Fat/Size Acceptance

[GothAnneGeddes]

I'm not sure if we have a thread on this yet, so apologies if we have and I've missed it.

I think of all the toxic, time-wasting shite women have to put up with, Diet Culture aka Be Thin and Win, is one of the most widespread. It is the unholy triumvirate of body policing, self hatred and bad science.

I thought this was a really interesting take on Jamie Oliver's new obesity campaign: shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-fat-hatred-and-eliminationism.html#disqus_thread

Would love to know what you all think

Here's something about nutrition, being overweight, and feminism:

Even though we live in a supersized world, bigger is not always better. One devoted White Castle customer is suing the restaurant chain because he can't fit into the restaurant's booths. Martin Kessman, who weighs 290 pounds, complained to management for more than two years after repeatedly knocking his knee into the tables' metal supports. After the 64-year-old New York stockbroker sent a series of letters of complaint to the chain, he received what he called condescending responses. White Castle sent him free hamburger coupons and promised that it would expand its booth sizes. But the booths were never changed and Kessman is now taking his case to federal court. He is suing for bigger chairs and unspecified damages because he says the eatery is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. (He compares himself to pregnant women and the handicapped.) The lawsuit, however, has not put an end to Kessman's love of mini burgers. Now, instead of going to White Castle himself, he sends his wife.

Ooh it's the story of one man in the US. Yes, what a fine deconstruction of the relationship between women's bodies and wider society that is. Let's discuss one man.

Or have you just posted that as if to say "See, that's what happens when you stop shaming fat people"

I thought the feminist part must be where he sends his wife to pick up his burgers

15 months ago I had a BMI of 46. It was definitely impacting on my health. I'd developed unhealthy habits and addictive behaviours (popping over to see a friend to raid her biscuit tin, thinking up excuses to go shopping and then eating 3/4 bars of chocolate before driving home). I was literally stuffing down unhappiness and unwelcome emotions with food. I was overwhelmed with self loathing. I had very little negativity from other people and was perfectly successful in terms of career and income.
I've lost a lot of weight although my BMI is still "overweight". I've thought a lot about weight over the past year. I've actually been attacked more by others since I got thinner tbh. Invariably by other overweight women who don't like me successfully slimming. Which I think is quite sad as I didn't decide to do this to impact on them. I am primarily thinking about my health. I have also noticed how much talk about weight relates to being "bad" or "confession". Ffs being overweight means you've eaten more calories than you've expended. Why is that being equated to committing a crime?

Hurrah, Molly :) That reads like the post of someone who's come to terms with herself. Long may you continue!

I have to stop listening when people use moralistic language to talk about food/weight/diet. It makes me want to rant at them! I think I find it upsetting because I understand how it really does have a huge emotional significance for them - and am always a whisker away from being sucked back into that vortex. (Well, I hope it's more than a whisker but I've noticed my eating and sleeping have been very peculiar since I joined this thread, so am treading carefully ... ) As a side issue, I've got something similar going on with housework but that's another thread.

I'm finding that Judge & Cable paper fascinating! Their research seems impeccable, and they've highlighted many other issues relevant to pressures on women to be skinny.

Are you doing any therapy stuff to go with your healthier attitude?

Molly - I don't know if you've ever smoked, and given up, but the attitude of fellow smokers when you do is quite similar. They're desperate for you to fall off the wagon and it's nothing to do with you and all about them. Well done you.

The thing that bothers me about this discussion (and similar ones on MN) is that people like Nancy Upton are rolled in with people like the White Castle customer, and at the other side of the equation, people who aren't overweight are lumped in with size 0 models. It's exaggeration for effect, and doesn't help. Surely we can agree that size 0 / white castle people are unhealthy, people of a normal weight are healthy, and Nancy Upton - at a UK size 16 - is probably absolutely fine as well.

Garlic - your link to Nancy Upton redirected me to an 'O2' site which said the site was for over-18s and that I should enter my credit card details to verify my age before I could view the site.

I didn't, obv, but thought should warn others

People slate BMI because it is a tool that was designed for use with populations, not individuals.

An individual may be healthy outside of the "correct" BMI range for various reasons. An individual may also be UNhealthy while still being within the acceptable BMI range. But on a larger scale most people should be within this range in order to be healthy, so if a large proportion of the population are in the overweight or obese category (or in the underweight category) then something is wrong.

Alternatively, people slate BMI because it doesn't tell them what they want to hear.

DH slates BMI for the mathematics as it measures people in metres squared and he doesn't know any two dimensional people.

No I'm not doing therapy - not a great believer in it apart from a few specific exceptions tbh. I had PND after ds and had therapy and it just led to me dwelling on things I couldn't change. It's probably my personality. The 2 main causes for me to be so miserable in recent years have been sort of dealt with. One is resolved (I had the much yearned for dc3) and the other (dh's chronic illness and inability to work - I've mostly learned to accept). But enough about me :)

Interesting to compare weight loss with stopping smoking and attitude of other smokers. Although it's interesting I've had no negativity from any men, overweight or otherwise.

I couldn't have got into a place where I'd have successfully lost weight if I hadn't been feeling better about myself so I definitely think the vilifying of women for being fat makes matters worse in every way. But at the same time accepting I was meant to be obese would have probably killed me.

sAF, exactly! I used to be much bigger due to ADs and general unhappiness. I got off the ADs and out of the situation I was in. I started to move more because I was happier and then gave birth to my DD.

I had previously hated my body for its looks, but now every time I think like that, I remind myself that I carried a baby for nine months and birthed her well. My body's functioning there was pretty awesome. The result? I'm probably the healthiest I've ever been.

The key though is that I didn't do it by punishing myself. I looked at the situation I was in and changed that.

It's a difficult one. The FA lobby has a lot to fight back against, in terms of rejecting the mainstream (media) portrayal of attractive=thin. However, I agree that the "big is beautiful" line is just as perverse,only in reverse.

Similarly, i think they're on a losing streak trying to persuade society that being extremely overweight doesn't carry health problems when it's fairly apparent that it does.

All that said, we as a society HAVE to get over the demonisation of fat people. It's one of the last bastions of acceptable discrimination. Many people who are extremely overweight will never get within the BMI 20-25 range. There are so many complex factors at play in terms of why people get fat and stay fat that it's simply not realistic in a society with an abundance of calorific food to expect the number of overweight people to fall significantly. It's just not as simple as "If you fancy a snack, don't have a cupcake, have a carrot".

I would like to a situation where body size is just a fact. The government is just wasting money on all these obesity initiatives, and persecuting people for a bit of extra padding is hardly the sign of a civilised society.

I always think that if the aliens came down and saw how much time we spend worrying about our collective weight they'd turn to one another and say "Jeez, these guys really need to sort out their priorities"

stripey! The blog I linked to must have caught a virus. I'll report my post.

But one needs to be careful with the food as fuel thing. You (collective you) don't want people demonising the enjoyment of food.

I think what disturbs me most in all of this is people being made to think they need to lose, or put on weight when they don't.

we need to let go of the body facism in any direction and focus on health, focus on well being and the functionality of our bodies and seeing food as fuel and exercise as positive and pleasurable. imo.

Exactly.

sAF, thanks. I've always felt that you are less likely to overeat if you savour each mouthful. Can you tell I like to cook?

Yes definitely. I enjoy food loads more now. I relish all of it because I feel hungry and I make sure the calories I have actually count in enjoyment terms. The idea that dieting makes you miserable isn't true. There's loads of yummy healthier stuff. And there's nothing I can't have anyway. I just have a bit less because too much makes me feel sluggish. None of this good food/ bad food/ food as a sin nonsense.

The feminist issue is the way women seem to give their looks so much significance. It's not even traditionally morally right. It is what we do and how we treat others that counts. If you have no work or are bored you might well be fussing about how you look but that's not a good way to spend mental energy.

We also need people not to feel pressued by others. Why are some of us in a sense not caring of what people think and others aren't? Are some of us just born more able to resist peer or societal pressure than others? If you're content in yourself then you make the choice about what you wear, how you look etc

(BMI works for a lot of people . At my height a healthy BM Is from about 8 stone to 10 and a half stone. Most women aren't muscled and body builder fit so if they have a BMI over 25 they are overweight. Doctors often use a waist measurement instead though - if you're over 32 inches, bit of a risk, over 35 inches much more)