Creating the Problem In the First Place

This morning I awoke to see a constant stream of retweets and shares for an article on a major Australian women’s online magazine (give you two guesses – I’m not naming or linking to it) about a woman who found a note in her 7 year old daughter’s bedroom, labelled “Diyet”[sic] and listing the food she ate (not much) and quite a considerable list of daily exercise.

Now yes, I agree, it is awful that a 7 year old child is making diet plans.  It is awful that a 7 year old child is obsessing over her body and diet and exercise already.  It shouldn’t be happening and I understand her mother being horrified that she would find this item in her child’s room, and despairing that her daughter is being influenced by this stuff already.  I find no fault at all with the author of the piece or the story she tells.

But seriously, for this particular online women’s magazine (let’s be honest, most online women’s magazines and most mainstream media) to be clutching their pearls over children dieting is a bit fucking hypocritical if you ask me.

This shit doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  These same media outlets publish story after story beating the “obesity epidemic” drum, and wringing their hands over “childhood obesity”, and then wonder why children obsess over their weight from a ridiculously early age?   These media outlets crap on about being “healthy”, which is just diet-talk reworded with no actual conscientious addressing of holistic health of all people, and then they get all up in arms about children dieting?  They allow the most hateful, bigoted crap about fat people to be published in the comments and call it “opinion”.  Not to mention that every single time I go to a mainstream media site, women’s or not, I am bombarded with ads for weight loss.  Where do they think kids, and their parents, get all of this stuff in the first place?

Some of my earliest memories are of my mother dieting.  From as early as I can remember, there were stories in her magazines, and on the TV my father always had on, and in the Sunday paper, talking about the latest, greatest diets, the importance of being thin and how fat was “bad” (think of lazy, fat, beer drinking, old Norm in the Life: Be in It ad campaigns, fellow Aussies of a certain age).  Even if I hadn’t been told I was fat from my earliest memory (I wasn’t fat for most of my childhood) by my family, all I had to do was pick up one of the women’s magazines laying about the house, or sit and watch TV with my father and I was getting those messages.  Right from my earliest memories, I was hearing that fat is bad and that I should do ANYTHING to avoid being fat.

So what did I do?  I was put on my first diet at 11.  But I had already been experimenting with dieting and exercise regimes some years before that.  I was maybe 7 or 8 the first time I put myself on a “diet”.  I was very good at sneaking the various diet products that my mother had about the house, and I was an excellent reader, so I just read the magazines and followed the diets in those.  I was 13 the first time I was put on meal replacements (powdered shakes that were VILE).  Soon after I started engaging in purging after an older girl taught me how to do it.  I also started stealing laxatives and worming medicine because I’d heard those helped you lose weight too.  Once I got busted for stealing those out of the medicine cabinet at home, I started stealing them from the local chemist.  I can remember watching an article on one of those current affairs shows about childhood obesity when I was in Year 8, and this was in 1985 – long before the current obesity epidemic hysteria kicked off in the 90’s, which has magnified the situation hundredfold.

It has to stop.  The media are never going to take responsibility for the shit they publish, so we have to stop supporting the media that publishes shit.  Even when they do publish something that is worthy, like the story I mentioned above, we have to view it through the lens of the other stuff they publish as well and call them out on it.  We need to promote outlets that share the worthy stories without all of the fat shaming and stigma.  If we are worried about what our children are being exposed to, perhaps it’s best to start by examining what WE are exposed to.  Because if you think kids aren’t seeing this stuff, you’re seriously delusional.  Even if you don’t give it to them directly, if it is around, they find a way to get to it.  Or they hear a second-hand version from other kids at school.  We need to teach our kids critical thinking.  But first we have to learn it ourselves.  To question the source of information and to ask what their motives are.  We need to discuss these issues with kids and teenagers and each other, openly and critically.   We need to look at the ethics behind these outlets and their sponsors.

If these media outlets come up lacking, we need to stop supporting them.  We need to walk away and not give them clicks, not give them airtime, and not signal boost them.  Instead, find alternative outlets that take responsibility for the messages they are sending and don’t engage in hypocrisy.  Or that at least TRY.  If you know that an article that people are sharing from a media site is a cross post/re post from a blog (most of them say so somewhere on the article) – share the original version, not the re-post in the dodgy mainstream media.  We need to tell our stories and have them untainted by fat shaming that undoes the message that we are sending.  Want some suggestions?  Try here, here and here.  You’re welcome to share others in the comments that you like.

I dabbled myself with writing for mainstream media (was also offered a regular writing gig at several of them) and was burned more than once by them selling me out to some disgusting fat shaming story as a “follow up”, so I decided that I would rather tell my story here and keep it’s integrity than taint my readers with contradictory information.    It might mean I reach fewer people here and now, but the message gets through clearer and un-sullied by shaming to those it does get to.

The mainstream media is never going to change until we walk away from it and stop giving them the clicks, the reads, the purchases and the support.  Give that support to those who don’t perpetuate bigotry and hate while then decrying the state of the world that THEY created.

Food Freedom

Well what an exciting day or so I’ve had.  What with my piece being published in The Hoopla, I’ve had a whole lot more attention here, on Twitter and of course in the comments on The Hoopla.  Mostly people are pretty cool, they get just how damaging fat stigma is.  Sadly, many of them experience it themselves, which is always heartbreaking.  Of course, there are always a few who are willfully ignorant who go down the route of “BUT THERE’S AN OBESITY EPIDEMIC AND YOU’RE GONNA DIE FATTY!!” and just will not be swayed otherwise.  I even got my regular hater cropping up there too, how special do I feel to have someone who hates me so much that they go through all of my online accounts and search for clues of my health/eating/lifestyle?

Anyway, the message I keep seeing repeated by those who just don’t get it is that fat people all overeat, we’re lazy and we clearly have no idea to take care of our bodies.  These comments have a definite purpose – they’re designed to make us justify our bodies, our lives, our health and our choices.  The purpose of those comments is to make fat people say “But I eat healthy!!” or “But I’m on a diet!” or something along those lines.  It’s another control mechanism to make us jump when they say so, so that they can feel superior.

But of course – we unconsciously do it.  We don’t talk about the food we eat, or if we do, we justify our eating, making it clear that it has been ages, or we’re eating “good” foods, or whatever.  We’re careful about talking about needing to rest or sleep, always sure to be clear how hard we’ve worked so that it’s clear we’ve “earned” that rest.

Well, I’ve had enough of that shit.  Eating is not unhealthy. Not even for fat people. Nor is sleeping. Every human being must do both.  Nobody, not even fat people, owe anyone an explanation or declaration of their health. It’s irrelevant to almost everything.  Fat people do not have to prove that they are “worthy” of basic human respect and dignity to be allowed to live.  All of us except a very small few are not “addicted to food”, no more than we’re “addicted to breathing”.  We need food, rest and sleep to survive.  Every single one of us.

It’s time to set ourselves free of the need to justify the things we need to do as human beings, particularly eating.  It’s time to set ourselves free of the urge to prove that every morsel we eat is “healthy”. We have to stop letting other people determine what we should and shouldn’t be eating or doing with our own bodies and lives.

So I started tweeting with the hashtag #freefatty earlier today, and urged other people to do the same.

https://twitter.com/#!/Fatheffalump/status/183044928421634049

https://twitter.com/#!/Fatheffalump/status/183045064795242496

Some of the responses I got back were:

Chinese takeout+Project Runway+puzzle game = nice, quite Thursday evening. #freefatty

— Zayna Bizri (@zaynawoman) March 23, 2012

I'm eating a bag of twizzlers. #freefatty

— Amanda Levitt (@FatBodyPolitics) March 23, 2012

I ride my bike a lot. But I'm sitting down! Is it exercise or just lazy? #freefatty #fattyconundrum

— Madam Q (@MadamQ) March 23, 2012

Tonight Ima eat Pork Belly and drink schnapps. #freefatty

— Dr SJW Otter (@otterfaseowl) March 23, 2012

Tonight I might cook dinner with produce I've grown, fold some washing, consider watering the garden, and relax #freefatty

— Frightbat Rebecca (@blue_bec) March 23, 2012

I even decided to tweet a picture of myself eating something that would be labelled “unhealthy”, check it out:

Om nom, lolly snake.

I know, I know, how dare I put anything in my mouth that is not, as Kate Harding would say, Splenda flavoured air!  How dare a fat, Type 2 diabetic eat a lolly!  I tweeted a picture of the piece of birthday cake that I ended up having too, after my boss went and got one for my colleague.  Look:

Happy Birthday Kellie!

It is my colleague Kellie’s birthday, and we wanted to celebrate that.  I think this was raspberry coconut cake, I forgot to ask.  It was made with real butter, eggs and sugar.  I didn’t talk about how “sinful” it was for me to have a piece of birthday cake, I didn’t apologise for joining in the celebration and I didn’t make a comment about how it would go straight to my hips/thighs/waist.  I just accepted a piece like everyone else, wished Kellie a happy birthday and enjoyed a little down time with my team.

And you know what?  Here’s my dinner tonight:

Yup, that’s a real bagel, with real cream cheese (not light), ham and roasted capsicum.  It doesn’t come in a box marked “Lite”, there are no points on it, it’s not powdered and intended to “stave off hunger pangs”.  The bagel is the authentic deal, not low carb or gluten free.  I don’t have to make sure everyone knows I “earned it” because I exercised or had a busy day.  I don’t have to make sure people know it is “diet” or “healthy”.  I don’t have to promise I’ll “be good” tomorrow to justify it for my dinner.  It’s dinner time, I have beautiful fresh, real-deal bagels and fresh fillings, I’m hungry and it tastes good.

None of us have to play those games around food, sleep, rest and health any more.  We don’t.  If someone passes comment, reply “Well lucky I’m eating it and not you then.” or “It’s food, not the anti-Christ, you won’t go to hell.”  Or simply “Please don’t place judgement/comment on my food or my body.”

I am free to eat my dinner, relax and live my life.  And so are you.

How Does Dieting Benefit Our Health?

**Trigger warning, topic is about weight loss diets and disordered eating.**

I got a fantastic question on my Tumblr yesterday, that got me thinking a bit about diet culture and the constant calls for fat people to go on diets “for their health” and “take care of yourself”.

I was thinking about my own life of dieting, and how I felt all those times, and what my own health was like in those years.

When people say fat people should go on diets “for their health”, they’re not factoring in a) how dieting  affects the body and b) the mental health of the fat person.  Even if they are genuinely concerned for someone’s health and not just using concern trolling to police fat bodies because of their appearance, how much thought do they give to what dieting turns people into?

Now let’s just establish here that we know that fat people aren’t lazy gluttons and that we’re not all stuffing our faces 24 x 7 and that “dieting” doesn’t equal “just eating healthy”.  I know that’s the rhetoric that is spouted at us all the time, that we just have to “Put down the donut/cheeseburger/whatever.”  Let’s make it nice and clear that I’m talking about food restriction or replacement, rather than the mythical “just eat healthy” that the anti-fat seem to think we are not doing already.  When people say “Just eat healthy.” they don’t actually mean that, they mean diet, because hey, there’s no possible way a fat person can already be “just eating healthy”.  I’m talking about weight loss diets.  Calorie counting, no carb, no fat, no sugar, cabbage soup, replacement shakes, Atkins, South Beach, Pritikin, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, grapefruit, high protein, high fibre, high cardboard… whatever the fuck diet we were on at the time.  And this includes any of the disordered eating habits too – bingeing, purging, starvation, laxative abuse, diet pills, exercise bingeing, and even weight loss surgery.  Anything that is designed to restrict, reduce or purge for the supposed purpose of making us thin.

Can I ask… have any of you ever known a person, fat or thin or somewhere in between, who has been on a weight loss diet/programme, who is/was actually HAPPY while they are doing so?

*crickets chirping*

I know I was never happy.  I always felt like shit.  Having to measure every bit of food, count points, calories or grams, having to think about what I was going to eat every minute of the day.  I couldn’t just relax and spend time with friends, because I’d have to think about what foods met my diet.  Organising lunches for work was a headache and I was always on my guard for people questioning my eating habits (or lack of them).  Grocery shopping was even more nightmarish than I find it now (and I hate it now, thank God for online grocery shopping!) because almost everything was “forbidden” on whatever diet I was on at the time.  I was always hungry.  When I did get to eat, it was shitty.  Either it was really bad food (cabbage soup?) or it wasn’t even food at all, it was some powdery substitute or rubbery/cardboard diet version.  I never wanted the things I was “allowed” to eat, and yet I was so unbelievably hungry all the time that I had to eat them when I could.

Physically, my body fought me all the way.  I was constantly sick with every cold and virus that came around.  My skin was bad.  My teeth were terrible.  I constantly had to fight bad breath and diarrhea.  I had constant hayfever and headaches.  I never had any energy and never slept properly.

Emotionally, I was depressed, anxious and obsessive.  Depressed because I hated being hungry all the time and having to eat things that tasted like cardboard or rubber, depressed because no matter what I did, I could never lose weight and keep it off.  Anxious because I never knew where I could get “suitable” food, and I hated anyone knowing I was on a diet.  Anxious because my blood sugar was always low and I was shaky and couldn’t concentrate.  Obsessive because food might actually GET me, if I let down my guard.

Yet all of this was supposed to benefit my health?  How?

We all know that diets fail on the long term in 95% of cases, with weight regain plus more, but we never talk about how bloody miserable dieting is.  How nobody is actually happy while they are dieting, and because 95% of them find diets fail, they’re not happy in the long term either.  The whole diet culture just sets people, particularly women, up to be miserable all the time, both during dieting and then when it inevitably fails.

And this is supposed to be for our health?  This is supposed to be “taking care of ourselves”.

I call bullshit.

Instead, we can put all that crap behind us, re-learn to eat to nourish us, let go of exercising as some kind of penance and learn to find activity that we enjoy and live our lives to the fullest no matter what our weight.

I know which sounds like taking care of myself to me.

Temporarily Rendered Speechless

Yeah, only temporarily.

Ok Heffalumpies, I need to put my ranty pants on, so brace yourselves!

Y’all know I bought a Thermomix a month or so ago right?  Well I did, and it’s awesome.  I have a lasagne cooking in the oven right now that took me about 20 minutes to put together, INCLUDING cooking both the bolognaise and bechemel sauce from scratch.  That puppy is going to feed me for about a week.

Anyway, I’ve been following quite a few Thermomix blogs, forums and Facebook feeds since before I bought it, and so far they’ve been fantastic and very inclusive, with no judgment about weight or food or eating, but lots of great recipes, from the ultra efficient tummy fillers to delicious indulgent treats.  I’ve really loved that about the Thermomix community, that I’ve felt included even though I’m a big fat person!

Anyhoo, imagine my shock this afternoon when I see one of the prominent Australian Thermomix bloggers (who I am not going to name here, I don’t want to give them any traffic) post this horrible article to their Facebook page, with this comment: “Oh wow, these people need to find [redacted], the chocolate appetite suppressant…”

Trigger warning on that article lovelies, there’s a headless fatty on there and a whole bunch of fat hate. I’ve redacted the name of the “chocolate appetite suppressant” because I’m not giving that stuff any promotion.

So I left a comment and asked could they please keep it to cooking/Thermomix and not bigotry against fat people, because fat people both a) have Thermomixes and b) read their blog.  I also talked about my eating disorder past and how my Thermomix has been instrumental in helping me learn to eat competently and reclaim my right to enjoy cooking and food.

Said blogger then sent me a message saying that they hadn’t intended to offend (yeah right, by suggesting that “obese people” need a damn appetite suppressant), that they would remove the post, that they shared it because it would be “interesting for those who care about eating proper food” and could I please email them privately.  I did so, expanding on how my Thermomix and the online community has been fantastic for helping me in my recovery from an eating disorder, outlining the problem with the article they posted, and expanding on my highly disordered past with a history of abusing appetite suppressants and other diet products, both natural and chemical.  I even said, and I quote:

Fat people don’t need chocolate appetite suppressants, we need to be able to live our lives without stigmatisation and shaming, and to find the healthiest ways to feed and move our bodies as they are, and not hold off on life “until we lose weight”.

I also sent them a link to my earlier post about the topic.

Well, you can imagine how speechless I was to receive a response offering me a sample of the “chocolate appetite suppressant”!!

This is akin to offering a recovering alcoholic a drink, or a recovering drug addict a shot of heroin.  It is both irresponsible and tactless, and actually, it’s dangerous.  I’m one of the lucky ones, I’m well enough down the road of recovery that I can say no, and do so without being triggered horribly.

When I did a bit of research into the “chocolate appetite suppressant”, I discovered the active ingredient is Theobromine, a caffeine like stimulant (alkaloid).  It is the ingredient in chocolate that is harmful to cats and dogs.  It is not “entirely harmless” to humans, and can cause illness and even death if consumed in enough quantities.  From Wikipedia:

The first signs of theobromine poisoning are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and increased urination. These can progress to cardiac arrhythmias, epileptic seizures, internal bleeding, heart attacks, and eventually death.

Now if someone has admitted to you that they have a history of abusing appetite suppressants, are you going to suggest they try something that if abused, can lead to the above?  I should hope not.  It’s like handing an addict a loaded needle.

It goes to show that people shilling these products really don’t care.  They don’t do the research, they don’t listen to people and they don’t take responsibility for how their snake oils might be abused by vulnerable people.

How I didn’t tear them a new orifice in my response email, I don’t know.  My God, am I actually learning restraint???  Say it ain’t so Heffalumpies!

Needless to say, I’ve removed that particular blog from my RSS reader, unliked their page on Facebook and will be avoiding them like the plague.

Breaking Down Fat Stigma: Greed

You know, I think it’s time to address another topic in my series on fat stigma.  Today’s topic is going to be on something that is repeatedly placed on the shoulders of fat people, and that is greed and gluttony.

There is this perception, and usually we place it on ourselves as much as others place it on us, that fat people are greedy.  The haters are always going to use greed and gluttony to criticise fat people, so I think it’s best to ignore them and instead, focus on our self perception of being greedy.

It has become such a common trope in our culture that being hungry is equal to being greedy, that so many of us internalise that message until we are at a point that we feel ashamed and guilty for feeding our bodies.  However, all living creatures need to eat to survive.  We need sufficient nourishment to fuel our bodies, both immediately in the day to day functioning of our bodies, and long term, to keep our bodies running efficiently and effectively.  We don’t have to look far to find examples of what malnourishment does to the human body long term.

In my own experience, I spent over 20 years denying my hunger and starving my body to try to be thin, because I believed that because I am fat, I must be greedy.  All that did to me was make my body fight harder to hang on to what it did have, and screw up my body long term.  Thanks to all those years of restriction, starvation and purging, my metabolism is shot, I have damaged teeth (not enough calcium going in and purging makes them brittle and discoloured) and I’ve constantly got anaemia (my body struggles to absorb iron because of how little it got for so much of my life).  If I had been left to feed my body as it needed, I wouldn’t have to worry about these issues now.

We are taught that hunger and feeding ourselves is greedy.  But the human body has hunger for a reason.  It tells us when we need fuel to keep us alive.  It tells us when our bodies are lacking certain vitamins and minerals that it needs to heal, grow, strengthen and function.  Feeding ourselves is vital for us to survive.  Over and over we are told to “Just stop eating.” but no living creature can do that and survive.  We feed ourselves to provide the fuel and nutrients we need, and we also feed ourselves for pleasure.

There is much shame loaded on finding pleasure in food, however we are both hard wired and culturally conditioned to do so.  Eating releases pleasure chemicals in our brains, which rewards us for fueling our bodies.  It is the body’s way of getting us to eat to survive.  And we find pleasure in the ceremony of food, the sharing of food and the exploration of food.  We are culturally conditioned to do this to both bond with each other as a species, to provide sustenance to our families and other loved ones, and to try a wide variety of food so that we can get all of the nutrients we need.

The amount of food we need varies widely from person to person, depending on many factors.  Not only the size of our bodies and the activity we do, but also our genetics, environment, culture, and emotions influence what we eat and how much of it.  But one cannot judge by looking at someone’s body just how much they eat.  In fact, a recent study showed that in general fat people actually consume less calories than their leaner counterparts.  Besides, hands up who has a thin friend who eats constantly and never gains any weight!  I’ve got several, from a tall, lanky relative who seems to eat nothing but KFC and pizza and play video games, to a colleague who will eat anything in his path and spends all day crunching and munching away at his desk, but only needs to get a cold or other minor illness and drops weight until he’s gaunt.

Human bodies are complex and individually unique – we simply cannot judge anyone for their size or what they eat.

Sometimes human beings do overeat and do so for several reasons.  Sometimes it is disordered behaviour, such as binge eating.  Sometimes it is eating to feed emotions rather than the body.  Sometimes it’s overeating after a period of restriction or starvation.  Whatever reason it is, it doesn’t make the person greedy or gluttonous.  Instead of passing judgement towards those who overeat (and as I said above, it’s not always fat people who overeat, though it’s only fat people who are considered greedy if they do), we need to realise that it’s none of our business what someone else eats or does with their own bodies.

If you’re an overeater yourself, the only person’s business it is, is yours.  Yes, overeating can make you sick, but moralising and shaming about health and food is not going to make you well.  What is going to make you well is to learn why you are overeating and to deal with that problem at it’s root source.  To learn what habits and foods make your body sick and what make them well.  You are entitled to feel well, worthy of feeling well, and if you feel you need help to do so, then you have every right to have that help without judgement.  A decent doctor, therapist or any other health professional worth their salt will help you compassionately and empathetically.

It’s really daunting to give yourself permission to eat.  As a very fat person myself, when I started to get help for my crippling lack of self esteem and eating disorder, I was terrified to eat.  I still have trouble sometimes when I’m stressed or very tired, not falling into that pattern of restriction.  My doctor and I are constantly working on getting me to eat enough, particularly to keep my blood sugar levels in check.

But when I first started changing my thinking around food and weight and body image, there was this perception that because I’m fat, if I didn’t restrict myself, that I would EAT THE WHOLE WORLD!!  That lurking beneath my long term dieter’s facade was a horrible, greedy person, because after all, I was fat.  I must be horrible and greedy right?

Wrong.  Firstly, one cannot eat the whole world.  In fact one would be unable to eat the whole town, let alone the whole state or country or world.  One cannot even eat ALL THE FOOD.  Because even if one was to just eat and eat heaps of food, before one got very far, one would feel sick.  You’re not taking food out of anyone’s mouth, it’s not your fault that there are starving children in the third world and you’re not going to explode like Mr Creosote.

Secondly, when you let go of judging yourself (and others) for what you eat, and listen to your body, you start to know when you are full.  Your hunger cues stop, and you start to feel the sensations of being full, before you get uncomfortable or ill.

When I was first taking steps to get into normal eating, or intuitive eating (I’ve seen it called both around the HaES resources), I did have trouble getting the swing right.  Because I was trying not to restrict or diet, I would make these meals and then think I had to eat all of it.  Or I’d go out to dinner with people and think that I had to finish everything on my plate.  Which resulted in several occasions that I felt sick from eating more than I really wanted.  But the more I stopped thinking and stressing about it, the better I got at listening to a) what I wanted to eat and b) how much I needed to eat.  Slowly but surely I started to see changes in how I felt about food, and slowly but surely I started to be able to feed myself without emotional issues… and most importantly, to really enjoy food again.  Without beating myself up about eating something or making myself sick with guilt later.  Best of all, I have SO much more energy now than I have probably ever had.  I’m not thin, but I’m never going to be.  Instead I’m strong, energetic, robust and happy.

The thing is, when you truly let go of all of that baggage, and remove that idea from your mind that you are greedy or gluttonous, your body is able to regulate itself.  You might have a period where you swing wildly a bit, but instead of beating yourself up about it, you listen to how your body feels, take note of what makes you feel good and what makes you feel ick, and learn from it for next time.  Eventually you start to settle and gradually you notice that you’re feeling better, more energetic.  You might get less colds, or if you do, you recover quicker than you used to.  You have fewer digestive issues.  You go to the bathroom more comfortably and/or don’t get reflux as often.  You start to crave different things, and you don’t feel the need to medicate your emotions with food.

But most of all, you let go of that feeling of being a greedy/gluttonous person because you’re hungry.  No matter what your shape or size, you have the right to eat, and you have the right to feel hunger.  Anyone else can just mind their own damn business.

Why I Don’t Diet

Reading this post over on Fatties United!, inspired by the call from Dr Pattie Thomas to do video blogs on why we don’t diet as a response to the Fat Poz ReVolution apparently being stolen by a weight loss reality show.  Like Whaliam over on Fatties United!, I’m not one for video blogging, but thought it would be a really good topic to write about here on Fat Heffalump.

There are actually lots of reasons I don’t diet.  But the main one is very clear.  Dieting makes me gain weight.

I dieted from when I was a very, very young age.  Pre-puberty.  And every time I dieted, I just got fatter in the long term.  Every time I lost weight, I would get to a certain point and then no matter how much I restricted and exercised for punishment/bargaining purposes, my body would fight and fight and eventually, the weight would creep back.  In my darkest days, I was exercising between 6 and 8 hours per day (and the haters say that fatties have no willpower!) and eating almost nothing as well as being on prescription “appetite suppressant” amphetamines… and I was gaining weight.

So when I found Fat Acceptance, I decided I’d try to give up dieting and see how I go.  I was reading the work of The Fat Nutritionist who makes a LOT of sense to me, so for the past 2 years, maybe 2 and a half, I’ve been trying intuitive eating.  I found Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon PhD a bit after and that reaffirmed a lot of the thinking I’d been having about intuitive eating and activity for enjoyment rather than punishment or bargaining.

Surprise, surprise, for the first time in my life, I have maintained the same weight for two years.  Within a few kilos, but it’s been stable for the first time in my entire life (considering I’ve been dieting since before I hit my teens).

Another reason I don’t diet is because it makes me sick.  When I am dieting my hormones go all weird and my body tries to regulate those and I get all kinds of issues.  My depression and anxiety get worse.  My skin gets bad.  I get chronic reflux and gut issues.  My menstrual cycle disappears.  I’m always exhausted and cranky.

Yet since giving up dieting, my wellbeing has been so much better.  I get a fraction of the depression and anxiety that I used to get, my skin is clearer than it ever was, and for the first time since I hit puberty I have a regular menstrual cycle.  But best of all, I have more energy and am far happier.

There are dozens of other reasons I don’t diet, but these two are the most important to me.

So for those of you who don’t diet… would you share with us in the comments why you don’t diet?

“Bad Foods” – Control, Punishment and Singling out the Fat Folk

I’ve been thinking about the number of very public “health experts” that have been advocating total elimination of certain foods or food groups from the diet, either from the diets of children, or from those of fat adults.

There have been plenty over the years, but we’re seeing a rash of them here in Australia at the moment.  The most recent of which was Dr Kerryn Phelps, via her Twitter account.  Dr Samantha Thomas opened up a conversation about it on her blog, The Discourse, over the weekend.

I have also seen it from Michelle Bridges, physical trainer with The Australian Biggest Loser, who talks of guilt over eating “one or two chips”, and decries the consumption of white bread, a sentiment echoed by “non profit organisation” Obesity Prevention Australia.  Not that long ago I heard nutritionist Rosemary Stanton on the radio criticising the companies who make packet cake mixes for having photographs of children on the box, because she believes it sends the message to children that it’s OK to eat cake.  Uh-huh, you read correctly.

There have been others as well.

I want to talk about this method of “healthy eating” that advocates the complete elimination of foods because they are considered “junk”.  Junk food seems to be a fairly fuzzy concept in a lot of these cases, and can mean anything from highly processed foods with lots of added artificial ingredients, to anything containing sugar or fat, anything purchased from take-away vendors (prepared, cooked and/or served for you) to any kind of “bad” foodstuffs of the moment – these days, mostly carbohydrates.

These total elimination methods of supposed healthy eating seem to always be aimed at either children or fat adults.  It is rare to seem them recommended for all of society to practice.

It deeply concerns me to see these kinds of diets advocated for children and fat people, for anyone really.

The first thing that disturbs me is how disordered a behaviour it seems.  The connotations of fear, guilt, sin, bad behaviour, evil etc are all methods I know I employed myself while deeply entrenched in an eating disorder.  The idea that certain foods should never be eaten because they are fattening really bothers me.  Of course there will always be things like allergies and intolerances that will mean someone is unable to eat certain foods, not to mention simple dislikes, but the idea that a foodstuff should never pass someone’s lips because it is bad/junk/unhealthy is worrying, and particularly in children where variety is often an issue, and growing bodies have much broader nutritional needs.

Not to mention that it is simply impractical in our lives today to be hyper vigilant and attempt to completely eliminate the foods considered junk from most people’s eating.  The people like Phelps/Bridges/Stanton et al are proposing that children/fat people never be allowed to eat any of these foods.  That is certainly what is implied at least.

I was thinking about our eating history as a culture (and I’m speaking very generally as a white western person, as that is my personal experience – and most likely that of Phelps/Bridges/Stanton etc) and the social implications of total elimination of these foods.  Are these supposed health experts suggesting that a) children and fat people should never eat and b) that they themselves never eat or feed/have fed their children, any of the following:

• Birthday cake, wedding cake, Christmas cake, or any other celebratory cake.
• If they are Christians – no fish and chips on Fridays.
• No birthday parties for children.  Either home catered or those hosted by fast food restaurants.
• No cakes, biscuits or sweets made by their Mum, Gran, or any other loving family member (none for lunch boxes, none for special occasions, none for visitors)
• No teenage parties or hanging out.  No pizza, chips, lollies, soft drinks, burgers etc EVER.
• No food at the cinema.  No choc tops or popcorn.
• No chocolate, hot cross buns or marshmallows at Easter.
• No school dances (soft drink usually, sometimes snacks like chips)
• No pie or hot-dog at the football/cricket/other sporting event.
• No convenience food (pre or partially-pre made, or frozen, or take-away) for busy times.

These are just a few that have popped into my mind as I write this.  So if these supposed health experts are advocating that parents of children and fat people eliminate these things from their diet, can they say they’ve practiced what they preached themselves?  Particularly those that pride themselves on being thin, or having thin children?  Did they eliminate those things from their children’s diet?  What about when they were children themselves – did their parents eliminate those things from their diet?  Or are they only proposing that other people, particularly fat people and the parents of fat children, operate under such a strict regime?

But what really bothers me about this approach to “healthy eating” is that it is so steeped in control and punishment.  Particularly when it is solely applied to children and fat adults.  There is a sense of belief that every single morsel consumed by children and fat people should be controlled, sanctioned or approved.  It’s someowhat understandable to want to apply this thinking to children, because it is perceived that left to their own devices, children don’t have the skills to make reasonable eating choices yet.  I would dispute this however, most kids, when TRULY left to their own devices, tend to balance choices out if given plenty of options.  But it is particularly insulting to fat people.  It infantilises us, reduces us to being incompetent in making our own decisions in eating and food.

Fat people are seen as so incapable of making responsible food/eating choices that someone needs to intervene.  That we require policing in our food choices.  It also has an element of punishment.  “You have let yourself get so fat, you don’t deserve treats like everyone else.”  That fat people are bad/naughty/sinful so they don’t deserve anything “good”.

This moralising of fatness and food suggests to me that fat adults do not have the right or indeed capability of making decisions as to what they eat.  It makes our bodies and our lives public – when they are indeed private.  What an adult eats or does with their body is their own business and nobody else’s.

All in all, I think it’s high time that supposed health experts like the aforementioned stopped meddling directly in people’s lives and started focusing on real health issues, like adequate and affordable fresh foods for ALL, not just those of higher incomes, as well as safe and encouraging environments for physical activity for ALL, not just those who have the money or who look thin enough to be seen being active in public without offending bigoted people’s eyes.

Perhaps if they focused on these issues, they might actually make some real difference in public health, instead of simply moralising other people’s bodies.

It’s Easy… Just Starve

Last night I was reading blog posts through Google Reader, and somewhere in my reading travels, I read a commenter I think, relating something a thin colleague of hers had said to her. (I’m sorry I can’t find where I read it, if anyone knows let me know and I’ll link it up)  It went something like this:

My doctor says that it’s easy to lose weight, all you have to do is stop putting anything in here. *Pointing to mouth*

I can’t quite express how it made me feel.  It HURT at first.  Then it made me unspeakably angry, the red mist really formed before my eyes.  Then sadness, and some more hurt.  Followed by a big old mix of rage and pain and sorrow that all came flooding at once.

Because it’s not the first time I’ve heard the opinion that fat people should simply stop eating, AT ALL.  I’ve had it directed at me personally time and time again.  Let me share with you a couple of instances that stick in my mind.

More than a decade ago.  I was severely depressed, dieting (actually, pretty much starving myself) and generally just hating myself for being fat.  I was at the local shopping centre and I was so hungry, I was close to tears.  I hadn’t eaten all day, and I decided I could let myself have a small tub of fruit salad.  I bought the fruit salad, and was sitting on a bench eating it, when an elderly couple came by, pushing a shopping trolley.  The woman nudged her husband to look at me and said, loud enough for me to hear, “Look at that!  People like that should never be allowed to eat.”

I simply lowered my head, and cried.

About five years ago.  I was out on a date with the guy I was seeing at the time.  We were having dinner in a cafe.  I had improved a lot with my eating disorder by this time, but was still “watching what I ate”.  I am eating my dinner, a chicken and mushroom thing with a side salad and a pineapple juice.  He is eating his dinner, a burger with the works, large chips, a strawberry milkshake and a large serve of deep fried, crumbed calamari.  He is tall and very lean, I am average height and very fat.  Two women walk into the cafe, see us and as my date leans over, kisses me and helps himself to some of the food off MY plate, one woman says to the other “That’s disgusting, how can she just sit there eating in front of him?”

My date didn’t hear, but I did.  I fought back tears, and could not enjoy the rest of my date.

It happens all the time, not just the “stop eating” but everyone seems to be an expert on what fat people should do with their bodies, without any real knowledge at all about those people, their health, their bodies, their lives.  Everyone out there is an expert on fatness, you only have to take a look at the hashtag that has been busy on Twitter today #thingsfatpeoplearetold We suffer people telling us how to diet and exercise, as though we have never considered it in the past.  We suffer people commenting on what we are eating, how much (or how little) we are eating, how we are eating, when we are eating and why we are eating.  We suffer people making snap judgements on our bodies simply based on what they see before them, and their own fucked up assumptions about fat.

There is this fucked up thinking that if fat people simply stopped eating, ceased consuming any food at all, they would no longer be fat and the problem would be solved.  How we’re supposed to do that, when you know, humans need food to live, to survive, I don’t know.

I think the assumption is that fat people can just “live off their fat”, that if we stop eating, our bodies will just consume the fat on them and go along as per usual, without any negative consequence.  But it simply doesn’t work like that.  Ketosis for one, can be highly damaging to a body that is consuming it’s own fat, particularly to the liver.  Bodies that are not receiving nutrition can quickly become malnourished and begin to break down their own muscle and other vital materials rather than the fats stored.  It raises the risk of osteoporosis later in life.  And most of all, starvation makes people lose their ability to function generally throughout the day.  One cannot think straight, focus, remember etc when one is starving.

But all of this is considered acceptable by some, if it means you’re losing weight.

The thing is, weight loss is not guaranteed with starvation dieting.  In fact, I’m living proof that it simply doesn’t work, in fact, makes you fatter.  I starved myself, for long periods, on and off from when I was in my teens to when I was in my 30’s.  I rarely lost weight.  Sometimes I lost some, only to have it come back, even without going off the starvation diet.

Of course, it’s really not about health at all.  It’s about the sight of fat bodies being offensive to some people.  Because no matter how healthy you are, if you’re still fat… well then you are not doing it right.  You must get rid of your fatness, or at least hide it.  Cease to be fat, and if you can’t do that, cease to be.

But what really bothers me is not so much the epic wrongness of these assumptions, but the sheer injustice of being expected to live a life of deprivation, starvation and unhappiness, simply because my body is fat.  That to these people, I am never allowed to taste anything, to celebrate with food, to spend time with friends, colleagues and family over a meal, to experience the world through it’s cuisine, to enjoy food and eating, and most importantly, I am not allowed to make my own choices when it comes to food and eating.

I get angry that there are people who believe that my fatness negates my human right to live my life as I choose to do so.  There are those who believe that simply because my body is fat, that they, or society, or someone, needs to intervene in my life to direct me in how to take care of myself.

Well fuck that shit.  We are grown adults.  We are not stupid, or lazy, or somehow morally corrupted by our fatness.  We are capable of making our own choices when it comes to food and eating, particularly if you let us do so without ramming diets, or general fat loathing in our faces.  When removed from all the hateful messages society shoves on us about food and fatness, we can even become competent eaters.

If you are concerned about fat people eating, then don’t be, because it’s none of your concern.  Be concerned about your own eating.  We don’t need you to be concerned about ours.  I promise you, if fat people are left alone to eat as they wish to, without your concern, they won’t eat everything and leave you nothing.  The world won’t end.  You won’t miss out on that delicious thing that you are craving.  The economy of the planet is not going to collapse.  Children won’t suddenly drop dead from heart attacks.  You’re not going to see human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.

What will happen is that grown adults, regardless of their body size, will make up their own mind about food and eating, and that will be ok.

Psst… Wanna Talk about Food?

So I have this piece up on Adios Barbie today.  A post I was asked to write after commenting on the piece about Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS) a couple of months ago.  I would have had it written back then but between major work projects, disaster-zone flooding and various other life events, it took me far longer to write than I normally would.   Every time I picked it up to work on it again, it would bring me back to thinking about food and how we as a culture treat it, perceive it, moralise it and fear it.

Plus I’ve been home on annual leave from work for the past two and a half weeks, so I’ve had a whole lot more time to prepare, cook and eat food than I normally would have.  It gives me a lot of space to think about this stuff.

My eating habits are radically different when I have all this spare time.  I have the time and energy to shop, to prepare and cook food, and to sit down and eat it.  And when I have this time, my relationship with food is far better.  I’m not feeling guilty or shameful about eating at all.  I’m enjoying planning each dish, of writing shopping lists for the things I need to make something, and I’m eating pretty much exactly what I want at any given time, and eating the exact amount I want.

But the reality is, this is a vast luxury for me.  Even with the fact that I have a good wage and can afford pretty much any foodstuffs I want, which is a huge privilege to have, I only have that because I spend huge swathes of my life working.  When I’m working, I just don’t have the time to prepare and cook or even shop for the foods that I’m enjoying just now.

And I’m one of the lucky ones.

There’s also a vast kind of snobbery to being able to buy, cook and prepare foods.    Where once the work of feeding people was passed off to servants as “housework” by the privileged few, now it’s seen as incredibly chic to source your food locally from organic growers, choose it yourself, and take it home and prepare it in your expensive kitchen.  Time has more value than it has ever had, simply because it is becoming a more rare commodity.  And of course, that means those who have it, look down on those who don’t.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the way food is demonised.  No matter what the food, at some point, somewhere, there’s someone talking about it as if it’s the stuff of evil.  Carbs are bad for you.  Sugar is poison.  Fat is going to kill you.  Fruit and vegetables are covered in pesticides.  Meat is clogging your arteries.  Milk and it’s derivatives aren’t supposed to be eaten after we are weaned.  Processed food is all chemicals.  Fast food has “zero nutrition”.  X food is “not what it used to be”.  Blah blah blah blah blah.

But what it usually boils down to, is the belief that “food makes you fat”.

I had a bit of a rail on Facebook the other week at a cultural phenomenon of young women who moralise food as something that they have to earn, something that they’ve been “good” for avoiding, but will brag about how much alcohol they have consumed.  It seems to me to be a mighty double standard.  Is alcohol not a foodstuff of kind?  Does it not get consumed and digested like any other foodstuff?  How is consuming alcohol different to consuming any other beverage, particularly one equally loaded with sugar?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting there is anything wrong with adults drinking alcohol (note: I currently don’t drink alcohol, but that may or may not change in the future), just that there is something wrong with a culture that allows women to “drink like a man” but not eat like one.

That was certainly my attitude for a lot of years in my youth.  I used to be a BIG drinker.  Not only did I drink a lot, but I seemed to be able to do so without most of the effects it had on my friends, both male and female.  Oh yeah, I’d be drunk, I’d slur and stagger, but I was still standing after a bottle and a half of Jim Beam or Absolut, when my friends had passed out long ago.  I would party because it would be an amazing escape from the real world.  And it was the one thing I could do well.  My friends and people around me celebrated the amount I could drink, cheered me on and were impressed.

But at the time, I was also starving myself of all other food.  Or purging what I did have.  It’s strange, but during one of my lowest weight periods, I was drinking far more than any other point in my life.  Nowdays with hindsight I know that I was really ill at the time and the weight loss was a symptom of this illness, not my “virtuousness” in dieting and purging.  Adding alcohol to restricting/purging made me sicker, and the sickness made me thinner.  When I got well again, and stopped drinking so much, my body put back on the weight it had lost, despite me still restricting and purging.  Friends, family and people around me celebrated my starvation and purging kicks as much as they celebrated my drinking.  “Aren’t you amazing for having the willpower to diet?  Well done you!”

Remember breatharians?  I remember seeing them on TV and just admiring them so much for not needing to eat.  I’d think “If only I had MORE willpower, and could be like them.  Then I’d REALLY lose the weight.”  What the??

Why did I have it in my head that it was ok to consume alcohol at huge quantities, but loathed myself every time I consumed anything else, even tiny amounts?  Where?  From the very culture around me.  From the people who congratulated me on losing weight (whether they knew of my disordered behaviours or not) to those who cheered me on as I drank.  From the magazines I read, the television shows I watched, the movies I saw.  Even in something like Sex and The City, which was supposed to be empowering to young women, had the characters getting stuck into cocktails but demonising food.

The reality is, every single human being requires food.  All food has nutritional value.  And as Michelle the Fat Nutritionist says in her paper on How to Eat (In Front of People)*:

“People have as much right to judge what you eat as they do to judge how much you pee, how much water you drink, or how often you breathe.”

So how is your relationship with food? What bothers you about our cultural attitude to food?  What are your challenges to eating in a way that you would like to?

Let’s talk about food folks!  Radical huh?  After all, it’s more socially acceptable to talk about sex these days than it is to talk about food and eating.

*which you can obtain by signing up to her mailing list.

New Year’s Revolution

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, you may have seen the New Year’s Revolution campaign started by Marilyn Wann and Amanda A Evans.  The idea is to put an end to the ridiculousness of setting New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, or diet, or any other body loathing goal.  If you’d like to learn more, you can have a look at the campaign page set up here.

Most of the campaign has a Health at Every Size foundation, but since I don’t believe HAES (or even health) is compulsory when it comes to fat/body acceptance, I’m going to skip that bit.

I am however going to talk about fat acceptance and body acceptance as a New Year’s revolution.  I like the idea of “revolution” instead of “resolution” because, well, let’s face it, actively working towards NOT hating your body is radical, revolutionary.  When the mainstream media is flooded with ZOMGOBESITY CRISIS stories, magazines and other popular media tell us in one breath how to love our bodies, then how to diet them away, and then look at these yummy desserts you can make, stepping out of that flooding stream of body negativity is a radical act.

We are taught that loathing your body, no matter it’s size, is normal.  From being too fat, too thin, too short, the wrong shape, too wrinkly, going grey, having visible pores (let alone actual “blemishes” like freckles, scars, zits, moles, and all the other completely normal things that human bodies have), being too hairy, not having lush, flowing locks on our heads, having curly hair, having straight hair, having big breasts, having small breasts, from being apple, or pear, or whatever other fruit they can think of shaped bodies, you name it, you’ll find a magazine article, or a news story, or a television advert about it being “wrong”.  We’re bombarded with these messages from as early as we can hear and see.  We hear them from our parents, our colleagues, our friends, everyone in our life.  We are told what clothes to wear to be “flattering”, what shoes will elongate our legs, what makeup will hide our “flaws”, what diet will get us “bikini ready”.  Fitness, and increasingly more loudly, the moralising of “health” (to be exact: thinness) is the message that is hammered home over and over again.

Is it any wonder that when a new year rolls around, and the cultural meme of setting resolutions for the coming year kicks in, so many of us just default to body loathing to spur us on to our goals?

What if you were to just not do that this year?  What if you were to not set any goals, or if you feel you need to, set a positive one?  Or one not even related to your body?  What do you think would happen?  Do you think that your life would suddenly get worse if you didn’t diet or if you just stopped engaging in body hating activities?  Would you die?  Would anyone go to jail?  Would the zombie apocalypse happen?

I’m totally ready for the zombie apocalypse if it does happen, by the way.  No really, I’ve got it covered.

I know what would happen.  You’d not have to worry about the disappointment of failing another diet.  You’d not have to beat yourself up about breaking another resolution.

You know what else might happen?  You might actually feel good about yourself.  You might have more time to spend on living life, because you’re not fussing over diets or having to get to the gym when you hate it.  You might actually look in the mirror one day, and not feel bad.

I can tell you what has happened to me since I stopped buying into body shame and loathing.  Now, just like Pantene, it didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen.  Let’s see:

• I’m a heck of a lot happier than I was when I bought into all of that diet and body shame and loathing.
• I can look in the mirror and not feel worthless, ugly, repulsive.
• I can go shopping without it being a major exercise in self loathing.
• I save a whole lot of money that I used to spend on diet pills, meal replacements, diet magazines, “fitness” gadgets, and a bajillion other expensive things designed to fail at losing weight and getting fitter so that I would just spend more money on them.
• I get dressed in the morning and feel good about how I look, and if someone doesn’t like how I look, then tough shit to them!  I still feel good about how I look.
• More people compliment me than ever.  Now that my shoulders are back and my head is held high, people feel they can approach me, they smile at me and I smile back.
• I just smile more often than I used to.
• When someone makes a rude comment, or is downright nasty, I now realise that’s their shit, not mine.
• When the black dog of depression does bite my butt, and I find myself either depressed or anxious, I am better equipped to work it through than I was when I was full of body loathing and self hatred.  It still happens, but it is usually shorter and less severe.
• I’m better company when socialising around food.  No more agonising, no more causing a fuss because “there’s nothing I can eat” (because I was eating nothing and hated being around food), no more self loathing and guilt trips for actually letting any food pass my lips.
• The range of clothing I will now wear is far greater than it ever was.  All those things I told myself I was too fat to wear… just get in my wardrobe already!
• I have so much more confidence with dating.  I hold my head up, look a dude in the eye and smile.
• I save a shitload by not buying magazines.
• I only watch TV without any ads… I can watch twice as much in the same time.
• When I have conversations with people, it’s about INTERESTING stuff.  Not diets and how fat I am and blah blah blah.

And there are no doubt dozens of other benefits that have come my way since I got off the body loathing roller coaster.

Look, I can’t promise you that all of this is going to happen to you.  I can’t promise you that any of it is going to happen to you.  But don’t you think it’s worth a try?  Don’t you think that if you get just ONE benefit from giving up on all of the self loathing and actually being kind to your body, and therefore yourself, the experiment is worth it?

Would you give it a try?  Just for 2011.  Come on, the water’s fine.  Jump on in.  We’ll look after you.