Tag Archives: fat rights

CNN Interview

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Here is a link to the video from the interview today. “Defending Against Fat Prejudice.” They cut out the intro and the ending but otherwise I was really happy with everything. CNN was awesome and was promoting the segment throughout the hour I was on. They also tweeted the segment from all of their different twitter accounts.

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Haley, my friend and founder of Redefining Body Image was awesome and put up a post on RBI’s tumblr with screen shots right after I finished since she was live streaming the interview online.

tumblr_mymhe3faRe1qesi41o2_500The past 48 hours have been amazing. I am so lucky to be able to do this work and have such an incredible community to be part of.

As always, connect with me on tumblr and twitter.

 

Don’t Tell Me How to Cope with Trauma!

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*Cue Amy Poehler for the title*

One of the most ignorant things a person can do is assume that their own experience is the rule to live by in life. That they are the example everyone else should follow and while they do this they completely ignore that everyone is at a different place in their life. Some people are still having bad days, are surrounded by people who do not have their best interests at heart, have traumatic past experiences that are continually challenging them to reevaluate their life and are ever evolving because life is not as simple as “bad things happen, now move on.”

I am not a regular reader of Manolo for the Big Girl but when I was linked to this article by someone who was trying to use it as an example of fat women playing the victim when faced with discrimination while dating I immediately saw red.

Maybe that’s because in my travel across the fatosphere I’ve run into a lot of mawkish pity parties written by women in the permanent victim mode, those unfortunate souls unable or unwilling do the work required to move on from their teenage angst and so every human interaction is an affirmation of their deeply engrained flawed belief that they are not worthy of love, that everyone hates them or looks down on them because they’re fat and that their mother/father/seventh-grade boyfriend was right all along.
I have empathy for those girls, but at the same time I secretly want to shake them and say “Maybe you don’t have friends because you’re a total downer. No one likes a sadsack, regardless of the size of said sack. Get thee to a therapist and work that sh*t out. Then let’s have gin and tonics.”

Aside from the fact that this writer is coming into a community that I tend to get pretty mama bear about, I also find it really frustrating that they are basically writing a blog post that is allowing for people to excuse away prejudice. This whole “If fat women just felt better about themselves then people wouldn’t treat them badly” isn’t something I want to promote or condone in any way.

No one has the right to tell another person how to cope with trauma. No one has the right to tell another person how they should feel about their experiences or how they should live their life. No one has the right to make judgments on another person’s life because they feel like they know everything about them.

The whole idea that someone just moves past childhood trauma and they are free from their experiences is bullshit. Sure it might work for some people but the reality is that trauma shapes who you are. You don’t just move past trauma, you cope with trauma, you allow for it to be part of you or you don’t because people get to decide how they deal with their own life and the trauma that goes along with it. I also hate that people think that trauma only happens when you are a child and that we do not continually face traumatic experiences on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Traumatic experiences can happen to a person regardless of their age or how they feel about themselves, how they deal or cope with the past trauma in their life etc.

Let this be a lesson. Never assume that your experience is the only valid experience and if you are going to criticize someone for how they deal with their traumatic experiences at least think about how your words are going to be used to cause more trauma in the lives of others. Think about how your words are going to make people feel silenced because they don’t live up to your grand expectations of how they should live their lives.

The Right to Talk about Fat Experience

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When fat people try to talk about their own experiences with body shame, fat stigma or weight based discrimination they are always challenged in a way to undermine the significance of them with people exclaiming that some of those experiences also happen to people in thin bodies. While the truth is that many of the shaming tactics used toward fat people do happen to thin people as well, the outcry from thin people to also feel as though we must validate their experience ignores the reality that they always have their experiences validated by every mainstream body positive organization or campaign that has ever existed.

The dominant discourse that surrounds the body acceptance movement as a whole is one that is directly geared toward thin bodies and the lack of voices from fat people are not noticed unless you are fat yourself. People who think that the voices of thin people are not being talked about enough in fat positive spaces are inadvertently reinforcing fat oppression. They do this by undermining the experiences of fat people because they feel as though it happens to everyone. Not only is this incorrect because the motive behind body shaming and stigma of a fat person and a thin person can be drastically different but the ways fat stigma takes part in being a fat person in society turns into actual discrimination. When dismissing fat experience by saying that thin people also have those same experience a person is completely ignoring that they still have the privilege that comes from living in a thin body.

Fat people do not have to make space for thin people when discussing their own experiences because of this privilege and due to the reality that thin people do not make space for our voices in their own discussions. When a dominant group tries to invalidate the experience of an oppressed group it is actively working to silence them. Coming from a place of privilege and expecting an oppressed group to make space for your experience is not only insulting but shows that you are not really interested in understanding the difference among experience or forms of oppression. This also happens within the feminist movement when white feminists expect black feminists to open their spaces to be ‘inclusive’ when those same white feminists do not make their spaces open for all women or experiences.

As a white fat female with some thin privilege I do not have the right to expect fat spaces for people who are larger than I am or any other group that I do not fit into to open and validate my experience. If they allow me to be part of their space I am not only grateful for it but I spend my time listening and learning not expecting them to include me. I also actively try to understand the privileges that I do have so that I can understand the difference between my own experiences and theirs. We should be celebrating difference not pushing it aside and ignoring it.

As fat people we have the right to talk about our experiences without being bullied into validating the experiences of thin people who feel like we don’t talk about the similarities among us. We need to start expecting people with thin privilege who are also advocates of body acceptance to make our voices heard and not brush them aside. We need to call people and organizations out for creating a form of acceptance that doesn’t challenge fat stigma or discrimination. We need to tell them that our experiences matter, that they are different and that difference is something that can help all people regardless of size.

Fear Mongering for the Nation

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The last two nights I watched the new HBO documentary “The Weight of the Nation” and was live tweeting with the hashtag #WOTN. While the producers seemed to try and make the film appear to be compassionate toward the plight of fat people, the pre-apocalyptic language and fear mongering used by many of the people interviewed as well as the lack of a well rounded argument that looked at both sides of the issue made this documentary a fat hate fest. In the four hours of documentary only one mention of a fat person being able to be metabolically healthy was mentioned. At no point was there ever discussion on the failure rate of weight based health initiatives (95% in the first 1-2 years) or that those who “succeed” by 5 years only manage to keep 10% of their body weight off. 1 At no point was there any mention that a lifetime of weight loss attempts leads to weight cycling and weight gained as well as other health complications.2 There was huge emphasis on the rise in type 2 diabetes in children but no mention that due to the escalation in fat phobia and dieting behavior children are more likely to have an eating disorder. 3

1. Misuse of BMI Charts

The films start with the history of BMI charts, interestingly enough they use modern day BMI chart numbers with no mention of the change that occurred in the late 90s that made millions of people “overweight” and “obese” overnight. There is no mention of reality that BMI charts were never supposed to be used as a measure of health or for large populations as a whole.

2. What About the Children?

Part 3 of the series is completely dedicated to the “prevalence” of type 2 diabetes in children. No mention that the CDC does not have statistics on how many children have the disease because it is so rare.4 There is also commentary that now that the “epidemic” has started in children it is easier to take seriously than “when it was only adults or people in less valued groups.” That comment summed up the tone for the rest of the films, showing how we will help people like children who are not thought of as having their own autonomy while simultaneously deeming the lives of adults or “less valued groups” as insignificant.

3. False and Unscientific Presentations

The most egregious clips from part 1 is where they are examining the 3 different hearts at Northwestern University’s School of Medicine. They show the heart of a “normal” weight 26 year old woman and compare it to not only a 50 year old man who weighted 500 pounds but also to a fat 71 year old heart. At no point was there any mention of the significant difference between the hearts due to aging only mentioning the difference in body size. Aside from the fact that this was completely unscientific it is a perfect example of the fact that a viewer will see this clip and not think about the information that is being left out. After viewing this clip myself I saw numerous tweets about how they couldn’t believe the difference in the hearts, everyone attributing that difference to body size not age. If they were truly interested in presenting an unbiased scientific opinion, hearts from bodies of people of the same age with different weights would have been the way to go. This was not only banking on fat phobic beliefs but instilling fear of fat in viewers.

They also followed a woman who was part of a study that had its participants eat an extra 1,000 calories a day at fast food restaurants. Other than the fact that they are showing someone drastically changing their behaviors, the adverse health affects of the extra calories is completely blamed on the small amount of weight that was gained. This is only a few examples of the film that showing an unrealistic approach from science to try and prove that gaining weight not changing behaviors is related to a change in health status.

4. Promotion of Harmful Weight Control Measures

During part 2 the film followed two women who are part of the weight control registry that keeps track of people who have kept of their weight “long term,” which the registry defines as 1 year. What they showed was obsessive calorie counting, keeping food journals and excessive exercise. Watching the women explaining the obsessive behaviors that they have mastered to control their weight was one of the hardest things to watch about the films. They also promoted weight loss surgery as an option. The man that they followed to his surgery, and then did a follow up after only 6 months, had many of the life threatening complications that happen with bariatric surgery but they were down played by his affirmation that he would have done it again.

5. The Fatpocalypse is Coming!

All of the films had commentary that made it seem as though the world was going to end if we didn’t stop this “epidemic.” One commentator said that the US would be crushed by it, another said that businesses would go overseas to find a workforce (because clearly fat people are only in the US), that we wont have a workforce in the US because everyone will be fat, and that our health care costs will continue to grow until Armageddon happens. They also mentioned the overused and misplaced study that said this generations children would not live to the same age as their parents.5

6. Risks

The documentary kept talking about risks associated with “obesity” but doesn’t explain that risk does not mean cause. The confusion between correlation and causation in understanding study results is astounding when research is written about in the media.

7. Fake Compassion

The film was very conflicted with its point of view on how we should feel about fat people. Not only did they say that we should know that people are fat outside of their own control, but many of the fat people who were interviewed said that it was their own fault or that they could change their body if they tried. The idea that they want us to see fat people as helpless while also giving “choices” on how fat people can lose weight is asinine. They are trying to appear to be compassionate and create less fat stigma when that is exactly what they are doing.

8. Structural Changes

There is a lot of time dedicated to the prevalence of poverty and body size in the films. How in low income areas there are no outdoor spaces for people to move their body, that they are often located in fresh food deserts (lies) and how junk food is the most affordable food available. All of this creates the idea that they don’t want to place the blame on people living in those areas while also presenting misleading information. The top suggestions given were creating safe outdoor spaces and access to affordable fresh foods. They also tried to tackle the prevalence of fast food restaurants in low income areas but didn’t mention a recent study that showed more middle income people eat fast food than people who live in poverty.6

9. The Food Industry

While talking about the amount of junk food in stores they also try to engage the food industry referring to it as something similar to the smoking industry. Many suggestions of reforming the food industry are not sustainable for the population of our country. Organic fresh foods, grass fed beef etc would not be possible with the amount of land we have and the population of the people we need to feed. As it is we have people that starve every day, stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods throwing out blemished foods because they don’t look good enough for their shelves. One commentator even made the suggestion that they should be required to make less food each year so that people would be forced to eat fewer calories. All of these suggestions mean someone completely more sinister than just trying to make people thin because if this were to actually happen people would die. We would need a smaller population for these suggestions to actually work and they would be created by the lack of food available for the current population. Also, none of the suggestions given would actually make the population as a whole thinner or make it so that fat people didn’t exist.

10. Conflict of Interest

Many of the contributors in the film as well as the National Institute of Health, the Institute of Medicine and the Center for Disease Control, all sponsors of the documentary, have possible conflicts of interest with people in their organizations who get money from companies that bank on fat bodies being pathologized. The NIH specifically had a panel that recently was called out for having conflicts of interest with the makers of Lap-Band.7 A few of the contributors of the documentary have been on this panel and every person who spoke in the film has a job that depends on fat bodies being considered diseased.

Final Thoughts

While the documentary banks on the normal ignorance surrounding weight and health, I found the worst parts to be the way they used scare tactics and misleading information. The length of the documentary was almost excruciating to sit through aside from the information being presented, they probably could have cut the time in half if they didn’t repeat half of the information numerous times in what I am assuming they hope will make people remember everything that they talked about.

One of the short films titled “Stigma: The Human Cost of Obesity” talks about weight stigma, but even in that portion the stigma is completely blamed on the weight of the person, as you can see with the title of the clip, not on society or fat phobia. In the clip Rebecca Puhl says how we need to not make this a fight against fat people but against “obesity.” The problem is that when you live in a fat body that science doesn’t know how to make thin you really are waging war against people.

Some more reading,

Bread and Circus (Hold the Bread):Weight of the Nation Deserves an Imperial Thumbs Down by Linda Bacon, Ph.D., MA, MA

Weight of the Nation Serves Up More Fat Shaming by Marilyn Wann

Debate the Weight: Deconstructing HBO’s The Weight of the Nation by ASDAH

the HAES files: Stereotype Management Skills for HBO Viewers by Deb Burgard, PhD

the HAES files: Top 10 Reasons to Be Concerned About “The Weight of the Nation” Documentary by Fall Ferguson, JD, MA

1. Do 95% of Dieters Really Fail – Dances With Fat

2. Weight Cycling, Weight Gain, and Risk of Hypertension in Women 

3. Incidence and Age-Specific Presentation of Restrictive Eating Disorders in Children 

4. Children and Diabetes – See Difficulty Detecting Type 2 Among Children

5. the HAES files: the cockroach effect

6. Fat Food’s Biggest Consumer: Not the Poor but the Middle Class

7. Health Guideline Panels Struggle with Conflicts of Interest

House of Cards

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When I talk to people about my interest in fat studies and the work I do with Love Your Body Detroit, they often act as though they can never get the point I am at with my body. They believe that I have all of my shit worked out, that I never have a bad day or that I don’t still deal with the same issues that they do in relation to their own body. The reality is that I just have a good game face. I tend to tough it out in rough situations and way until later until I have the emotional space to process my thoughts. This is aside from the fact that I have created a well-structured house of cards over the years that has given me the ability to have some semblance of a safe space in my own life.

One of the first things that I did when I found fat rights was remove a majority of the media that I was surrounded by on a daily basis. I tend to listen to NPR or some other form of talk radio. I don’t own a tv, read magazines, or try to not go on any website that doesn’t have a feminist or artistic slant, sometimes it happens but the amount is far less. I have my Hulu settings set up so that I barely ever get a weight loss commercial and use that as my primary source of tv. I don’t watch reality tv, except for The Voice which is mostly because I find it fascinating to watch not only for the competition but also for the way Christina Aguilera is treated by the media. While it may seem extreme, I know what is going on in the world, but removing myself from a space where my body and the bodies of other people are demonized or not represented at all was incredibly important to me. As well as removing myself from the negative head space that goes along with most forms of media where bodies are routinely met with harsh negative criticism.

One of the most drastic things I have done over the years is limit the time I spend with certain people. Since last October when I stopped being friends with a person for the toxic way their friendship was affecting my life. I have decided that I want the people who surround me to make me feel better not worse about myself. This has also meant limiting my time with family, friends or even the places that I work at. I’m at the point in my life where working at a job that makes me feel insecure about myself is no longer worth it to me. This comes from a place of privilege for me to even make that choice, but it also means that I am living off financial aid and grants for the most part.

Even with all of these precautions it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a bad day. It doesn’t mean that I don’t ever have to reevaluate the situation I am in or process my own life. This safety net is one that I have created to make the space I take up easier to deal with but it is something that I have created over 8 years of practice. Also the space I take up online is filled with people who have a similar mindset as myself, so when I go out in the world I know I am not alone.