OK. I figured it’d be cool to post a few practical tips for anyone who wants to get started on the Fat Acceptance journey.

Before I get going – don’t forget, FA doesn’t just mean fat acceptance. It means learning to love the body that the Gene Fairy happens to have blessed you with, whether that’s fat, thin or in between. All sizes of body, except the Photoshopped ones in magazines, are ‘real’ bodies and worthy of love and respect. (Also, the human beings who modeled for those images have ‘real’ bodies too, and many of them struggle daily with an industry that requires them to be as vanishingly thin as possible even before the photo geeks get going on them. They deserve our sympathy and help – and that starts with changing the culture that demands these images.) The weight/diet/beauty industry crapfest hurts every one of us, whatever our weight, age, or, indeed, gender.

Also, a lot of the hatred some thin folks have for fat folks comes, I think, from the basic fear of fatness itself; a sort of ‘OMG, if I didn’t control myself I could end up like her!’ reaction. Well, if that applies to you, you can relax. It’s not catching. And we won’t eat you…honest. (It’s the people on diets you want to watch for. Diets have a way of making you want to gnaw someone’s leg off in their sleep.) We’re not out to insist that everyone gets fat. We’re out to suggest that everyone gets a little happier and less self-loathing.

I won’t promise you’ll be any thinner this way. Nobody can promise you that, however much you pay them or whatever initials they have after their name. (Heck, if you’re naturally thin I can’t even promise you’ll ever be any fatter. I’ve met enough very thin people who’d tried everything under the sun to gain more curves to know that permanently gaining weight is as impossible for some as permanently losing it is for others.) What I can promise is that, given time and patience with this stuff, you’ll like yourself more. You will be mentally healthier and almost certainly physically healthier too. And you’ll probably gain confidence, which, while it’s not a miracle cure for anything, does often have a way of leading to more interesting jobs, more successful relationships and better sex. Best of all, unlike 99.9% recurring of the people who tell you how to lose weight, I don’t have my sticky mitts in your pocket in return for telling you any of this.

That said, practical tip #1.

Ditch your scales.

Yes, you heard. That evil beastie that stands in the corner of the bathroom and has the power to make you feel good or bad about yourself on any given day.

It doesn’t, you know. Your weight is just a number. Repeat: it’s just a number. But if you hop on that thing all the time, you’ll tend to judge yourself by that number. If you do it in front of others, so will they.

And you know you’re more than that…right?

(By the way, with regard to other people weighing you…there are a very few instances in which medical people actually need to know your weight – before surgery is one, so they know how much anesthetic you’ll need. In most other instances, there are other, way more significant ‘numbers’ a doctor can look at to get an idea of your health. But anti-fat prejudice at its nastiest is rife in the medical profession, and you can expect your weight to be used there exactly the way other people use it – to justify treating you disrepectfully. That doesn’t have to happen. Check out the facts before you go near your doctor; many FA sites have hints on how to deal with this.)

What to do with your unwanted scales? Marilyn Wann, in her excellent book Fat! So?, has some great ideas for, um, creative vandalism of these hideous instruments. She created this delightful version:
http://voluptuart.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=7_22&products_id=554
...but, DIY rules, and kudos to you if you can come up with something equally funky. Failing that, invite your friends over for a sledgehammer party! Yay!

More tips to follow…