Tag Archives: Marilyn Wann

Body Love is not a Pant Size

Why self esteem isn’t just about you.

I talk a lot about self esteem and self efficacy in this blog, because I think both of those things are very, very important. I think the way we see ourselves and the way we approach the world helps to shape our world. On the other hand, I think it’s important to recognize that the world we live in shapes us in turn. Both self esteem and self efficacy involve more than just self. Because as John Donne said all those years ago:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main…

John Donne

We all function as part of the world. Our self esteem is deeply influenced by the opinions of those around us. And frankly, right now, the world is none too kind to people of size. Feeling good about yourself is really tough in an world containing people who after one look at you consider themselves justified in considering you less than human. Even when you approach the world in your best dress and your prettiest smile and your very most positive of positive thoughts, it’s tough going when what the world reflects back to you is pity, disgust, shame, disdain and yes, even fear.

And it’s also important to recognize that the tremendous amount of prejudice experienced by people of size in our culture is constantly reenforced by various factors. The diet and weight loss industry is worth more than 60 Billion dollars in the U.S. alone. And desire for a piece of the grant/research money pie has fueled a desperate fight against fat people also known as the “War on Obesity”. A need to find a scapegoat in our difficult economic times and even more difficult health care landscape has led to the fat person as social pariah–blamed for everything from the high costs of health insurance to global warming.

I’m not telling you this because I want you to be depressed. Far from it. But I also want to pay homage to the fact that feeling good as a less than skinny person in our culture can be really, really difficult. This is reality. And any work that we try to do to feel good about ourselves needs to be seen in the context of this reality.

This is why I think it is so very important to build community to support one another. I am by no means perfect in my self esteem. But a great deal of any of the strength I do possess in this regard comes directly from my participation in the size acceptance community. I am deeply indebted to those who have come before. That’s why I think it is so important to honor others who are building a better and safer world for people of all sizes. This year, we honored some of those trail blazers this year in the Shadow on a Tightrope anniversary. And my dear friend and business collaborator Ragen Chastain is doing very important work in her documentary film project honoring the history of the heroes and heroines of the size acceptance movement.

And beyond just recognizing those who have gone before, there is a veritable army of people out there right now, working to make the world better for people of all shapes and sizes. People like Marilyn Wann and Ragen Chastain. Organizations like the Size Diversity Task Force and ASDAH and NAAFA.

So in your look to bolster your self-esteem, I’d like to encourage you to think beyond yourself. First, I’d like to suggest that you take a look at some of the forces outside of yourself that may be dragging on you. Learning to recognize these voices that send you negative and shaming messages is an important first step towards choosing what to take on board and what to throw away.

Next, I’d like to suggest that you find community. Get together in the real world or the virtual one, with like-minded people who allow you to feel supported and safe at any size. I can’t emphasize enough how much community has helped me and supported me and strengthened me.

Finally, I’d like to ask you to consider how you might help others feel good about themselves. It’s not enough to simply take. Community implies a sharing of talents and resources and our very selves. That’s not to say that we all need to help in the same way. Some of us will march in protests. Some of us will send scathing letters. Some of us will simply support one another with a quick hug or a kind word in the comments section.

None of us is an island. We are all a piece of the continent, a citizen of the world, a member of the universe. It’s up to all of us to make that universe a better place for ALL of us.

Love, Jeanette (AKA The Fat Chick)

Thanking Those Who Fight for Rights

First Interplanetary “Photobomb”–Geeks Celebrate Globally

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Mr and Ms. Geek Wave at Saturn during NASA's World's Largest Photobomb

Mr and Ms. Geek Celebrate NASA’s World’s Largest Photobomb

Last week Friday, my hubby and I confirmed our card-carrying geek status by participating in the first interplanetary photobomb. On Friday, July 19 between 14:27 and 14:42 PST, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took aim from its perch in the Saturn system and started taking pictures of our fair planet. Earthlings were given fair warning that the photos were to take place. We were encouraged to go outside during that magic fifteen minutes, look east and “wave at Saturn”. And when NASA calls, my husband and I are not about to shirk our duties. I put on some lipstick, we went outside, and we waved like mad people. We participated in the event that NASA has dubbed, the first interplanetary photobomb and “the day the earth smiled”.

Yup, I went and got the certificate…

Now given the fact the photo was taken from over 900 million miles away, I’m not sure the lipstick was strictly necessary. It will take a little bit longer for NASA to process the photos, but we’re told the Earth will likely only appear as small blue dot–probably one or two pixels wide. All of this got me to thinking about you my dear readers and how the world’s first interplanetary photobomb might be relevant to the size acceptance movement.

Simulated view of NASA photo. As you can see, I probably didn’t need to get a manicure first…

1. It’s more fun to do crazy things with other people. Yes, my neighbors thought we were crazy. But at least with my husband by my side I felt less likely to get hauled away to a rubber room. Heck at JPL hundreds of people gathered to wave at the ringed planet. (I think those with hula hoops were particularly inspired.) But I think that’s an important lesson for our size acceptance community. Whether it’s doing a flesh mob in bikinis at the beach, staging a “kiss-in” on the steps of a major New York publication, or exercising on the street to protest a 24-Hour Fitness billboard we can do amazing, powerful, fun and crazy things as long as we do them together.

Hundreds of folks gathered at the JPL mall to “wave at Saturn”

2. There’s a lot of perspective to be had out there. Of course we all have problems. And of course they seem like the biggest thing in the world out there. But it pays to look at the bigger picture. (And as big pictures go, the “Wave at Saturn” one is likely to be pretty darn huge.) It’s easier to cope with the next stupid pseudo-science death fat article and the next Joan Rivers celebrity fat bashing gaffe if we can take it into perspective.

3. Framing is important. It is unclear at this point how many people participated in the first “interplanetary photo bomb”. However, I think it’s fair to say that more people participated in “Wave at Saturn” or “The World’s Largest Photo Bomb” than would have participated in the “wave at the sky and look like an idiot” project. That’s not to say that every aspect of what we do needs to be reduced to a sound byte or a photo opp or a social networking stunt. But I do think it’s important to use all of those tools from time to time to create connection points for our community. I think it is important to think about how we can be welcoming, how we can create on-ramps for people to find size acceptance and how we can create opportunities for people to feel how great it is to be part of our group. And I think what we name these things and how we present them are important as well.

So what do you think? I’m looking forward to seeing our “solar system group portrait” when it comes out. But in the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas about some other fun things we can do to connect our size diversity community to the wider universe. Just hit me in the comments section below.

Love,

The Fat Chick

UPDATE: Somebody has created a RAD FATTY MAP. Go here to enter your deets!

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California Gov. Health Organization “Photoshops” Kids Picture to Fight Childhood Obesity

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Good job California. So you passed Proposition 10 to collect a fifty-cent tax on every pack of cigarettes. You’ve used that money to create First 5 California, also known as the California Children and Families Commission which is:

dedicated to improving the lives of California’s young children and their families through a comprehensive system of education, health services, childcare, and other crucial programs.

And the commission you created with this money, chooses to use those resources to drastically retouch a picture of a little girl to make her look fat for an ad campaign designed to scare parents into limiting the amount of sugar they feed their kids.

Awesome!

Here’s the original photo, next to the retouched version:

First of all, whatever amount of state tax money that was used to do that image retouching is waaaay too much. I could get far better design work than that done on fiverr.com for $5 USD.

Next, I have to ask, why would we spend any amount of state tax money on shaming fat parents and fat kids in the face of the fact it just doesn’t work? In fact study after study shows that stigmatizing and bullying kids about their weight not only fails to create thinner kids, but also tends to trigger more participation in unhealthy behaviors like smoking, drinking, substance abuse, binge eating and other forms of disordered eating.

So why exactly are we spending state tax money to create ads aimed at preventing childhood obesity that are actually more likely to increase levels of childhood obesity while at the same time encouraging our kids to engage in higher levels of destructive behavior?

I’m sure that some of the fear-mongering, hand-wringing, head-shaking folks that created this glorious ad campaign will ask you to “think about the children”. They will cite statistics about childhood obesity and suggest that something must be done to protect the health of these poor kids.

To which I would reply, “Yes. All kids deserve to be healthy. So let’s focus on stuff that does that.” Shaming kids does not make them thinner or healthier. But there are some things we can do. In fact, in honor of First 5, I’ll give you five suggestions:

1. How about making sure kids have a safe place to play?

2. How about reinstating some of the physical education programs that have been cut from schools for lack of budget?

3. How about making sure that kids of all sizes have access to a variety of high-quality, nutritionally dense foods?

4. How about we help fat kids learn to accept and love themselves so that they are more likely to exercise and treat themselves well?

5. How about we add “body size” as a category for school anti-bullying programs.

Sure, these programs would be more difficult than cranking out a basic bus shelter advertisement. And undoubtedly some of these programs would cost more than hiring the world’s worst graphic designer to “fatten up” the image of an innocent kid. But given the fact that some of these programs might, I don’t know, help some kids live healthier lives, maybe we should just fund those instead.

As a final note, the folks at First 5 may find themselves facing some pretty well-organized and powerful opposition. It’s already started in the form of an awesome homemade protest flyer at the site of one of the bus shelters:

But as some folks in Georgia found out, folks can get pretty riled up and do some pretty amazing things when you shame and frighten their children.

So maybe we should take a step back and a deep breath and try again. I’m sure, upon some calm reflection, we can find better ways to promote good health for children of all sizes.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Like my posts? You’ll love my stuff!

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Prof with poor impulse control wishes he hadn’t tweeted about will power, part the second

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Cat Pause, who recently created a new tumbler feed featuring fat PhD’s. Nyah!

So, yeah. I’ve been continuing to follow the saga of Dr. Geoffrey Miller and day two of what just might be his worst week ever. In case you missed it, this whole thing started when Dr. Miller tweeted:

Dear obese PhD applicants: if you don’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation. #truth

Cue the poo storm of epic proportions. It’s enough to keep writers at Jezebel, HuffPo, Jane and Bitch magazines happily scribbling for weeks. I mean we are talking about worldwide calls for Game of Thrones-style retribution here. But amongst all the yelling, are some very interesting developments.

First, there’s this video response from Miller’s colleague and UNM Psychology Department Chairwoman, Prof. Jane Ellen Smith.

It is interesting to note that Professor Smith seems to take this whole tweeting business pretty darn seriously. But right in the middle of the video, she reveals the third-act-dramatic-twist! Professor Smith says that Dr. Miller is now claiming that the whole tweeting business was part of an “research study” he was running.

Riiiiight.

So were his initial support tweets of his original hate tweet followed by his hasty apology about his original hate tweet followed his frantic tweet declaring that of course neither he nor the university actually follow any practices that might be implied by his original hate tweet all part of the “social experiment” as well? Was it part of his experiment to close down his twitter feed to all outside viewers who are not confirmed followers part of the experiment? 140 characters isn’t a lot to work with, but somehow I think this dude still doth protest too much. I am encouraged that Prof. Smith says she’s going to look into the validity of his claim.

It’s amazing just how much passion has been stirred up over this whole thing. I am really, really excited to tell you about a new blog started by Dr. Cat Pausé called Fuck yeah! Fat PhDs all about being fatlicious in academia. In this blog she is posting images of fat people in academia, many of whom somehow managed to get accepted into a program, complete coursework, finish their dissertations and walk up to the platform to receive their diplomas all while sporting bodies above a BMI of 25. Imagine that!

Look, I don’t know Dr. Miller. I can only comment on the things that I see. And what I see is a guy that didn’t have enough will power to wait 30 seconds to consider his life, his career and his responsibilities as a human being before hitting the send button on a hateful one hundred odd characters all about, wait for it, will power. His apologies and the subsequent “social experiment” defense, seem a little suspect to me.

So, if Dr. Miller wants me to believe in his sincerity, he’s going to have to put some actions behind those hundred character mea culpa statements. Let me know that he’s read some of the brilliant writing about Fat Stigma from such visionary teachers, researchers and writers as:

Amy Erdman Farrell, Dickinson University, author of Fat Shame: Fat Stigma and the Body in American Culture

Abigail C. Saguy, UCLA, author of What’s Wrong with Fat?

Dr. Linda Bacon, UC Davis, author of Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About your Weight

of course, if he’s still confused about Health At Every Size or Fat Stigma, I would be happy to come and speak on the topic at any of the universities he’s affiliated with. Or they could hire any of my many amazing colleagues like Ragen Chastain, Golda Poretsky or Marilyn Wann to speak. If he actually makes some kind of attempt to learn from his mistake by spending just a little time listening to those of us who have spent decades doing actual, you know, science around this topic, I might be inclined to believe him.

Maybe.

Or maybe I’ll just tweet about it.

Love,

The Fat Chick

Love,

The Fat Chick

Like my posts? You’ll love my stuff!

Buy my book: The Fat Chick Works Out! (Fitness that is Fun and Feasible for Folks of All Ages, Shapes Sizes and Abilities)–available in softcover and e-book versions

Buy my DVD: The Fat Chick Works Out! (A Safe, Easy and Fun Workout for Klutzes, Wimps and Absolute Beginners!)

Buy a book or a DVD for a friend and save $5! Just enter FRIENDBLFT in the discount code box!

Check out my Training Programs–both in person and via Skype (Starting at just $25!)

Book me to speak at your university or special event!