Not Jolly and Not Sorry (Letting go my need to make everybody laugh…)

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I recently spoke at the Environmental Awards in Irwindale. My speech was called No BODY Left Behind–Workplace Wellness for All. I talked about workplace wellness in terms of four “i-opening” words–information, incentive, invitation and inspiration. I must give credit where it is due. Jon Robison and Rosie Ward and their fabulous new book “How to Build a Thriving Culture at Work” helped to transform my thinking.

I shared a lot about what I thought was working and wasn’t working in workplace wellness. I talked about how many wellness programs feel unfair because they ARE unfair. They reward the already privileged in a way that is subsidized by the less privileged. They only accommodate the needs of the folks that are in least need of the program. They use shame and peer pressure to try to shove employees into a single vision of “health” which is largely driven by media-fueled unrealistic expectations and the personal bias of the program creators and managers. They could be inviting. They could be inclusive. They could make every BODY feel welcome. But they usually don’t. And they often end up causing more problems than they solve.

I think I did a good job at the talk. But it was weird. As a speaker, I mostly give upbeat, Rah-Rah, body positive and funny speeches. And this kind of speech is instantly rewarded. People watching and hearing the speech cheer and laugh and clap. People smile and have a good time. It’s a pretty strong, emotionally positive feedback loop. And I usually leave the stage feeling awesome.

This talk was different. People were paying attention. But people were thoughtful. Listening carefully. Letting my words sink in. This talk was serious. I had a positive takeaway. There are ways we can do this better. But this speech was not fun and it was not funny.

And as I walked off the stage, I wondered. “Did I do okay? Did I get through. Did people hate it. Did they learn something?” I felt very insecure. Sure, there was applause at the end, but no positive, laughing, feel-good feedback loop.

I always feel a little unsure when I release my need to entertain–to be funny–to be jolly. But I’m always kind of amazed at the response when I do. As I sat back at my table a woman immediately asked for my card. Not because she wanted me to do a fun and jolly speech at her workplace (a local college). But because her school has implemented a wellness program modeled after The Biggest Loser television show. And my talk made her think that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. I’m hoping to speak with her soon. So I could see a very positive result from straying outside of my comfort zone.

And this was a good reminder. Being upbeat and positive and funny are great tools. They are some of the colors with which I can paint. But when communicating with others about size acceptance and body positivity and social justice for people of all sizes, it behooves me to use ALL the tools at my disposal and all the crayons in the box–even those that aren’t my normal favorites or the most comfortable ones to use.

Which leads me to this point. I’d like to straight up invite you to attend the Fat Activism Conference. Some of the people there will be taking a “fun and funny” approach to fat activism. Some will be serious. Some of the testimony may be full of pain and not so much fun to hear. Some of it will be LOLROTF funny. But what the conference allows you to do is hear a variety of voices coming from a wide range of perspectives all speaking on the topic of making the world better, safer and more inclusive for people of all sizes. And frankly, today is the last day you’ll be able to get the lowest possible price to attend the conference. Our super earlybird pricing ends tonight. So if you’re up for hearing all different kinds of voices sharing using all the tools at their disposal and all the crayons in the box, while sharing ways to make the world better for Every BODY why not register now?

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

In a World of “Click Bait Hate” Let’s Share a Little Love

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On Saturday’s post, I hinted about certain people that serve as a proxy for hate. They say the things that people no longer may wish to say for fear of reprisal. They serve as a lightning rod for gleeful malevolence. They act ugly to win clicks. And by Jiminy, it certainly works. I referred to a certain person who posted an extremely hateful video online. (You can look up her name in my previous post, but I don’t recommend it.) Now the video is down. She’s all up and down twitter and other social media feeds saying the big fat bullies got her video taken down. She’s crying about her right to free speech. Meanwhile, all the evidence points to the fact that she took the video down herself to get, you guessed it, more publicity.

So what are we to do? I talked about this with a few of my other size acceptance colleagues and we agreed that continuing to draw attention to her is giving her exactly what she wants. She’s sowing click-bait hate and is reaping results. And in this case, I think the answer is to sow a little love. So throughout the day, I plan to share body loving pieces from people who are doing awesome work. I’m going to share this love in my blog, in all my social media feeds and to everybody I know. I’m going to do my little bit to drown out that hateful attention seeking behavior with a little bit of positive good work. And here’s my first entry. My dear friend Marlene sent me a link to this one. (It’s not perfect but it’s mostly awesome…)

So now it’s your turn. How can we drown out some of that ugly hater stuff? Let’s link to love! I challenge you to post 3 pieces of body love in your social media feed. Let’s share the awesome! And while we’re talking about awesome, let me remind you:

The Fat Activism Conference Is Back!

This is a virtual conference so you can listen to the talks by phone and/or computer wherever you are. Whether you are looking for support in your personal life with family, friends, healthcare providers etc. or you’re interested in being more public with your activism with blogging, petitions, protest, projects, online activism, or something else, this conference will give you tools and perspectives to support you and your work, and to help you make that work intentionally intersectional and inclusive, so that nobody gets left behind. Get the info and register here!

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

Agents .000007–License to Hate (Electing hate proxy holders to be mean for us)

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Okay (deep breath). There’s a video that surfaced on YouTube yesterday by a woman named Nicole called “Dear Fat People” (There is no force on earth that will compel me to link to that ish). It is seven minutes of unadulterated, unbelievably crappy hate wrapped up in concern trolling. I mean this video is truly ugly.

It’s infuriating and insulting and stupid. And it’s going to hurt a whole lot of people. A lot.

But the one thing I can say it isn’t is surprising. I’ve seen a definite uptick lately on the number of people using discrimination and bigotry and ugliness as click-bait. I’ve seen a certain candidate for US president gaining popularity in the polls by making our political arena into a cheap reality television show. He’s gained popularity for being “plain spoken”. Nicole also talks in her video about “setting off a truth bomb” and “telling it like it is”. And I’ve come to recognize these phrases as code words for, “being proxy holders for our hate”.

In some ways, over the years, we have made progress. There are certain things you don’t say anymore unless you are very sure of to whom you are speaking. Because in many environments, it’s not guaranteed to be “safe” or “consequence free” to say certain kinds of hateful things any more. You might get called out for being hateful. You might be told you are being bigoted or prejudiced or racist. And nobody likes being called hateful or bigoted or prejudiced or racist. You might lose your job. You might lose your TV show. (And just to be clear–free speech is definitively not the same thing as consequence free speech.)

These conversations where people get called out for their hatefulness (especially in the relatively rare case when people were genuinely unaware they were being hateful) are deeply uncomfortable. Often the person getting called out gets their feelings hurt. Often that person reacts defensively. Many times, that is the end of the conversation. But sometimes the conversation goes on. We recently had a conversation like this on our Fit Fatties Forum. Some people acted deplorably. Some people acted defensively. But we agreed to leave the conversation up and live in our discomfort. And through hundreds of comments, people talked about social justice and privilege and tone policing and gaslighting and white fragility and the differences between racism and prejudice and ableism and fat stigma and so many other deeply important topics. But this conversation is challenging and difficult and often deeply uncomfortable. So even though this conversation is deeply needed, most of the time we don’t have it–because it is hard.

But we are also uncomfortable with the notion of not talking about our prejudices as well. We want to not only be able to be hateful but also be confirmed in our hatefulness. So we link to and watch and quote and lionize people who say the things we dare not say. We admire them for being “plain spoken” and “telling the truth” and “telling it like it is”. We pimp these people out to carry our proxy for hate. They get to exploit every stereotype for fat people and people with disabilities and people of color and LGBTQ people and poor people and less educated people and and women and children and everybody who does not have all the privileges. They do this to shock and entertain and win popularity. But mostly they say all the things that we know on some level that we shouldn’t say about others (at least if we don’t want to be called a hater) but secretly wish (on some level) we could say about others without having to feel bad about ourselves as we do it just to get attention.

Again, none of this is surprising to me.

There’s this quote attributed to Mahatma Gandi that goes like this

It’s pretty easy to see the “hater proxy syndrome” in this quote, isn’t it? In fact it is this quote that I use to help comfort me through watching some of this yuck. I can nod knowingly saying, wow we’ve stirred up some haters, haven’t we? We must be making progress because look at ALL THIS SCREAMING!!!

Which leaves us where? What can we do? Well one thing we can do is choose not to give the hate proxy holders any more attention. They crave it. They feed off of it. Or you can choose to call the haters out. Nicole Arbour’s initial video seems to have been taken down. I know that there was a strong movement within the size acceptance community to go to the video and report it on YouTube for being hateful (just click the more button under the video and click the “report flag”. But it seems she has re-posted it again (with the comments turned off. Wow. Just Wow.). So you can go report it again if you feel so moved. You don’t even have to watch the stupid thing in order to flag it. (In fact, I advise against watching it).

But the most important thing we can do is to keep talking. That’s why I’m so excited to remind you:

The Fat Activism Conference Is Back!

Get all the details here!

Thanks as always for reading and being willing to explore the tough stuff with me.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

Half in the Data Dark, We’ve More Work to Do!

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Today, I read a horrifying statistic about the state of statistics. A group called All Trials has flatly stated that of all the clinical trials, encompassing hundreds of thousands of patients, 50% have never reported the results. They state this, and offer this research to back it up.

One can speculate many reasons why various research results have not been reported. But I keep coming back to one, solitary reason, which I suspect is the main reason, why results weren’t reported. They probably weren’t reported because the results were either contrary to previous results in a way that was uncomfortable or the results were likely to be unpopular with whoever asked for the study, financed the study or might be interested in reporting on the study.

If, to take a fictitious example, the green been growers association finances a study on the health effects of green beans, and the study fails to show any positive effect, it is unlikely that those results will ever see the light of day.

One wonders what effect this data dumping has on the massive amounts of research funded by or managed by either organizations pledged to fight obesity or companies that offer products and services to “cure” obesity or both. I, for one, would love to know what’s in that data dump.

If you are also interested in getting those results and fighting for greater transparency in clinical research, you can engage in a little very easy activism by going to the AllTrials website and clicking to join the petition.

And if you’re interested in doing even more to help fight bad research, stigmatizing policies and outright abuse of people of size, I am so very excited to announce our 2nd Annual Fat Activism Conference! We have such an amazing roster of speakers lined up. Once again, we have 2.5 days of online speeches and panels with loads of opportunities for you to ask questions, share your thoughts and get involved! And this year we will also be offering access to our brand new Fat Activism E-Book!

And in the name of full transparency, I want to let you know that everybody who is involved in putting on the conference will share in the profits. The conference organizers (me and Ragen Chastain), the organizing committee, all the speakers and all the sales affiliates will share in the profits of the conference. So not only will you be learning from and reading about some amazing fat activists, you will be helping to support those who do this important work. The conference runs October 9-11 and we are looking forward to seeing you there! Click here to get your tickets at the super early bird price!

I can’t wait to see you there!

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

5-year-olds on a Diet

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Sometimes people ask me why I do this. I work in Hollywood. Writing a blog doesn’t really pay all that well. And it can be a solitary process at times without a lot of feedback.

But sometimes I come across something that reminds me why. Like this study which talks about “dietary restraint” (the cognitive restriction of food intake for the purpose of controlling weight) among 5-year-old girls. Five. Years. Old.

At five kids should be coloring and tormenting their older siblings and screaming and playing and dressing up. They should not be worrying about the size of their thighs. They should not be counting carbs. They should not be worrying about fitting into their skinny jeans.

But according to the study, nearly 35 percent of the 5-yr-old girls were displaying “dietary restraint”. The study points out not only is dieting at age 5 distressing, it is also an important precursor or marker for eating disorders in the future. And that future might not be very far away for a number of these girls. The study states:

Despite eating disorders typically emerging during adolescence, cases have been reported in early elementary school children.

The study reviewed the influences that caused these girls to restrict their food intake. While most of the girls were pretty happy with their body at the moment, over 50 percent showed some evidence that they had taken the “thin ideal” to heart. And the girls who had clearly taken the thin ideal to heart, that had experienced more media that represented the thin ideal and had more discussions about appearance with their peers, were the girls more likely to be restricting their food intake.

Which leads me to ask some questions. If we know that BMI report cards are ineffective, and we know that kids are learning behaviors that lead to eating disorders as early as age 5, why don’t we work harder to include body image education into the curriculum–the earlier the better? Anorexia is deadly and notoriously difficult to treat. Why don’t we put some real, sensible, research-based curriculum in place at the earliest possible age to help these kids not develop this problem? And since adults who hate their bodies are fairly likely to project these feelings onto impressionable children, why don’t we require training for teachers and strongly encourage training for all adults who deal with kids?

We have an opportunity to make a world where girls don’t grow up hating their bodies and hating themselves. That’s why I write this blog. That’s what I do what I do. I add my tiny voice to the growing chorus singing the song stating that we are beautiful, we are worthy of love, we are okay just the way we are.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want to hear me talk about body positive at your school? Click HERE.

Apparently Body Positivity Goes to Size Large (or maybe XL)

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Victoria’s Secret is that every body is perfect as long as they look exactly like this…

I recently came across a link for a “Body Positive” fitness company (not gonna name it or give it linky power) that had the word “Thick” in their company name and states as their goal:

…body positive movement that encourages women to accept and become the best version of themselves through health and fitness.

Sounded pretty good. So I decided to take a look around. I saw a conventionally super thin fitness model type. And then I saw lots more pictures of her. Then I realized that the whole thing was created by a model.

I rooted around on the site to see if I could spot any body diversity. On the front there was a picture of a bunch of women of slightly differing body types. We were looking at a size range from maybe 00 to maybe a size 8? Okay. I kept looking. I finally found a picture of a body over size 10 on a candid shot from one of their “tours”. One body that they didn’t manage to crop out.

I then went to their retail section. I clicked on a cute crop-top emblazoned with the words “Because Goals”. All the clothing was displayed on the same model who created the site. I clicked on the sizes. Wow! The crop top came in TWO sizes, XS/S and M/L. I found I could also find “Guilt Free” powdered peanut butter, and I got a coupon for a meal delivery service offering paleo and weight loss and “contest prep” meals. Oh, I could also buy this mug:

At this point I was getting more than a little annoyed. In the schedule a class section I found this:

…a program that caters to the female who wants to burn total body fat while also building muscle in the lower body.

The blog section shared with me some information about how to cut calories, how to lose body fat, how to stay in the fat burning zone and blah, blah, blah. And all of this was under the heading of “body positive”.

It really pisses me off. We have girls at age 5 worrying about the size of their thighs. We have eating disorders among very young women increasing at dramatic levels. And then we have sites promising a “body positive” space that are covered with pictures of super-models and t-shirts that go to a size L. We have companies using “body positivity” to sell weight loss, compulsive exercise, diet potions and pills, meal replacements and disordered eating in a box. And before you suggest that this trend only refers to this company, let me assure you that it is everywhere.

Body positive is for EVERY BODY or it’s for nobody. Suggesting that you are body positive and then only showing bodies ranging in size from 00 to 04 is worse than not using the word body positive at all. When you call something a “body positive” environment and then create an environment where a woman (or girl) at size 12 or 22 or 32 is shamed you are doing way more harm than good. Because you’re giving that girl or that woman the message that body positive is only for people who fall within an extremely narrow range. When you have apparently flawless people talking about accepting their flaws it gives the message that certain kinds of nearly invisible flaws are okay, but your flaws clearly make you a monster. It’s false advertising. It’s deceitful. It’s harmful. And its very, very wrong.

I think we need to start fighting back against companies that use body positive language to sell us stuff that isn’t body positive at all. I think we need to be a little bit careful when companies use body positive language to sell us anything at all. I think we need to be very clear that when body positive doesn’t include EVERY BODY, it’s not very positive at all.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want me to come talk to your school or company or organization about what body positive really means? You can click here to learn more, or just email me at jeanette at thefatchick dot com.

P.S.S. Want to go to a body positive space that features really a lot of different sizes? Check out our forum at Fit Fatties.

Are the three white powders ruining our civilization? Or is the screaming a bit overblown?

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Nope, I’m not talking about heroin or cocaine or meth. I’m talking about flour (gluten) salt and sugar. And it seems like you can’t open a magazine or newspaper or newsfeed without another article warning us of the dangers of these killer substances and reminding us that they are “almost as bad as smoking” or “as bad as smoking” (which is the current gold standard for health-based fear mongering).

Sugar in particular has come under a lot of fire. In case you missed any of the hysteria, just google “sugar is evil” and see what you get. You’ll undoubtedly see a link to the film “Fed Up” Produced by David Laurie (who also produced “An Inconvenient Truth”) and hosted by Katie Couric. Which claims that the processed food industries are to blame for getting us to love sugar and that we have literally no control over ourselves when it comes to the substance. And you might see a link to “Sugar: The Bitter Truth”–a 90 minute video by pediatric hormone and childhood obesity expert Robert Lustig.

That’s why I was so pleased and relieved to come across a blog post by my friend and colleague Dr. Jon Robison which helps us all calm down a little when it comes to sugar. He quickly cuts through a lot of the hype and helps us find our way.

I’m not going to summarize the whole article, because I think it would be better if you just read it for yourself. It’s not especially long and it’s quite entertaining. But I would love to highlight a few things to pique your interest.

One topic area that Jon covers is the notion that sugar is an empty calorie. Folks there are all different kinds of sugar out there. And while Jon doesn’t specifically cover this in his post, I can tell you that breast milk contains a fair amount of sugar (it’s sweeter than cow’s milk) and nearly all docs on the planet believe that breast milk is one of the best substances on earth for getting kids started in the world. There are no empty calories. All calories have nutritional value of some sort or another. Some may help the body in ways that others do not. But all calories are fuel and can keep the body from starvation.

Another idea Jon discusses is that sugar is an addiction. Jon does a terrific job of blowing this idea away. A lot of the rhetoric around sugar as an addiction centers around the notion that the sugar stimulates some of the same sections of the brain that are stimulated by another white powder (cocaine). On the surface this sounds damning and dramatic (and makes great internet clickbait). But as Robison points out, there are lots of other things that light up those same pleasure centers in the brain like music, a mother recognizing the face of her child, and falling in love.

Well you might as well face it…

Finally, Robison concludes the post in talking about sugar addiction and binge eating disorder. Many people have pointed to binge eating disorder as proof that food is addictive:

Binge Eating Disorder (BED). BED is the most common of all eating disorders, affecting some 3.5% of women and 2.0% of men in the United States. It is defined this way by the Binge Eating Disorder Association:

“Also called compulsive eating, emotional eating or overeating, binge eating disorder is characterized by recurring episodes of binge eating, feeling out of control while bingeing, and feeling guilt and shame afterward.’

But the problem of using the addiction model for binge eating disorder comes largely from the “cure” which in many cases can make the problem even worse. Typically in addiction models, we seek to eliminate that to which we are addicted (alcohol, drugs, cigarettes). Although there are some models that use medications to block the euphoria response from certain substances, the vast majority of treatments advocate abstinence.

However, we cannot abstain from food. And despite the efforts made by programs like “Sugar Busters” and “Overeaters Anonymous” the research shows that abstaining from certain foods (processed sugar) simply makes binge eating disorder worse.

I think if we are addicted to anything in this country, it’s overwrought, hand wringing panic about any new health scare. I’m glad, people like Jon help us to overcome this particular addiction with sane writing and thinking.

Love, Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want me to talk about overblown health scares at your school, organization or club? Go here for more info on booking me!

Extrapolating to Absurdity–Reporting on New Study Takes Things FAR OUT.

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I was driving around in my car yesterday, minding my own business, when a story came onto my local NPR station that caught my attention. Kevin Hall PhD was on the air talking about his new study comparing how the body responds to low fat vs. low carb diets. He was careful to state that the study compared people in carefully controlled environments as opposed to relying on food journals for information on food journals (because you KNOW us fat folks can’t be counted on to be honest about those things). He said that the study participants were brought in for two, two-week inpatient hospital stays where every morsel of food was accounted for. In fact, every person was fed the exact same breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for two weeks, were expected to eat all of it and were not allowed to have anything different. (I think the study creators took their lives into their hands with this one, because if you fed me the exact same, low-calorie, diet crud for two weeks running, I’m quite sure I’d become pretty stabby. And I don’t know what could possibly compel me to return for the second phase of that torturous crud. But I digress.)

Kevin said all of the subjects “had obesity” which is a funny, disease-language sort of way to say they were fat. But none of them had diabetes. And according to Kevin, the study indicated that at a metabolic level there was very little difference in weight loss results from the low fat vs. the low carb diets. Although, the low carb diet had a greater impact on blood glucose levels than the low fat diet. And the low fat diet apparently led to slightly greater fat loss within the two week period than the low carb diet. Okay. Got it.

But then the report started to go off the rails for me. Kevin suggested that based on this study we could extrapolate that the low-fat diet would lead to greater weight loss over the long term than the low-carb diet. And that’s when I had to pull the car over because I was shouting at the radio.

“How can you extrapolate anything over the long term other than the notion that most of these people won’t keep the weight off or will even gain weight after this experiment,” I said. “This study has a lot to do with metabolism but you can’t really expect to transfer the results of this study to real life!” I tried to call in to express my opinion, but by time I got through the story was over. So I resolved to hit the radio station website, find the study and take a look for myself.

I did just that. And the data extrapolation situation was so much worse than I thought. The study contained a grand total of 19 subjects. During the first two-week stay, the subjects ate a eucaloric baseline diet for 5 days, followed by 6 days on either a reduced fat diet or a reduced carbohydrate diet. Then there was a 2-4 week “washout period” when they went home. After that, they returned and ate the eucaloric baseline diet for 5 days followed by a reduced fat or reduced carbohydrate diet. Each subject switched diets for the second two week stretch. So if they did the low fat diet in the first stretch, they did the low carb diet in the second stretch and vice versa.

Okay. So there’s some good stuff here. The study carefully tries to control for various factors. The food is the same each day, so there won’t be wild fluctuations there. All subjects are, um, subjected to both diets so that helps eliminate some of the variables. And everybody eats exactly the same thing. Subjects spent a significant amount of time in a metabolic chamber to very carefully measure the way the calories were metabolized. I see the point of needing this level of precision to control the variables of the experiment.

But my big, BIG problem came during the radio interview when Kevin started talking about how this could apply to real world fatties and what it would mean for them. He suggested that over the long term (so far the study doesn’t even have 6 months worth of follow up data) the minute differences in weight loss from the two diets would accumulate and you would see significantly greater weight loss from the low-fat diet vs. the low carb diet. This despite the overwhelming evidence outside of this study that indicates that over the true long term (2-5 years) the most likely outcome for the vast majority of the subjects is either insignificant weight loss or even weight gain.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it when science people are science-ing. But when you extrapolate from 19 subjects over 22 days in an extremely controlled environment that is virtually impossible to replicate in the real world to what effect these diets will have over the long term in the real world, I’ve got a serious problem with that. I have talked about it before, and I will talk about it again. If you want to understand science, possibly the last thing on earth you should do is listen to science reporting in the mainstream media.

And I have to wonder about the millions of people who are going to hear this report and hop on the diet/shame/regain cycle all over again because science people say they should. Because when you take science and simplify and stretch it beyond all limits in order to get a popular news story to help bump up your funding, you are behaving irresponsibly and people, especially fat people will wind up getting hurt.

Love,

Jeanette DePatie (AKA The Fat Chick)

P.S. Want me to come and sort out some science reporting for your group? Click here to learn more about hiring me as a speaker!