no longer a person with a face, then the world doesn’t look into our eyes, it stares at our asses and makes judgments.
Happy fat people are kept out of view, forcibly if necessary, under the utterly ridiculous premise that if you show a fat person as anything other than miserable and desperate to be thin then you are “promoting obesity” (in the same way, I suppose, that putting gymnasts on talk shows promotes shortness.)
The cycle goes like this (and is often perpetuated for profit by industries that sell thinness)
Create an environment that encourages bullying, shame, stigma and oppression, designed to make fat people miserable
Purposefully hide all the fat who manage to be happy regardless of the messed up culture, under the guise of not “promoting obesity” since it makes people miserable to be fat
Use the”lack” of happy fat people – that they created – to “prove” that all fat people are miserable
Insist that if fat people are miserable it’s because we are fat, and not because we live in a world where we face a ceaseless barrage of shame, stigma, and oppression at their hands.
Optional: If you are a diet company, promise people that your product will make fat people thin (even though it won’t)
Lather, rinse, repeat.
This doesn’t just affect fat people, it also affects people who feel that they are fat, and those terrified of becoming fat and being folded into this cycle. It also means that it’s extremely rare for anyone, of any size, to see a happy successful fat person and that further serves to dehumanize us, and robs us of representation and role models.
The portrayal of fat people subhuman until we become thin leads to the assumption that any and all efforts to make us thin are somehow a good and worthy deed. So instead of realizing that it is unthinkably rude and inappropriate to comment on our bodies, or the food in our shopping carts, or subject us to shame, stigma, bullying and oppression because of how we look, people think that they are doing us a favor; mistakenly believing that our fat bodies are some kind of sign that we need external guidance from complete strangers at the grocery store.
It leads people to believe that it is somehow reasonable to find a group of people identifiable by a single physical characteristic, attempt to calculate that group’s “cost” on society, and then – if it seems like the world would be cheaper without them – call for their eradication.
This stereotyping and dehumanization leads people to think of fat people as the enemy – deserving to be shamed “for our own good” at best and, at worst, deserving to be hated and attacked simply for existing in fat bodies.
We are told that the cure for all of this stigma, bullying, and oppression is for fat people to lose weight. Give the bullies our lunch money, they tell us, and they promise they’ll stop beating us up.
Of course the cure for social stigma is not weight loss – it’s ending social stigma. There are lots of ways to combat this. The first part, to me, is to constantly remind ourselves that the problem is with society – not fat people. That fat people are human and, as such, deserve the same human respect to which everyone is entitled which includes the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That these rights are inalienable, are not weight or health or habit dependent, and that we are not asking anyone else to confer these rights – we are asking people to stop trying to take them away by an inappropriate use of power.
We can also – when we feel that we have the energy and desire – speak out against this when we see it. There is never, ever any obligation to join in activism and, of course, you get to choose the opportunities you take; but every time we see fat people being stereotyped, bashed, blamed, stigmatized, bullied, dehumanized or oppressed, we have a chance to stand up against that behavior if we choose.
In this kind of activism my goal isn’t usually to change the perpetrator’s mind (that’s pretty far out of my control) but rather to make sure that the people who are hearing the message that fat people are less than human and should be treated poorly “for our own good,” are also hearing the truth, that fat people’s bodies are nobody else’s business, and that we have the right to exist without shame, stigma, bullying and oppression regardless of why we are fat, what being fat means, or if we could become thin. Fat people have the right to exist, period.
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I got a press release today telling me that self-described “weight loss expert” Steven Miller (in reality a lifestyle coach with a degree from the London College of Clinical Hypnosis) is proposing that today be “Warn a Friend They’re Fat Day” in the UK and, the press release assures me, he wants to bring it to the US as well. According to Steven it
is not about being cruel. In fact it is the complete opposite. It is about sensitively and tactfully talking to overweight friends and family members about our concerns for their health. In fact it is a day that could potentially save thousands of lives and at the same time heighten our friends and families confidence as they are encouraged to take action to lose weight so that they feel better and more confident about themselves.
And he goes on to list recommendations that thin people should give to their fat friends on how to lose weight (recommendations which every fat person has heard hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of times.) How is this completely and totally messed up? Let me count the ways:
1. Our health isn’t anybody else’s business unless WE make it their business. Other people’s health isn’t our business unless THEY make it our business. It’s bad enough when we have to deal with concern trolling strangers, but concern trolling family and friends are a whole other thing, in large part because of the social pressure to compromise our boundaries because of their assumed good intentions.
2. It rests on the ridiculous impression that thin people have some right and standing to confront fat people about “our health.” Health is not an obligation, it’s not a barometer of worthiness, it’s never completely within our control or guaranteed under any circumstances. There are people of all sizes at every point of the health continuum, for lots of different reasons. There are people of the same size who engage in very different behaviors, and people of very different sizes who engage in the exact same behaviors.
The fact that someone is thin does not imbue them with some special knowledge or right to give fat people unsolicited advice about our health or body size. The fact that someone is fat is not a signal that we require advice from thin people. If Steve thinks that it does, then we need to stop the logic train because we had a passenger fall right the hell off. Fat people are not in need of a stern talking to from some self-righteous thin person.
This is just entirely inappropriate, and it would be inappropriate even if it wasn’t completely credibility shattering to suggest that fat people need someone to tell us that we’re fat.
3. His assertion that this could “heighten our friends and families confidence as they are encouraged to take action to lose weight so that they feel better and more confident about themselves.” is a laughable justification for perpetuating widespread bullying. Since when does having your friends confront you with wild, baseless, unsolicited judgments about your health create confidence?
Whether or not someone believes that weight loss is possible or will lead to better health, the suggestion that someone should base the way that they feel about themselves and their confidence on their body size is very seriously messed up. People don’t take care of things that they hate and that includes their bodies. People who promote this kind of drivel are the true health threat.
4. It’s not based on any evidence. Even if the evidence didn’t show that long term weight loss almost never works, there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that “warning” your family and friends that they’re “fat” will make them any thinner or healthier (which are, by the way, two different things.) In fact, based on the research that does exist, what Steve is suggesting may actually lead to weight gain That doesn’t factor into my objection to his idea, other than the fact that it’s deeply problematic that he is promoting an “intervention” that the research shows is likely to have the opposite of his intended effect.
We have got to stop acting like any weight loss idea promoted by a thin person is the the equivalent of a research-based health intervention that should be immediately implemented. This leads to fat people being subjected to experimental medicine without our consent and that is not ok. Public health should, at its best, be about making options and information accessible to the public, not about making the individual’s health the public’s business. But at a bare minimum, it should take care not to subject members of the public to “interventions” that are in direct contradiction to the existing evidence.
I was going to try to get January 7th declared “Warn your friends they are a size-prejudiced, body shaming, sheeple who need to start exercising some common sense” day, but Rivkie Baum, the editor of Slink magazine, had a much more productive idea. She launched a counter campaign called called “Tell A Friend They’re Fab” and encouraging people to use #youarefab on social media.
Steve responded thusly:
Tweet saying “IGNORE the shockingly dangerous Fat Acceptance brigade. Their drive is to get you to eat your own grave. #FatIsNotFab
Let me be the first to say that if Steve was suggesting that we have a day against people eating their own graves I would be totally behind that. There is lots of conflicting information about health, but I’m feeling pretty certain that eating that much dirt (not to mention the grave stone – ouch!) does not support good health. In reality, I think that this Tweet is likely a good representation of how much Steve actually understands about the Fat Acceptance Movement.
In the meantime, let me offer some possible responses if a friend or family member is inappropriate enough to take part in this:
I’m sure that your intentions are good and I appreciate that, but your actions are completely inappropriate – neither my weight nor my health are open for discussion.
You are out of line, I’m perfectly capable of making decisions about my own health, and if you’re not able to keep your concern to yourself I’m going to [choose a consequence that you can follow through with – leave the conversation, leave the room, end this relationship etc.]
If you think that Steven Miller is qualified to give health advice then you’re welcome to follow it, I think he’s a quack and bully and I’m done talking about this.
*Laugh out loud* Wow, I’m sure that you’re embarrassed to have taken part in something so ridiculous, for your sake I’m willing to end the conversation and pretend this never happened.
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One of the things that I hear and see a lot when it comes to articles in mainstream media is that Size Acceptance is ok, but we need to “strike a balance between body acceptance and health”.
There are many issues here but the first and most important is that body acceptance and health are two very separate things. The idea that health should be linked to Size Acceptance or self-worth is incredibly dangerous and completely fucked up. Health is not an obligation, barometer of worthiness, or completely within our control. Often issues around this happen when people confuse the concepts of Health at Every Size with Size Acceptance.
I talk about that in detail here but the bottom line is that Health at Every Size is a paradigm from which to approach health and healthcare, but Size Acceptance is a Civil Rights Movement. There is absolutely NO health or behavior requirement Size Acceptance. Nobody owes anybody else “health” or “healthy habits” by any definition. You do deserve, and have the right to demand, respect and the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the body you have right this minute – whatever your size, health, habits and dis/ability. This is a civil rights issue, plain and simple, it is vitally important that we not confuse Size Acceptance with health or dis/ability in any way.
There are more issues with this idea of “striking a balance between Size Acceptance and Health”. The logic-defying idea here is that liking and appreciating our bodies will somehow preclude health. That idea is precisely as ludicrous as it sounds. Of course when people are talking about “health” in this context they typically mean thinness, which is absolutely not the same thing. What they are often saying is that if you allow yourself to completely like your body, you won’t hate it enough to try dieting again and again when, like almost everyone, you fail repeatedly at long term weight loss. Or perhaps they think that in the multi-dimensionality, no guarantees, concept of health, self-loathing is a positive force.
Often if you scratch just below the surface you’ll find that this “strike a balance” idea is just diet industry manipulation for profit – it’s a way to give lip service to the myriad health professionals, experts, evidence, and heaping helping of common sense that points out that liking and appreciating our bodies is a good thing. By “striking a balance” they mean that it’s ok to like our bodies as long as we’re actively working to change them, preferably buying their product to do it. People like this see Size Acceptance as something for fat people to do until we become thin. This idea then gets repeated by people who either didn’t think it through, or who actually believe that the key to “health” [thinness] is juuuust enough self-hatred.
I have consciously opted out of this system. I do not think that hating myself does any good at all – and trust me when I tell you that I gave it the old college try. Hating myself never inspired me to take care of my body or led to a single positive outcome. In fact, I got so caught up in hating my body for how it looked that I forgot to have even a second’s appreciation for what it did and that was no way for me to live. Like everyone’s experience, mine is just for me – it can’t be extrapolated to anybody else so I’m neither trying to tell you what to do or trying to tell you that your experience will be the same as mine. I’m just trying to give an option.
So one option is to say “Screw striking a balance” and fully appreciate the body you have now – total, 100% body acceptance. Not because your body is “perfect” (as if there is such a thing) but because it’s your body, the only one you have. You get to decide for you, but for me, my body is amazing and deserves nothing less than my love, respect, and full-throated support, and anything less than that is way out of balance.
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I had the opportunity to be a Featured Speaker at the GenAustin “We Are Girls” conference. I gave my keynote talk “The World is Messed Up, But You Are Fine.” It was an amazing, powerful, and humbling experience that I want to tell you about.
The conference is“a statewide annual event that helps girls explore the issues of bullying, body image, and being a girl.” I’ve long been a fan of GenAustin and did some work with them when I still lived in Austin so I was absolutely thrilled to be involved in the event.
As I walked into Austin High I saw signs that instantly told me that this was my kind of conference:
As I walked into the gym for the opening rally (at which I was going to be giving a quick preview of the talk I would give later that day,) I was met by an enthusiastic crowd of cheering girls and their parents who were filing in.
That’s when I started getting nervous. The conference had over 1,700 registrants and you could feel the power in the room – the power that these girls have to make change, to reject a culture of body hate and shame, and demand that industries stop trying to, as my friend CJ Legare puts it, steal their self-esteem, cheapen it, and sell it back to them at a profit. I knew that I had a chance to really make a difference and I did not want to miss that chance.
I was the final speaker to go on, so I got to listen to amazing mini-talks from musician SaulPaul and members of Jaime Horn’s Andi Leadership Institute for Young Women. When it was my turn I talked about the power that they had to create the world they wanted to live in, I talked about ways that the world is messed up when it comes to women and girls and our bodies, I talked about how every body is a good body, and I talked about the fact that they have the power to make a difference.
Then I asked them to stand up and scream at the top of their lungs “I HAVE A GOOD BODY!” And this is what it sounds like when 1700 girls and the people who care for them reject a culture of body hate.
Then it was time for my talks.
Because of the number of registrants they decided to do two lunches and so I got to give my talk twice to make sure everyone had a chance to come. The first talk went great and the girls’ participation during the Q&A was off the charts amazing. Girls left telling me about organizations they were going to start, changes they were going to make in their own lives, and conversations they were going to have with their friends and families.
Then something really interesting happened. The amazing Meghan, who was the Featured Speaker Coordinator and made sure that our day went super smoothly and we were super well taken care of, brought me an delicious lunch!
This is Meghan. She is awesome!
By the time I was done with the people who came down to the stage to talk to me, ask questions, take selfies, and get autographs I only had a couple of minutes to finish lunch. So I sat on the edge of the stage to eat my lunch and chat with the GenAustin staff. At some point I realized that the room was filling up and that more than a hundred people were now just watching me eat. And I didn’t feel self-conscious at all.
It was a big deal in terms of understanding how far I’ve come on my journey. There was a time when I would have risked passing out rather than eating in front of people, and now eating in front of over 100 people didn’t even phase me. That thought powered me into the second talk as the room began to fill. The second talk also went well. Tons of great participation from the girls, positive feedback from everyone, more autographs, more questions, more selfies.
I left the conference feeling so excited and humbled by the power of the girls I met and by their willingness to really say no to a society that is set up to make them hate themselves for profit. I definitely set a personal record for number of selfies taken with third graders in a single day. I can’t even say how much I appreciate the opportunity to be part of this stellar conference, and huge thanks to Julia Cuba Lewis, Blair Stirek, Ami Kane, Joy Beth Meyers, Meghan Young, and the entire GenAustin and We Are Girls staff.
This conference is just one of the things that GenAustin does – they have programs for everything from leadership development to interventions designed to help girls at risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system, to camps. If you’re looking for a group to support I can’t recommend them highly enough.
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There is an overlap between the fitness world and anti-fat bias and bullies that is sometimes even seen as necessary or natural. It’s neither, and it’s something that I’d like to examine today. I recently got a question from reader Wendy that read:
Do you know if any of the health programs like crossfit actively teach their converts to hate fat people? I ask because I was shocked this week when a friend of mine who has become a serious workout-holic compared fat people (in general) to [drug users]. I’ve known him for 20 years and he’s never before displayed this kind of bias.
Unfortunately I know of a lot of these cases. Here are some of the ways I see it happen:
The fitness industry and the diet industry are deeply intertwined, such that we are encouraged to believe that the only “correct” outcome of a fitness program is a body that looks a certain way (thin, muscular, swimmer’s build, etc.) Because that is seen as the goal, bodies that don’t fit the mold are seen as bad, or wrong, or failures at fitness, and those of us with fat bodies are often used as “cautionary tales” by those in the fitness world.
I have more than once told someone leading a fitness class that I am not motivated by their suggestion that everyone in the class should be working hard to not look like me. The truth is that self-loathing sells and many fitness programs take advantage of that.
A case in point is a series offered online by Crossifit called “Killing the Fat Man.” The story is about a guy who had gotten out of shape and gets back in shape using Crossfit, and they made a film equating this process with killing the fat man. (Of course, not all crossfit is like this and I know fat people involved in Cross fit gyms (“boxes”) who are very happy there and don’t experience fat shame.)
Now, people are allowed to try to manipulate the way that their bodies look, and they are allowed to hate their bodies (Underpants Rule!) The problem happens when they transfer their self-loathing of their fat body onto other people’s bodies. Sometimes it’s just about the development of an appearance-based prejudice.
Sometimes people aren’t able to comprehend that their experience is not everyone’s experience and so they are unhappy with their experience/behaviors/current state for some reason and they assume that 1. All fat people have the same experience/behaviors/current state as they do and 2. All fat people should be made to feel the misery that they feel. It can also be about the reinforcement of anti-fat sentiment by instructors who feel comfortable making generalizations about fat people and then using us as motivation for those in their charge.
This can spin out of control pretty quickly. Some of the most horrible hate mailthat I get is from online forums that are supposed to be about fitness but that dedicate threads, and sometimes entire days, on their forum to what they call “fat hate”. This includes ridiculing fat people on their forum, and also sometimes encouraging people to send e-mails to fat people for the express purpose of bullying/being cruel. Some of the worst of the worst bullying I’ve received from these sites have been because I chose to engage in fitness activities.
I think that this is often about the lack of maturity, on the part of those perpetuating the hate, to understand that people can make different choices than us about own bodies and health, and that doesn’t threaten or invalidate their choices. In other cases it can be about people who are benefiting from a world in which their body size is seen as more valuable and so those of us who come along and insist that all bodies are equally valuable are a threat to them.
Regardless of why it happens, it’s not ok. For me it’s important to remind myself that the problem isn’t me, it’s them. Nobody is obligated to participate in exercise or fitness of any kind, and participating doesn’t make anybody better than anybody else. Those who want to participate should be able to do so without fear of shaming or bullying. This is one of the reasons that Jeanette DePatie and I co-founded the Fit Fatties Forum, and Facebook Group so that people who want to talk about fitness from a weight neutral, body positive perspective have a place to do that.
Given our current culture and all the messaging from the diet industry, unfortunately it’s all too easy for fitness to become fat hate, and it does a disservice to all of us. For those of us who are interested in participating in movement/fitness, there are lots of ways to do activism around this – we can show up with our big fat bodies and participate. We can be encouraging to others who want to participate regardless of size. And speak out when we see people trying to turn the movement we love into the prejudice that we abhor.
Like this blog? Here’s more cool stuff:
LAST DAY TO JOIN! If you’re looking for fun fitness motivation for the New Year without any diet talk, weight loss talk, or body shaming, but with lots of fun, flexibility, and body positivity, (for people of all sizes, fitness levels, and abilities) check out the Fit Fatties Virtual Event Challenge!
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
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Dances With Fat 