Let's play what if

So, I've explained over and over that 95% of diets fail (yes, even lifestyle changes and even if you keep up with it), that fat is mostly genetic, that fat does not equal unhealthy, and that the diet industry is a 60 billion dollar a year industry that wants to trick you into thinking that you can lose weight when you'll likely end up heavier than when you started. But let's pretend for a moment that all the fatphobes are right- that you can be thin if you just try hard enough, that fat is unhealthy, and that fat people really are just lazy.

I have to ask... so what? Since when did being lazy mean that you were worthy of being abused? Since when did loving to eat and hating exercise mean that you shouldn't be allowed basic respect or dignity? You can't pretend that there aren't lazy thin people so why aren't you throwing things at them or getting in their faces to tell them they deserve to be raped, killed, or should commit suicide? And since when does anything a person do, regardless of whether it's your cup of tea or not, make them deserve something like that anyway?

People make stupid choices all the time. People drink, they do extreme skate boarding, they speed on the interstate. Hell, one guy just walked across Niagara Falls on a cable and was cheered for it, not abused because he was doing something dangerous. We don't deny athletes health insurance even with the dangers that are associated with many sports such as repeated concussions and brain damage. Even smokers aren't met with the same kind of hate that fat people face and their smoke is not only bad for them, but bad for those around them too. If fat is caused by lifestyle, then why is it the one lifestyle that's seen as unacceptable? 

Regardless of whether being fat is a choice or not, we all deserve basic respect and a life free to make our own choices not one filled with constant abuse, stigma, and discrimination. It is not anyone else's place to effect the quality of our lives even if they believe those lives will be shortened by a few years. What kind of person takes it upon themselves to make someone else miserable for the rest of their life just because they disagree with how they live? Even if fat was our own fault, these people are still violating our human rights and we'd still need to stand up against them. So if being fat is a choice, I ask again, so what?

PETA: human rights not as important as animal rights

How did I miss this? Possibly because when it came out in October of 2010 I hadn't discovered body acceptance yet. That and the ad was rejected by Southwest Airlines although not for any noble reason. Apparently they sited the ad being too provocative but a swimsuit model is just fine. But the horror of this ad isn't directed at the airline so let's get back to PETA. Their sexist, body shaming, and fat hate ads are well known and this just adds another to the pile, but, in my opinion, it goes a tad further by playing into the intrusive violation of rights that are body scanners.

The ad features an photo of a thin woman, neck down, in just her underwear which reads "be proud of your body scan: go vegan". Did everyone else just facedesk? Yes? Okay good, let's move on. Ignoring the fact that we should be protesting body scans, not being proud of them, we're going back to the same 'ole argument that vegan = thin and thin = good. Not only does thin = good but apparently it's the only thing that matters when it comes to body pride. Couldn't someone still hate their body scan even if they're thin? If they didn't like their hips or their belly button or their breasts? Or what about men? Body scans show quite a bit of detail (and, unlike the ad, they show you naked, not with undies)- enough to make out your junk anyway.

So while you're being completely and utterly violated by the TSA, all the while worrying about whether they'll make you buy an extra seat or give you a hard time, maybe you should remember next time that going vegan makes you look like the girl in the PETA ad.

See how svelte I became?

A barage of fatphobia

I think, sometimes, that those of us in the fat-o-sphere (the fat blog-o-sphere) who stand up against sizism and fatphobia and promote body acceptance often are seen as people who can handle any type of bigotry, people who are secure and confident and impenetrable. While I do like to think of myself as a confident person since opening my eyes to the world of body acceptance, everyone can still be hurt by those mean and awful comments, looks, jeers, and behaviors that are so common. I don't want anyone to think that I'm a rock, that things don't hurt me. They do- they shouldn't as it comes from sheer ignorance and immaturity of unquestioning minds, but they do.

Halloween was a great time. I took my son trick or treating. He was a super hero; I made the cape and mask myself in the colors he asked for. This may be the first Halloween he remembers. One a social networking site I posted a quick journal entry which said how happy I was that he had so much fun. It was maybe half a dozen sentences in a single paragraph. Now, anyone can comment on your journal if you so allow even if they're not on your list- and I had always managed disrespectful comments in the past by simply deleting them and there were very few problems.

However....

Somehow this simple paragraph attracted a disproportionate amount of attention (my other posts rarely got comments) and over the coarse of a single day I ended up with over 130 comments of sheer hatred and bigotry. One person even took it upon themselves to post "you are a pig" in every single journal post I'd ever written- then again once I deleted them. There were threats of physical violence and all of the disgusting and ignorant assumptions about my diet and lifestyle that we've all experienced along with the typical insults.

I managed to stay flustered though irritated through the first 30 comments, but soon I was overwhelmed by a panicky feeling- we all know that feeling. Like you're surrounded by a ring of bullies ready to pelt you with stones.. or even bricks (something I've actually had happen to me before but it makes a wonderful analogy as well). A few of the more mild comment included:

"HUMANS ARE NOT COWS EVEN THOUGH YOU LOOK LIKE ONE."

"What do you eat to get so fat?"

"the way she is a pig is much worse than just the bloated unexercised body."

And I'm not kidding when I say these were the nice comments. Ultimately I had to ban commenters from every single journal entry I'd made on that site. A few days later when I tried to login to blogger to write this post I found I had to verify everything because there was suspicious activity on my account- perhaps a coincidence but I don't think so as I did link to this blog from my profile. People feel the need to attack when they feel insecure- we all know this, yet it's hard to keep in mind when you are in the middle of an attack. Certainly fat people are one of the last groups which is socially acceptable to attack and abuse.

In a hotel lobby this past weekend, in a news story covering a race to fight childhood obesity, a woman claimed one of her biggest reasons for participating was that fat children were more likely to experience mental and emotional problems. Instead of simply addressing the problem of abuse from bullies, her solution was to blame the victim- to ask them to change. It's like asking the gay kid to just act more straight instead of actually telling kids homophobia is wrong (ditto with transphobia which is often tied in to that kind of bullying).

A few years ago I never would have seen myself fighting a civil rights battle. Like most young people I thought the bulk of civil rights issues were over. But then, I never realized what I went through wasn't my fault, that it was discrimination, and that my view of the world was completely and utterly wrong. With years come knowledge, and unfortunately that includes the realization that human rights are being violated every day- for the LGBTQI community, for minorities, for children, for the disabled... and yes, for fat people. For most people, even for human rights activists, sizism isn't even on the table as a valid form of oppression and discrimination- we have to get it on the table. Our fight has only just begun- but it's getting better and we all have a say in that.