advance fat acceptance

HAES aims to do exactly what it says on the tin: to promote health regardless of body weight or size. So why does this matter?

Well, tying up weight to health has several major flaws…

- It’s not scientifically accurate. Numerous studies contradict the accepted view of fatness as unhealthy, yet these studies are rarely reported in the media, and the prevailing view results in even these being interpreted and/or reported wrongly. For example, studies that showed that healthy eating (not dieting) and exercise improved blood sugar levels even with little to no weight loss were billed as ‘Even a very small weight loss can prevent diabetes!’ Sump’n not right there.

- In most people, healthy eating (again, not dieting) and exercise don’t result in the kind of dramatic weight loss promoted by the diet industry. Holding up weight loss as a goal makes people who don’t lose much or any weight discouraged, and leads them to give up on behaviors that have lots of other proven health benefits.

- The association of health improvement with weight loss encourages some people to engage in behaviors that may be unhealthy in many other ways in order to lose weight – such as dangerous calorie restriction, eating highly processed low-calorie non-foods, and even having their GI tracts surgically mutilated.

- By encouraging health providers to think of persistently fat patients as greedy, lazy, ignorant and/or non-compliant, and to think of any health issue as potentially weight-related, the weight-loss ideal discourages many fat patients from visiting their doctors as often as they need to, or at all.

- Equating weight loss with health harms the thin, too. Many thin people see no reason to take up behaviors that could improve their health because, hey, they’re already thin…they must be OK, right?

HAES suggests that by removing this emphasis, we can create better health both mentally and physically, as well as improved self-esteem – for everyone, of any size.

The recommendations are pretty simple, and you’ll already be aware of most of them.

Eat a healthy, balanced diet as far as possible. Learn to pay attention to your body’s signals of hunger and satisfaction. No deprivation, no calorie counting. (If you have or have had symptoms of a genuine eating disorder, you need help from a qualified specialist – but you need to recognize that dieting is or has probably been part of your problem, not its solution.)

Move, in ways that are fun, easy for you to fit into your life, and incorporate any special needs. (Many exercise classes ignore the fact that some moves are difficult for a much larger body, or, for that matter, for people with other mobility issues. A good class will address this stuff.)

There are, of course, many other facets to a healthy life. Get adequate sleep and relaxation. Go easy on booze, try to give up smoking, and be careful about other types of upper and downer. Find meaning in your life: loving relationships, pets, hobbies, service to others, spirituality, nature, whatever. If you feel low or anxious, get help. And go get your checkups, be that eyes, Pap smears, funny-looking moles or any other bits of you that need attention.

All pretty obvious stuff, but it needs a shift of emphasis and some campaigning for change. More body-friendly gyms, dance classes and pools would be great. So would a change of opinion among doctors, which of course goes all the way back to the attitudes they learn in med school – although there’s a lot an outspoken patient can do to insist on appropriate care. Not to mention dealing with the everyday, practical problems of those who have real trouble fitting things into their lives that governments, without understanding the grass-roots issues of someone, say, holding down two jobs and with a couple of small kids to feed on a limited budget, call ‘healthy lifestyle choices’.

Truth is, most of us do what we can, where we can, with what we have; because health is not (or shouldn’t be) about some mythical perfect life and body, but the one you have, right here and now.

Here’s more info to be going on with…
http://www.lindabacon.org/HAESbook/
http://www.healthateverysize.org.uk/

”...they will only make you feel ugly.”

Usually attributed to Baz Luhrmann, although I believe Mary Schmich said it first. No matter who said it, it’s still true. In fact, it’s been scientifically proven; there have been experiments that tested women’s level of satisfaction with their own bodies, before and after reading magazines full of pictures of fashion models. They all felt worse about themselves after looking at these kind of images.

Whether or not images of very thin models actually encourage eating disorders is something that’s often disputed. Undoubtedly, EDs have multiple, complex causes, and you can’t generalize about them. What does speak volumes, though, is that some ED treatment centers don’t allow fashion magazines on the premises. But, full-blown EDs aside, the generally obsessive and screwed-up attitude that so many women have to food and their bodies is probably not helped by this constant bombardment of imagery.

Here’s another quote, from John Berger, who saw advertising for what it is:
“The publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product.”

These images are almost always trying to sell you something. So are a lot of the images we see around us, to be fair. But in the sale of actual products, there are pretty strict rules about the honesty of what you’re showing, and the requirement for disclaimers if what you’re showing isn’t the full story. Not so in the depiction of women’s bodies.

A few magazines are beginning to come clean about this and even inch towards changing their policies. But it’s slow, and while they’re under the stranglehold of relying on advertising revenue, they’re still subject to the dictates of companies who don’t want you to love your body as it is. (See John Berger, above.)

If you’re learning to love the body you have, it’s in your interest to avoid magazines that aim to make you hate it. So if you want reading matter that’s free of body hatred, try the less beauty-oriented parts of the mainstream press, or see what’s being written and printed in the underground. Or go write your own…because someone, somewhere, could make a mint out of more body-positive magazines if they dare to swim against the tide.

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…

inspired by the UK media of the last few weeks. The people this is aimed at know who they are.

1. I don’t care how fat someone is or how they got that way, if they are a legal citizen of the UK they are eligible for NHS treatment. That’s the whole idea of the NHS, in case you hadn’t noticed. Or to put it another way, no taxation without resuscitation.

2. Even if you add up all the ‘rising’ costs of treating obesity-related illness (if it is indeed obesity-related) on the NHS, it still amounts to less than 2% of its total budget. The vast majority of our health budget is spent on the elderly, and I don’t see anyone arguing that we’re wasting money on them.

3. It’s wrong to vilify people, bully then and beat them up. It’s equally wrong even if you believe that whatever they got beaten up for is something they can change. (Anyone remember not so long ago when the excuse for homophobia was ‘but they can stop being gay if they want to’? Neither true, as we now accept, nor any excuse.)

4. Not everyone who eats the same as you do and does the same amount of activity will be the same size as you. This is called human diversity, and has nothing to do with anyone’s self-discipline or perceived lack of it. (And as the wonderful Marilyn Wann once put it: ‘If you think fat people have no self-discipline, consider the fact that they haven’t killed you yet.’)

5. Odd as it sounds, you don’t know complete strangers on the internet. To make assumptions about them is, to say the least, foolish. To make assumptions, based on what they say about their body weight or size, that you know all about what they eat and how much of it, their activity levels, their health, their character, and indeed, the innermost motivations of their sexual partners, seems a step rather too far. I believe a Mr. James Randi offers a substantial cash reward if you can prove your psychic powers, but until then, best keep any ‘insights’ to yourself.

6. Last time I looked, the only thing Crystal Renn had in common with a heifer was that both appear to be mammals.

7. Finally and most importantly…nobody has to lose weight to earn respect, compassion and decent treatment. You get that by being human. So fat people are as entitled to those things as anyone else. The clue is in the word people, people…

Charlotte Cooper, a queer fat researcher (her term for herself) from London, has a wonderful blog, Obesity Timebomb, in which she discusses all sorts of stuff about fat, LGBT issues and their overlap. I thought this recent posting was especially helpful.

Next time you come across one of those screaming headlines like “IS OBESITY MOLESTING MIDDLE-CLASS HOMEOWNERS?!?” (OK, that one was courtesy of the Daily-Mail-O-Matic, but some of the real ones have been barely less melodramatic), find the original study, then apply her rules to check whether what you’re being told has anything at all to do with what’s really going on.

I think the one about checking the researchers’ other interests is especially important. While you’re at it, go see the websites of any of the ‘official’ anti-obesity organizations she mentions, and take a look at who their partners and sponsors are. They begin to look much less like anyone being concerned about health and much more about lining someone’s pockets. But anyway, here’s the link:

http://obesitytimebomb.blogspot.com/2009/09/beginners-guide-to-reading-obesity.html

It’s been a while since I posted anything under this entry, so here’s some interesting reading. My piece is long, and the article I’ll link to is also pretty long, but worth it, trust me.

This week, there have been headlines going round (most of them stemming from one woman who, surprise surprise, is trying to sell you her book) stating that crash dieting – you know, eating very little to lose weight quicker – is actually healthy and effective.

There have been a number of responses to this that involved the (unfortunately) old chestnut of ‘Of course eating less makes you lose weight – there were no fat people in concentration camps!’

Leaving aside the utter crassness and stupidity of that remark (and I lost a relative in a Japanese POW camp myself, so I think I’m entitled to express an opinion), those ideas both rest on the notion that you should be prepared to restrict your eating to any extent – no matter how much it, you know, screws up your general health (because there were very few healthy people in those camps either) – if that’s what it takes to make you get to an ‘acceptable’ weight.

Just in case you still think this is true, here’s that article…
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-weve-came-to-believe-that.html

Calorie restriction. Undertaken by healthy people. Volunteers doing it for the good of their country. Not even nearly as severe as some low-calorie diets. This is what it does to your body, and, something that’s often overlooked, to your mind.

This may not make easy reading for some people. Because, you know, once you’ve eliminated the spurious notion that fat people must diet ‘for the sake of their health’, what have you got left?

Surely not that we live in a society that expects some of its members to do genuine damage to themselves…because the rest of society doesn’t like how they look?

I’ll leave you to think about that one…

If you’re a parent, teacher, or anyone else who’s being encouraged these days to focus on what kids eat and what they weigh, please read this:
http://the-f-word.org/blog/index.php/2009/03/24/aed-releases-awesome-new-guidelines-for-childhood-obesity-programs/#comment-124485

(I recommend this blog generally if you’re interested in body image issues, but I really wanted to share this particular post.)

These are guidelines on how to make all kids healthier, without focusing on weight. Which is important. Focusing on weight and weight reduction encourages disordered eating behaviors (and the lifelong health problems those can cause), lowers self-esteem (which has a multitude of other negative effects which can, again, be lifelong) – and the vast majority of the time, won’t turn a fat kid thin. (It’s not particularly good for adults either, but kids are way more vulnerable because their bodies and minds are still developing.)

This is a much more sensible approach. I’d love to think that it might spread to the UK, but I doubt it somehow…

I was browsing a dictionary site tonight. (Don’t ask. OK, I’m a bit Aspie around dictionaries. But anyway.)

This ad kept coming up. ‘Why your stomach is fat….Lose your ugly belly’.

Excuse me?

Ugly?

It was a personal trainer selling some guaranteed ‘abs’ method. But hey, that’s incredibly strong language to use for a whole bunch of people you don’t even know. They might be nice people. They might invite you to dinner. Are you going to sit there eating their peach cobbler and going ‘Hmm, she could do with losing the belly’? (No, on second thoughts, he sounds like the kind of guy who’d run screaming from the very idea of peach cobbler. Which, at this time of year, is actually rather sad.)

There are a lot of bellies out there for him to hate on. Most of them are…you know…soft. Squeezable. Have something on them other than pure muscle (and the only time I ever saw anyone with nothing but muscle on their bellies, they were in anatomy books, and if you want to get in the sack with the Visible Man that’s your concern, but…whatever.)

Out of interest, as I was geeking around in a dictionary, I looked up the word ‘ugly’.

It can mean unpleasing to the eye, which was undoubtedly what this gentleman might think of my belly (and very possibly yours).

However, it has a bunch of other meanings which include offensive, morally repulsive, threatening, embarrassing, tending towards anger or bad feelings, and if you are in the deep South, rude.

I tend to be in agreement with the good folks of Alabama on this one. While health is undoubtedly a great thing to have, washboards are for skiffle bands. And if you’re that concerned about other people’s bellies, you’re either trying to make money off them, or you’re not having nearly enough fun with yours. ;)

...it’s aimed at women, but essential viewing for everyone. Some scary facts…and some hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKPaxD61lwo

to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.”

(Mary Oliver – “Wild Geese”)

This is lengthy, but it needs to be said. As often as possible.

We live in a superficial society. Many of us seem to think it’s OK and acceptable to hate those they perceive as less than perfect. And many of us perceive a very unnatural, abnormal, and for the vast majority of people, impossible body weight as ‘perfect’, and anything else as something less.

I have been persecuted, for most of my life, by a variety of shallow, hateful, and often self-hating people – some of them very close to me, people who should have loved and supported me – for not being thin. (For much of my life, I wasn’t even overweight – just over what they thought I ‘should’ weigh.) For the record, I don’t know what I weigh these days, and haven’t for some years, because I don’t possess any bathroom scales. I am 5’5” and a British size 18.

In recent years, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am never going to be a thin person. The body I have works well, and I take steps to keep it healthy. Eating healthily is good for everyone. So is getting regular, enjoyable exercise and taking time out to relax. BUT…..trying to reach a number on a scale is not part of that, and doesn’t have to be.

Some people may not believe this. They’ll say that they ‘care’ about my health, that I’m killing myself by being bigger than a certain size. I know, from experience, that people who say this often aren’t bothered about my health, because some of the same people were saying how wonderfully ‘healthy’ I looked at my lowest weight ever, when I was in fact ill.

The facts about weight and health are exaggerated. There is actually very little evidence of an ‘obesity epidemic’. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that the overweight may be healthier than those of ‘ideal’ weight, and that even the very obese are healthier than the underweight (and the sort of bodies you see in the movies and on TV are often very underweight). Very little unbiased research is allowed to reach the popular media, because too much advertising revenue – from weight loss clinics, diet clubs, the makers of artificial low-fat and low-carb foods, the writers of diet books, surgeons, and drug companies – depends on it.

Further…diets DO NOT WORK. (Even if they stress that they’re ‘not a diet’.) Restricting calories doesn’t work the same way for everyone – one person on a given diet may lose a lot more weight than another, and it doesn’t mean one of them is ‘cheating’ – just that people are individuals, and their bodies work in different ways. People who cannot stick to diets are NOT weak-willed and greedy. They’re human – humans need to eat, and even many so-called ‘sensible’ diets fall well within the WHO definition of malnutrition. I forget who said it, but someone rightly pointed out that losing weight is as easy as holding your breath…keeping the weight off is as easy as keeping on holding your breath. People who keep off all the weight for even five years after losing it – yes, even after gastric bypass surgery! – are very, very rare. Dieting screws up your metabolism, and most people who diet end up fatter than they started.

In short, we are being sold a big fat lie.

Google the authors Paul Campos and Gina Kolata, for starters, and you’ll find some information that may surprise you. The information is out there, if you just know where to find it.

Get the facts. Stop dieting, throw away the pills, ignore the magazines. Stop hating and punishing yourself. Start loving your body and really looking after it, and you will be the size and shape you’re supposed to be. That probably won’t be the image in the media. But that’s just an image. You’re a real person. You deserve love, respect, and a life. And that applies no matter what size you are.