Guest Post: Sarah – Getting to the Point

I’d like to introduce you to the lovely Sarah, a fab fatty I was fortunate enough to meet in Sydney in 2010 at the Australian Fat Studies Conference.  She was wearing the CUTEST dress (she wore cute outfits the whole conference) and Bri from Fat Lot of Good and I contemplated raiding her suitcases while she was busy at the conference.

Sarah posted a version of this post on her Facebook page as a status update a few days ago and I punched the air and yelled “YES!!” several times in response to it, because I think she really hits the nail on the head.  So I asked her to put it together as a post and if I could host it here on Fat Heffalump as a guest post.

So without further ado, here is Sarah’s post:

Getting to the Point

The point is not whether or not fat people can “help” being fat. There are some fat people who are lettuce-eating gym junkies and some fat people who sit in bed eating nothing but donuts all day. The point is that fat people are human beings who should not be vilified regardless of “why” they are fat, or how much control they have over their fatness, or whatever other excuse people are giving for insulting and dehumanising fat people these days. The point is that even if you think what other people eat is your business, and even if the fat person you’re looking at *might* sit in bed eating nothing but donuts all day, you can’t possibly know that by looking at them.

I approve of public health campaigns and preventative measures when it comes to disease. I just think they should be focusing on things – like eating as healthily as possible and being active in enjoyable ways when and how you can – that everyone can work towards to improve their health, regardless of whether they are poor or have a disability or are genetically predisposed to be fat or *whatever*. I believe they should support people in doing these things by helping poorer people get access to fresh food and helping stigmatised people be active without shame. But most of all I believe you can’t hate someone for their own good, and you most certainly can’t shame someone healthy. If “a healthy lifestyle” (whatever that may mean) is not an individual’s personal priority, or prioritising it in the way you would like isn’t possible for them for whatever reason, be it disability or finances or mental health triggers or anything, then it’s actually none of your business.

Yes, even if they get medicare rebates for treating ailments that you think are “caused” by their choices. All women *could* lessen their
chances of breast cancer by having radical mastectomies as soon as they hit puberty. But whether they do or not is not your decision to
make, just as whether or not a person tries to lose weight or adopts “healthy lifestyle changes” is not your decision to make. For some it
might be easy. For you it might have been easy. For me, losing a significant amount of weight means being constantly obsessed with my
weight, with everything I eat, with everything I do with my body or food. I know, I’ve done it. And if I don’t think being thinner is worth dedicating my *entire existence* to weight loss and weight maintenance – regardless of what health benefits it may or may not entail – then that is up to me, and I don’t deserve to be hated for it.

Bio: Sarah is a 20-something feminist fatshionista with a degree in sociology and a background in fashion design.  She has been a sad fat
kid and an eating disordered fat teenager and young adult, and now she is a happy fat grown up and her blossoming self respect is all Fat
Acceptance’s fault.  Nowadays she likes cupcakes, clothes and talking your ear off about social justice, and every now and then she enjoys sitting in bed all day eating nothing but donuts.  She doesn’t have a blog yet, but she’s working on it.

Feelin’ Good

I have the most delicious feeling of weariness tonight.  Not so much tired, but the feeling of having spent some time this afternoon moving my body in a way that I enjoy, and getting delicious fresh air into my lungs and bloodstream.  I know that when I go to bed tonight, I’m going to sleep well, in a strong, deep sleep that refreshes me beautifully for the day tomorrow.  I’ve come home hungry for a good meal (I’ve got some beautiful home-made chilli con carne I whipped up in my Thermomix last night) and to stretch a little before quietly winding down for the night.

It’s a good feeling, one that I really relish.  And it comes from being physically active.  I won’t use the term “exercise”, because I think exercise is what people do as either punishment or penance.  Or because they feel they are supposed to.  To me, exercise is not something you do because it makes you feel good and because you enjoy it.

Enjoyable physical activity is routinely denied to fat people.  We’re told that we must exercise or we will die.  We’re told that we have to exercise to atone for our fatness.  We’re told that we’re only worthwhile if we exercise to diminish our bodies, to make them smaller.  We’re told it’s simply not possible, and it’s often disbelieved if we say we do it.  Physical activity becomes exercise which then becomes punishment or a chore.  Yet if we do find physical activity we enjoy, we are not given access to suitable equipment or clothing to fit our bodies, we are often patronised as if we are children “well done, keep it up”, (I’m surprised we don’t get a pat on the head) and on top of that we are regularly shamed if we dare to engage in physical activity in public.  The cowcalls and things thrown at us from passing cars, the sniggers over the clothing we wear to engage in that activity, the calls of “Keep going fat arse!”

Part of fat activism for me is engaging in the radical act of living my life to suit me, not because others say I should or must.  I reclaimed my right to engage in physical activity because it’s fun, it makes me feel good and helps me relax and sleep.  Because riding my bike by the sea, or walking through the shops for the afternoon, or going to the beach with a friend is something I love to do, not something I feel I should I must do.  It doesn’t make me a better person than those who don’t engage in physical activity, it doesn’t make me more worthy of respect and dignity, and it doesn’t act as penance or an excuse for my fat body.  Fuck that, who wants to carry that crap around.  It makes me feel good inside and out.  It makes me feel good.  When something makes me feel good, I want to do more of it.

But there’s a little bonus.  It really pisses off fat haters.  It really sticks in their craw to see a happy, positive fat person doing something and having fun at it and feeling good.  It messes with their imagined world where fat people just stay at home and sit.

And anything that messes with a fat hater’s world is something I want to be doing.

Dear Medical Professionals

Well, yet again the amazing Marilyn Wann has inspired me.  She shared this article on her Facebook page and of course I popped over to read it.  It’s an excellent piece on the damage caused by fat stigma and the responsibility the medical profession has towards it’s patients.  I was reading the comments and I was just struck with the desire to tell my story as a fat T2 diabetic to members of the medical profession.  I started to type a comment to the article, and what happened is I found myself writing a letter to medical professionals in general.  I have submitted it as a comment on the site (it’s awaiting moderation over there), but I decided I wanted to copy it and share it with you here.

It is of course nothing we haven’t all been saying in the Fatosphere over and over again, and it’s nothing I personally haven’t said before (repeatedly!), but I believe that we really do need to be telling our stories over and over and over, we do need to be addressing all kinds of different audiences about our experiences and perspectives, if we’re ever going to get real change in our culture towards fat stigmatisation.

So, without rambling on any more, here is my letter to medical professionals (any that care to listen).

Dear Medical Professionals

My name is Kath and I am fat (by the pointless BMI standards, I am morbidly obese at around 300lbs, but I prefer the term fat) AND I have Type 2 diabetes.  I am the one so many in the medical profession use as a cautionary tale against what happens to “bad/lazy/greedy” people who don’t live a “healthy” lifestyle.  Until I found my current doctor, not one health care professional would believe that I was not a sedentary glutton, and as a consequence I developed an eating disorder from about 13 years of age until my early 30’s, and was suicidal during that time as well.  I was starving myself and abusing both prescription weight loss drugs and other substances to try to lose weight.  Medical professionals I went to praised me if I lost weight, but chastised and even bullied me if I gained.  I always gained eventually, always what I had lost, and always some more.  When I confessed disordered behaviour, several health care professionals actually sanctioned it, and encouraged me to continue, since it was “working” (albeit temporarily).   I was rarely asked as to what I was actually eating and what exercise I was doing, but if I was, it was met with disbelief.   After all, calories in, calories out right?  How can one be fat if they are consuming less than they are expending?

In my mid-30’s, I decided that if nobody would believe me, and I couldn’t be thin and therefore worthy of space in this world, I would end it all and relieve myself and the world of suffering.  Thanks to the love of a good friend, I didn’t succeed.  But it was at that moment I opted out.  Opted out of the constant barrage of hatred that is poured towards fat people.  Opted out of dieting and employing any other methods of attempting weight loss.  I didn’t know where I was going at first, I just knew I couldn’t live that way any more, and I wanted to live, but not like I was.

Eventually, I stumbled across the concept of Health at Every Size (HaES) and my world was changed.  First step, find a doctor who listened to me and treated me as a human being, not an amorphous blob of fat to be eradicated, cured, prevented.  Second step, find a decent psychologist to help me heal the trauma of the stigmatisation I lived all my life just for existing in a fat body.  Third step, learn to eat again.  And when I say learn to eat, that means both for nutrition of my body AND for the pleasure food can give.  It means listening to hunger and satiety cues.  It means feeding myself what I need, and what fits within the life I live.  I still struggle with some disordered thinking and behaviour, but I will keep working at it until I have it beaten.  I also reclaimed my right to appear in public as a fat person, which has enabled me to do things like swimming at the beach and riding my bicycle, despite the fact that I am still ridiculed and shamed for daring to be a fat person who is active in public.

It has been about 5 years since the moment I opted out, and in that time I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.  I should have known, on my maternal side, my Grandmother is diabetic, on my paternal side, two aunts, an uncle and several of my older cousins (all T2).  I am built like my Grandma and my aunts, as are my female cousins, but the male relatives with diabetes are all tall and thin.  Nobody has ever shamed the men with T2 diabetes in my family, but all of we women have experienced shaming for it.

On diagnosis of T2 diabetes, I became even firmer in my resolve to practice HaES.  Since my diagnosis, my doctor and I have worked together and with HaES and appropriate medication, my blood sugar levels are in the normal range.  I am still fat, but all my vital measures are within the robustly healthy range.

I was far more a drain on society when I was trying to get thin than I am now that I live a HaES lifestyle.  I’ve gone from suicidal, frequently unemployed due to depression and the damage I did with my eating disorder, and constantly needing medical care.  Now I have a successful career in a field that I am passionate about and contributes to society.  I am a passionate campaigner for social justice and inclusion, and I contribute strongly to the public coffers via taxes, my private health care and the work I do in social justice and inclusion.

My point in telling my story here?  “The Obese” are not a disease to be eradicated, prevented, cured.  We are not some disgusting medical condition that is costing society millions.  We do not sit at home on the sofa eating cheeseburgers.  Nor are we stupid or liars.

We are people.  We are human beings with lives, loves, emotions, needs, aspirations and value in society like any other human being.  We deserve to be treated as such and allowed to advocate for ourselves.

Please remember that.

Thank you for your time in reading this.
Kath

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.

On Making Diabetics the Demons

Well the Fatosphere has been alive this week with discussion on the rather awful piece by Jess Weiner in Glamour magazine where she claims that body acceptance (not quite sure why she chooses the word “body” when we all know she means the word “fat”) almost killed her.

I’m not really going to talk about why her article and attitudes towards FA, not when so many other people have done it already and probably better than I could.  Check out these pieces by Ragen of Dances with Fat, Golda at Body Love Wellness, Marianne at The Rotund and on the Health at Every Size blog.

What I want to talk about in this context is Ms Weiner’s demonisation of diabetes, especially as using it as a death threat.  In her article, she quotes her blood sugar levels pre-epiphany as 99 (and states that between 100 and 125 is pre-diabetic – which would make her 99 reading PRE-prediabetic – go figure!) and also quotes her doctor as saying:

“Jess,” she said, “your blood sugar numbers show me that you are almost in the prediabetic range. If you don’t lose some weight and watch your sugar intake, you will get diabetes.”

I have to say… this is a pretty bloody alarmist statement.  Yes, Ms Weiner’s blood sugar levels were on the high side… OF NORMAL.  We also don’t know if her doctor made a prognosis on anything more than Ms Weiner’s weight and current blood sugar levels.  There’s no mention of Ms Weiner’s pre-epiphany eating habits or activity levels, but from the article one can surmise that she has been living a fairly active lifestyle already, and it is known she has a history of eating disorders.  Is  none of that a contributor to someone’s health?

This is all a prime example of just how easily fat people are given the prognosis of future diabetes, even when their blood sugar levels are in the normal range or they are active and eat well.

But let’s just say that Ms Weiner was on her way to diabetes, perhaps because she has a family history of type 2 diabetes, or for some other reason.  The reason doesn’t matter.  Let’s just say that diabetes was a known likely issue for her.

Why is body acceptance a threat to her life?  Does body acceptance (let’s go back to calling it fat acceptance) encourage people to be sedentary in their lives?  No.  In fact quite the opposite, it urges people to live their lives to the full, to find activities and pursuits that they enjoy and make them feel good.  Does fat acceptance encourage people to eat extreme levels of food with the purpose of gaining weight so that everyone is fat like us?  Not at all, fat acceptance is all about loving the body you are in, and treating it well, while nourishing it with the food it needs.  Most fat acceptance activists do not believe in changing ones body to change ones life, which includes gaining weight as much as it does losing it.  Does fat acceptance discourage people from obtaining medical care from health professionals?  Absolutely not!  Again, quite the opposite.  It encourages people to demand respectful, dignified health care that listens to the patient and works with the patient to find the best methods to encourage wellbeing in the patient, no matter what the circumstances of the patients life.

Something wants me to say to Jess Weiner – Fat/Body Acceptance… You’re doin’ it wrong!

And finally, as a diabetic myself, I get so royally fucking fed up with type 2 diabetes being used as some kind of moral measure of the population.  The minute the word diabetes comes up in a conversation about bodies, people start gasping and clutching their pearls, and screaming “Won’t somebody think of the children!!??”  While there are lots of us out there in the world who actually have type 2 diabetes, who are fed up with being used as some kind of cautionary tale for “bad” people who “let themselves get fat/unhealthy”.

The reality is, diabetes exists.  It’s not fun, it is an illness that people suffer and if not managed, it can make your health decline rapidly and irreversibly.  However, diabetes is not a death sentence.  It’s not an indication that your life is over and that you have “failed”.  Like any other chronic illness, it requires managing and some changes to your life to mitigate any problems that may arise.  It is not an indicator of who is a lazy glutton (after all, lots of thin people and active people get Type 2 diabetes as well – I have several in my family alone) or who has “failed” to take care of their health.

Unlike Jess Weiner, I am not pre-pre-prediabetic, I actually HAVE been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and I’m fat.  That doesn’t mean I don’t want to optimise my health as best I can within the circumstances of my life, nor does it mean that I have got myself this way by “loving my body”.  It also doesn’t mean that I deserve to be demonised as what happens to lazy gluttons who are “bad people”.

It’s a complete “othering” of people who have a chronic illness and it’s disgusting that people do this.

To Ms Weiner and anyone else who wants to use diabetes to frighten people into dieting and following their “campaigns”, I send a hearty FUCK YOU!

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?

Fat Activism In the Library

It has been with some considerable delight that I have been following Cat Pausé posting a lovely long list of fat studies book titles to her Tumblr over the past few weeks.  I knew about a few titles, but at last count Cat was up to 30 titles.  Which, needless to say, has created a very long “to read” list for me.

Cat and I got talking about just how many titles there are and what their availability is like, when it dawned on me – “You’re a librarian Kath!  You know how to access books!”

Let’s face it, books are expensive to buy.  Plus they take up space, have environmental impact and it’s not always necessary to keep them or read them again.  So being able to borrow them from the library is a fantastic exercise in accessibility.  Now I don’t know about your local library, but mine is free to join, you can borrow up to 20 items at any given time, can request books from other branches of our library service for a small fee, can have most items for four weeks AND has over 3 million items in the collection.  Not to mention that there are multiple languages available, resources for people with disabilities and a whole bunch of other services you can take up.  That does vary from library service to library service, but whichever way you go, it’s still a budget way to read all these great titles.

One of the things Cat and I have been talking about is the concept of having fat studies titles in a library collection as an alternative voice to the usual diet books and “you can lose weight too” pop psychology/self help books.

Now I know we have Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon PhD in our collection.  If I take the Dweey number (Dewey is the classification by subject matter) of just that title alone, 613.25, and search our catalogue, I come up with 256 titles.  All of them, except Health at Every Size, are diet books.  So to one fat-friendly title, I get 255 weight loss/diet books, just in our collection alone.

When I search the Dewey of Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby’s book Screw Inner Beauty (US title: Lessons from the Fatosphere), 616.398, I bring up 19 titles, 17 of those are weight loss/diet help guides or titles about the “obesity epidemic”.  The other fat-friendly title is Prof. Paul Campos’ The Obesity Myth.

The next search I ran was a subject search for “eating disorders”.  I got 279 hits, only one of which could be considered fat-friendly, and that is Harriet Brown’s Brave Girl Eating.  A search on “body image” brings up 64 titles, almost all of these focus on “looking good” or “you’re not as fat as you think you are” subjects (which excludes anyone who actually is fat).  There is a very high focus under this subject heading on “flattering” clothing and “what not to wear”.

Next I decided to search the term “fat”.  Over 450 titles came up, and most of these were diet books, low-fat cookbooks and “weight loss journey” stories.  No fat acceptance/fat-friendly titles came up under “fat” at all.  And don’t get me started on what comes up under “obesity” as a subject search.  Aye! Aye! Aye!

So it goes to show that the prevailing message being sent is fat = bad/unhealthy.

But!  Just by having these titles by Linda Bacon, Paul Campos, Harriet Brown, Marianne Kirby and Kate Harding, there is at least some alternative perspective available in the public library.  Of course, read one and they refer you on to other titles.

The real magic though is these titles sitting on the shelves of libraries, quietly lurking in amongst the fat loathing titles.  Along comes the humble borrower, hunting that “Lose the Fat and be Rich for Life”* title, and there it is.  Health at Every Size.  Or The Obesity Myth, or any of the other titles.  So innocent looking but inside those covers… RADICAL AWESOMENESS!

If one person picks one of those titles up instead of the “Purple Food to Skinny Jeans!”** book, imagine the difference that could be made to their lives!

So, if you want to read any of the awesome books Cat has compiled in her list, get thee to your local library!  If they don’t have it, request it.  Many public libraries rely on customer requests to drive their collections.  Plus every one they add, thanks to your suggestion, gets borrowed by other people to discover the fat acceptance message too.  The same goes for fat positive fiction.  It doesn’t just have to be non-fiction.

You can also ask your library about Inter-Library Loans as well.  Many library services share their collections amongst each other, quite often for free, sometimes for a small fee.  Plus if you’re a member of a public library, you can often get access to academic papers and journals as well through the library’s subscription.

Besides, libraries are definitely fat friendly spaces.  Librarians care about your reading, not your body size.  And libraries are accessible, have comfortable, solid furniture and are free!

What are you waiting for?

*Yes, I made this book title up.
**Ok I made this one up too.

The One In Which I Come Out as a Diabetic

Well, last week I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Cue the trolls:

• But you brought this on yourself!
• Serves you right, you should have just put down the cheeseburger!
• I told you it would happen eventually.
• Don’t you care about your health?
• If you’d just lost weight, you wouldn’t have got diabetes.
• Well, you’ll just have to lose weight now, won’t you?
• You’re driving our taxes/health-care costs up!!
• You’ll probably die now, thanks to your obesity.
• You’re a walking heart-attack/stroke, it’s just a matter of time.
• Turns out being fat DOES mean you’ll get diabetes after all huh?  Told you so.  Maybe you’ll see sense and give up this fat acceptance rot now.
• Get off the sofa fatty, no wonder you got diabetes, all you do is just sit.

I could go on, but we’ve heard them all before.  I just wanted to sprinkle a few out there to save the trolls some breath.

Thing is, I’m not at all unwell, nor was I when it was discovered during a routine annual blood work up (the kind every one of you should get annually, whether you’re fat, thin or in between).  I have no symptoms, and every other blood test came back embarrasingly healthy.

I’ll talk more about my thoughts, feelings and the stuff around my diagnosis later (especially about my anger in taking Metformin to prevent diabetes for YEARS but developing diabetes anyway), but I just wanted to announce to the world that I am now officially… wait for it…

 

A BAD FATTY WITH TEH DIABEETUS!

 

Guess what?  That doesn’t mean I’m lazy, that I eat too much, that I should have lost weight and I wouldn’t have got diabetes (tell that to my 81 year old Grandma and various other relatives on both sides of my family who sent that gene my way – who are a liberal mix of fat, thin and in between) or that I’m going to die.  What it does mean is that my doctor and I are working together to optimise my health and mitigate any future issues.  We are not approaching with dieting, and we are looking for a Health at Every Size (HAES) plan.

I do have to eat more.  Yes, this fatty has been instructed to eat more because I am not eating enough.  I need to add more Low GI foods to my daily intake.  The worst thing?  I cannot find Low GI information that isn’t loaded with fat shaming and weight loss crap.  It’s of no use to me if it’s shaming me for my body, only if it’s informing me on the best foods to add to my daily intake.  It’s frustrating and confusing because there is so much conflicting information and I see so much fat loathing and scare-mongering that I just opt out of viewing it all together.

There is a Facebook community for Diet Free Talk for Diabetes/Insulin Issues in infancy (email me if you want to be included – it is a closed, private group to keep the fat hating trolls out and preserve a safe space for us to talk) and I hope to come up with some more resources I can share with you all in time.

But most of all, today’s message is this:

A person’s health, and their body, is their own, and nobody has the right to judge, bully, troll, lecture, vilify, disrespect or discriminate against anyone for their health or their body shape or size.  Even if their weight DID contribute to an illness, it’s nobody’s business but THEIRS.

So unless you have something constructive and supportive to add to the topic of diabetes and fatness, you are not welcome here.

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.

Fat Acceptance and Health

Inspired by this post over on the taking up of space, and some comments on my last post about concern trolls, I want to talk more about health, the various levels of it, and fatness.

One of the things that frustrates me about discussing health and fatness is how absolutely loaded the subject has become.  I am constantly irritated by the fact that if you are a fat person talking about health, or foods that are considered “healthy”, or any form of physical activity, then for some, it is assumed that you are selling yourself as a “good fatty” and therefore denigrating on those perceived as “bad fatties”.  There’s also a perception that if you feel healthy and strong, that you must be “virtuous” when it comes to your eating and exercise.  Health at Every Size, has become the keywords to justifying fatness, which is sad because it detracts from Linda Bacon’s work, and her excellent book (which I am currently reading).   You CAN be healthy and happy and indeed fat without living a HAES lifestyle.  It’s not compulsory to Fat Acceptance.

Now for any of you who haven’t come across the good fatty/bad fatty dichotomy, may I suggest you read the excellent post, As Fat as I Wanna Be by Tasha Fierce over on Red Vinyl Shoes.  I completely agree with Tasha when she says that any time a fat person is included in any discussion about body shape/size (and not just in the media, but anywhere), she is expected to wave her “I really do have healthy habits” card to prove that she is a “good fatty”.  And I agree that ALL fat people should be able to live their lives with respect, dignity and fairness, whether they have “healthy habits” or not.   There is no such thing as a good fatty or a bad fatty.

But what does bother me, is that the minute you do talk about your own personal health, you are at the risk of others implying that you’re buying into the good fatty/bad fatty dichotomy.  And this is from your peers.

This bothers me because if anyone else talks about their health, whether they have it or not, they are not accused by their peers of selling some kind of morality via health.  If anyone else talks about enjoying a sport, or the great salad they ate, or how they went to the doctor and got a clean bill of health, then they’re simply taken at face value.

But for fat people, it is assumed that we’re making excuses for our fatness if we talk about physical wellbeing, physical activity or food that is perceived as “healthy”.  Why is it that when a fat person talks about physical activity, or “healthy” food, or physical wellbeing, it is assumed that they are either making excuses, trying to conform, or are casting negative judgement on those who are otherwise?

Of course, we do need to acknowledge the fact that not everyone has the ability to be physically active, not everyone has access to the same foods, and not everyone has the privilege of being illness free.  It’s important to be conscious of a measure of privilege when talking about health (whether you are fat or thin or somewhere in between) and to acknowledge that the measures of health for one body, are not replicated through all bodies.  We also need to acknowledge that a high number of us are dealing with histories of disordered eating and body image issues.

Not to mention, there’s no rule that says that you can’t live off fast food and get no physical activity at all, yet still feel great.  Getting a clean bill of health from a doctor, or indeed feeling healthy, does not necessarily mean you’re on a macrobiotic diet and exercise for 30 minutes every day.  It can simply mean you’ve found the balance of lifestyle that is right for you.

I feel that as well as smashing the good fatty/bad fatty dichotomy, and speaking out against food/health as a moral indicator, we need to also be busting open the attitudes that suggest we should not speak about being/feeling physically well, that our bodies can feel good and strong, that we can eat foods that are perceived as healthy without it being suggested that we’re justifying our fatness.  By casting any judgement on fat bodies, regardless of their eating habits, level of activity and real or perceived health, we’re creating more taboos about fatness.  By suggesting that it’s not ok to talk about feeling good/strong/healthy lest we create a good fatty/bad fatty dichotomy, we’re actually perpetuating that myth.  Self censoring because of what others project onto us is as damaging as being censored by external sources.

So long as we’re not proselytising anything, and we’re mindful of privilege and body autonomy, then we need to talk about our health, our bodies, what makes us feel good, what doesn’t, and all subjects around bodies.  We need to smash the taboos around fat bodies and food, activity and physical wellbeing.  If it’s good enough for bodies that are not fat, then it should be good enough for those that are.