Author Archives: fatchicksings

Radical Self Care

I am so excited to announce our new challenge on the Fit Fatties Forum called the RASCAL challenge. This stands for Radical Activist for Self Care and Love. In this challenge, we encourage you to think outside the box about what self-care means and we challenge you to prioritize self care in your life. Given my current focus on healing, this challenge just could not have come at a better time.

One of the reasons I’m so excited about this challenge is that it helps us broaden our definition of what is included in the definition for “health”. Some of us believe that being healthy means being thin. If we are thin, we are healthy. If we are not thin, we can’t be healthy. I’ve talked quite a bit about this in the past. There are lots of studies that indicate that simply isn’t true. In particular, this study shows that healthy behavior is a better predictor of future health than BMI. But this begs the question, what is healthy behavior?

Of course joyfully moving your body is a wonderful healthy behavior. Of course eating in a way that is in tune with your body’s needs as well as your spiritual and emotional needs is a healthy behavior. But is that all there is to wellness? Eat an apple and go for a walk and you’ve got it covered? I don’t think so. To me health is nuanced and multidimensional. And health involves self-care. (Insert deep sigh here…) Why is it that so many of us are so good at taking care of other people and so lousy at taking care of ourselves? Are we conditioned that way from birth? I don’t know. But I DO know that self care gives us the strength to help others. Think about what the flight attendant says before you take off. “First secure your own oxygen mask, then you can help small children and those around you.” In other words, breathe. Take a moment to care for yourself.

And that moment may involve eating something wonderful or going for a walk. Or it may involve simply breathing. Maybe your self-care moment is spending just a few seconds of your day simply being. Maybe it means getting a little extra sleep. Maybe it involves asking for help. Maybe it involves doing a booty-shaking victory dance. Maybe it means calling a friend and reconnecting. Maybe it means writing a letter to someone who wronged you. Maybe it just requires 5 minutes of quiet and a cup of tea.

Self-care is different for each of us. But it is absolutely critical to our well being. That’s why I’m so excited about the RASCAL challenge. We’ve come up with over 100 official Radical Acts of Self Care and Love, and we’re challenging folks to do one of those acts every single day. Aside from the intrinsic rewards that come from self love, we are ACTUALLY rewarding you with badges and encouragement and prizes for taking care of yourself. Seriously. How cool is that?

I hope you’ll join me in spending some time to take care of yourself this month, either by taking the challenge or simply choosing to do it on your own. Because the world needs you to take care of you.

Love, Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

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Back

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Well I’m back here telling you that the pain in my back is, well, back. Last week after I gave my speech at the Duarte Health Fair, I took a little nap and woke up in pain. Like whoooooaaaa pain. I went out for my birthday dinner. Had a little pizza and went to bed. When I woke up, in the middle of the night I found I could barely walk. I took some aspirin and cried and tried and tried to get comfortable. After a long while, I found I could manage if I lay on my back with a pillow under my knees. And until yesterday, that was about all I could do. Whenever I moved from that spot, I was in agony. Yesterday, I finally progressed to the point where I could sit upright so now I can write my blog. And there was much rejoicing (yayyyy).

Why am I inviting you to this pity party? I’m not really sure. I do want to make it clear that I am not some kind of persona, but rather a person. That means I get injured, I get sick, I get frustrated and I get discouraged sometimes, just like you. And I do want to do a shout out to all of you who are in chronic pain. This week, I had a teeny, tiny, appetizer, snack-sized reminder bite of what that is like and I have decreed, “It sucks.” In the short space of a week, I’ve had to cancel many appointments and have a discussion with my husband that I wasn’t really able to do much to help him as I had to rest for half an hour after the giant effort of washing my hair. I haven’t styled my hair for a week. I can just about manage to stay clean. I’ve had to call everybody to cancel my class–three times. I had to explain to my doctor that while I was very clear that it would be better for me to get out of my bed and keep moving, I might use my laser-eyes power to kill him where he stood (if I had laser-eyes destruction capabilities). I stood in Target, waiting for my prescription for pain killers to be filled, shifting from foot to foot, and hating the fact that I was asking them, please for the love of God, please hurry. And this is just a teeny taste. This is only one week.

I have been reminded yet again of all the people I know, all the students and family and friends who are suffering from chronic pain. Friends that have been enduring for years and have no idea if or when their pain will ever end. I have endured chronic pain for spurts throughout my life. And it sucked. And it crushed me in my tracks and humbled me. But I have enjoyed the privilege of not being in pain most of my life. I honestly feel such respect for those who manage to endure month and year after year often while maintaining work, family, friendships, and maintaining the ability to think and to feel and even to laugh. I give you mad props. And the next time I ask a student in chronic pain to keep moving, that it will help them, I will give a silent prayer of gratitude that nobody really has killer, laser beam eyes. Right? Well unless you are a cat that is:

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

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Making Fitness About Fun, Not About Weight Stigma

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Today, I’d like to direct you to the blog I wrote for Weight Stigma Awareness Week. BEDA is doing absolutely amazing work in this space, and I am very proud to be called to participate. You can read the blog post here.

Thanks so much for your support!

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want me to speak at your school, organization or group? Click HERE to book me!

P.S.S. Want to get free stuff, click HERE to join my list!

Dear Abby, Let The Fat Chick Give you a Little Advice

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So I don’t know if you’ve been following the kerfluffle regarding Dear Abby’s terrible advice regarding a fat woman and her mother’s reaction to the crime of wearing a bathing suit while fat. The whole thing started in August when a woman wrote to Dear Abby saying:

DEAR ABBY: I’m a 24-year-old plus-sized woman (60 or 70 pounds overweight), but very comfortable in my own skin. When swimming in public, I wear a one-piece bathing suit because it doesn’t attract a lot of attention. When I’m home, I have a bikini top and shorts I prefer to wear. This is because I don’t like being covered up like it was in the 1950s, and I feel good when my curves are properly accentuated.
When I go back to see my family and swim, I wear a bikini top and black shorts. Recently, my mother said, “When the family comes over, you can’t wear that. It makes people uncomfortable.” I was shocked, and we had a huge argument. Most of my cousins are fine with my attire, as are my aunts. Only Mom has a problem with it. I asked if she’d feel the same about a large man swimming without a T-shirt. She said it’s different for women. Am I wrong for wanting to be comfortable in my childhood home? Mom should be proud to have a daughter who accepts herself as she is. Who is wrong here? — OFFENDED DAUGHTER IN CHICAGO

And here’s Abby’s assumption-ridden (and apparently clairvoyant) response:

DEAR OFFENDED DAUGHTER: You are not wrong for wanting to be comfortable. But please remember that when you visit someone else’s home, that person’s wishes take precedence — even if it used to be your childhood home. While you say you are comfortable in your own skin, it would be interesting to know what your physician thinks about your obesity. I suspect that your mother would be prouder of you if you were less complacent and more willing to do something about your weight problem.

Oh. My. God. This response has problems on so many levels. On the one hand, okay. When you are visiting someone else’s house, it is a good idea to keep their wishes and their “rules” in mind. It is their house. But then, after that we slide off a deeeeep dark cliff into nonsense land. Why would it be interesting to know what her physician feels about her obesity. I suspect it’s not interesting at all but rather a sort of boring restatement of the “fat bad, skinny good” trope played out in doctor’s offices everywhere. The only way this would be interesting is if this doctor were one of the few medical professionals aware of the significant evidence showing:

1. Weight is not in and of itself a health risk.

2. Focusing on healthy behavior is more effective than focusing on weight loss for long term health.

3. Stigmatizing people based on their weight is likely to make them sadder, sicker and fatter.

But that’s not what Abby meant at ALL. Abby thought, “Hmmm, I’m not a doctor, but if I vaguebook that hazy potential future health threat thing that doctor’s often do towards fat people, maybe I can get away with sounding sort of medical.”

And then we get to the real kicker line of the whole “advice” thing. Abby says: “I suspect that your mother would be prouder of you if you were less complacent and more willing to do something about your weight problem.” And I suspect that you, dear Abby are an @ss. Here’s how I know. First of all, you are basing this next bit on on assumptions and everybody knows that an assumption makes an @ss out of u and me.

First of all, who says this woman is complacent? She says she is comfortable in her own skin. It does not say whether or not she is trying or has tried to lose weight. It does not say whether or not she exercises or eats well. It does not say whether or not she actively works to be healthy or not. It says she doesn’t hate herself for the way she looks. Well here’s a news flash dear Abby. Hating yourself is bad for your health. Period. Being comfortable in your own skin helps you do the things that give you a more healthy and productive life. And living your life caught in a cycle of weight cycling to make your Mom proud of you does not even bear discussion.

But wait, it gets “better”.

Not surprisingly, thousands of people wrote Abby letters telling her that she was insensitive, inappropriate and off base. This presented Abby an opportunity for a “growth experience”. She could accept that if thousands of people told her she was being an insensitive jerk, perhaps she could reflect carefully on what she wrote. Maybe she could learn from this experience. Maybe she could do a little research about the unsubstantiated assertions she made about fat and health. Maybe she could seek to make amends to the people she hurt with her ham-fisted response.

Did she do this?

Nope.

Abby responded with an even less informed, more hateful response. And clearly she felt proud of it. She presented just one of the thousands of letters that called her out and then responded thus:

DEAR LINDA: Thousands of readers in newspapers and online wrote to tell me how angry they were about my response to that letter, accusing me of “fat-shaming.” If anyone was hurt by my reply, I sincerely apologize, because my remarks were not meant to be rude or disrespectful. When I called the young woman after that column ran to apologize if I had hurt her feelings and read her my response to her letter, she told me she was not offended.

When I answer questions, it is my responsibility to be honest and direct. As anyone who has read my column knows, I am not always politically correct. When I saw her statement that she was 60 to 70 pounds overweight — which is obese — and “comfortable in her own skin,” my reaction was alarm. If she doesn’t become proactive now, by the time she’s 35 she could be far heavier.

Everyone knows the many health complications associated with obesity, so I won’t list them. And while not everyone develops complications, in general, the greater a person’s weight, the greater the likelihood of developing them. While losing weight may be challenging, as I know from personal experience, it’s important to make beneficial lifestyle changes to promote healthy weight, just as it is important to have healthy self-esteem.

That young woman needs to have a frank talk with her doctor about what’s causing her to be so heavy. I told her that when I talked to her. I also suggested it might be helpful to consult a nutritionist.

As to my comment about her mother, I strongly suspect what I said is true, and I’ll stand by it until I hear from the woman telling me different.

Oh. My. GOD.

I could honestly write fourteen blog posts about how terrible Abby’s response to the response to her response is, but I have to get my fat butt over to teach an exercise class now. So let me just move on to offer our dear Abby just a little advice about taking criticism.

1. If thousands of people take the time to write you a letter to say they are offended, chances are, you said something pretty darn offensive. This is an excellent time for you to start listening. In order to do that you will need to STOP TALKING.

2. If thousands of people take the time to write you a letter to say they are offended, it’s a little silly to say “if anyone was hurt by my reply”. Yes they were. And they took the time to tell you so. If you’re not sure about whether or not they were hurt, some cognitive impairment may be at work here so you should probably STOP TALKING.

3. Saying you sincerely apologize because you didn’t mean for your remarks to be rude or disrespectful and then continuing for SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS to be even MORE RUDE AND DISRESPECTFUL just makes you look hypocritical and foolish. If you want to apologize, say I’m sorry. Say you’ll try to do better and then STOP TALKING.

4. Saying that somebody who is fat and comfortable now is only going to be fatter down the road is just stupid. You don’t know that. You are not psychic. So this means you should STOP TALKING.

5. Saying everybody knows the health problems associated with obesity so you won’t list them is lazy. Literally hundreds of studies contradict the notion that health problems are caused by obesity and a lot of those studies indicate that the real problem is the sort of B.S. stigma you are perpetrating here. So maybe, as I said before, you should STOP TALKING.

6. When you insult an entire group of people to the point that thousands of them take the time to write you letters, and then you call one person in that group for absolution. Even if that person says they are not offended, you are not absolved of your infraction. You are guilty and that means you should STOP TALKING.

I could go on and on. But I think I will take my own advice now and listen to what you all have to say. So I’ll STOP TALKING.

Love, Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. If you’d love for me to KEEP TALKING to your group or organization, click HERE to book me.

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The Childhood Obesity Challenge

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Uuuuugh! Well we’re halfway through “Harass Kids About Their Weight Month” otherwise known as “Let’s Build Eating Disorders As Young As Possible Month” or “Childhood Obesity Awareness Month”. I’ve mentioned before how I feel about this. I can’t think of any adult or child in this country who is not aware that the dominant culture likes little kids to be thin. I don’t know of any kids who aren’t aware, by age five or six, that thinner is better. And this whole month seems designed to amp up the shame felt by larger kids and parents of larger kids to “11”.

This was brought home to me in a very visceral way today as I read a facebook post by a parent who had a negative reaction to being nominated for “The Childhood Obesity Challenge” on facebook. I have no idea how widespread this “challenge” is. Apparently a “friend” in this woman’s feed posted an apres workout “sweaty” (that’s a selfie where the folks are sweatin’ y’all) with the following text:

“Another sweaty for (fb friend)’s call to action for childhood obesity. Children learn from example. I will challenge some amazing parents I know to do the same. You all inspire me and make me better.”

Only problem, the parent with the negative reaction had been a fat kid. She understood the real challenges of being an obese kid in a fat-hating world. And her kid was also not as thin as some in society deemed acceptable. And her kid was facing health challenges that made exercise difficult. Yet there she was, nominated to post a picture of her sweating after a workout to prove to kids they shouldn’t be fat.

Seriously.

Yes, kids do learn by example. And if we want our kids to be healthy, here are a few options of things we could model:

1. Let’s choose not to judge by appearances. You don’t know what is happening in another person’s life by looking at them. You don’t know if they are healthy by looking at them. Let’s not make snap decisions about a person’s health or moral worth because of how they look.

2. Exercise can be fun! Let’s not ruin exercise by making it about arbitrarily changing our body size. Let’s make it about getting together and having a great time! Because sometimes moving our bodies feels awesome!

3. Exercise can be fun, but it’s not a moral obligation. And exercise is a whole lot easier for some people than for others. Let’s decide not to worry about how much exercise other people are doing. And let’s decide on exercise for ourselves based on our own bodies and how we feel.

4. Let’s not panic about our body size! People come in all shapes and sizes. There are greyhounds in this world and there are pit bulls. Everybody looks a little different than everybody else and that’s okay.

5. Let’s not boil down a very complex issue like childhood obesity into some silly facebook game, okay? Let’s choose to accept that body size is influenced by a wide variety of factors–both inside and outside of our control–and learn to love our bodies as they are. That way we won’t feel quite so much need to judge other people’s bodies, okay? (See point #1).

And if modeling points 1 through 5 doesn’t work, we could always model how to fake a sweaty. (A little blush, a little water spritzed on the face and hair and TA DAAAA instant sweaty!)

Or if you want to be more professional about it:

I can’t help but be frustrated by the whole notion of Childhood Obesity Awareness Month as it currently stands. It’s time for a Childhood Weight Stigma Awareness Month. During this month we could talk about how to help kids avoid eating disorders, we could talk about how bullying based on size is at record levels, and we could talk about how social media is pressuring kids and parents more than ever to have “perfect bodies” at all times. That’s a movement I could get behind.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want to hear me speak with YOUR group about how to teach fitness to kids in a way that isn’t damaging to them? Book me to speak!

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Conducting Cloud Census, BRB

Talking to Kids About their Bodies

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I am sad to say that September is Childhood Obesity Awareness Month. I cannot see the need for this particular marker. I don’t know a single adult who isn’t aware that there are fat children in the world. And the vast majority of them are wringing their hands and worrying about what we should do about it. Schools are still sending kids home with BMI report cards despite significant evidence that this practice is not only not helpful but is often actively harmful. And most doctors still tell parents to put kids on a diet when kids vary even slightly from the statistical norms.

And it’s not as if kids are unaware of “the childhood obesity crisis”. Hospitalizations for eating disorders are up 119 percent among children under 12 years of age. 80 percent of all 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat and 42 percent of all 1st through third grade girls want to be thinner. Just who is it that remains unaware of a societal desire for kids to be thin? The whole thing is so deeply depressing I didn’t know how I was going to write about it. That is until I came across an article somebody posted to Fit Fatties yesterday about a dance teacher working to change the language she uses to talk to kids about their bodies.

Worried about how her words as a dance teacher were affecting the body image of the girls taking ballet lessons, dance teacher Amanda Trusty took several weeks off to work on the language she used in her classes. Trusty noted that many of the traditional commands from dance class like “tuck in” or “suck in your belly” or “pull in the butt” were not only imprecise, but tended to confirm a societal notion that kids bodies should be smaller and tummies and tushes should disappear.

In her article Amanda says,

I realize now where all my insecurities started. They started in first position at age seven at the barre.

And now here I am, 20 years later, catching myself doing the same things to my own seven year old students.

Oh, but I refuse. Nuh-uh. No way. I’m a body love advocate. How can I tell my ballerinas to suck it in and tuck it under, knowing how much that shaped my childhood?

So Amanda consciously and thoughtfully worked to change the language with her students. The new language was not only more imaginative and precise, but also managed to remove body judgement from the equation. Now rather than telling them to tuck the butt under, she asks the students to imagine they have beautiful tail feathers. And she asks the students to send their tail feathers down rather than out. Instead of asking kids to lift their chins, she tells them to imagine they are wearing a beautiful necklace and she asks them to display the necklace to everyone else.

Kids are perfectly well aware that many, many grownups are freaked out beyond all reason that their bodies are not thin enough. We don’t need a month dedicated to getting adults more freaked out about childhood obesity. And we don’t need a month dedicated to convincing fat kids that they should not exist, that there is a worldwide movement to eradicate them from the planet. What we need is a month dedicated to thinking about how we talk to kids about their bodies. We all need to take a time out like Amanda did, to figure out ways to communicate health and wellness to kids in a way that isn’t damaging to their body image and doesn’t send them charging down the road towards a life of eating disorders. Now that’s a month I could get behind.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want to hear me speak with YOUR group about how to teach fitness to kids in a way that isn’t damaging to them? Book me to speak!

P.S.S. Want to get free stuff? Join my list!

Don’t Slim me Down! Wooooo!

Magic Beans

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It all started this week with dimples. This week I came across these photos demonstrating an early invention for creating dimples on the cheeks. I had a fleeting moment where I thought, “well we’ve come a long way since then.” After a little searching around, I realized that women used to even undergo surgery to create dimples on the face. Later the same day, I came across somebody in a popular exercise forum asking if there were specific exercises she could do to make dimples appear on her butt. After calculating the millions I could make for a chair-based device for creating back dimples (or butt dimples) I realized that we haven’t come that far at all. And after just a little research I realized that many plastic surgeons offer dimple-making procedures. They can offer dimples for your face and as an add on to a “Brazilian Butt Lift” procedure, they can highlight those tiny little spots over your posterior.

Now, I am not saying you shouldn’t get plastic surgery. It’s your body and your life, and I am not the boss of you. And I am not claiming to be completely natural. I wear some makeup, I get highlights put in my hair. But this business about dimples got me thinking about what possesses us to go through this sort of pain to have dimples in the right spots. And just as I was thinking this, I came across this video in my feed talking about “super foods”.

Now don’t get me wrong. I think good nutrition is very important, and I believe that the nutrients we put into our bodies make a big difference in how we function and how we feel. But this discussion about super foods is important because it reminds me how often we take something natural and good in this world and then endow that thing with magical powers.

Dimples are good. On some people they look cute. Therefore, if I get dimples on my face or on my posterior as part of my butt lift, I will be adorable and irresistible. Wealthy, attractive, celebrity men will whisk me off on their yachts. I will become famous. Everyone will envy me because, you know, dimples!

Gogi berries are good. They are mysterious. They have antioxidents. If I eat them, I will be endowed with the mystical natural powers of the Amazon. (NOT the one that delivers books to your house with drones.) I will never get sick. I will never get tired. I will live forever. I will be invincible.

Yup, you see? Magic beans. Why is it in this day and age, when we can put a machine on Mars to take pictures and prove there are no martians running around, we still fall prey to this notion that there are magic solutions, magic pills, magic surgeries, magic foods or magic anything that is going to make everything in our lives perfect. If only I could get 6-pack abs (sigh…) everything would be perfect:

Or not. I am afraid there are no such things as magic beans. There’s just beans. Beans that are high in nutrition and can taste good and can fill you up and keep you going. But beans, by and large don’t have magical properties. Except maybe for these: