Bits and bobs from a British glasses-wearing, sweary, fat, disabled, atheist ex-Catholic, anti-capitalist, pacifist feminist lesbian with eclectic tastes.
I normally blog at incurable-hippie.blogspot.com.
I find the more comfortable I get with my own body, the more uncomfortable others get.
And it really pisses me off.
95% of diets fail. 95%! So many people put themselves through hunger, starvation, and stomach ailments for the goal of losing a few pounds, only to gain them back, and more, as soon as they even get a whiff of pie. And the constant pressure to diet, especially for women, is understood to be a form of oppression which shames women for the bodies they have, in order to try and make them conform to somebody else’s beauty ideal.
So this morning I see that professional fat-hater Jamie Oliver has posted a petition which he’s asking people to sign in support of his “Food Revolution,” and in which he’s included the bullshit stat that “obesity in the US costs $10,273,973 per hour” (sure) and notes, in all-caps, “OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE.”
Celebrities who have signed the petition are posted in rotation: Jennifer Aniston, Eva Longoria, P. Diddy, Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, Ellen Degeneres.
It’s always nice to see wealthy people with access to the best food, comprehensive healthcare, personal trainers, private chefs, and individual nutritional plans put their names to a petition admonishing the fatties that OBESITY IS PREVENTABLE.
When there are people for whom that is not true, people for whom obesity is not preventable, for myriad reasons, to bray about how their bodies (our bodies; ourselves) are “preventable” is to engage in eliminationist rhetoric.
I will never not be fat.
—
Melissa McEwan at Shakesville: On Fat Hatred and Eliminationism (via finebyyou)
Take note, remember the names. These are the celebrities who have just said that you don’t count if you’re “obese”. These are the celebrities who have just decided that their wealth, fame, and privilege give them the right to act as the professional body and weight police.
These are the people who will sign petitions, but won’t do shit when people need health care, who burn more money just showing off how rich they are than most people will see in a year or maybe a decade of working shit jobs and eating whatever food they can afford. These are the people who will jump on a bandwagon, but won’t think about how it encourages hate and hateful acts against obese people.
How many people could afford to see a doctor or pay for the medicine they need with what these folks spend on cars, clothes, big ass houses, and other things?
For that matter, how many hungry people could’ve gotten food (at all) for what it cost to make and produce Jamie Oliver’s fat hating, obesity-stigma promoting bullshit show? How many kids in other schools in that area went home and knew that their school lunch, however healthy or unhealthy, was all they were getting because there wasn’t going to be any dinner that night?
But hey, better they starve and only get one or two meals a day than to get enough food. At least if they starve they’ll stay thin, right? Right? I mean, who cares if a kid is hungry, miserable, and not feeling well, as long as they aren’t a big fat fatty, right?
So remember these names. These are the hypocrites. These are the ones who didn’t just go along with a fucked up system, but went out of their way to help hold us down.
(via madamethursday)
F O R P E O P L E W H O C O N S I D E R S I Z E A C C E P T A N C E D A N G E R O U S
We’ve all heard the weight fears: obesity is said to have reached epidemic proportions, posing drastic threats to public health, increasing morbidity, mortality and health care costs, and lowering quality of life. Many well-intentioned people strongly believe that we need to fight obesity and that people who promote size acceptance are dangerous.
But here’s the rub. History shows that admonishing people to lose weight is just plain ineffective. The weight loss literature has been consistent for decades: while many weight loss methods are successful for short-term weight loss, only a tiny minority of people actually maintain that weight loss over the long term. Whether you blame willpower or accept the more scientific argument that biologic mechanisms underlie the resistance to weight loss, the simple fact remains: admonishments to lose weight don’t result in maintained weight loss for the vast majority of people. You can choose to adopt a self-righteous attitude and blame the individual, or, you can take responsibility and acknowledge that for whatever reason, your advice is not achieving the desired outcome.
Trumpeting obesity fears and hounding people to lose weight is not just ineffective, but downright damaging. They lead to repeated cycles of weight loss and regain, to food and body preoccupation, self-hatred, eating disorders, weight discrimination, and poor health.
Few of us are at peace with our bodies, whether because we’re fat or because we fear becoming fat. Every time you make fat the problem, these are side effects, however unintended they may be.
Those of us who advocate for size acceptance care deeply about people’s health. A large scientific literature demonstrates that improved health behaviors can improve health directly, regardless of whether weight changes. The psychological literature additionally indicates that people make better health choices when they feel better about themselves.
The argument for size acceptance doesn’t need to depend on whether you accept the considerable challenges to the current assumptions about weight and health. It’s really very simple: Your strategy has not only failed, but backfired. Shame doesn’t help people make better health choices—though it does contribute to considerable “dis-ease.” I urge you: Lay off the fat people. Science and reason do not support the value of a weight focus.
There is a compassionate alternative to the war on obesity. It’s called Health at Every Size and it involves shifting focus from weight to health.
For more information, check out Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight (www.HAESbook.com).
