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The Right to Talk about Fat Experience
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
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,
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
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
Reinforcing Sexual Hierarchies in Fat Positive Spaces
For a long time I have watched as the fat rights community has continued to reinforce problematic sexual and relationship hierarchies in fat positive spaces. As a community we whole-heartedly reject the notion that fat bodies are inherently unhealthy or any other stereotype attached to our fat bodies, but what we don’t address is what I feel is almost a compulsive need to prove to others that we are not those stereotypes. While doing this we ignore the reality that people do fall into the spaces we are trying to not fill by distancing ourselves from them.
This kind of distancing continues this notion of a ‘good fatty / bad fatty’ dichotomy that makes it so those of us without “successful” relationships, who may or may not want to be in a relationship, feel as though we are somehow lesser than. If we were to be truly revolutionary we would be challenging the stereotype all together. Who gets to choose where self worth or social acceptability comes from? Who gets to decide that any person, regardless of body size, must conform to what we deem to be acceptable forms of relationships or sexual acts? Who gets to decide where someone’s sexuality comes from or what kind of sex is better? If we want to be revolutionary we should be challenging all standards of living, not just showing exceptions to stereotypes.
When is comes to sex and relationships the discussion is almost always led by someone who is partnered, is about having sex with other people while being slanted toward the idea that being a good fatty means being in a relationship. Very rarely does sex talk involve personal experiences from those of us who are not intimate with other people. It very rarely involves breaking away from the normative standards of sexual experience, which deems relationships between two people to be the best kind of relationship to be in.
Because of the widely held prejudicial belief that fat people are unlovable conversations have often centered on challenging that. It isn’t abnormal to come across blogs that tell people that they will be loved, that they will have fulfilling sexual experiences that focus on multiple partners being involved. This sends the message that intimate relationships with others, sexual experiences and self worth are related. While I highly doubt anyone has meant for this to happen, the reality is that by not making space for people who are not intimate with other people we are continuing to exclude people from this movement based on pretty archaic sexual hierarchies.
Within sex positive discourse it isn’t abnormal to see discussion about how female sexuality in particular, though I would say any gender that does not conform to the traditional role of male sexuality, is seen to have their sexuality given to them. The idea behind this is that sexuality is taught to women by men, that their sexuality is not manifested from within but from other people. Even when we remove ourselves from this traditional thought about sexuality and move into being more sex positive we still recreate this same narrative when we only talk about sex between partners or make a distinction between solo sexual experiences (aka masturbation) and sex with others.
It isn’t abnormal for me to be discussing sex with other people and a distinction to be made by saying sex with a partner is better than being alone. The truth is that I have found just as many people who don’t see the difference and the reality is that it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s sexual experience is different, I enjoy my sexual experience with my box of toys, and others might enjoy their sexual experiences to be with one partner or two or three. Some people do nothing, some do a lot. Every form of variation is valid, every form is good.
Discussions that center around only one kind of relationship or sexual experience, leaves room for interpretation that those are the only kind that matter. They continue to reinforce sexual hierarchies that are damaging not only to people within the fat rights movement but also to anyone who believes they are truly sex positive. Being revolutionary means speaking for all people, not essentializing aspects of people’s sexuality, relationships or worth.
For further reading,
“Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality” Gayle S. Rubin
The Road to Hell – Consequences of Good Intentions
On Tuesday Michelle Obama is going to appear on the Biggest Loser as part of her Let’s Move! campaign. This comes after she has spent the last 2 years as the First Lady of the United States continuing to add to the ever growing amount of fat stigma in our society. Bringing up the problematic portions of her campaign normally ends with most people saying that she still has good intentions. Most people, even when they are causing harm, have good intentions but acknowledging the portions of the campaign that cause more harm then good is not ignoring the positive aspects. The problem with the Let’s Move! campaign has far more do with the way that it is framed and the reality of where it came from.
The announcement of the Let’s Move! campaign coincided with a report from retired military leaders titled “Too Fat to Fight,” which called on schools to remove junk food from their cafeterias because once children were becoming old enough to enlist in the military 40% of them did not fit into the BMI standard set by the military. FLOTUS’s relationship with the military has been extensive during her time with the campaign. She has spoken about how fat bodies are a national security risk continuing the link between body size and lower acceptance into the military. This has continued to happen without even acknowledging that the very BMI standards that the military uses increases the risk of service members of having or developing eating disorders Some say they are three times as likely as the general population to develop an eating disorder. She has also visited Fort Jackson military base in South Carolina to promote the campaign.
While her campaign continues to work towards creating access to fresh foods and getting children moving in their bodies, she is also speaking out nationally about how she plans to stop childhood ‘obesity’ in a generation, that fat people are more likely to be bad employees or need extra sick time, and has continued this with her support of the program the Biggest Loser. The reality is that this isn’t a show that is trying to make people healthy; their primary goal is to make people thin by using some pretty horrific tactics.
She might have good intentions in creating a better society to live in but in reality her efforts will always fall short if she continues to frame it around the idea that fat bodies are inherently unhealthy while also not acknowledging that we don’t know how to make people lose weight long term. Looking past all of these issues by believing that her intentions are good doesn’t mean that the harm she causes is invalid or that they don’t matter. Harm is still harm it still changes lives.
Further Reading (Aside from all of the links above),
Paul Campos article “Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Campaign is Helping Bullies.”
Fat Body Politics 