On being an advocate, yeah, YOU!

Thank you all for the feedback you gave me about Regina Benjamin.  Thank you, AJC, for your very kind, and as always, terrifically eloquent post about size acceptance as a feminist issue.  AJC blogs about a range of feminist issues, grounding her posts in her outstanding, nuanced knowledge of history.   I should also mention that AJC is extraordinarily fly.  You can and should read her blog here: http://reachingbacklookingforward.blogspot.com/.

I wanted to make a quick note: the strong voices we need to hear in order to create a better dialogue about size in this country do not end with absurdly impressive Surgeon Generals.  We cannot wait until our role models start to talk about health at every size, about fat people’s right to exist, about losing weight as a constant goal/ideal/struggle, about that vulnerable, girls and teenagers are hearing our society’s messages about weight and learning to hate themselves at a young age.

Because as soon as size acceptance resonates with you, you have a responsibility to become aware of the ways that it affects you, which impacts your own sizeist comments and thinking.  

It takes time to undo years of internalizing a fat-hating culture.  It takes time to counter that little voice inside of you, that says, “My country is filled with a disproportionate amount of obese people, and all these Americans are idle and lazy and affecting our country’s image.  I’m not obese; I am the opposite of idle and lazy.”

With this blog, I’d like to help you undo some of that thinking.  And to remind you: sizeism is the projection about the feelings about your body on to the bodies of others.  Get off the defensive.  If we want to start feeling better about ourselves, we need to start advocating for others.

One more little gem from a wise, old, dead Jewish man:

"You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it." -Pirkei Avot 2:21. 

Legitimate Voices in Fat Acceptance: Regina Benjamin

Even for those of us who believe in the system, political discourse about fat is pretty disappointing.  I mean, there is almost no discourse.  Fat acceptance is not a mainstream issue, even in the progressive world.  We only really hear about "the obesity epidemic".

I'm not sure what fat acceptance legislation would look like.  Cracking down on weight-related discrimination in the workplace?  Regulating the diet industry?  (Weight is not a protected class.  I did not realize that.)

These are serious problems, although I know government spending has other priorities right now.  Fat acceptance does not necessarily ask for laws to change, but it asks people to change their very firmly-held world views.  And in order to ask people, largely women, of all shapes and sizes, to reexamine their societally-imposed self-hatred and constant feeling of competition with one another, we're going to need public figures with strong voices, a lot of influence, and a respectable knowledge base to add their voices to the cause.

Look, I may be an ally, and I may be Phat as hell, but my influence is quite limited.  (A brief shout-out to my 5 followers, you guys are the best.)  My knowledge is limited by my own non-fat/non-professional experience and my reading.

So there's some one I want you to meet.

Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, the 18th Surgeon General of the United States.
Google her.  I mean, you don't have to.

First, let's take a look at her undeniable credentials.  First of all, she is our first Surgeon General appointed from a private practice (non-military appointee).  What did she do at her private practice?  She campaigned for health access for the poor in Alabama, her home state, and is a strong, ongoing advocate for women's reproductive rights, encouraging all medical schools to encourage abortion training.  Her awards include a Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, the honor of being the first person under 40 (and first black woman) to be appointed to the board of the AMA, and, oh, a MacArthur Genius Grant. 

(For a great post on this, check out Unapologetically Fat.)

Of course, many major mainstream news outlets did not lose a chance to celebrate this historic nomination.  Oh, who am I kidding: I mean the very important news story that a fat woman had been nominated for Surgeon  General. 

There's this gem from ABC: Critics Slam Overweight Surgeon General Pick, Regina Benjamin. 

Bloggers on Salon.com speculated that Benjamin is 40 pounds overweight, perhaps a size 18. The nominee didn't return calls from ABCNews.com, so there is no information about how much she weighs or her eating and exercise habits.

Well, isn't that surprising.  And the always-classy Michael Karolchyk, featured on Fox News:

Would you want Michael Jackson's doctors to be in charge of drug control at the DEA? The bottom line is it's a symbolic position and obesity is the number one issue facing our country in terms of the health and wellness and she has shown not that she was born this way, not that she woke up one day and was obese, she has show through being lazy, and making poor food choices, that she's obese.

And of course, a bunch of stupid concern-troll stuff all over the Internet.  This one is from Washington Post Voices:

Some even say that her weight may help her better understand other people's struggles to maintain a healthy body size and in turn may help the general public relate to her better. Think Oprah.

To me, this epitomizes our society's obsession with obesity as *the* most important health concern of our generation, and the obesity narrative as one of loss of control and willpower.  

But may they be right?  Just listen to her radical ideas on health, hatched from her evil plot to keep America obese.

A quick reminder that fat people are actually human beings with feelings and stuff

Wouldn't you know it, that like a lot of feminist discourse, this is a case of Just Don't be An Asshole 101.

Re-posted from Stacy Bias, a fat activist and inspiring writer.  Be sure to check her out.

15 minutes ago. I’m walking down the street. I’m in a fairly good mood. A woman is on the sidewalk in front of me and next to her is a parked ambulance with the driver’s side window rolled down. As she walks past, she says “Hey, so am I eating too much?” She presses one hand to the curve of her back, the other to her belly and turns sideways; the typical “before” pose. She’s laughing, enjoying the joke of asking for free advice from a professional. I brace myself, because I’m about to pass them, and I know it’s coming. The ambulance driver says “No, no. You’re fine.” and then he spots me. I can tell because he goes silent for just a beat or two. I get a few steps ahead, enough to give him confidence that I can’t hear. He says “There, there. Look at her. See? You’re fine. I’ll be seeing her soon, though.” They laugh knowingly. Even expecting it, I’m shocked to hear it. It’s grim. Some part of me, the old part I haven’t healed yet, believes him. The other part wants to swing around and force my humanity on him. Make him see me. Spit in his face. But I keep walking. I don’t even miss a step. I never do.

This powerfully-written personal anecdote gives the humanity to a situation that I have definitely witnessed enough times that I am numb to it by now.  Thanks for sharing your story, Stacy.

Feeding your mind, part 1

Sometimes, having such a specialized blog makes me feel so insignificant, not very well rounded. Who wants to think about size acceptance all the time? Or any one thing for that matter? If you read this post, you’ll know that I clearly don’t. There are books, poetry, news, friendship, laughter, love . . . I’m going crazy. I’m just a tiny speck in the universe, you know?

SO I INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING TO LEARN SOMETHING MIND-BLOWING ABOUT THE UNIVERSE.

Buckle your seatbelts, readers.

On July 4th, scientists at CERN (remember CERN? From that timeless classic, Angels and Demons? or maybe from your own highly rigorous research) found, with sigma-5 level certainty (which is tantamount to discovery) the Higgs boson particle. 

(that’s nice what’s that) 

 If you want to hear it first from a concise, compassionate expert, I highly recommend this article, by Ainissa Ramirez.

Physics operates on a theory, known as the Standard Model of particle physics, to explain how particles interact. According to Lawrence M. Krauss, writing for CNN, “The model provides an eloquent description of almost all of nature as we have observed in experiments in a few equations that can fit on a T-shirt” [Article, cnn.com, posted 7/6/12].


Credit: http://www.physi.uni-heidelberg.de/~bachmann/Lehre/F13.php

But scientists had not yet found the Higgs boson, a subatomic elementary particle that is the basis for this theory. Peter Higgs proposed the theory for this particle in 1964 to explain why some particles have mass and others don’t. To explain how the universe went from nothing to something. 48 YEARS AGO. And modern physicists have been on a quest to find this particle or else devise a new explanation to revise our understanding of the universe. WHAT.

 Video: CNN Scientists confirm 'God Particle' exists


Thank you for tuning into this first installment of Feeding your mind. I hope your mind is as blown as mine!!

People-watching, Maine edition

I visited Maine this weekend.  I love that state! I’d like to share some interesting Maine facts with you:

1. It is the only state whose name has one syllable.

2. According to a highly unscientific-looking site, the most money you can legally win in Maine is $3.

3. The state nickname is the “Vacation State”.

Credit: visitmaine.net 

It’s fitting.  There are many remote towns boasting Maine’s particular brand of grave, Northeastern, secluded beauty, and they have names like Naples and Norway, even Mexico.

My destination: Sweden, ME.  Population: 372.  Not including the temporary, tiny residents that attend the music camp there each year.

Credit: richardoconnor.wordpress.com

My old stomping grounds.

Let me tell you, people there don’t look like they do here in Somerville, MA.  I particularly love the look of the women from these rural areas: sturdy and masculine.  I hung out by a lake today, next to a fat aging woman in a very colorful bathing suit, wearing a star-spangled cap and smoking a cigarillo.

I wondered briefly what people from these areas think about their physique and self-image.  What type of body is idealized?  I never see people close to my age when I’m there, mostly middle-aged people that look accustomed to a life of difficult physical labor.  Or people that don’t spend their energy fighting the natural processes of aging and slowing metabolism.

The skinny hipster physique that seems to thrive in Boston would appear sickly here.  I know there are many different factors at play here, most notably (to me) the generation gap.  Not to mention geographic region, income level, type of work, access to mainstream media?  Can any one think of anything else?  

volup2 digs chicks!

Hi readers,
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First of all, it was pretty sweet how much traffic I got on this blog after I linked it to facebook.  whoo!  If you were to follow this blog, I would be very grateful.


Second of all, I found this interesting link, maybe through adipositivity?, of Volup2.  In this issue at least, it published a series of photo shoots of several different women, some who fit the traditional standard of beauty and some who didn't, but all of whom were celebrating their femininity.


I have to say, I enjoyed looking through it.  It normalized "non-normal" people and "normal" people in the same issue, side by side, all looking sexy and confident.  Here's the link.


I've included a preview below.  The following are all credited to www.volup2.com.

now let's RTFO

And now, an interlude from the deliciously weird and overall fantastic Beth Ditto, of Gossip.  Also, she speaks German?  Without breaking a sweat??

Small talk/ fat talk

Do we feel alone in hating our bodies?  Wouldn’t you think it’s the opposite?