You only live once, right? To hell with it!
And this is actually really liberating.
(via fuckyeahfatpositive)
A new Reuters/Ipsos online poll of 1,143 adults from May 7 to 10 captures some of the prejudicial attitudes. Asked to identify the main cause of the epidemic, 61 percent chose “personal choices about eating and exercising”; 19 percent chose the actions of food manufacturers and the fast-food industry. The poll is accurate to within 3.6 percentage points. Because of the methods used to collect the data, accuracy is measured using a statistical measure called a credibility interval.
Reflecting the belief that the obese have only themselves to blame, 49 percent of respondents favored allowing insurers to charge obese people more for health insurance.
Poll respondents also showed broad support for efforts that target the food industry: 56 percent wanted to limit advertising of unhealthy food or taxing sugared soda, 77 percent were in favor of calorie counts at restaurants and sport arenas. But an all-out ban on fast-food restaurants? America loves its Big Macs: Only 21 percent said yes.
READ MORE: America’s hatred of fat hurts obesity fight
(via npr)
So I decided to do a search for my name here on ye old Tumblrs, because I am that bored, and sometimes that vain. One of the things it pulled up was a person’s post about an article I wrote two years ago for Clutch Magazine. The article was about dating as a fat, black chick and apparently in it I had said some things that made this person feel like I was saying to fat women “if you just work on your confidence and take care of your appearance, you’ll be ok”. Said person expressed that they had at first accepted that advice wholesale because I was an “uber confident fat activist” and all “uber confident fat activists” and “fashionistas” were giving this kind of advice so since we were so confident we must know what we were talking about (okay, i’m really paraphrasing here, but yeah). But the person later realized that you could “take care” of your appearance and still not get a date and still feel like shit and that kind of advice was blaming fat people for their own situation, which they rightfully felt was bullshit.
I look back on that article and I have to say, you could definitely interpret some of the things I said in that way. To be honest, in order to write for Clutch (which was a paying gig), I couldn’t be super revolutionary about what I was saying, because at the time many of their readers were not even to the point where they felt fat people were worthy of respect at all (as evidenced by some of the comments on the article). That was a decision I made that I have to own, because I wanted to get paid. A lot of the time as a writer if you want to get paid, you have to fit a mold and write for the publication’s target audience, and I willingly did that. At the time I felt like I was still acknowledging that beauty standards for fat, black women were fucked up. It definitely wasn’t my intention to make other fat people feel bad because they weren’t confident enough, but as I say about white people all the time, intentions ain’t shit. In the 2 years that have gone by since I wrote that, and since I’ve written many other things about confidence, I have observed and felt things that were contrary to the ideas I’ve previously expressed. So, I have changed my tune somewhat, especially of late, and I would like to say something about this since I just came across this person’s post.
I recently wrote this blog entry, which addresses my experience with and observation of “meta low self-esteem”, basically feeling bad about feeling bad. But I didn’t really talk about the externals of it, namely feeling like you have to look a certain way to be deemed a “hot fat person”, or to be viewed as loving yourself or feeling confident. From my observations, particularly on Tumblr, there is definitely a certain aesthetic that gets most of the attention. I mean, many people have already pointed that out. I kind of feel that while we can say that you should love yourself as a fat person even if your appearance outside of being fat would not be deemed “conventionally attractive”, saying that and then BEING “conventionally attractive” outside of being fat probably doesn’t make some people feel that great, because it’s easier to take that position when you have the backup of being validated as “hot”. I don’t necessarily put myself in the category of “conventionally attractive”, but for sake of argument and accountability, I will here. I have written in the past (post Clutch article) about the problems with not challenging beauty as a viable concept and trying to shoehorn fat women into the “beautiful” category. I know other people have written about the problems with “beauty” too, in more detail and probably more eloquently. By sharing images of ourselves “fatting it up”, we intend to challenge the dominant beauty paradigm, but we often end up reinforcing it, just in different ways.
There is often a lot of vitriol directed at “self-hating fats” and I think it is important to remember that we have pretty much all been there, and the way to get someone out of that place is not to bombard them with images of conventionally attractive fat people and then berate them for not feeling “hot”, or isolate them.
Being at a point in my life where I would consider being “uber confident” as pretty low on my list of characteristics, it was eye-opening to read that I was once (and could still be) part of the problem of making other fat people with already low self-esteem feel like shit because they don’t feel sexy or beautiful. I want to be part of the solution of moving fat acceptance away from just proving that fat can be sexy and beautiful and towards affirming that fat people deserve respect and love regardless of appearance, health, or level of confidence.
I absolutely love you all and have no problem with you identifying as fat (as you are fat and it’s hella awesome) but please, for the love of all that is holy, stop acting as if your size 12/14/16 body has the same mental, physical, spatial, and societal issues as my size 32 does. You don’t understand. And it’s fine that you don’t understand! It doesn’t make you a bad person! As long as you treat me with respect and dignity and get that this world is fucked up in varying ways, I still think you’re awesome!
You not being able to understand or feel what it’s like to live in a 300/400/500 pound body doesn’t reflect on you as a person. But you not taking into consideration that someone in a 300/400/500 pound body has different issues and difficulties than you…well that kinda does make you a bad person. Because you’re not stepping outside of yourself long enough to examine how different degrees of otherness exist and work.
We’re all fighting our own battles. And while our battles are both on the field of Living as Fat…you have more ammunition than I do. In this society, in this world, you have advantages that I don’t. Your degree of fatness is more accepted by society than mine is. And, again, I stress that it doesn’t make you a bad person or a fatphobic person or a bad fatty. It just means you have privileges that I don’t.
You’re more likely to receive a job and make more money. You’re more likely to be treated well by doctors. You’re more likely to fit into desks and be able to squeeze through tight spaces. It’s easier for you to find clothes that you can fit into, like, and afford. You’re more likely to be able to adopt children and less likely to have your food choices watched and judged. You’re less likely to be insulted, mocked, harassed, or attacked. Hell, you’re even more likely to be taken seriously when you talk about fat/body acceptance!
I love you. And the privileges you have are based on nothing that you’ve done or gained intentionally. It’s just the way the cards were dealt. Again, your privilege doesn’t make you a bad person. But if you read these words and your response is to tell me how NONONOIHAVEITBADTOOLETMETELLYOUHOW… Well. Then you might consider rereading this and thinking about what you need to do differently in order to further the cause of acceptance and the ending of oppression.
Your privilege doesn’t make you a bad person. Refusing to acknowledge it does.
ETA: I’m sorry but I have to add this.
A 200 pound person is treated differently than a 500 pound person. It honestly never occurred to me that that would be argued. If a 300 pound weight difference didn’t impact how someone was treated? Fatphobia wouldn’t even exist, now would it?
The way society treats and judges and shits on 200 pound people is bullshit. If you’re towards the smaller side of fat, your struggles are real and they suck and they need to stop! And I will yell and scream for your right to own and control your body and to be treated with dignity and respect with my dying breath. But our struggles in this world are different. And acknowledging that doesn’t diminish your pain or your feelings. It just fucking validates mine.
“The people who get angriest about fat girls looking good and feeling hot are the people who are the most strongly invested in the idea that a person has to be skinny in order to be happy, healthy, and loved.” — Lesley Kinzel, CNN.com (via cy-v)
(via riotsnotdiets)
Stearns is quite specific in timing the change, however, pointing to the years between 1890 and 1910. In these 20 years, he writes:
…middle-class America began its ongoing battle aginst body fat. Never previously an item of systemic public concern, dieting or guilt about not dieting became an increasing staple of private life, along with a surprisingly strong current of disgust directed against people labeled obese.
(via Exotic Dancers in 1890 and the Plump Body Ideal » Sociological Images)
It’s important to me to reclaim the word “fat.” It’s not a bad word. It’s not intrinsically insulting. All it tells you is that this person has more visible fat on her frame than a thin person does — and since in my case, that’s the plain truth, I don’t have any problem with being described that way. I have a problem with people who would describe me that way with the intention to wound, but not with the word itself. I’m short, I’m blond, I’m pale, I’m hourglass-shaped, I’m fat. Some of those characteristics are more desirable in this society than others, but all any of those words tell you is what I look like. Not what I eat, not how much I exercise, not whether I’m healthy, not how strong my moral fiber is — hell, not even what my natural hair color is.
Kate Harding - Why i still use the term Fat Acceptance
Via - Deeply Problematic “Why i use that word that i use : Fat.”
“But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom –Beyonce brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.” —
Tina Fey, Bossypants (via myylifeasalex)
It’s a full-time job to keep up with what is deemed “hot” or “beautiful”
Thought my last anon might enjoy this.
(via mariabbw)
Me, Sasha, @ The Known UNKnown show here in Toronto!
Canadian, Toronto native. Size 16-18
Simple this time around, hope you love it!
www.flawscouture.com —->outfit details. xoxo