KISS MY ANGRY FAT ASS

I am so incredibly angry.

And you won’t like me angry.

While working on the NAAFA roundup, I made the mistake of reading comments on an article about Weight of the Nation.

Let me say this.  I have no intention of watching Weight of the Nation on HBO or reading the book.  I have heard enough about it to know that it is just more of the same old myths and misinformation about fat people that stoke the fat hatred that is reflected in the comments I read.  I am not going to subject myself to it.

I just want to say -

HOW DARE ANYONE TELL ME I HAVE TO JUSTIFY MY RIGHT TO LIVE MY LIFE AS A FAT PERSON?

Fuck you.

My health is not your concern.  It is none of your business.  So don’t tell me, you are just concerned about my health.  Trust me, you can put that in the great big box in your head marked “Not my problem”.

We are all going to die.  When and how I die is of concern to a very few people.  My being fat is not going to make your life longer or shorter, better or worse.

If it makes you feel superior to me because of a number on a scale – get on with your bad self.  But I don’t want to listen to it.

I am tired of trying to have a polite conversation with you people who hate fat people but cannot admit it.  I’m tired of people politely correcting you with facts and having you come back with another stream of fat phobia.  You do not want to hear facts.  You are too invested in what “everyone knows”.  Go ahead and lie to yourself, but don’t think that you are deceiving me.  I know who and what you are.

And I’m so tired of people being afraid of fat people.

You want to be afraid of fat people, keep it up.  I repeat, you won’t like me angry.

 

Filed under: Body image, Size Acceptance, Size Discrimination

I WANT A COLORFUL FAT ASS

I know black is classic and is usually a staple of any person’s (fat or thin) wardrobe.

HOWEVER, sometimes I want some color in my life and in my closet and it feels like it is an uphill battle to find brightly colored clothes to cover my fat ass.

Haven’t we come farther than this?

All I wanted was some brightly colored footless tights/leggings to wear with my new colorful tops.  I went to all the usual places – Woman Within, Roamans, Jessica London, Ulla Popken, etc., and my choices were pretty much uniformly – black, gray, dark brown and sometimes navy!  Whoo-hoo.  Not even white (which I could then dye).

Well shit.

Add to the fact that I am supersize which means my ass is more Empress of the Universe size rather than Queen Size.

Well, I looked and looked, and with the help of my truly wonderful Whaliam, I finally found two possibilities:  Chubbycartwheels.com and Welovecolors.com.

Chubbycartwheels has some interesting items – including lace leggings in various colors, but the only solid color leggings they had were in velvet and with summer coming they didn’t suit my purposes.  But they are definitely bookmarked for future consideration.

Welovecolors is amazing – they have more than 45 colors available and some tie-dye choices as well all in my size – and the price are reasonable.  They also carry colored fishnets and striped and patterned stockings – but alas those do not extend to my size.

So, I salute Welovecolors.com for offering my fat ass choices to adorn my lower limbs with flare and to the big corp fatty clothing sites, I can only say, I am disappointed but sadly not surprised.

 

Filed under: Body image, Fat Activism, Just Fun

FINDING SOMEONE WHO LOVES YOUR FAT ASS

My first NAAFA Convention with my husband, Whaliam, a great fat lady asked me how did I find a “Mr. Right” – a “normal” man?

Well, I didn’t find a “normal” man.  Who is normal?  More importantly, who decides what “normal” is?

I found Mr. Right-for-Me.  He’s not perfect.  I’m not perfect.  Looking for a perfect person is a waste of time.  That person does not exist.  To tell the truth, I don’t think a “normal” person exists either.  People are too diverse, and that’s a good thing.

What really bothered me about the discussion was this very smart lady was pre-judging men who preferred fat women.  She had decided that all of those men were creepy because they were seeking fat women.  They weren’t “normal”.

I’ve covered the topic of men who prefer fat women before, http://fattiesunited.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/lets-hear-it-for-fas, so I won’t repeat that, except to say that those guys are no more or less “normal” than anyone else.

No wonder she thought there was some secret to finding a good partner.

There are “creepy” people who prefer a fat partner.  Just as there are “creepy” people who prefer a thin partner or a blond partner, or a tall or short partner.  There are creepy people in the world and they are creepy for many reasons that have nothing to do with the type of person they are attracted to.  This is not a fat issue, this is a people issue.

I was lucky enough to realize that the type of person I wanted was just a regular person – one with good points and bad points.  Someone whose bad points were ones that I could live with and whose good points were ones that I could appreciate.  And I wanted someone who would love me just as I am (with all my good and bad points); be happy and proud that we were partners, and who is willing to work together to build a life together.

And first I had to learn to love myself enough to allow someone else to love me, and I had to learn that if I wanted someone else not to pre-judge who I am, I had to learn to give other people a chance and trust myself to figure out if a relationship with that person might or might not work and why.  (The why is important because that is how you start to accumulate the information of what you will and will not be willing to accept in your life.)

That’s the secret.  Not a secret after all.  Just some common sense, an open mind, and love and respect for myself.

 

Filed under: Body image, Size Acceptance

Have fun and promote HAES!

Weight Watchers is having a contest via Twitter; here’s their tweet:

If your scale could give you a message, what would u want it to say? Answer w/ #scale2win by 12 AM EST http://bit.ly/RulesHere

I responded thusly:

@WeightWatchers WARNING: the numbers on this scale say NOTHING about your self worth; you’re AWESOME just as you are! #scale2win

Do you think I’ll win? Maybe not, but I had fun. If you like getting in the diet industry’s face, tweet them your own winning statement!

Filed under: Body image, Fat Activism, Just Fun

Walkby Shouting

I was walking in the park one day late last year (I walk every work day during my lunch break), and a stranger who was walking the other way asked me how much weight I had lost. I told him “I’m not trying to lose weight, and that’s not a proper question to ask people in the park.” He responded, “You look great; I remember when I first saw you.”

He was trying to be nice, I guess, but the question hit me the wrong way. As a fat man, I don’t get much criticism about my weight, and obviously, I didn’t get criticism this time either, other than the implied criticism of a past me. Still, my weight is my business, the same as with anyone else. Even before I had size acceptance, I wouldn’t initiate a conversation with a stranger by asking about his/her weight, even in the course of making a compliment.

He didn’t seem to grasp my objection, so I didn’t respond any further. I’m happy with how I responded, but it probably didn’t do any good.  He may not even have realized why I objected. To understand an observed event, we (adults, anyway) have to plug it into a known framework, and I don’t think he had a framework for what I said.

That’s why it is so important to proclaim and explain size acceptance in all media we can. Even if we don’t change anyone’s mind, we’re at least letting people know that there are such things as body self-acceptance, fat pride, and HAES. Then at least strangers will understand why we object to weight-loss-based compliments, even if they don’t agree.

Filed under: Body image, Fat Activism, health, Size Acceptance, Size Discrimination

Staying Informed

The popular media have just now found out about a horrible ad campaign in Georgia that stigmatizes fat children. I am heartened that the size rights community has responded, but I wish that there had been an equivalent response when NAAFA first reported on these ads ten months ago:

http://www.naafaonline.com/newsletterstuff/oldnewsletterstuff/March%202011%20NAAFA%20Newsletter.html

There’s only so much that NAAFA can do to raise awareness. There’s not really a NAAFA army, just a handful of volunteers who issue press releases (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naafapressreleases/message/61), talk to news organizations, and basically try to work the media. Some readers of that issue of the newsletter probably did do as NAAFA asked and e-mailed the organization’s director, but the effect of these actions isn’t apparent. One additional thing NAAFA could have done was start a petition like this one: http://www.change.org/petitions/childrens-healthcare-of-atlanta-end-the-stop-sugarcoating-campaign; petitions can do a lot of good sometimes.

As I said, the current reaction by the fatosphere is great, but the ads have been on for a while, and a lot of damage has already been done.

So do me (and yourself) a favor: go to the first link above and take a look at last March’s NAAFA Newsletter. (There are more (and newer) newsletters here: http://www.naafaonline.com/dev2/about/NEWSLETTERS.html) If you like what you see, and want to stay on top of issues like these Georgia ads, click on the button in the right column that says “Join Our Mailing List”, and you’ll get a NAAFA Newsletter once a month. (Note: I help prepare the newsletter.) It’s free, it’s only one e-mail a month, it’s fun, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Try it!

Filed under: Body image, Fat Activism, health, Size Discrimination, NAAFA, petitions

The REVOLUTION is on for 2012!

It’s happening again. The New Year’s REVOLUTION is on for 2012!

Instead of making new year’s resolutions involving weight loss, you know, the ones that end in sadness and self-revulsion, join us in the REVOLUTION. Make a resolution (or goal, or idea, or just something to have fun with) to love your body and yourself, and spread the message of HAES, health at every size. Change your facebook page to a size-positive image, tweet about HAES with the #HAES hashtag, read a fat-friendly book, or just be the fabulous person you are!

Check out the resources here: http://revolutionsresources.blogspot.com

Filed under: Body image, Fat Activism, health

ROUND IS A SHAPE

Lorenzo Santiago, a former Olympic athlete and author of a study to see why fat and fit people don’t lose weight through exercise, believes that fat people are “out of shape and they have some sort of respiratory limitation”, even though his study shows that fat people are not “grossly deconditioned” (showing that you don’t have to be a certain shape to be “in shape”) and the cardiorespiratory fitness of nonobese subjects may be slightly higher, depending on the prediction equation utilized (in other words, even if you fiddle with the data to get results to suit your personal bias, fat people are only slightly less fit).

Mr. Santiago thinks the key is in the respiratory system (possibly because his own study showed that fat fit people are “in shape”), which he thinks works more efficiently in the fat and fit population.  So a fat athlete’s more efficient respiratory system is a problem?  Has he considered that this may be why fat people are able to be fit?

Mr. Santiago claims he is doing all of this so he can help regular fat people – not so regular fat people can become fat and fit people, but to fight “this epidemic of obesity.”  Well, fuck you very much.

You would think that a former Olympic athlete might appreciate that being fit is more important than being a certain size or weight; that he would be interested on how to encourage more people to enjoy exercise no matter what size they are (and what size they end up).  But no.  Mr. Santiago obviously has a problem with the idea that fat people can exercise, become fit and still be fat.

Attitudes like Mr. Santiago’s make it hard to convince people that there is any reason for exercise other than for weight loss; that if weight loss doesn’t accompany exercise, there is no purpose to the exercise.

This attitude is harmful because:

1) It leads to fat people giving up on exercise if they don’t lose weight, thinking either

(a) The exercise failed or

(b) They have “failed” in some way;

2) It leads people to believe the fat people they see either

(a) Need to exercise or

(b) Do not exercise.

3) It leads people who see fat people exercise to assume that the reason for the exercise is weight loss.

As Whaliam so succinctly summarized it:  Even though Santiago’s own data show that you can be fat and fit, he still sees fatness as a bad thing.  Fat people who are in shape and stay fat must still be somehow “out of shape”.  This circular reasoning causes Santiago to circle back and plant his own head up his ass.

http://www.kens5.com/news/health/Texas-study-looks-at-why-some-who-are-overweight-arent-restricted-in-exercise-135894573.html

http://chestjournal.chestpubs.org/content/early/2011/09/21/chest.11-1147.short

 

Filed under: Body image, health, Science

FEAR OF FAT BABIES

A study out of Harvard University claims that babies who gain weight quickly during their first months of life are more likely to become obese later in life.

The lead author, Dr. Elsie Taveras said the study should be used to raise awareness about potential risks but is not a reason to put babies on a diet.

Okay, that seems fair.

Other doctors point out that babies often grow in spurts.  Dr. Michelle Lample (director of Emory University’s Center for the Study of Human Health) is afraid the guide could be used to feed infants less and could prompt feeding patterns that could lead to obesity later.

Lample also pointed out that while many infants crossed at least two key points on the growth charts, only 12% were obese at age 5 and slightly more at age 10.  The National average for obese preschoolers is 10% and about 19% by age 11.  Showing that this “predictor” is not very good at predicting.

What scares me is that with fat-phobia being so common place in the healthcare professions, anything that would lead to labeling an infant as (horrors) fat (or heaven forbid, possibly becoming fat) puts that infant at the mercy of other people’s fat phobia at the time when brain, muscle, and bone development are dependent on good nutrition.

Dr. Joanna Lewis (a pediatrician in Park Ridge, Illinois) seems to me to be a prime example.  She supports the idea that infancy is not too young to start thinking about obesity.  She emphasized that rapid growth in infancy doesn’t mean babies are DOOMED (yes, doomed) to become obese.  “It’s not a life sentence.”  Oh boy.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/11/09/baby_obesity_study_is_just_link_bait.html

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/babies-obesity-path-sign-may-132732172.html

http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/165/11/993

Scary enough for you?

Now look at the story coming out of Appleton, Wisconsin where parents are facing jail time for starving their infant daughter because the father was afraid she’d become fat.

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/state-and-regional/wi/appleton-parents-charged-with-starving-baby/article_571bfad4-1142-11e1-9464-001cc4c03286.html

In fairness, the healthcare professionals and social workers urged this couple to feed their child more – and the parents continued to starve their child to the point where she had no subcutaneous fat.

Well, new parents don’t always know what they are doing, right?  Except Christopher Sultze is 35 and his wife Mary is 36 and they have three other children.  Mary’s attorney isn’t sure there was any criminal activity or just misguided parenting intentions.

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/state-and-regional/wi/appleton-parents-charged-with-starving-baby/article_571bfad4-1142-11e1-9464-001cc4c03286.html#ixzz1eBrVTV6D

Obviously, this is an extreme case, but it shows what can happen when people become convinced that being fat is the worst thing that can happen.  And people become convinced when that is the message they are constantly getting from healthcare professionals, the media and the government.

“Consequences are unpitying.”  George Eliot

 

Filed under: Body image, health, Science

The Venus of Willendorf

If you asked me to choose a symbol for fat acceptance and fat admiration (two types of FA), I’d pick the Venus of Willendorf (perhaps better named the Woman of Willendorf). If you’re not familiar with this beauty, first, just take a look: http://www.naafaonline.com/newsletterstuff/VenusOfWillendorf2.jpg

I’ve read descriptions of her as having “exaggerated” breasts and belly, and that therefore she must be a “fertility symbol”. But she’s not exaggerated; she’s a very realistic figure, apart from the very thin arms and lack of detail on the face. I’ve seen women who look pretty much just like her (heck, I married one). She might represent a fertility goddess. Or, she might represent someone that the sculptor really liked looking at. I suspect the latter.

What does she mean to you?

Filed under: Body image