When Barbie Gets Fat

There's a new IPad app. Have you heard of it? Maybe not because it's a game for children. It's called, wait for it..... Barbie Plastic Surgery. Obviously not affiliated with Mattel in any way, this game let's you cut Barbie open to perform liposuction because, guess what? She's gotten too fat. This page on buzzfeed takes you step by step through the process with screenshots if you have the stomach to go look at it. No, it's not graphic, but let's remember it's a game for kids. Specifically kids 9 and up. The game's description says "This unfortunate girl has so much extra weight that no diet can help her". So the solution is to cut her open and suck out the fat!

You've GOT to be fucking kidding me. Kids deal with messages day in and day out that being fat or even chubby is bad. According to The National Eating Disorder Association, 42% of girls in 1st through 3rd grade want to lose weight. 81% of 10 year olds are afraid of becoming fat. According to Teen Magazine, 50-70% of average weight teens think they're fat and 35% of girls ages 6-12 have dieted to lose weight. And let's not forget that teens who even think they're fat are at a higher risk for eating disorders, suicide attempts, depression, and more. And along comes a game for children that directly says if you're fat you need to be sliced open and operated on to make you worth something again.

And let's talk some about how liposuction doesn't even actually work. I mean, sure they suck the fat out and it's gone from that area for good, but the "problem" is that it returns- all of it. Just not in the same place. A study from the University of Colorado found that fat removed from the hips and lower abdomen tended to return in the upper area of the body over the course of about a year.

So what exactly are we teaching these kids and, let's be honest, mostly young girls, about how to view their body? To undergo risky surgery (and yes, every surgery carries risks) just to be acceptable? To be found beautiful? Not that we should be focusing on girl's and women's appearances in general, but to only feel beautiful when you fit a narrow standard is ridiculous. This is already a huge problem and it's only getting worse. Next thing you know there'll be stomach mutilating games (weight loss surgery) encouraging our young girls to go under the knife in an even more risky surgery in which 1 in 200 patients die. Cosmetic surgery can literally kill and that doesn't even count that 1/3 of people regain all of the weight in gastric bypass surgery and 63% gain some of the weight back and everyone regains the weight with liposuction surgery. So we're teaching our young girls to risk their lives for procedures that aren't even guaranteed to work. (and weight regain is only ONE possible side effect of weight loss surgery. The list of others is long and awful). All because of a growing war against fat people and the severe bigotry of fatphobia that goes along with it. This has got to stop and it has to stop now. We can't afford to lose more of our children to hate.

It finally happened, I've been mocked on Reddit

Well, it's a new year and it's started out just right with having several of my photos posted on reddit to be mocked. Oh, hello 2014, what will you have in store for me? A sub titled "delusionalartists" is playing host to several of my photos with comments like "Not plus sized but multiplied size. Like multiplied exponentially." and "Being unhealthy isn't positive. Obesity acceptance might as we'll be called suicidal tendency acceptance." 

Most of the comments aren't too bad- they're criticizing the photographers and the style. Which is fine, I don't claim that every photo I post is a magazine shot because that's not the point (although I am pretty upset on the photographer's behalves). Body acceptance isn't about who has the best photos. There are lots of fatshion bloggers, for example, who have great quality photos and some who have point and shoot photos. And they're all still awesome photos, not because of the lighting or the poses, or the angles, but because it's showcasing fat bodies in a positive way. Maybe not positive to immature misogynists on reddit, but positive to the men and women who visit this blog and gain confidence and inspiration. 

The first comment in my examples above is, well, childish and typical. But I want to address the second comment because it's pretty fucking ableist. It not only ignores the fact that fat people, directly because of the abuse we face because of assholes like this, are more likely to develop mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety disorders, and eating disorders, but it mocks and diminishes the actual reality of suicide. Depression includes suicidal tendencies and ideation sometimes by the way. I think it's ironic that body acceptance (specifically fat acceptance) is often compared to suicide when so many fat people that I know who found fat acceptance have attempted or thought about suicide because of how much they hate their bodies and, having found acceptance for their bodies, no longer feel the need to take their own lives. I'm one of these people. I have several suicide attempts under my belt (and yes, I know, it's a big belt, har har) directly related to my hatred of my body and the abuse hurled at me simply for being fat. 

Many of you may already know my story, but for those of you who don't I was a pretty skinny child. As a youngster I was popular, had friends, had "boyfriends" (as much as one can have when you're six years old!), and lived a privileged school life (home life was a different matter, but anyway). When I was around 7 or 8, however, I developed severe depression, the first symptom of my bipolar disorder. I suddenly and inexplicably began gaining weight. A lot of weight. I gained about a hundred pounds in around three years. By the age of 10/11 I was wearing a women's size 22/24. Despite this I never saw a doctor or a therapist, or even a school counselor. It was assumed that I, for whatever reason, was at fault. So my home life became more abusive than it already was and school life became hell. I lost all of my friends and became the butt of jokes and pranks about my size. 

I attempted suicide at 10 years old. 

This isn't funny, random reddit user. Suicide isn't something you throw around to insult someone. Suicide and attempted suicide are a very serious reality for a lot of fat people, children, and their families. Studies have shown that children who even think they're fat (they don't have to actually even be fat) are at a greater risk of suicide. Whether size bigots want to admit it or not, fat acceptance and body acceptance saves lives. 

Even if being fat really were bad for my health, I would much rather live a happy life until the age of 60 than a miserable life to the age of 100. And, this isn't even taking into account that I likely would die from either my previous eating disorder or suicide far before the age of 60. So what's the real harm in helping people love themselves? That they're happier? How dare they! We all know that if you're not skinny you should be unhappy and wishing for death and thinness every second of the day right? 

I'm happy, my numbers are all excellent, I survived and recovered from an eating disorder, and I'm being treated for my bipolar and my hypothyroidism. My life is under control and I can say that I'll definitely live longer now than I would have had I continued hating my body (and boy, I didn't even get into the toll that emotional and mental stress take on your body!). 

I understand that some of these people truly are blinded by hatred or denial or just feeling uncomfortable with a woman who's happy with herself (women, didn't you know you're supposed to stay unhappy?). They may not be able to see that what I'm doing is a good thing that helps a lot of people, but this blog isn't for them, so hey, why should I care? I'll admit that seeing that post gave me pause and a rush of anxiety, but that quickly passed and now I'm pretty okay with it. Those types of people don't deserve the time of day from me to be honest and I just hope that one day they'll mature, grown, learn, and be more kind, accepting, and decent. We've almost all been in that place at some time or another- hating ourselves and hating other fat people for reminding us of why we should hate ourselves so much. We grew as people, we learned more information and, most importantly, we now know that people like that, their opinions don't matter. We can be happy in our own skin while the haters hate and we swim in our bikinis, wear our crop tops and leggings, and be free. Being held prisoner by society's opinions is not an option anymore for me. 

On Fat Child Abuse

It's been a little while since I've written a post and I woke up this morning with child abuse on my mind. Specifically the kind endured by a fat child by family and peers. I hesitate to call it bullying because that seems so mild and unassuming. Abuse is a better word for the physical assaults, the verbal abuse, and more that kids, and even adults, go through.

I was thinking of that video that was going around not too long ago of a straight girl in a world where gay is the norm. Now, I know a lot of queer folks had a problem with the video but this queer woman thought it was moving and emotionally devastating. I also thought "huh, how well that would work for fat kids too". I don't think a lot of people realize how much fat kids have in common with queer kids in the face of abuse from peers and classmates and even family.

Of course, unlike being queer, I could never hide that I was fat. I managed to make it all the way through high school with no one knowing I wasn't straight, but fat? Oh, everyone could see that (of course, not everyone can hide their sexuality either and when I did finally come out I got plenty of people denying I existed or telling me I was just confused and to just be straight already).

The abuse started when I began to lose friends as I gained weight. Pre weight gain (and I gained weight very suddenly and quickly- the doctors guess it went along with my bipolar symptoms first showing up) I was popular. I was really popular. I had tons of friends and "boyfriends" and everyone wanted to hang out with me. I was the talk of the class and sometimes the school. As I gained weight though my friends dropped to a lonely zero. That's right, I went from being popular with everyone wanting to be my friend to not a friend in the world (until around 5th grade when another fat girl moved to my class and we became instant best friends). Can you imagine how lonely that is for a socially outgoing little girl? So first, I became isolated. I felt completely alone and part of nothing. I was that kid every teacher worried about.

Then the verbal and emotional abuse. Fatty fatty two by four. Fake love letters or boys asking me out just to laugh at me in class. Fat slob. Worthless. Fatty. Oh, how fatty was a favorite.

Then the assaults. Yes, I was assaulted multiple times. I was beat up, I had two kids, Linda and Jason Rhodes were their names, who used to follow me home from school on their bikes, as I walked, and threw stones and bricks at me. I ignored them thinking it would make them stop and because I didn't know how to face them. It never stopped.

So, at 10 years old, I attempted suicide for the first time. It failed and no one, not even my family, ever knew about it. I want everyone, everyone, to stop and think about that for a second. Do you know a kid around that age? Were your own kids once that age or about to be? Can you imagine a kid.. just a child.. feeling so hopeless, worthless, unloved, and unneeded that they felt they had to take their own life? Have you ever touched a child's coffin? Ever seen parents weep for a lost child? Ever been close to the victim of a suicide? Please take a moment to truly consider this. Let it seep into your psyche, let it touch your core. Even I have a hard time fathoming this and it happened to me.

As I got older and kids were exposed to more of the world (meaning more violence) I began to get threats. Death threats. Threats of physical violence. Being told to kill myself. Even told to video tape it so everyone could watch. I became a cutter, constantly suicidal without knowing how to get rid of that pain except through more pain. I developed an eating disorder. Vomiting after meals, starving myself, abusing diet pills (isn't all diet pill use an abuse of them really? They're such nasty little things), over exercising. Even at a size 12 I was still bullied. I still thought I was huge. I had my eating disorder ignored because I was fat which made it good. Good to have daily fainting spells. Good to nearly kill myself. Good to risk a heart condition. Good because I was trying to be thin, no matter what the consequences.

And I want to be clear that the abuse wasn't just at school. My aunts, who were my main caregivers, made me feel worthless, often made fun of me, or made comments on my weight, were unsupportive. I had nowhere to hide. Home was almost as bad as school. I had no one to turn to for help. Add to that that my home environment was also physically abusive and I was afraid all of the time. Afraid and alone.

I want to emphasize that my story is not original, it's not unique, it's not a special snowflake of experience. Things like this happen to fat kids again and again and again. Sometimes worse. Sometimes those kids do take their lives successfully and people say it was because of bullying but they never say what kind- fatphobic bullying.  I'll say again that fat kids are often abuse in a number of ways- physically assaulted, chased home, beat up, living in fear. Verbally assaulted with names and cruelty that mimics or bests any domestic violence situation, verbal abuse to cut you down, to make you feel like nothing, worthless. Threats of violence, of rape - how about being told that your rape doesn't count because as a fatty you should feel lucky to have someone have sex with you? It happens. Being told to kill yourself. Sexual assault and harassment.

I love the new anti bullying programs across the country put in place to help and protect lgbt youth, I do. As someone who grew up as an lgbt youth and wishes I had the same protection as an adult, I think it's fantastic.  But I think we have to remember that fat bullying is an old as anyone can remember and kids killing themselves (or attempting to) for being fat has been around just as long as lgbt suicide. But people want to put one on a pedestal and ignore the other. I'm not in any way trying to play the Oppression Olypics, but as someone who's both queer and fat, I feel I can speak on the similarities to a degree -lgbt bullying can and does go further. For example being kicked out of their homes, or even risk of homicide. However, with the escalation of the OBESITYEPIDEMICBOOGABOOGA, with kids being taken out of their homes for being fat, with one UK woman recently attacked on public transit for being fat, I feel like it is only getting worse and more dangerous for fat kids and fat adults. Let's not forget that fat adults face all of the same possible dangers that fat kids face.

I'm writing all of this with a heaviness in my heart that I can't seem to make go away. I wish I could just impress upon everyone the seriousness of fat hate. You can't hate someone thin and, mostly importantly, you can't hate someone healthy. Hate can kill and I mean that with every drop of seriousness that I can muster. Your fatphobia can kill. Innocent, beautiful children. Children aren't born hateful, they're taught it. Hate is far more of a choice than fat will ever be.

International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day to everyone. Today I want everyone to take an extra moment to appreciate their bodies, especially women. Women are the primary victims of constant body stigma and policing. We're told what to wear, what to do with our bodies, how much to weigh and what to eat (or don't eat). It's cute to see a woman eat "like a man" as long as she stays skinny. We're told to constantly make ourselves prettier, skinnier, smarter (but not too smart now!), to be perfect homemakers while also bringing home an income. Every part of our lives is policed from getting dressed in the morning to how to have sex with your lover (thanks Cosmo!).

Women are objectified and over sexualized. Our bodies are always wrong no matter what they look like. All women are under immense pressure to conform to sexist and outdated expectations while also being a modern woman. It's impossible to achieve. Fat women have an extra dose of discrimination and oppression heaped on them. From making less money compared to thin people and men, being passed over for jobs, having medical problems ignored, and extra body policing (should you really be eating that?). Fat women are both overly sexualized and fetishized by some groups while being desexed entirely by others.

In a man's world and a thin person's world (and let's not forget a straight, white, cis, wealthy, able bodied person's world) it's difficult to stand up for oneself. It's difficult to stand up and say "I am here. I take up space and that's okay". Doing so it's an act of rebellion. It's a giant middle finger to the patriarchy. To the society that would pathologicalize your body, to dehumanize your body. To stand up and say "I am a beautiful, sexual being, with my own autonomy and responsibility for myself" is a full scale attack on a culture of hate. To exist, is to take part in taking down a system of oppression. Your voice is important, it's necessary, it's essential! And that voice is the voice of body acceptance and love.  It's a difficult voice to raise over the roar of advertisements for perfection and obedience, but together we can do it.

So on this important day look around you, see the women around you, in your life, and appreciate them and their uniqueness. They deserve it. We deserve it. You deserve it.

Weight Stigma Awareness Week

BEDA's take action for Tuesday: Express

We just saw the end to suicide prevention awareness week just as we're coming up on the first annual weight stigma awareness week. According to BEDA, the binge eating disorder association, " BEDA’s goal is to bring awareness to a common and entrenched social injustice that often results in serious physical and mental health consequences for those affected". Consequences indeed. I feel the need to point out that suicide and attempted suicide are common results of those consequences BEDA is talking about. 

Perhaps it's no coincidence that the two awareness weeks are almost back to back. Considering that teens who even think they're fat are more likely to attempt suicide and, let's face it, the fat  hate starts early  and children as young as three years old show weight bias against heavier people, attributing things such as being ugly, lazy, and stupid. By three years old, people. That's some seriously early weight hate indoctrination. One study shows that children 5-11 prefer underweight friends and react more positively to underweight stimuli than overweight stimuli (which they, of course, reacted negatively to).

So what's the purpose of weight stigma awareness week? It's just what it sounds like- to shed light on the constant discrimination and stigma that is associated with weight. Fat people get the majority of the load, but thin people aren't without their burdens and stigmas as well. Assuming a thin person doesn't eat does just as much harm to the fat liberation movement as assuming fat people eat too much- it's all playing back into the idea that weight is a choice and you have to choose to be one specific size and shape. We have a long way to go on the road to destigmatizing weight and especially fatness, but that's part of what this week is about. Banding together as a community, getting the word out, and making a change. 

Fat Sex is Good Sex

Thanks to several fat activists on facebook a study on fat sex has been making the rounds. The small study finds that women who are comfortable with their bodies have better and more satisfying sex lives while women who are uncomfortable with their bodies have less fulfilling sex lives or abstain altogether.  Are you shocked yet? Anything? No? Me neither. Because hating yourself leads to the best sex said no person ever.

Women in the study who said they had begun to embody fat pride reported finally having the confidence to end negative relationships and "retrain" their partners to satisfy them sexually. "As the women experience less body shame and increased confidence, they also seek out or attract partners who treat them better and truly appreciate them,"

Of course, those who seek to keep us down by force feeding hate down our throats might argue that we shouldn't be having sex anyway. Think about that. Think about the quality of life that these people are trying to force on us. You can't be happy until you're thin and since that's not happening for 95% of people you just can't be happy. The women in this study not only had great sex lives but dared to defy the haters by being happy in general.

So my argument is that even if being fat was unhealthy, even if it took ten years off my life or  more, quality matters more than quantity. As The Doctor said, some people live more in 20 years than others do in 80. So if I die at 70 then that's 70 years of happiness and a lot of years of really great sex, friends, family, adventures, and living as opposed to 70 years of being a sad and depressed anxiety filled shut away. I'd rather take the fabulous life thank you.

"I like big women, but" Syndrome

We get fat hate from everywhere and pretty much constantly. When someone admits to being attracted to larger bodies you expect that attraction and resulting relationship to come with respect and love and be free from stigma and, yes, fat hate. But that's not always the case. In r/bodyacceptance on reddit as well as in my day to day, I've run into a few people with "I like big women, but" syndrome. It's a serious medical condition and symptoms include confusion, cognitive dissonance, bodily convulsions that result in foot-in-mouth disorder, and often the inability to function properly in romantic interpersonal relationships. The patient presents with classic signs of showing attraction to larger bodies, but also classic symptoms of fatphobia and sizism. The cure? Take some HAES and call me in the morning when you're stopped being a raging asshole.

On r/bodyacceptance this syndrome was difficult to deal with and it resulted in comment and post removals, issuing warnings and, finally, banning the individuals from the group. I recently encountered this issue (for the second time) in my personal life (and no, it wasn't a romantic interest directed at me, but rather one of my friends, but it was still personal- more on that in a bit). If you haven't seen it (and you've saved up your mental health points) you may want to take a look at Tim Minchin's "Fat Children" song which includes such lovely lyrics as "Do not feed doughnuts to your obese children" and such ableist gems as "So you're telling me that your family Has a history of obesity You got the polycystic ovaries Your mum had childhood diabetes But and in your  case There's a fucking big butt Do you think it's an appropriate treat The all-you-can-eat at Pizza Hut". Let's not forget such contradictory lyrics as "Tell them they have to jog Until their jogging shorts fit 'em If they hesitate, ask firmly If they still resist, hit 'em" (emphasis mine) and "It's [being fat] tantamount to child abuse" (can you spot which statement is actual child abuse?). So you can see why someone whom I considered a friend posting this would be quite upsetting. Especially a friend who was dating another friend who happened to be fat. 


I was horrified and couldn't imagine that he'd post this on purpose. Maybe.. maybe he was posting it to show how disgusting it was! Yeah.. yeah that's it... oh but no. Upon inquiring I was simply told that a fat child is the result of bad parenting and that, yes, fat children should be taken away from their homes. I know I know. You've probably seen this particular treasure discussed in the fatosphere quite a lot, especially after the JAMA article about the same thing, although at least they were advocating only "worst case scenarios" and "last resorts" where as this friend of mine, we'll call him Vader (because I'm a geek and I want to, that's why), believes that even 20lbs "overweight" is grounds for an investigation by our already overworked and over burdened social services department. 


I don't have to tell you that taking a child out of an otherwise loving home, away from the only people they know and care for, and sticking them in the foster system where they will likely be bounced around from home to home, and very possibly will never find a home before they're kicked out on their 18th birthdays is far more abusive than any exercise in "over feeding". We have problems with rampant child abuse, children being beaten or called worthless. We have kids that grow up with strung out parents. Kids who are terrified of going home. Kids who are sexually abused. But fat kids should be the priority here? I don't think so. 


Don't worry, I comprised a logical, calm, well thought out reply with references to studies that show that weight is mostly genetic with other contributing factor with lifestyle being on the lowest rung of the ladder. I even threw in some personal anguish about what would have happened to me if someone had deemed my mother abusive just because I was fat along with asking him to explain why I was fat while my brother and sister remained slim on exactly the same diet and amount of active play. The response? Oh... oh my. It didn't even make me angry at first.. I just sat there, mouth gaping, thinking, "wait.. what?". Prepare yourselves. The response was that "yes, I know it's largely genetic.." (good so far..?) "but only for adults". BAM! Can you comprehend that either? I didn't think so. Vader's justification? Kids have faster metabolisms than adults and therefore they can't be larger based on genetics. According to him, there is no such thing as a naturally fat child, it's 100% lifestyle. Yes folks, "obesity" is genetic, but only once you turn 18. Not that I could get him to explain thin  people who ate junk food and watched TV all day. Maybe they don't exist in his world (or just cue the cognitive dissonance part of the disease. It's not about lifestyle if you're thin, only if you're fat; that good 'ole double standard).  


Of course, poor Vader must have just been deeply confused after saying that (for adults) it was genetic but there was "no such thing as a fat person who eats healthfully and exercises". Does he realize that all of this fat hate he's spewing is directed at his girlfriend too? Does she? I see far too many fat men and women who internalize all of the fat hate and they think "yes, I'm sexy and I deserve love, but I still need to lose weight". If you "like big women, but" then how do you justify wanting your partner to be healthy but finding them attractive at a weight that you deem unhealthy? (I say "you deem" because we all know that weight isn't a measure of health, rather someone projecting their own biases, prejudices, and misinformation onto others). 


Folks, this is when my ability to stay calm and civil broke down. Because Vader was my friend I wanted to talk through this, get him to see just how hateful and awful he was being and try to nudge him into accepting that the reasons for body types are varied and complex and that, you know, maybe you actually can't hate someone for their own good. But I have to tell you, as much as I know people like this need education, sometimes I have to just look out for my own emotional and psychological well being. So after I typed another long, thoughtful, reply with net more references to more studies, I stopped, deleted the entire thing, and replaced it with, "You know what? Fuck you." and removed him as a friend. The best solution for someone who's simply ignorant and probably hasn't ever even been presented with an alternative argument? Absolutely not. But I have to deal with this stuff every single day in other areas of my life and I don't think it's too much to ask to be safe from my own friends. So viola, no more fat hating friends. Of course it's not quite that simple since we still run into each other occasionally, but I'm planning on politely treating him like an acquaintance. And Vader's girlfriend, my friend? I hope she took his fat hate as personally and as insultingly as it was. Self deprecating fatties aren't rare by any means, but it does break my heart every single time. 

Fat Girl Health

Actually, all health, male or female, thin or fat. But this is my particular experience with my trip to the doctor as a fat woman. I didn't jump in the recent debate about Jess Weiner, the former fat activist who wrote a sensationalized article about how fat acceptance "made her" ignore important aspects of health such as seeing a doctor. Because I don't know much about this woman or her history in fat acceptance, I stayed away from it, but my trip to see a doctor today for the first time since I can remember for a checkup did remind me of her and how our culture views health in general.

First of all, exercise and healthy eating are extremely important for health. I'm not denying that, I'm not challenging that, that's not what this is about, just so as we're clear on that. Lifestyle, however, can only take you so far. I feel empowered when I go to the gym, especially after an especially hard workout. I feel empowered when I make a delicious and healthy meal or when my son rejects someone offering him fries and asks for an apple. I feel confident that I've taught him healthy habits and that makes me proud. But nothing made me feel so empowered, so in charge of my health and my life, as going to see a doctor this past week. I had blood drawn for all of the normal things- lipids, glucose, vitamin D, etc (also had blood pressure taken which was fabulously perfect even with the white coat anxiety). I feel pretty sure they'll all come back fine, but the part that makes me feel good is knowing for sure. If they don't come back fine I feel great knowing that the knowledge means that I can take control of it, change it, or treat it. And there are plenty of issues that can arise regardless of how active you are or how well you eat. You should also regularly get tested for STI's even if you're in a monogamous relationship and don't forget your general physical exam. I also got the first dose of the HPV vaccine; if you're a woman, you should be getting this.

My point is this: taking care of yourself feels good. Great even! And it goes far beyond just lifestyle and definitely beyond weight since that number can't tell you anything about your health. Sadly, almost 50 million Americans don't have health insurance. Even more have health insurance but still don't go to the doctor's because they can't afford the deductibles and copays. I'm 26 and I just now got insurance. I haven't been to a doctor for anything other than reproductive issues in so many years that I can't even remember. In fact, I may not have been to have a regular checkup since I was a kid. I'm privileged enough to have that taken care of for me. I was able to tell the doctor that yes, I wanted the Gardasil vaccine even if my insurance didn't cover it. Health is multi faceted and while the "obesity epidemic" is complete bullshit, we do have a health epidemic. Health care should be considered a basic human right and this is one area that the US is greatly lagging behind in. Maybe that's why we resort to faux epidemics and scare tactics and sensationalism. It's a substitute for actual health care and it doesn't work, not even close.

You may have occasionally heard the word healthism come up in the fatosphere and perhaps in a post or conversation about ableism. Healthism is the idea that healthy people are more moral and better people than unhealthy people. I likely don't have to tell you, dear readers, that it's all too obvious that classism is also involved since the ability to access quality healthcare is something that's reserved for the wealthy. Not even the middle class have the kind of access they need. Because I am middle class and I still have to decide if I should go to the physical therapist that my doctor recommended for an old rotator cuff injury, the psychiatrist for my bipolar medication, the psychologist for my PTSD, the eye doctor, or the dentist. I can only pick one for this month and then I have to decide who in my family gets to go get their needs taken care of first because we can't all seek medical care at the same time.

How is this a fat issue? Because healthism is deeply intertwined with fatphobia and sizism and poor people are more likely to be fatter (there are all kinds of speculation on why- my belief is that it has to do with emotional well being as well as untreated health issues). Healthism includes fatphobia which includes classism. It's a vicious cycle of violence against the sick and the poor. Healthcare is a human rights issue.

 I feel like the importance of seeing a doctor regularly is glossed over when talking about HAES sometimes, perhaps because of the huge number of people who have no way of following this advice. Our broken health care system is proof that no one actually cares about our health when they shame us, especially when you think about government programs and initiatives such as Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" anti fat kid campaign. The same people who claim to care about your health in one breath will deny you healthcare coverage in the next. So all of you health trolls- I will be completely ignoring you until you start advocating for universal health care and stop talking about fatties driving up health care costs.

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?

When it's the system abusing the children

We all remember the recent hubub when Dr. Lindsey Murtagh and Dr. David S. Ludwig made a suggestion in a Journal of American Medicical Association issue that perhaps "obese" children should be taken away from their parents for child neglect/abuse. The obvious idea being that these parents must be shoveling food in their kids' mouths and letting them watch TV and play video games all day. This particularly hits home for me because I would have been one of those kids, weighing in at over 150lbs by age 10 which made me clinically "obese". I can't remember my exact weight, I only remember being in grade school and looking at a scale thinking "if I can just stay this weight and not gain anymore as I grow then when I get to be a grown up I won't be fat". My diet consisted of the exact same meals, snack, and exercise as my brother and my sister who were both slim. But my mom was obviously abusing me into fatness, right? I just wonder what would have happened if I had been placed in foster care and they had failed to make me thin too? 

the three youngest children seen on the right holding an adult's hands are
at risk for being taken away for being too fat

In the UK we're seeing this suggestion put into practice. According to the Daily Mail three children have already been taken away and placed in foster care for being too fat. They were later reunited with their parents but had every single thing they ate monitored and even had a check in sheet for bed time. The parents were forced to move into an apartment run by a state program and were only allowed to live with 3 of their 6 children at a time. They were told to enroll their kids in dance and football and now that their kids have failed to slim down they're at risk for being taken away again, permanently, and without visitation. The oldest boy, who's 12, weighs about 224lbs, the 11 year old girl about 150 lbs, and the three year old weight around 55lbs (it doesn't mention heights, but the youngest looks fairly tall for a 3 year old).

Yes, all of these kids are on the larger side, like their parents. That would make sense considering obesity is primarily genetic, but they're also all within the range of normal and they're not done growing. Can you imagine the strain of having a social worker watch your every move? The mother even came under fire for letting her 7 year old fall asleep and stay at her father's because she didn't want to disturb her. What the system is doing to this family is far more abusive than any "over nourishment" that may be happening.

The mother said "The pressure of living in the family unit would have broken anyone. We were being treated like children and cut off from the outside world. To have a social worker stand and watch you eat is intolerable"


These children have been emotionally and psychologically tortured by a system that is supposed to be acting in their best interest but, instead, act with feat, judgement, and bigotry. Any chance they may have had at health or happiness may very well have just gone out the window. What this family has been put through is inexcusable and they're not the only ones. The UK social services department will be looking at more cases of failure to produce thin children and what has happened to these poor parents and children may very well happen to many more UK citizens. 


And there is, as always, the issue that no one is looking at what is being fed to thin kids, regardless of whether it is damaging their health. I can't even express the sadness and anger and frustration that this story has brought me. I have a feeling that the worst fat hate and bigotry and discrimination is still ahead of us. I hope that feeling is wrong. No one, no one, here cares about our health or well being and they sure as hell don't care about the facts or the science. Anti fat policies like this are based solely in fat hatred and ignorance. We need to figure out a way to fight this. 


*thanks to Neil for sending me this story

When is okay to laugh at the disabled?

Answer: NEVER

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I read an article about how the hit TV show, Tosh.0, may inadvertently be helping the lgbt community lessen homophobia. Tosh.0 is a modern day version of America's Funniest Home Videos except that the videos are youtube videos. Seeing as my browser rarely lets me watch videos inside of blogs I went directly to youtube to watch the video of Daniel Tosh and his coworkers popping viagra and watching hardcore gay porn which, unfortunately, alerted me to this video:

transcript:
Tosh: When is it okay to laugh at the disabled?
video of two fat women in electric wheelchairs going down the road with one wheelchair hooked to the first. [laughter]
Tosh: now, now, now!
video replays
Tosh: if train A leaves walmart going 1 mile an hour... good thing she swung for the tow package on that rascal. And I see mom's wearing her going out tarp [laughter]. Shame on you for laughing. I don't find these jokes funny. Whenever I see someone in a wheelchair I always offer them a ride
video clip of a truck towing a long series of wheelchairs behind it with the last wheelchair turned over and being dragged with no one inside.
Tosh: 98% of them made it to their destination safely

So when is okay to make fun of the disabled? Well when they're fat of course!  Because then you know it's their own fault- unlike that football player who became completely paralyzed during a game.. no, he didn't put himself in that situation at all. Being a football player is genetic and being fat is a choice you know. At 0:17 you can see the second woman flip off the camera guy- good for her! And I sincerely hope with every bit of my being that she went home, got on a fat acceptance support group and was able to get pissed off with lots of people supporting her. Not only was she recorded by some random asshole in a car just for having the audacity to appear in public while fat but the video went viral and ended up on a national TV show.

I can't even begin to articulate why this is so disgusting. Not only do they have no idea why these women are fat or why they are disabled, but even if they did, it doesn't give them the right to emotionally and psychologically abuse these women. And I hope it truly hits home how severe the word "abuse" is because I mean it in it's most serious form. These men are using sizism, sexism, classism, and ableism to oppress and grievously injure complete strangers who have does nothing to them except  dare to appear in their line of vision.

Bigotry 101: if your sentence starts with "when is okay to laugh at" followed by an oppressed group then you should probably stop right there.

Diet book for 4 year olds- because 8 year old is just too old to start hating your body

Maggie goes on a diet. Everyone else is adding their two cents so I figured I'd chime in as well. As everyone probably knows already, this is a children's book targeted to children ages 4-8 (according to amazon) or 6-12 (according to Barnes and Noble). The age range listed on amazon is slightly more disturbing, but children 4-12 shouldn't be reading this book either. In fact no one should be reading books about dieting and body shaming, but kids are particularly vulnerable. Everyone trying to defend the book is going on about how no one's even read it (it's not available until October). All I have to say is- can we get real here? Can anyone really claim that something like this is okay? Or parrot the 'ole "don't judge a book by it's cover" line? We have the cover as well as a description and that's more than enough, thank you very much. Let me tell you a little something about eating disorders- and be prepared, I won't be nice and I won't be my usual eloquent self. I will curse and I will get mad.

To the people defending this book or defending diets and weight loss programs for children- are you fucking kidding me? Do you even have an inkling of the horrors that people who struggle with disordered eating and eating disorders face? Do you have any idea what it's like to live in a fat body at 14 years old (the age of the girl in the story)? It would be one thing if this book was about exercising and eating right and being healthy- it's not. It's about a fattie getting thin and solving all of her life problems. Bullshit. Not only can she be a soccer star while also being a big fat fattie, but she can be happy and healthy and wear a pink dress in her size.

I also have a problem with the photo- that's not a size 14. Images like this severely distort how we think about body sizes. Or, as my husband calls it, social body dysmorphia. This is a size 14. The girl in the picture looks closer to a size 26 or so. I know sizes look a bit different on teens, but come on. This is me at a size 16 at age 16 (only two years older than Maggie here. Yes, it's a picture of a picture. So sue me.) There's nothing wrong with being a size 26 but there is something wrong with distorting what we imagin when we think of sizes because it helps push those ideals lower. It simply highlights the sensationalist nature of this book.

What, you think this won't contribute to the same diet culture that creates and perpetuates those eating disorders to begin with? It's true that no one thing suddenly causes an eating disorder or self esteem problems. It's not just this book that's the problem. The problem is that our entire culture supports the ideas in this book. It's not about this one book, it's about the fact that kids already have enough body hate thrown at them, they don't need mommy and daddy reading them books about hating their bodies when they go to bed at night.

Let me regurgitate some facts for you (yes, I used that word on purpose):

• half of little girls 3-to-6 think they're fat 
• eating disorders (specifically anorexia and bulimia) in kids under the age of 12 rose 119% over the past 9 years
• Eating disorders on the whole rose 15%.
• A majority of 5-year-olds would rather lose an arm than be fat (did you read that? I fucking said FIVE YEAR OLDS)
• More than 60% of teenage girls skip breakfast at least once a week and nearly 20% skip it every day.
• An estimated 1 in 3 of all dieters develop compulsive dieting attitudes and behaviors. Of these, one quarter will develop full or partial eating disorders.
• In a study of children aged 8-10, approximately 50 per cent of girls said they were unhappy with their size.
• In a study of girls aged 9-15, more than 50 per cent claimed they exercised to lose weight, nearly 50 per cent claimed they reduced food intake in order to lose weight, and approximately 5 per cent claimed to use their parents' diet pills or laxatives in order to lose weight.
• One out of three women and one out of four men are on a diet at any given time.
• In 1970 the average age a girl started dieting was fourteen; by 1990 the average age dropped to eight. (This book apparently thinks that's too old since it's targeted at 4-12 year olds).
• 51% of nine and ten year old girls stated they felt better about themselves when they were adhering to a diet.
• Frequent dieting is highly correlated with depression
• 79% of teenage girls who vomit and 73% of teenage girls who use diet pills are frequent readers of women’s health and fitness magazines.
• 81% of ten year old girls are afraid of being fat.
• 42% of girls in first through third grades state they want to be thinner.
• 30% of women chose an ideal body shape that is 20% underweight and an additional 44% chose an ideal body shape that is 10% underweight.
• Kids as young as four are being hospitalized for eating disorders (four- keeping in mind this book targets kids as young as four according to the amazon website)

I could go on, but I don't think I need to. 

Fattie Stigma

As you  may have already heard from your favorite fat bloggers, today kicks off the Weight Stigma Blog Carnival in order to raise awareness for National Weight Stigma Awareness Week which takes place September 26th-30th, created by the Binge Eating Disorder Association. The Blog Carnival is being done by Voices In Recovery Anyone can participate in the Blog Carnival so jump in and join me if you have a blog! So this is blog 1 of 3 from now until September for this particular event.

Today's topic: What does weight stigma mean to you?

Let's see if I can properly gather my thoughts on this. Apologies in advance for any rambly-ness as this wasn't a planned post.

To me, weight stigma is a form of systematic oppression. There are a lot of components that include fatphobia, sexism,ableism, and homophobia. Fist I'll point out that the majority of body shaming and weight stigma is perpetrated against women. Reducing women to their bodies, to how sexually appealing they are, is simply another means of controlling them. In our society a woman's body is pretty much free for public commentary.  Our bodies are constantly a source of debate. Weight stigma is used to judge our sexual worth, our value as "real" women, our to ability birth children, and even our fitness as parents. Women have a narrow range of body shape or size which is socially acceptable and there are very few places where we don't see weight centered issues specifically targeted at women. I'm sure you've noticed that the vast majority of diet ads, for example, target women.

That's not to say that men aren't also effected by weight stigma. When male bodies break gender norms by being either too big or too small, then you suddenly get a heavy dose of homophobia thrown in when these men aren't seen as "real" men.

So what does weight stigma mean to me? It means discrimination and oppression and control and ruining a lot of peoples' lives. It's control on so many levels because it encompasses so many topics and groups of people. The diet industry brings in (come on, we've heard it enough- we can all say it together!) 60 billions dollars a year. If that doesn't shout control I don't know what does. People are so desperate to conform to the right body type, and the right size that they'll do almost anything, listen to almost anything, believe almost anything just to reach that goal. The best way to control someone is to break them and weight stigma has done a great job of that.Weight stigma is violence against women (among other groups, but primarily women) and is part of a larger culture of misogyny.

Of course, that's not all that weight stigma is, but it's an important part and my brain just sort of took it and ran with it. So what does weight stigma mean to you?

Don't They Know How Unhealthy It Is?

That's right, I'm talking about tall people! According to a recent study, tall women (women over 5'9") were almost 40% more likely to develop ten different cancers! And your risk of cancer increases by 16% with every four centimeters of height! It's time to talk about this tallness epidemic and it's consequences. According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer care accounted for an estimated $104.1 billion in medical care expenditures in the United States in 2006. So why are we getting taller? Height has been increasing consistently in industrialized nations for the past 150 years and scientific resources all agree that nutrition plays a big part in that. In other words, people are eating themselves to a cancerous death! Tallness is a huge burden on the health care system and people who are overly tall are just plain immoral for putting their friends and family through the emotional turmoil of their possible early deaths.

While it's true that there's a genetic component to height, nutrition is an important factor. It's clear that we have to do something about this. Children and adolescents specifically who are at an increased risk for tallness should be put on nutrient deficient diets in order to try and hinder dangerous vertical growth. (Won't somebody please think of the children?!) Some people may claim that they can't help their height or even that their are illnesses that cause tallness such as pituitary problems but it's just a cover up for their gluttony. They're simply in denial that they have control over their height.

I'm anticipating the creation of a whole new industry to help these people who don't seem to have the willpower to help themselves (and really, tall people are just gross to look at). From pills that help you get shorter to diets that help you from getting tall to begin with. The diet industry makes 60 billion a year- think of all those jobs! It's simply unAmerican not to create an industry around making tall people shorter or keeping short people short... for their own good of course. I'm really super concerned about their health and the well being of their families. Do you know how expensive cancer treatment is? Tallness is simply irresponsible, despite what people in the "height acceptance" movement claim. Heightism is completely BS- there's nothing wrong with discriminating based on height- they're doing it to themselves anyway!

Stay tuned for my next post on lefthandedness! Studies show that being left handed can take up to a decade off of your life! Those disgusting lefties!

Celebrating the Female Form- How Not to Do It

I was browsing casting calls this past weekend when I came across a call for bodyscaping. Bodyscaping, if you're not familiar is photography done of parts of bodies. Accentuating curves and lines like you might a landscape. The rise and fall of the breasts, the curve of the back, the lines of arms and legs or jawlines. It seems to me that most people simply don't know how to bodyscape a fat person. When I look at fat people, especially nude photos as from adipositivity, I can see the beautiful lines and curves and think of how amazing it would be to capture this or that just so. Dramatic lighting, shadows falling off into light across dips and peaks. There's just so much on a fat person's body to bodyscape. So much interest as the body changes with every move or shift of position.

Okay, that was a small side rant. What I really wanted to talk about was the casting call and the requirements for it. As usual the artist wrote a couple of paragraphs about what he wanted. He wanted to celebrate the female form, capture it's beauty. Only toned, curvy women may apply.  Let me make it clear, you cannot celebrate the female form by selecting a single body type and only celebrating it. To do so is to reduce womanhood and femininity and the female form to strict limitations and guidelines. To say "celebrate the female form! As long as that form is toned, yet curvy". To celebrate the female form, and I'm using the term loosely here since most projects like this are more or less one more attempt to sexualize the female body, not celebrate it, you need diversity. You need women of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Because that is the female form. It's not one body type, it's all body types. Celebrating bodies should include all bodies.

The issue of sexualization is an important one in a lot of nude art. While many artists are careful to make a distinction between pornographic photographs and those which are considered artistic, the goal tends to stay along the lines of creating  a sensual photograph, and how on earth could you possibly create a sensual photograph of a fat person? Even considering non sensual nude art the goal is beauty and/or emotion. Again, how could you possibly create a beautiful photograph of a fat person? How could you elicit any emotions other than disgust? 

Thankfully artists like this aren't the only ones that exist. I've certainly encountered photographers who were interested in photographing a fat body simply because it's different. Because eventually when you have models with only one body type they all begin to look the same. And that's good. That's progress. To have people recognize that other bodies exist, that they can be shown, and that they can look beautiful and artistic and interesting. But look, artists, can we not hide behind some bullshit faux feminist "celebration of the female form" copout? That's not what you're doing, you're celebrating the hetero male expectation of the female form.

"my body is not a symbol of oppression"

Marianne Kirby reblogged a piece of art on tumblr today which showed a fat white man squishing a very thin black man in a circle- yin and yang in disturbing imbalance. The message of the western white world's overindulgence and greed and it's effects on the poor and starving were obvious, but the fact that we all know what fat and thin symbolize, especially in political cartoons, doesn't make it less offensive. Being well known doesn't make it right. This was Marianne's response to the art piece (Marianne in bold):

It’s also the conflation of fatness with overconsumption - which makes me wince even as I WANT to support the message it’s trying to send. As a fat person, I get nervous when fat people are used to illustrate the oppressions perpetrated by *fill in the blank* Western culture. My body is not a symbol of oppression.

(reply to Marianne:) overindulgence and greed have been associated with fat dating all the way back to ancient greece. i’m not saying i agree, i’m just saying this artist is illustrating his point with means in which a general audience can and have been able to understand for a very very long time. also, i think this painting is extremely evocative.

OF COURSE it’s evocative (I didn’t say it wasn’t, nor did I imply that the audience wouldn’t get it) - but it’s evocative in a way that does active harm to how fat people are viewed and treated. I’m not going to use offensive stereotypes of other oppressed groups to raise up fat activism - I’d appreciate it if my body weren’t villianized in return. Again, my body is not a symbol of oppression - nor is it a symbol of overindulgence and/or greed.

I am with her 100% on this.

As Marianne points out- this is a message that I want to believe in. The fact is that we do revel in our greed and our excess while almost literally stepping on the poor to get what we want. This doesn't just apply to starving people overseas but even the classism that goes on in our very own country. The bottom classes are used and abused so the wealthy can get where they are and then have to endure accusations that they're the lazy ones and that they are worth less as human beings. It's a good message. But, as Marianne also points out, it's a message that piggybacks on the oppression of others. It spreads it's message by contributing to a culture of fat hate. 

This piece of art uses every stereotype of the fat person available- they're greedy, gluttonous (as the fat man sits with a piece of pizza balanced on  his chest, crumbs trailing across him), and, apparently, the cause of world hunger. It's not the first time I've heard that accusation, by the way. When I asked some people on reddit.com what they thought of fat people more than one said that they thought of how many people and families could be fed with what the fat person ate. Cause that's what we do you know.. we eat. A lot. Apparently enough for several families.. and thin people eat only enough to survive. According to Marilyn Wann in Fat!So? "One group of researchers tracked six thousand people, but could find no correlation between what they weighed and how much they ate" and a recent study from our neighbors to the north found that fat kids ate less than thin kids. Yes, a starving person will eventually get very very thin.. but the solution isn't to blame and mock people just because they're not starving. 

Fat people have been blamed for everything from world hunger to global warming to disease. I've seen perfectly reputable environmental sites say that fat people were behind climate change because we drive to eat fast food so often, use more resources, waste more, etc. We are causing the end of the world! Sounds a bit over dramatic and sensationalist doesn't it? I know that it's symbolism and it's just to make a point.. but it's making a point with my body. And it's not a cautionary tale or a warning or a symbol or a metaphor for society's woes. Fat people have to actually live in their bodies. We have to work and cook and clean and have sex and raise children and socialize in the bodies we have. You don't live in them, you can't judge them. Not your body, not your right. 

Statements like the one made in this art piece are relying on judgmental stereotypes to make sure everyone knows what the point is- without the fatphobia and sizism that exists in our culture, no one would get the message- it specifically relies on bigotry to portray it's point. There is just something inherently wrong with that. Worse, it contributes to that bigotry. Making a statement by oppressing and abusing another group of people is probably not the best way to go about it. 

(*If you don't follow Marianne on tumblr do so! It's awesome!)

Big Ass Heart (Glee spoilers)

I was planning on posting a different blog today- my interview with nutritional anthropologist Leah Baskett. I was really looking forward to posting that but, damnit, I caught the latest episode of Glee last night on my DVR and I had to postpone my interview post before it was too late to talk about this.

So Sue sabotages glee and they have to find new songs to sing at regionals and decide to write original music. Everyone gets a shot at it. We all remember Puck's first serenade to Lauren- the new fat addition to the glee team and Puck's love interest, Fat Bottomed Girls. At the end of the song Lauren tells Puck that it was an offensive song and made her feel like crap.

Compared to the song he came up with on his own... it was nothing.

For some reason Lauren loves the new song Puck sings for her.. somehow not finding it offensive at all. It's called Big Ass Heart and the lyrics are as follows:

My girl went to the doctor cause her heart had palpitations
He said cut the carbs, or else she'd end up pushing up carnations
She stepped up on the scale and the doctor said, "Oh Lordy"
If you don't drop a few, girl, you won't make it past age forty

My girl said, "Hey lookie, on my fancy x-ray chart"
Said the doctor, "Holy hell that's one G.D. big ass heart"

I'm telling you my friend, my girl's got a big ass heart
When she shops for groceries that heart gets its own damn cart
That big ass heart can pump two tons of love through her chest
And then sit down and win a lovin' pie-eating contest

I love that big ass heart so much I think it isn't fair
Like how your heart won't pay me back for breaking all my chairs
So sick with love I think I'm coming down with rickets
When that big ass heart flies coach it has to pay for two plane tickets

Oh, that big ass heart
Oh, that big ass heart


While we can assume it's supposed to be non offensive because it's supposedly talking about her personality and not her body, it's clear that the song takes real life discrimination and comically relates it to her personality. Either Puckerman's character really doesn't get it, or the writers don't. Think of any other group of discriminated against people and think of some kind of analogy between their personalties and the discrimination they face- it wouldn't fly. Not with anyone. Breaking chairs, paying for two plane tickets, winning a pie eating contest... dying if she doesn't "cut the carbs"? This simply won't do. Some fat people actually do face discrimination and calls of deathfattie at their doctor's (even if they're in otherwise great health), some fat people do break an occasionally chair (or at least are afraid of it happening- I know I am), quite a few fat people are forced to pay twice as much for the same service- such as buying two plane tickets. And these aren't props for a love song or comic relief. They represent real pain, real discrimination, and real bigotry. 


Glee, if you were trying to win over your fat audience, you failed miserably. Half of us didn't even mind Fat Bottomed Girls, but this? The alternative? It is offensive, it's beyond unacceptable. You reach so many people and have such a great opportunity to include messages of loving yourself and how to deal with serious issues and to speak out against discrimination.. and you've done a wonderful job with that on the topic of homosexuality... but you're failing at this. You deserve some credit for making Lauren confident in her body, for standing up against Fat Bottomed Girls, and for including a love story where a popular badboy is into the fat girl, but you've got to step up here. Dare I say, be a musical Degrassi. Then maybe I'll just be able to love you... instead of hating loving you.  Do you wonder why you are getting so many critics even though you're a young show and other shows don't get this kind of flack? It's because of how popular you are.. the sheer number of people you're reaching with your messages. Please... do it right. We don't need more bigotry instilled in young minds.