*This post will follow on from a previous entry, which is here.
Club Troppo has posted a bit of a link round-up of the response to John Birmingham’s Biggest Loser article. You may want to have a little look-see. (You may know of some other relevant pieces that are also of interest; feel free to drop a link in the comments but please do add fat-hate or ED trigger warnings if warranted.)
I have many long posts swirling around in my head but time and weariness demands (relative) brevity. So here’s a pretty basic message.
Fat acceptance does not kill anybody.
Let’s imagine for a minute that I and other body acceptance bloggers and Health At Every Size researchers and promoters are completely wrong. Let’s imagine that fat bodies cannot be healthy and fit. Let’s imagine that the US Surgeon General is recklessly ill-informed:
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Doctor Regina Benjamin, an African-American woman wearing the uniform of her office as Surgeon General, addresses the camera. She says: Hello, I’m Dr Regina Benjamin, the United States’ Surgeon General. Two thirds of adults and nearly one in three children are overweight or obese. As a result, our nation has high rates of diabetes and other chronic illnesses. The good news is, we can be healthy and fit at any size or any weight. As America’s family doctor, I want to change the conversation from a negative one about obesity and illness to a positive conversation about being healthy and being fit. So let’s start with making healthy choices. Eat nutritious foods, exercise regularly, and have fun doing it.
Right, so you’ve ignored everything Dr Regina Benjamin has said and everything I’ve said about my beliefs about health and you are convinced that a fat person cannot be a fit and healthy person. And, presumably, you also think there is some kind of moral obligation to be healthy.
How do people become healthy? How do healthy people live?
Perhaps, they go to the doctor regularly and insist that they receive sensitive and skilled care.
Perhaps, they eat competently.
Perhaps, they have mental health support.
Perhaps, they belong to a community which helps them to advocate for their own health and wellbeing.
Perhaps, they help their children to develop healthy relationships with their bodies, too.
Not everyone who is fat is interested in participating in fat acceptance or using a Health At Every Size approach to weight, and that is okay. As individuals, we all ought to have bodily autonomy and make our own informed decisions about our bodies, including and especially how we eat (or ‘diet’) and how much exercise we do and how we ‘manage’ our weight (or let it manage itself). Free free to read this back to me if you ever hear me say otherwise. (Hint: you won’t.)
But for the people who do participate in FA/HAES, or even just come across a little of our message, there is absolutely nothing to endanger them.
What often stops fat people from doing all the healthful things that I mentioned above? Much of the time the answer is fat stigma. (This is not the only answer: socio-economic barriers and social isolation are two more main factors but they are both enhanced by…well, stigma.)
When fat people are abused simply for getting out and walking (and they are, please go read this post, it’s important and not an unusual story unfortunately) there is little incentive to actually keep going. It’s hard to take care of your body when you face bullying and disdain every day. What fat acceptance does is provide support and encouragement for people so that they can keep on walking. Fat acceptance is not giving up.
A lot of people tell me I’m deluded. To that I say: just because I have a different opinion to you and make different choices does not mean that I am stupid or ignorant.
So I won’t say that John Birmingham* is deluded for saying that fat activists
need smashing flat when they try to redefine obesity as normal. They’re killing people as surely as the shareholders of Benson and Hedges.
He’s entitled to his opinion.
And when I kill someone with my activism, when size acceptance hurts people more than it helps them, when fat activists start pulling people off treadmills and force-feeding them deep-fried Mars bars, he’s welcome to smash me as flat as he likes. (Hint: it ain’t gonna happen.)
~~
*by the way, this isn’t really about Birmingham. His opinions on this are popular, and not particularly novel. So this post is less a rant aimed at an individual man and more a blanket statement refuting what I am rather sick of hearing. Thanks for indulging me, if you’ve read this far.
*applause*
I just don’t understand why people have such a problem with fat acceptance, when it basically boils down to:
1) We all deserve to control our own bodies; and
2) Don’t act like an arsehole.
Why is that such a struggle?
Yes!
How is love and acceptance ever a bad thing? How is it damaging?
Body love and body acceptance is surely the worst kind of love- tricksy fatties!
Jacqui
(Fat in a Leotard)
Ugh. Need smashing flat? Just….ugh. I can’t begin to describe (but I’ll give it a damn good try) my lip-curling disdain and disgust of such violent, emotive, ill-judged, vilifying language.
Some people will not be happy until everyone that is not ‘like them’ loathes and despises themselves – as if enough of us don’t already.
Keep up the good work, you and other FA bloggers INSPIRE me to become healthier, happier and kinder to myself.
Well said.
“We can be healthy and fit at any size or any weight.” – Dr Regina Benjamin. It’s great that such a high profile medical professional can just come out and say that. Now, here’s hoping that the Australian Medical Association can get with the programme.
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This is such a great post and summarizes exactly what I believe.
Fat Shame and stigma gave me an eating disorder and actually made me fat.
Fat acceptance possibly saved my life from that eating disorder and helped me find health as it is for my individual body.
It is not healthy to live in a constant state of anxiety over your body, which is what some people expect of fatties, we are expected to hate ourselves.
That to me is what hurts the most
Bec (@Trashyteacake)
Yes, it does hurt. I notice you’ve waded into the fray on Birmingham’s blog. Kudos. You were reasonable, they were, frankly, arseholes to you. Unbelievable. I think it’s completely unacceptable for him to allow his followers to troll people in the way they have and effectively ‘do his dirty work’, which is the only way I can interpret it right now. I mean, it’s his site, his business to say and do and moderate how he likes but I just lost any remaining respect for him. And I don’t mind saying that out loud. And putting my name to it!
I really don’t have any words, just tears. But I do want to thank you. Thank you for speaking out when I’ve simply run out of fight. Thank you for highlighting the ridiculousness of the accusations we face. And thank you just for being you, being part of this community. You make a difference in so many ways, to so many of us.
So thank you.
Hugs.
I don’t understand what’s so hard about this concept. And yet, simple as it is, I still have days where I’m afraid that all of this FA stuff is wrong and I’m just hiding because I wasn’t good enough or strong enough or dedicated enough to lose weight. I had a friend claim once that I started my own FA blog “instead of” getting up and exercising more often, because it’s too difficult to do the hard work of getting fitter (thank god it was a friend who does understand in the end, just in a moment of anger). I posted yesterday about how FA and re-thinking weight-loss has made it unbelievably EASIER for me to exercise.
I think that Fat Acceptance is liberating; it makes you less afraid, and more willing to try, and happier. And we live in a world where it’s not virtuous to be liberated and happy and relaxed. If you’re not suffering, it’s not worth it, nothing good comes easy, no pain no gain (or loss…) etc.
Love the name of your blog
Brilliant. I’m book marking this.
‘Fat stigma’. You got it in one.
I struggle with FA/HAES all the time. I know that, for my health (arthritis), I should really lose some weight – but I’ll be damned if I subject myself to the lectures and bullshit and paternal ‘disappointment’ of my doctor. Or the well-meaning nastiness of people who tell you how ‘brave’ you’re being if you order a salad, or congratulate you on being ‘strong enough’ to ‘fight’ your fat.
All of which means I have no idea what I weigh, and no way of measuring (your basic scales top out when I stand on them). Ideally I’d like to just quietly lose the weight I need to without any comments from anyone (and why do people think they have the right to make extremely personal comments just because they see you’re fat, anyway). It’s not like it’s anyone’s business but mine.
Exactly – not anyone’s business but yours! I too hate the assumption that if I’m eating a salad it’s because I’m ‘being good’. Sometimes I just like salad, y’know?
Um, did he just advocate violence towards a group of people who are all about telling people they should like their bodies and that the media is full of lies?
Um, disagreeing is one thing, but actually stating that they should be subject to violence for an opinion is kind of whacktastically extreme.
And this guy gets to write for professional publications and gets lauded as some sort of great Aussie literary artist? You’d think he’d choose his words more carefully.
Thanks for posting this. That sounds such an empty, generic, fly-by comment to make but I really do appreciate you talking about fat acceptance and health.
Thankyou for your eloquent voice of reason.
What a blog!
I started writing a comment, but when I hit my fourth paragraph, I decided that it was probably better to take it to my own blog.
FA/HAES is all pretty new to me, but I’d love it if you found the time to drop by and leave a comment or straighten me out.
Yay!
I found my way to your blog through axisoffat.com, and I’m really enjoying it!
Let me just say – as someone who immediately rejoiced at the whole concept of HAES and Fat Acceptance when I first discovered it, I certainly understand why many people deride it, take offence, question the movements research and facts, and ultimately view it as “aggressive”.
There are certain aspects of the movement that continue to make me question my willingness to truly identify with it, even now (even though I’m a self-loving, feminist fatty!) I can certainly understand why someone like Birmingham would be turned off by it, and dismiss the entire movement based on certain bloggers, certain attitudes and certain anecdotes that can create a stereotype of what the movement is about.
What truly annoys me, and turns me away, is the belief that’s commonly presented that “being obese or morbidly obese has NO impact on health”. I’ve seen this countless times on Jezebel and so many FA blogs. Such posts are littered with anecdotes about their own excellent blood test results, cholesterol levels, fitness levels etc. I wholeheartedly believe that a) You can’t tell someones health from looking at them, b) Thin people are often just as unhealthy as fat people, c) Weight doesn’t correlate to health, and d) It’s none of your business how fat or unhealthy I am anyway! But I just don’t believe the sweeping statements presented by many adherents of FA that generalise to that degree – many people do experience health issues directly attributed to weight and eating certain foods. And I don’t discount the dearth of medical research that backs that up either. I feel like totally ignoring or denying science and medical research really does a lot of bloggers, and thus the entire FA movement a real disservice.
Secondly, I hate when I read “Fat people are always genetically predisposed to be fat and food intake has absolutely no bearing on weight”. This also often follows with some kind of anecdote saying “I ate nothing but salad for a month and lost no weight. I can’t lose weight, so nobody can”. Of course this is true for some people! Genetic predisposition is real, as are a myriad of thyroid, and other health issues or treatments that affect metabolism (or appetite). Many people are obviously born with a certain bodytype, as well. But I also feel like this misses the point. It is untrue for a large section of fat people – so many people really do “overeat”, under-exercise and truly could lose weight. It is not “genetically impossible”, at all. What FA should change its focus to is the idea that people don’t -have- to lose weight or follow a diet, or do whatever it is that , and who says they should? Why?
FA shouldn’t be a choice between science/medical wisdom and social change/individual acceptance. I love science, I love research, I love facts. But I also love feminism and body acceptance. Right now, the FA movement disproportionately favours one over the other. I really think more people would get behind it if these two (seemingly mutually exclusive) notions were able to co-exist in the movement, and more bloggers presented factual information (like yourself).
Anyway, this was just my 2cents and musings on why I think FA will always be disregarded and lambasted by the majority of society. Hopefully you don’t take offence, as I’m not talking about your blog, I’m talking about the general FA culture.
Hi Elle, thanks for stopping by.
I actually find your critiques of FA a bit mystifying because I almost never see any of those things. You claim to have seen “countless times”, the assertion that fat and health are not at all linked. I haven’t seen that, especially not in places with a huge readership like Jezebel (unless you are talking about individual comments, perhaps?).
I do see people trying to subvert the stereotype by talking about how their own bodies are healthy and fat, and I do see people critiquing media articles which spout what is almost always an uncritical, unthinking view of fat and health. So, whilst I am sure there are occasional episodes where FA bloggers make false assertions (or generalisations without qualifying that they are, in fact, generalising) I think this is relatively rare. Far rarer than it is to see blatantly false claims made by the diet industry or by people engaging in diet culture!
Your claim that “so many people really do “overeat”, under-exercise and truly could lose weight” is an interesting one. Where is the evidence for this? We know that in fact, regardless of how or why people become fat, making them become permanently un-fat is impossible to the tune of 90ish percent. I don’t see many FA bloggers claiming that no one at all ever could possibly lose weight long term but I do see, oh, millions of pro-diet folks claiming something that solidly conducted meta-studies have proven time and time again to be false.
I’m not saying that FA is above criticism or questioning. It certainly is not. And I’m ok with you raising your concerns here. But I do think it’s important to acknowledge that what the ‘majority of society’ considers to be FA may not reflect the reality of the work that fat activists do — and sure, if FA errs it’s ok to say so but remember that FA is a small movement with limited influence in comparison to the diet industry and other anti-obesity campaigners and profiteers.
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