# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For Kids Your Body is Awesome: Body Respect for Children by Sigren Danielsdottir Celebrate Your Body (Its Changes, Too!) The Ultimate Puberty Book for Girls by Sonya Renee Taylor Love Your Body by Jessica Sanders & Carol Rossetti Abigail the Whale by Davide Cali and Sonja Bougaeva Brontorina by

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lindo Bacon gives a lot of school talks. But one has always stuck with them. Bacon is a writer, speaker and scientist in California. They also are the author of the book Health at Every Size. Most of their school talks are about how to reduce weight stigma - stereotypes or discrimination based on a how much someone weighs.

But after one particular talk, "there was a girl that came and approached me," Bacon says. "She was a large girl, and she was just in tears." When Bacon took the girl aside and asked what was wrong, the girl told them that Bacon was at her school because it was National Childhood Obesity Month.

Everywhere the girl walked in school, posters showed large and small bodies side by side, stating that only the smaller body was healthy. "How can they think that it's promoting good health to tell people, 'We don't want anyone to look like you?'" the girl asked. At lunch, the girl's smaller friends criticized what she ate - even though they were all sitting down to eat the very same lunch.

The result, the girl told Bacon, was that she got bullied for her size even more than usual. Concludes Bacon, "It's like the adults are giving the kids permission to view fatness as wrong and something that you need to change." Declaring a National Childhood Obesity Month is intended to make parents and kids aware of the consequences of obesity. But weight is not, by itself, a measure of health. Instead, some kids may end up bullied and teased for their body size as a result of this campaign. In an effort to make students aware, the campaign had made one girl's problem far worse.

Scientists have shown over and over that bias against larger-bodied people can be harmful. This stigma can cause people to feel depressed. It can also stress their bodies.

This bias can be hard to avoid, despite its known harms. Parents urge larger kids to lose weight or put them on strict diets. Smaller kids bully larger kids. Doctors tell larger-bodied people that their health problems may be due to their size - whether or not it's true. Government entities may urge people to lose weight. And social media feeds everyone a steady visual stream of beautiful small bodies. The underlying message is that this supposed "ideal" body type is obtainable if you just work out enough and eat the right foods. Yet that may not be true.

In the end, weight stigma is something that people are taught - by their parents, teachers, friends and culture. But it doesn't have to be this way. We could learn something else instead - that weight is just another physical trait, not something bad or wrong.

The hate of weight

Doctors and scientists like to put people into categories. They categorize body size based on a body mass index - or BMI. This is a mathematical formula - a person's weight (or mass) in kilograms, divided by the square of their height in meters. In kids and teens, the math also accounts for their age. People use BMI to categorize individuals as "underweight," "normal," "overweight" and "obese."

Weight and height, however, are not actually measures of health, notes Bacon. "There's a lot of research that shows that people who are heavier are more likely to have diseases like diabetes and heart disease," Bacon says. "And if you believe that fat is bad, then you look at the data and you immediately say, 'Oh, it's the fat causing it.'" The solution, then, must be for the person to lose weight.

Can I use the word "fat"?

For people with larger bodies, whether that applies to height or weight, "larger body" is often a preferred term. Some people identify as "fat" and have no problem with being called fat. Others view that word (or use it) as an insult. Mary Himmelstein of Kent State University surveyed teens and found there's no one right answer. Some prefer "curvy," others " overweight."

What term should you use? When describing yourself, use whatever word feels more comfortable to you. If you're describing someone else, ask them what they would prefer - after all, it's their body. No matter what, no one's size should ever be used as an insult.

But plenty of larger people are healthy. And just because someone is larger and ill doesn't mean their size caused their illness. "What we don't realize is that there could be a lot of explanations for why people who are heavier are more likely to get certain diseases." What's more, losing weight isn't a cure-all.

Though BMI isn't a good measure of health, more and more people in the United States are classified as "overweight" or "obese." In 2018, 73.6 percent of adults were categorized as overweight or obese. So were 41.5 percent of children.

With more people weighing more, it might seem like larger bodies should become more acceptable. "There's this idea that the more exposure we have to people who are different from us, the better our attitudes should become," says Tessa Charlesworth. When it comes to weight, though, that has not proven true, Charlesworth finds.

She's a psychologist - someone who studies the mind - at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Charlesworth studies ways in which we might automatically judge someone without thinking about it. Scientists call this implicit bias. To see how people's biases change over time, Charlesworth uses a set of online tests called an Implicit Association Test. The more people interact with other people of different ages or races, she found, the less bias they have. From 2010 to 2016, she showed, people's implicit bias against race, skin tone and sexuality fell.

But not for weight. Over that time, people actually showed more bias toward larger-bodied people. Charlesworth and her colleague, Mahzarin Banaji, published their findings in a 2019 issue of Psychological Science.

This bias against size might be fueled by people thinking that weight is something a person can control. But for most people, Charlesworth explains, that just isn't true. The vast majority of people who diet to lose weight gain it back within a few years. Also, she notes, many people interpret a larger body as "bad and unhealthy." These people may conclude, she says, that "if you're fat, you're sick."

Project Implicit

The weight of stigma

Shaming people for their weight is obviously hurtful. Still, some might try to argue that shame will motivate people to lose weight. In fact, says Janet Tomiyama, it doesn't. Stigma tends to have the opposite effect, this health psychologist says. Working at the University of California, Los Angeles, she studies how emotions affect physical health.

In one study, Tomiyama worked with her UCLA colleague, Jeffrey M. Hunger, to analyze data on 2,400 teen girls. If by age 14 the girls had been labeled as "too fat", they were more likely to have a BMI in the "obese" range by the time they reached 19. They also were unhappier with their bodies than girls who had not been labeled "too fat," the researchers found. Girls labeled "too fat" were more likely to show evidence of eating disorders, too.

Girls in this study suffered from the effects of th is weight stigma even if they weren't larger-bodied at the start of the study. "Regardless of what you actually weigh, if someone stigmatizes you, your risk for [becoming obese] is higher," Tomiyama says. She and Hunger published their findings in JAMA Pediatrics.

Chisom Ikeji is a doctor in Pittsburgh, Penn., specializing in critical care. Her social-media accounts promote fitness, health and good skin care. Here, she discusses why doctors shouldn't use BMI as a measure of any one individual's health.

Stigma over one's weight can also cause stress. It's something Tomiyama and her colleagues reported in a 2014 study in the journal Obesity. The team invited college-aged women into a room and informed them they had been enrolled for a study on shopping. Then, they told half of these women that they would not fit into the clothing in this study - dishing out weight stigma for science.

Afterward, Tomiyama's team collected saliva from these women. A stress hormone called cortisol was higher in those who saw themselves as fat - and who had been told they would not fit into the clothing. The rude comments had an effect on both the recruits' mood - and on the chemistry of their bodies.

"Cortisol has many jobs," Tomiyama notes. One is "to signal to your body to deposit fat." And that might be one way that weight stigma could foster weight gain. "You could see this vicious cycle that happens where a person experiences weight stigma [and] that triggers a stress response," she explains. That stress could then promote weight gain.

Weight stigma does not only affect women and girls. People of every gender can experience it, notes Mary Himmelstein. A social health psychologist at Kent State University in Ohio, she has worked with Tomiyama.

For instance, one 2019 study recruited 1,500 larger bodied men. Himmelstein found that roughly four in every 10 of them had experienced weight stigma. That means men are experiencing weight stigma at the same rate as other genders. She and her colleagues shared their findings in the journal Obesity.

William Hornby uses TikTok and Instagram to raise awareness about eating disorders among men - and to tell people it's okay to eat.

A life in stigma

"People start to learn that fat equals bad between the ages of three and five," says Virginia Sole-Smith. She's a journalist and author of a 2018 book, The Eating Instinct. Currently, she is at work on a book called Fat Kid Phobia. Weight stigma, she notes, even shows up in children's shows such as Peppa Pig. "They talk about daddy pig's big tummy. And they make fun of him all the time for how much he eats," she says. "And when he jumps in the pool, there's a big splash and everyone laughs. It's horrible."

When kids go online, she says, it gets worse. "Social media gives kids a constant drip feed of weight stigma," Sole-Smith says. There are what-I-eat-in-a-day posts, before-and-after-weight-loss posts and so many tips and guidelines for dieting. All of these - whether they are on Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok - suggest that larger bodies are bad. They also suggest and that the right products, diets and routines can forever change people for the better.

Andrea Mathis is a registered dietitian-nutritionist who uses social media to promote healthy eating habits and encourage self-love.

Yet not everyone gets the same firehose of fat-shaming, says Charlotte Markey. A psychologist, she works at Rutgers University in Camden, N.J. Her work has focused on middle-school girls and their social-media lives. That research is still underway. But her early data show that what seems to matter is not whether girls have social-media accounts, but how they use them.

"Girls who are using Instagram to follow influencers, celebrities and to watch beauty tutorials ... are less satisfied with their own bodies." Those girls also are more rigid in their ideas of who is beautiful and what people should look like, Markey says.

Who you follow on social media is bound to affect you. It's called a social comparison - how we measure ourselves against others we see. "It's also an almost automatic process, like you don't decide to do it," Markey says. "You look at this ideal, which is basically completely unattainable," she says.

The Body Positive is a non-profit organization that helps people to develop a more positive image about their body.

In fact, she says, it's likely that "what you're looking at is fake because it's been photoshopped and edited and filtered and everything else. You look at it, and you feel bad. Because you're not that."

The internet isn't the only place that can make people feel bad about their bodies. A lot of weight-teasing starts at home, notes Leah Lessard. At the University of Connecticut in Hartford, she studies how body weight affects the way teens are treated.

Lessard asked more than 2,500 teens whether they were teased at home about their weight. Roughly one in every four (24 percent) said they were. Those teens were more stressed and had lower self-esteem. They also were more likely to use drugs and alcohol as they got older. Lessard shared her findings in the July 2021 Journal of Adolescent Health.

Still, most bullying over weight takes place in school. "From personal experience, that's where I experienced a lot of weight stigma," says Sarah Nutter. She studies weight bias and stigma at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. She also identifies as someone with a larger body.

"We see higher-weight people are attaining lower levels of education," Nutter says. Some teachers might view teens with larger bodies as poor students. However, she notes, "It's not that at higher weight, people are less intelligent." Instead, with bullying, teasing and teachers that see them as lazy, "school perhaps hasn't been the most welcoming environment."

A prescription for acceptance

Lessard is now studying how schools might stop weight-based bullying. "In some schools," she says, "kids with higher weight aren't getting picked on as much." She's trying to learn what is different about these schools.

Diversity appears to help. When students don't look alike, "it's harder to stand out," she says. And where schools are more diverse, she finds there's less weight-based teasing. Along with Jaana Juvonen of the University of California, Los Angeles, Lessard reported these findings in the July 2020 Journal of School Health.

When it comes to how kids treat each other in the classroom, she says, "teachers set the role and tone." When teens felt their teachers would help prevent weight-based bullying, larger-bodied kids got better grades, her team reported in the January 2021 School Psychology Quarterly.

Megan Jayne Crabbe posts body empowerment messages on Instagram. She says her life changed three years ago when she discovered the body-positive movement. "I've been embracing my belly rolls and celebrating my cellulite ever since and trying to encourage you all to do the same," she writes on her website.

And keep in mind that social media doesn't have to be a negative place, Markey says. It depends on what posts people view. When scientists showed adult women images of larger bodies, the women's idea of what's an "ideal body" also got slightly larger, a March 2021 study found. "If people are seeing larger-sized people, then what they think is attractive and what they think they would like to look like changes," she says. Filling social-media feeds with all types of bodies may help reduce the stigma over larger bodies.

In fact, social media can become a place of acceptance. "Lots of fat kids and fat adults tell me that social media has saved them," says Sole-Smith. Why? "Because they've been able to find support in fat-acceptance communities that wouldn't be accessible to them in real life." She notes that activists, journalists and celebrities often use social media now to "call out weight stigma and critique diet culture."

Parents and teachers should also extend kids a little more trust. Photos of models and celebrities that kids see may be highly edited - and most kids are better than adults at spotting these changes. "They know how to [photo] edit," Markey notes. "They know probably what's been edited, or they appreciate that everything's been edited."

One promising trend: Charlesworth has found that a bias against weight is already diminishing. In one study, her team looked at people's implicit bias between 2010 and 2016. More recently, she reviewed implicit bias about weight between 2017 to 2020. "In just those four years, the bias has actually started to decrease by about six percent," she says. Charlesworth presented her new data in May at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science.

People are showing less stigma against others due to race, gender and many other things, notes Nutter. It's now time for weight stigma to go. After all, she says, if even one stigma is socially acceptable, "we haven't finished our work yet."

Correction: The work by Janet Tomiyama and Jeffrey M. Hunger was published in JAMA Pediatrics, not the Journal of Adolescent Health, as originally stated.

Power Words
More About Power Words

academic: Relating to school, classes or things taught by teachers in formal institutes of learning (such as a college).

adolescence: A transitional stage of physical and psychological development that begins at the onset of puberty, typically between the ages of 11 and 13, and ends with adulthood.

adolescent: Someone in that transitional stage of physical and psychological development that begins at the onset of puberty, typically between the ages of 11 and 13, and ends with adulthood.

annual: Adjective for something that happens every year. (in botany) A plant that lives only one year, so it usually has a showy flower and produces many seeds.

average: (in science) A term for the arithmetic mean, which is the sum of a group of numbers that is then divided by the size of the group.

bias: The tendency to hold a particular perspective or preference that favors some thing, some group or some choice. Scientists often "blind" subjects to the details of a test (don't tell them what it is) so that their biases will not affect the results.

body mass index: (BMI) A person's weight in kilograms divided by the square of his or her height in meters. BMI can be used to evaluate if someone is overweight or obese. However, because BMI does not account for how much muscle or fat a person has, it is not an accurate measure.

bullying: (v. to bully) A group of repeated behaviors that are mean-spirited. They can include teasing, spreading rumors about someone, saying hurtful things to someone and intentionally leaving someone out of groups or activities. Sometimes bullying can include attacks using violence (such as hitting), threats of violence, yelling at someone or abusing someone with violent language. Much bullying takes place in person. But it also may occur online, through emails or via text messages. Newer examples including making fake profiles of people on websites or posting embarrassing photos or videos on social media.

chronic: A condition, such as an illness (or its symptoms, including pain), that lasts for a long time.

colleague: Someone who works with another; a co-worker or team member.

constant: Continuous or uninterrupted.

cortisol: Also known as hydrocortisone, this is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands. It can serve as the body's main warning that it is under stress. It helps regulate a wide range of body functions, including how we process the energy in food, create memories and control inflammation.

culture: (n. in social science) The sum total of typical behaviors and social practices of a related group of people (such as a tribe or nation). Their culture includes their beliefs, values and the symbols that they accept and/or use. Culture is passed on from generation to generation through learning. Scientists once thought culture to be exclusive to humans. Now they recognize some other animals show signs of culture as well, including dolphins and primates.

diabetes: A disease where the body either makes too little of the hormone insulin (known as type 1 disease) or ignores the presence of too much insulin when it is present (known as type 2 diabetes).

diet: (n.) The foods and liquids ingested by an animal to provide the nutrition it needs to grow and maintain health. (v.) To adopt a specific food-intake plan. People may adopt a specific diet for religious or ethical reasons, to address food allergies, to control their body weight or to control a disease such as high blood pressure or diabetes.

discrimination: (in social science) An attitude of prejudice again people or things based on a bias about one or more of their attributes (such as race, sex, religion or age). It is not based on the actions of an individual but instead based on yet-unfounded expectations that are being applied broadly to a whole group.

diversity: A broad spectrum of similar items, ideas or people. In a social context, it may refer to a diversity of experiences and cultural backgrounds. (in biology) A range of different life forms.

eating disorder: An illness of the mind involving dangerously unhealthy patterns of eating and weight loss or gain.

gender: The attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a person's biological sex. Behavior that is compatible with cultural expectations is referred to as being the norm. Behaviors that are incompatible with these expectations are described as non-conforming.

hormone: (in zoology and medicine) A chemical produced in a gland and then carried in the bloodstream to another part of the body. Hormones control many important body activities, such as growth. Hormones act by triggering or regulating chemical reactions in the body. (in botany) A chemical that serves as a signaling compound that tells cells of a plant when and how to develop, or when to grow old and die.

implicit bias: To unknowingly hold a particular perspective or preference that favors some thing, some group or some choice - or, conversely, holds some unrecognized prejudice against it.

media: (in the social sciences) A term for the ways information is delivered and shared within a society. It encompasses not only the traditional media - newspapers, magazines, radio and television - but also Internet- and smartphone-based outlets, such as blogs, Twitter, Facebook and more. The newer, digital media are sometimes referred to as social media. The singular form of this term is medium.

middle school: A designation for grades six through eight in the U.S. educational system. It comes immediately prior to high school. Some school systems break their age groups slightly different, including sixth grade as part of elementary school and then referring to grades seven and eight as "junior" high school.

mortality: Deaths. From mortal, meaning deadly.

nonbinary: Meaning "not one of two." People who identify this way might feel they are both male and female, neither male nor female, or somewhere in between. Instead of he or she, nonbinary individuals may choose to go by the pronoun "they."

obesity: (adj. obese) Extreme overweight. Obesity is associated with a wide range of health problems, including type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

overweight: A medical condition where the body has accumulated too much body fat. People are not considered overweight if they weigh more than is normal for their age and height, but that extra weight comes from bone or muscle.

peer: (noun) Someone who is an equal, based on age, education, status, training or some other features. (verb) To look into something, searching for details.

perception: The state of being aware of something - or the process of becoming aware of something - through use of the senses.

phobia: An extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.

physical: (adj.) A term for things that exist in the real world, as opposed to in memories or the imagination. It can also refer to properties of materials that are due to their size and non-chemical interactions (such as when one block slams with force into another).

psychological: An adjective that refers to how the human mind works, especially in relation to guiding actions and behavior.

psychologist: A scientist or mental-health professional who studies the human mind, especially in relation to actions and behaviors.

range: The full extent or distribution of something. For instance, a plant or animal's range is the area over which it naturally exists.

risk: The chance or mathematical likelihood that some bad thing might happen. For instance, exposure to radiation poses a risk of cancer. Or the hazard - or peril - itself. (For instance: Among cancer risks that the people faced were radiation and drinking water tainted with arsenic.)

social media: Internet-based media, such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, that allow people to connect with each other (often anonymously) and to share information.

stereotype: A widely held view or explanation for something, which often may be wrong because it has been overly simplified.

stigma: A disgrace, source of shame or a stain on one's reputation - often not justifiably - due to something that one did, experienced or represents to others.

stress: (in biology) A factor - such as unusual temperatures, movements, moisture or pollution - that affects the health of a species or ecosystem. (in psychology) A mental, physical, emotional or behavioral reaction to an event or circumstance (stressor) that disturbs a person or animal's usual state of being or places increased demands on a person or animal; psychological stress can be either positive or negative.

tone: (in psychology) Changes in a voice that express a particular feeling or mood.

trait: A characteristic feature of something. (in genetics) A quality or characteristic that can be inherited.

Citations

Meeting: Charlesworth, T. Long-term Trends Continue in Implicit and Explicit Attitudes from 2017-2020, Annual Meeting of the Association for Psychological Science (virtual). May 2021.

Book: C. Markey. T he Body Image Book for Girls: Love yourself and grow up fearless. Cambridge University Press. September 2020, 226 pp.

Book: V. Sole-Smith. The Eating Instinct: Food culture, body image, and guilt in America. November 13, 2018, Henry Holt & Co., 304 pp.

Journal: J.M. Hunger and A.J. Tomiyama. Weight labeling and obesity: A longitudinal study of girls aged 10 to 19 years. JAMA Pediatrics. Vol. 168, June 2014. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.122.

Journal: R.M. Puhl and M.S. Himmelstein. Adolescent preferences for weight terminology used by health care providers. Pediatric Obesity. Vol. 13, March 24, 2018. doi: 10.1111/ijpo.12275.

Journal: R.M. Puhl et al. Adolescent preferences and reactions to language about body weight. International Journal of Obesity. Vol. 41, February 27, 2017. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2017.55.

Journal: M.S. Himmelstein, A.C. Incollingo Belsky and A.J. Tomiyama. The weight of stigma: cortisol reactivity to manipulated weight stigma. Obesity. Vol. 23, January 28, 2015. doi: 10.1002/oby.20959.

Bethany Brookshire was a longtime staff writer at Science News for Students. She has a Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology and likes to write about neuroscience, biology, climate and more. She thinks Porgs are an invasive species.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Lindo Bacon gives a lot of school talks. But one has always stuck with them. Bacon is a writer, speaker and scientist in California. They also are the author of the book Health at Every Size . Most of their school talks are about how to reduce weight stigma - stereotypes or discrimination based on a how much someone weighs.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Our Values

The Eight Pillars

BPFA was founded on the Eight Pillars, a set of values that guide both our organization and our fintess practices. The Pillars are: Accessibility, Approachability, Community, Enjoyment, Full Health, Scope of Practice, Body Positivity, and Growth.

We invite you to explore each Pillar with its application to our mission and your own.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Body Positive Fitness Alliance | Fitness for all bodies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our Values BPFA was founded on the Eight Pillars, a set of values that guide both our organization and our fintess practices. The Pillars are: Accessibility, Approachability, Community, Enjoyment, Full Health, Scope of Practice, Body Positivity, and Growth. We invite you to explore each Pillar with its application to our mission and your own.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
subscribe to Short Wave podcast

subscribe to Short Wave podcast

Where does our preference for thinness really come from?

As Sabrina Strings explains in her book, Fearing the Black Body, the answer is much more complicated than health or aesthetics. She argues that the origins of modern-day fat phobia can be traced all the way back to slavery and that Black people are still dealing with the consequences.

Follow Sabrina on Twitter @ SaStrings and read her op-ed discussed in the interview here.

Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.
This episode was produced by Yowei Shaw, fact-checked by Rebecca Ramirez, and edited by Deborah George.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fat Phobia And Its Racist Past And Present : Short Wave

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Where does our preference for thinness really come from? As Sabrina Strings explains in her book, Fearing the Black Body, the answer is much more complicated than health or aesthetics. She argues the origins of modern day fat phobia can be traced all the way back to slavery, and Black people are still dealing with the consequences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lazy. Unmotivated. No self-discipline. No willpower.

These are just a few of the widespread stereotypes ingrained in American society about people who have a higher body weight or larger body size. Known as weight stigma, these attitudes result in many Americans being blamed, teased, bullied, mistreated and discriminated against.

There is nowhere to hide from societal weight stigma. Decades of research confirm the presence of weight stigma in workplaces, schools, health-care settings, public accommodations and the mass media, as well as in close interpersonal relationships with friends and families. It's everywhere.

I'm a psychologist and researcher at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. For 20 years, my team has studied weight stigma. We've examined the origins and prevalence of weight stigma, its presence across different societal settings, the harm it causes for people's health and strategies to tackle this problem.

We conducted a recent international study that clearly shows that weight stigma is widespread, damaging and difficult to eradicate. This societal devaluation is a real and legitimate experience for people across different countries, languages and cultures.

Among U.S. adults, weight stigma is a common experience, with as many as 40 percent reporting past experiences of weight-based teasing, unfair treatment and discrimination. These experiences are most prevalent for people with high body mass indexes or those with obesity and for women. For youth, body weight is one of the most prevalent reasons for teasing and bullying.

That more than 40 percent of Americans have obesity has not softened public attitudes toward people in this group. Although societal attitudes toward other stigmatized groups have become less prejudiced in recent decades, there has been little change in weight bias. In some cases it's worsening.

Prevailing views that people are personally responsible for their weight, despite ample scientific evidence of the complex and multifactorial causes of obesity, are one reason weight stigma persists. This mind-set is difficult to change given American culture's celebration of thinness, negative media portrayals of people with larger bodies and a thriving diet industry. These factors reinforce the faulty premise that body weight is infinitely malleable, as does a lack of legislation to protect people from weight discrimination.

Contrary to public perceptions, weight stigma does not motivate people to lose weight. Instead it worsens health and reduces quality of life. The harmful impacts of weight stigma can be real and long-lasting. They range from emotional distress - depressive symptoms, anxiety, low self-esteem - to disordered eating, unhealthy eating behaviors, lower physical activity, weight gain, increased physiological stress and avoiding health care.

Weight stigma is not unique to America. It exists around the world. But few studies have directly compared people's experiences of weight stigma in different countries.

In our recent study, we compared experiences of weight stigma in six nations: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries share similar societal values that reinforce personal blame for body weight, and do little to challenge weight-based shaming and mistreatment. The participants were 13,996 adults (about 2,000 people per country) who were actively trying to manage their weight.

The biases people encountered because of their higher weight or larger body size turned out to be remarkably consistent across the six countries, with more than half of study participants - 58 percent on average - experiencing weight stigma. The most common interpersonal sources of weight stigma were family members (76-87 percent), classmates (72-76 percent) and doctors (58-73 percent). These experiences were most frequent and distressing during childhood and adolescence.

Many incorporated these stigmatizing experiences into how they felt about themselves. In this process of "weight bias internalization," people apply negative societal stereotypes to themselves. They blame themselves for their weight and judge themselves as inferior and deserving of societal stigma.

We knew from our earlier research that weight bias internalization has harmful health implications, and this was true here as well. Across the six countries, the more that people internalized weight bias, the more they gained weight in the prior year, used food to cope with stress, avoided going to the gym, had an unhealthy body image and reported higher stress. These findings persisted regardless of people's body size or their previous experiences of stigma.

Moreover, in all six countries people with greater internalized weight bias reported worse health-related quality of life and health-care experiences. They avoided getting health care, had less frequent checkups and reported more substandard health care compared to people who had less internalization.

The unique multinational perspective of our study reveals that weight stigma is commonly experienced, often internalized and related to poor health and health care among people who are trying to manage their weight. In this sense, confronting weight stigma appears to be a collective struggle, but it is one that people are probably grappling with on their own.

While there is a long road ahead to eliminate weight stigma, shifts in societal attitudes are taking place.

In recent years, the harms of "fat shaming" have received increased public attention, and so has the body positivity movement. Both are helping to elevate calls for efforts to stop unfair treatment based on weight.

There is also growing recognition in the medical community that action is needed.

In 2020, more than 100 medical and scientific organizations across nine countries signed a joint international consensus statement and pledge to bring attention to weight stigma and its harmful effect. These medical experts aim to shift the narrative of blame and help address weight stigma in media, public attitudes and health care.

Our research shows broad and substantial public support for policies to tackle weight discrimination. In national studies, we found that more than 70 percent of Americans support adding body weight as a protected category, alongside categories such as race and age, to existing state civil rights laws. They also support new legislation to make it illegal for employers to discriminate against employees based on weight.

This would legitimize weight stigma as both a social injustice and a public health issue.

I believe broad and collective action is needed to address this problem, both in and outside the United States. While this may sound challenging, fundamentally it is actually quite simple: It is about respect, dignity and equal treatment for people of all body weights and sizes.

Rebecca Puhl is professor of human development and family sciences and deputy director at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. This article was originally published on theconversation.com.

People are getting vaccinated due to their BMI. They have mixed feelings about it.

About 74 percent of adults in the U.S. are overweight, according to the CDC

Today's Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Perspective | Weight stigma study in the U.S. and 5 other nations shows the worldwide problem of such prejudice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Lazy. Unmotivated. No self-discipline. No willpower. These are just a few of the widespread stereotypes ingrained in American society about people who have a higher body weight or larger body size. Known as weight stigma, these attitudes result in many Americans being blamed, teased, bullied, mistreated and discriminated against.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
AS SEEN ON...

ABOUT NALGONA POSITIVITY PRIDE

Nalgona Positivity Pride (NPP) is an in-community eating disorders and body-positive organization dedicated in creating visibility and resources for Black, Indigenous, communities of color (BICC.) Since 2016, NPP has been raising awareness around the specific needs of BICC through digital media, education, grassroots eating disorders treatment models, and art. Rooted in Xicana indigenous feminism and DIY punx praxis, NPP emerged out of a great need not only to shed light on the experiences and barriers that exist in BICC affected by body-image and troubled eating but to create opportunities of healing by and for BICC.

"We have been left with no other option but to create our own opportunities of representation and healing."

Hello! I'm Gloria Lucas!

I specialize in intersectional eating disorders education and resources that transform the lives of BIPOC individuals and expand eating disorders treatment models. Being the founder and CEO of Nalgona Positivity Pride, I am able to raise awareness through digital media, public speaking, and grassroots activism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Body Positivity Women of Color | Los Angeles | Nalgonapositivitypride

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
AS SEEN ON... ABOUT NALGONA POSITIVITY PRIDE Nalgona Positivity Pride (NPP) is an in-community eating disorders and body-positive organization dedicated in creating visibility and resources for Black, Indigenous, communities of color (BICC.) Since 2016, NPP has been raising awareness around the specific needs of BICC through digital media, education, grassroots eating disorders treatment models, and art.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, the way we eat, and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier. While GH also publishes weight loss content and endeavors to do so in a responsible, science-backed way, we think it's important to present a broad perspective that allows for a fuller understanding of the complex thinking about health and body weight. Our goal here is not to tell you how to think, eat, or live - nor is to to pass judgment on how you choose to nourish your body - but rather to start a conversation about diet culture, its impact, and how we might challenge the messages we are given about what makes us attractive, successful and healthy.

When Carol Perlman was in fourth grade, she eagerly joined a school-sponsored group called the No-Thank-Yous. "It was for kids who wanted to lose weight - how sad is that?" says the 48-year-old psychologist in Massachusetts, who looks back at the club she joined when she was nine as the starting point of four decades of on-and-off dieting. "I've hopped from one diet to another, including South Beach, Beach Body and Weight Watchers about a bazillion times," she says. "Each time I lose about 10 pounds, but then as soon as I start eating normally, it comes right back. It takes an incredible amount of work to lose the weight, and it when I gain it back, it's so discouraging - it feels like I'm moving backward."

Sound familiar? Perlman - who falls well within what the Centers for Disease Control labels a "normal BMI" - is just one of the estimated 55% of American women and 34% of men who lose weight and then gain it back over and over again, a phenomenon known as yo-yo dieting, or weight cycling.

That kind of up-and-down may seem so normal to so many of us that it's not even worth discussing - who hasn't dropped a few pounds before a class reunion or beach vacation, only to gain it back as soon as the event is history? But research is showing us that chronic weight cycling, especially if you start dieting as young as Perlman did, may be doing long-term damage to our bodies, not to mention our mental health.

This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

The psychological toll of weight cycling

While losing weight by following a restrictive diet may not be difficult at first, keeping that weight off is often nearly impossible as your body reacts to what it suspects is a famine scenario by slowing down your metabolism and sending hunger signals to your brain.

This means the majority of dieters gain the weight back - often adding on a few additional pounds in the process. This leads to a cycle of emotional highs and lows, first feeling great about yourself, then feeling like a failure, says Mary Pritchard, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Boise State University, who researches body image and dieting.

The very fact that you've lost weight in the past can make you feel more pressure to lose it the next time. "We think, well, I've done it before, why can't I do it again? - even if that may not be realistic for your body," says Pritchard, who is currently studying this phenomenon in postpartum women, who can feel intense pressure to "snap back" after giving birth.

The more times a person weight-cycles, the greater their risk for depression

Pritchard also points out that social media has raised the stakes even higher, as we excitedly post photos of ourselves at our lowest weights - and then have them there forever to remind us of how we "failed" when we regain the weight. "Expecting yourself to have a 20-year-old body at age 45 is unrealistic for most people - in addition to the changes in metabolism and the loss in muscle mass as we get older, hormonal shifts caused by pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause make weight loss more difficult," Pritchard points out.

Perlman agrees that the guilt comes from inside and out. "When you've been at a certain body weight, it's hard to give up the idea that you can still get back there," she says. "Also, you see other people who are thin, and think, Why can't I be like them?"

With this constant merry-go-round of emotions, it should come as no surprise that a large 2020 study in the journal found that the more times a person has weight-cycled, the greater their risk for symptoms of depression, which held true for both men and women. The researchers theorize that " internal weight stigma" - that inside voice shaming you each time you gain weight - is the mediating force.

To be clear, weight cycling is not just an issue with adults who are trying to lose a significant amount of weight. According to the study in Nature, it is increasingly common with younger women - even girls as young as five - who are unhappy with the way they look (the study mentions the usual suspects of magazine images, Barbie dolls and trying to achieve a specific type of body to make a sports team as some of the motivating factors for girls to try to lose weight). Perlman recalls that when she first started dieting at nine, it was because she felt the clothes that were popular at that time were not flattering on her body.

Not only is it incredibly disheartening to think about grade-school girls trying to count calories and carbs, but the younger you are when you hop on the dieting merry-go-round, the more opportunities you have over the years to go up and down, back and forth, losing a few pounds here, then gaining a few back. And each time that happens, there is more physical and mental strain on your body.

Every time you gain weight back after a weight loss, there are subtle changes going on in your body - and many researchers believe that the over time, all those changes can add up to some serious health risks. These include:

✔️ HEART DISEASE: In a 2019 study done in conjunction with the American Heart Association (AHA), researchers found that a history of weight cycling was associated with lower score on the AHA's Life Simple 7, which measures the risk of cardiovascular disease through seven categories, including BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, smoking, physical activity and diet. Though it's possible there are outside factors such as genetics that influence both the urge to diet for weight loss and the risk of heart disease, researcher Brooke Aggarwal, Ed.D, assistant professor of medical sciences at Columbia University Medical Center, points out that there was still a very clear connection: "Not only was weight cycling associated with a poor cardiovascular health, but we found a dose response, too: Each additional episode of weight cycling was associated with a further reduction on the overall Simple 7 score," she says.

✔️ DIABETES: A 2018 Korean study that looked at nearly 5,000 non-diabetic subjects found that after four years, those who had the highest levels of weight cycling were at significantly increased risk of developing diabetes. And a large review published last year confirms that for people who are average weight, weight cycling appears to increase the risk of developing diabetes. That said, the science is less clear when it comes to those who are considered clinically obese: A long-term Korean study found that people with obesity who experienced more weight cycling were actually less likely to develop diabetes than other study participants, which could indicate that, at least in terms of diabetes, the benefits of losing weight - even if it is inevitably gained back - might outweigh the risks of yo-yo dieting.

But some health experts say it's not so simple. "The relationship of yo-yo dieting to diabetes is complicated and varies over time," says Paul Ernsberger, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, who explains that the decreases in blood sugar during weight loss are eventually regained, along with an increase in liver fat, which can make diabetes worse. "Because diabetes type 2 is a lifelong condition, the long term is what counts. The outlook for repeat dieters is not favorable even if short term results appear to be good," he says.

✔️ MUSCULOSKELETAL DECLINE: The more times you cycle through diets, the weaker you may become as you get older. A 2019 study found that people who are "severe weight cyclers" are six times more likely to suffer from low muscle mass, and five times more likely to develop sarcopenia, a musculoskeletal disorder that makes you frailer and more likely to suffer from falls and fractures as you age.

✔️ GALLSTONES: Carrying a lot of body weight is one of the risk factors for developing gallstones (masses of cholesterol, bile and calcium salts that build up in the gall bladder, causing severe pain). But according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, losing and gaining weight can also increase the risk: "Large swings of body weight, especially the phase of weight recovery, are particularly sensitive to the accumulation of body fat and to the development of metabolic abnormalities, including insulin resistance, and thereby may facilitate gallstone formation," the report states.

What happens your body every time you lose and gain weight?

There is still a lot of research being done to parse out exactly what happens every time you lose and then regain weight. But what we do know is this: After weight loss, your resting metabolism decreases, meaning that your body burns off fewer calories just going about your daily business of breathing, sleeping and digesting. And those changes tend to remain even after you've gained back the weight.

Then there's the "repeated overshoot" theory: Imagine you drop a rubber ball. When it bounces back up, it actually goes higher than where it started out. Now, think of that ball as representing risk factors such as blood glucose and cholesterol levels - when you regain the weight you lost, all those numbers bounce back higher than where they were at the start, at least temporarily, Aggarwal explains. "Over time, the continuous fluctuation stresses the cardiovascular system, and you wind up in a slightly worse position than you were at baseline," she says.

The third main factor is the increase in visceral fat:When you regain weight after a diet, the weight tends to come back not as muscle, but as fat - and much of that is visceral fat that encases your internal organs, Aggarwal explains. "This type of fat is strongly associated with cardiovascular risk compared with other areas of the body where you may gain weight, such as the legs," she says.

How to care for your body without dieting

There's a revolutionary idea being espoused by anti-diet culture proponents, body positivity activists, and Health at Every Size advocates in a growing anti-diet movement: If you have to restrict your diet and bust your butt to lose that 10 pounds, only to see them slide back on as soon as you eat "normally" again, then perhaps it's a sign that your body doesn't want to be that weight.

Eating food that makes you feel nourished and that you enjoy - without counting the number of calories or carbs - may be the key to remaining at a steady weight, neither up nor down, stabilizing both your emotions and your health. "When people shift behaviors around food and eating and movement and stress management and sleep, even when their weight stays exactly the same, we see a decrease in the disease risk and an improvement in health," says Alissa Rumsey, R.D., a certified intuitive eating counselor and author of Unapologetic Eating. " Intuitive eating is about taking care of your body rather than trying to punish or control it."

Eating food that makes you feel nourished may be the key to remaining at a steady weight

"A lot of people think there's an all or nothing way of eating," adds Rumsey. "It can really hold them back in life - I know of so many people who won't do things because of their bodies, they'll say 'When I lose the weight, then I'll start dating or go on vacation or get my master's degree!" Imagine if you decided to go ahead and just do those things, no matter what the numbers on the scale said.

After 40 years of dieting, Perlman says she still puts a lot of thought into her food choices, and thinks she always will, but she's focusing these days on eating for energy and health, rather than weight loss. "I know now that you can be attractive, stylish and beautiful at any size," she says. "I wish someone had told me that when I was younger. If I could go back, I would tell myself to learn what my strengths were and what made me wonderful and focus on that rather than the things I couldn't change."

More From Our Anti Diet Series

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Health Experts Explain the Hidden Dangers of Yo-Yo Dieting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, the way we eat, and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Top Body Image Podcast | Intuitive Eating | The Body Love Society

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Click here now to listen to Top Body Image Podcast put on together by top Intuitive Eating Community, The Body Society!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Webinar: What About (Self) Love?! Cultivating Body Liberation-Centred Relationships

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It can be a helpful health measure for large groups of people, but it won't tell you much about yourself.

Credit... Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

There are few single measures in health care that seem to carry as much weight as body mass index, or B.M.I. We encounter it not just at doctor's offices, but with online calculators and smart scales, at gyms and even when determining eligibility for the Covid vaccine.

Its formula is simple: Take your weight (in kilograms), and divide by the square of your height (in meters). The result, which slots you into one of four main categories, is meant to describe your body in a single word or two: underweight (B.M.I. less than 18.5), normal weight (18.5 to 24.9), overweight (25.0 to 29.9) or obese (30 or greater).

Many feel judged by these categories, given that only about a quarter of adults in the United States can call themselves "normal" on the B.M.I. scale. But after talking with an epidemiologist, two obesity medicine physicians, a health psychologist and a sociologist, none claimed that B.M.I. was a very useful measure of a person's health. And, in fact, some said they would indeed call it a scam.

Introduced in the 1830s by a Belgian statistician who wanted to quantitatively describe the "average man," the calculation was named the body mass index and popularized in the 1970s by the Minnesota physiologist Ancel Keys. At the time, Dr. Keys was irritated that life insurance companies were estimating people's body fat - and hence, their risk of dying - by comparing their weights with the average weights of others of the same height, age and gender. In a 1972 study of more than 7,000 healthy, mostly middle-aged men, Dr. Keys and his colleagues showed that the body mass index was a more accurate - and far simpler - predictor of body fat than the methods used by the insurance industry.

"It is a very useful tool in epidemiologic research," said Dr. JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Research has shown that across large groups of people, higher B.M.I. is generally associated with greater risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer, she said. On average, people with a higher body mass index have more body fat, so it can be useful for tracking rates of obesity, which have nearly tripled globally over the last several decades. It also has a "J-shaped" relationship with mortality; very low and very high B.M.I.s are associated with greater risk of dying sooner, whereas the "normal" to "overweight" range is associated with lower mortality risk.

As Dr. Keys found, B.M.I. is also easy and inexpensive to measure, which is why it is still used in research studies and doctor's offices today.

For all its utility as a research tool, though, body mass index is "fairly useless when looking at the individual," said Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa.

B.M.I. can't tell, for instance, what percentage of a person's weight is from their fat, muscle or bone. This explains why muscular athletes often have high B.M.I.s despite having little body fat. And as people age, it's common to lose muscle and bone mass but gain abdominal fat, a change in body composition that would be concerning for health but might go unnoticed if it didn't change a person's B.M.I., Dr. Manson said.

The measure also does a poor job of predicting a person's metabolic health. In a 2016 study of more than 40,000 adults in the United States, researchers compared people's B.M.I.s with more specific measurements of their health, like their insulin resistance, markers of inflammation and blood pressure, triglyceride, cholesterol and glucose levels. Nearly half of those classified as overweight and about a quarter of those classified as obese were metabolically healthy by these measures. On the other hand, 31 percent of those with a "normal" body mass index were metabolically unhealthy.

B.M.I. can "label a huge swath of our population as somehow aberrant because of their weight, even if they're perfectly healthy," said A. Janet Tomiyama, lead author of the study and an associate professor of health psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Another problem with B.M.I. is that it was developed and validated mostly in white men, said Sabrina Strings, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. But body composition and its relationship with health can vary depending on your gender, race and ethnicity. "Women and people of color are largely not represented in many of these data," Dr. Strings said. "Nevertheless, they're being used to create a universal standard."

It can be if it's used to set arbitrary goal posts for body size. Dr. Rekha Kumar, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College, said that some patients who have lost weight and reached what she sees as their "healthy, happy weight," but who still have a high B.M.I., may feel that they have to unnecessarily or unrealistically drop more pounds to be considered normal on the scale.

It can also be harmful if a doctor assumes that a person with a normal body mass index is healthy, and doesn't probe them about potentially unhealthy habits they may have, like following a poor diet or not getting enough physical activity, Dr. Freedhoff said. And if the doctors of patients with higher B.M.I.s focus on weight alone as the cause of any health issues they may have, the doctors may miss more important diagnoses and risk stigmatizing patients.

There is plenty of evidence that weight stigma is harmful, Dr. Tomiyama said. Research has shown that anti-fat bias is common among medical doctors, which can result in lower quality care and cause patients to avoid or delay medical attention. People who have felt discriminated against because of heavier weight are also about 2.5 times more likely to have mood or anxiety disorders, and are more likely to gain weight and have a shorter life expectancy.

"You can see a situation where this hyper focus on body mass index, and that there are allowable and unallowable B.M.I.s, could be highly stigmatizing," Dr. Tomiyama said. "And that stigma in turn could ironically be driving future increases in weight."

This burden may fall disproportionately on Black Americans, Dr. Strings said, who as a group tend to have higher B.M.I.s than white Americans - especially among Black women. Yet evidence suggests that having a higher B.M.I. is not as clearly linked to earlier death in Black Americans. If doctors only focus on body mass index, Dr. Strings said, they may be more likely to blame their patients' health issues on their B.M.I. or counsel their Black patients to lose weight.

In her own research, Dr. Strings has traced the origins of fat phobia in the Western world to the time of slavery, when Black women were "deemed to be excessively corpulent," she said, as a way of positioning them as inferior to white women.

Dr. Strings argued that focusing on body mass index as a measure of health only distracts from the more important work of addressing the structural factors that lead to poor health, like " poverty, racism, lack of access to healthy fruits and vegetables" and environmental toxins, she said. "But instead, we just keep wanting to vilify fat people."

If you're concerned about your weight, a more direct and relevant way to gauge potentially unhealthy body fat is to measure your waist circumference, Dr. Manson said. This estimates abdominal fat, which lies deep within the abdomen and accumulates around vital organs. In excess, it can increase the risk of certain obesity-related conditions like Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and coronary artery disease. It is also more harmful than subcutaneous fat - the soft fat you can pinch with your fingers that lies in a layer just beneath the skin.

But in Dr. Freedhoff's weight management clinic, he and his team don't set patient goals around B.M.I., weight or waist circumference at all. "We discuss something we call 'best weight,' which is whatever weight a person reaches when they're living the healthiest life they can actually enjoy," he said. If a patient's weight is negatively affecting their health or quality of life, Dr. Freedhoff and his colleagues will explore weight loss strategies including lifestyle changes, medication or, in some cases, surgery. But if it's not, Dr. Freedhoff tells patients that they may already be at their healthy weight, regardless of their B.M.I.

Rather than focusing on body size as a gauge of health, Dr. Tomiyama said that your blood glucose, triglyceride and blood pressure results can be better windows into your well-being. How you feel in your body is important, too, she said. "Can you go up a flight of stairs and feel good about how you feel after that? How are you able to live your life in the body that you have?" she said.

If you're seeking better health, prioritize behaviors that are more within your control than your body mass index, Dr. Tomiyama said, like "better sleep, more exercise, getting a handle on stress and eating more fruits and vegetables."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It can be a helpful health measure for large groups of people, but it won't tell you much about yourself. There are few single measures in health care that seem to carry as much weight as body mass index, or B.M.I.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Low-fat, low-carb, Paleo, keto, South Beach, intermittent fasting-the list goes on. Given that our culture idealizes thinness and shuns larger bodies, it's not surprising that nearly one in five midlife women has dieted in the past few years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And many have regained the weight and see themselves as having failed. Less than 1% of very large people got to a "normal" weight at all in a study that included almost 100,000 women, and most who did regained the pounds they had lost within five years.

Some medical experts are now saying what many of us have been desperate to hear: It's extremely tough to drop weight long-term, for reasons that have nothing to do with willpower-and it may not even be necessary.

"The dominant message people get from government, health organizations, and the media is that weight and health are connected. But really, there is no strong evidence to suggest that higher weight automatically leads to poorer health," says Jeffrey Hunger, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Miami University of Ohio and a longtime weight-stigma researcher (and yes, that's his real name!).

If you're extremely large-bodied, dropping some pounds can protect your joints from arthritis and make it easier to exercise. But for most women over the "ideal" weight, focusing on other health measures may be much more important than what the scale says.

So why isn't that a message you're likely to hear from your health care provider? " The evidence has been piling up for years, but experts are so stuck in their beliefs, they don't accept anything to the contrary," Hunger says. Add to this all the people and companies with financial interests in pumping out anti-fat messages, from diet purveyors to drug companies to book authors. Plus, the message that body fat is bad and needs to be diminished as much as possible is such gospel in our society that it's hard to believe it may not be true.

Here are eight important facts that many are overlooking. These realities may be just what you need to feel better about your body, whatever your weight.

1. Weight is not an accurate measure of health.

Doctors worry that heavy women are "cardiometabolically unhealthy," a shorthand term that encompasses blood pressure; levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood glucose; and other measures of heart and arterial fitness.

But researchers at UCLA and the University of Minnesota evaluated nearly two dozen studies and concluded that there was " no clear relationship between weight loss and health outcomes." In other words, shedding pounds didn't meaningfully lower blood pressure, diabetes risk, or cholesterol.

Equating being heavier with having poor cardiometabolic health and being thin with the opposite is way off the mark, researchers at the University of California concluded. They pored over data from more than 40,000 participants in the government's annual National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and found that nearly half the people classified as "overweight" (and more than a quarter labeled "obese") had perfectly healthy blood levels of lipids and glucose, meaning they were cardiometabolically fine. Meanwhile, a full 30% of the "normal-weight" participants had unhealthy levels of these markers.

The bottom line: Weight alone is not indicative of health, so nobody can tell whether or not a person is healthy based on their weight.

2. Healthy behaviors are more important than the number on the scale.

In a paper published in Social Issues and Policy Review, Hunger and colleagues reviewed many studies on weight and health and discovered that healthful behaviors, not fitting into our skinny jeans, are what make us healthy-and help us live longer. Heavy people who do healthy things are as likely to thrive as anyone else. On the list: being physically active, eating nutritious foods, and quitting smoking, of course-but also socializing enough to avoid isolation, minimizing stress, and managing depression.

"Your attention should be not on a target weight, but on how many days you intend to exercise this week and how much produce you'll be eating," says Mary S. Himmelstein, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychological sciences at Kent State University in Ohio. Then dial a girlfriend, schedule some yoga, and find a good therapist if you need one.

3. You can be fat and also f it.

Our culture regularly equates carrying extra body fat with being out of shape, but plenty of large-bodied women can easily run laps around their thinner counterparts at the gym. That's because in reality fitness and weight have little to do with each other, Himmelstein says.

A team of international researchers proved this when they followed 43,000 (mostly white) participants across the weight spectrum. At the outset, they measured blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, and the like, then tested the participants' fitness levels using a treadmill. Those who were metabolically sound and also fit had the same mortality rates during the next decade regardless of their weight. Those who were considered obese and unfit, however, were more likely to die.

4. Shedding pounds doesn't always lead to health gains.

If low weight equaled good health, dropping pounds would automatically make people healthier-but that's not what happens. Hunger points to a meta-analysis that found that even after dieters lost weight, their blood pressure, glucose, and other blood markers weren't significantly better when they were reevaluated two years later. Heavy people may make health gains when they are put on a weight-reduction plan, as in the famous Diabetes Prevention Program in 2002, which cut people's risk of developing the disease. But as the study 's UCLA and University of Minnesota scientists point out, participants in it, as in other weight-loss trials, were urged to exercise-which the scientists suggest was likely more of a health driver than the loss of pounds.

5. Weight is way more complex than calories in, calories out.

"So many things go into the weight you are," Himmelstein says. Genes, ethnicity, medicines you take, where you live, what your income is, and how much you sleep all play a role, even if most doctors focus only on calories. Weight is so complex that even longtime researchers don't yet understand all the variables involved. People might be heavier because these days food is so easily available. Or maybe it's the crazily larger portions restaurants serve compared with 35 years ago.

Barbara Corkey, Ph.D., professor emeritus of medicine and biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine and director of the Obesity Research Center, is intrigued by the notion that chemicals used in farming, additives in processed foods, and/or other toxins that make their way onto our plates may cause our bodies to erroneously release too much insulin, a hormone that makes us want to eat more. Corkey suggests that it may be not that obesity brings on problems like insulin resistance, as many doctors believe, but that unnaturally high insulin levels lead to obesity and insulin resistance.

There may be no upper limit to how rich you'd like to be, but there's definitely a floor for how thin you should be. Having a body mass index (BMI) below 23 (less than about 130 pounds for a 5' 3" woman) is linked to greater mortality than being a few pounds heavier, a team of international researchers discovered when they examined hundreds of studies with over 30 million participants. This was true even when they excluded people who might have been thin because they were already sick.

Plus, sinking to a too-low BMI can make you feel awful. When Oprah Winfrey dropped to a low weight for her (remember the jiggling fat she wheelbarrowed onto her show?), she was constantly frazzled and exhausted, she told crowds at her wellness events in 2019. Only when she put some pounds back on and reached the right weight for her did she feel better. (It's important to note that BMI itself has come under fire as a flawed measurement, because, among other issues, it doesn't differentiate between fat and muscle, categorizing athletes and others with a lot of muscle as "overweight," and it doesn't consider ethnic differences in body type.)

7. Many health care providers are dangerously biased.

Most people with high body weight have a story about how their doctors judged or blamed them or didn't listen, Himmelstein says. This is true with all types of providers-even ones who specialize in weight management! It can lead to a vicious cycle in which women avoid going to the doctor because they don't want to be fat-shamed, then miss out on treatment or early detection, Himmelstein says. In other cases, health complaints that have nothing to do with weight are inaccurately blamed on a person's size, so patients miss out on the correct treatment.

In this way, among others, doctors' bias can make people sicker-which might then add to the perception that all who are large-bodied are unhealthy. When a study assessing the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic confirmed that obese people suffered more complications and death from the disease, the authors pointed out that this might have been because those patients weren't given critical antiviral medicines as early in their disease as others. (It's unclear whether they didn't seek out treatment as soon or it wasn't offered to them by medical professionals.)

Problems like diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune conditions are especially important to identify early, when they are more easily treated, and health professionals' putting too much emphasis on body weight seems to be keeping people from getting the best care.

8. Eating healthily will get you farther than a weight-loss diet.

Dieting can help you trim pounds, but keeping them off is another story. The low nutrition levels and excessive exercise of many weight-loss plans aren't sustainable, Hunger says. Plus, when you cut back on calories, your metabolism slows to a crawl. "Our body's biological architecture doesn't understand what the thin ideal is-it's doing all it can to protect us from what it perceives as famine," he notes.

Because of these factors, a European analysis of large-bodied women calculated the chances of their reaching a "normal" BMI as less than 1 in 100! "Rather than make a drastic temporary change for a short-term goal like how you'll look at a class reunion, focus on small, sustained changes, like eating more whole grains and plant-based foods and less red meat and processed fare so healthy eating becomes your new lifestyle to set you up for long-term health," advises Ruwanthi Titano, M.D., an assistant professor of cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Even thin people benefit from ditching the focus on weight, Himmelstein says. A lot of brainpower goes into monitoring calories or carbs, she notes-time and energy we'd all be better off spending elsewhere. "Instead of trying to shrink your body, start to appreciate everything it does for you," Hunger suggests. You'll be healthy and feel good-the things that matter-no matter what your dress size.

This article originally appeared in the May 2021 issue of Prevention.
Go here to join Prevention Premium (our best value, all-access plan), subscribe to the magazine, or get digital-only access.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rethinking Fatness: Why Everything You've Been Told About Weight May Be Wrong

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Low-fat, low-carb, Paleo, keto, South Beach, intermittent fasting-the list goes on. Given that our culture idealizes thinness and shuns larger bodies, it's not surprising that nearly one in five midlife women has dieted in the past few years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The following is an excerpt from a chapter of Da'Shaun Harrison's forthcoming book, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness.

In March 2004, during a news conference with widespread coverage, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report that claimed that obesity was "killing 400,000 Americans a year," and that it was becoming America's "number one preventable death"-surpassing tobacco. The CDC defines obesity as "weight that is higher than what is considered as a healthy weight for a given height." Body mass index (BMI) is used as a "screening tool" to determine who is and is not obese. The report was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) which, at least at the time, was the most prestigious medical journal in the nation. Since Julie Gerberding, director of the CDC at the time, and other top CDC scientists co-authored this report, it had the credibility it needed for waves of reporters and news outlets to publish it. It would soon lead to egregious and violent headlines across the nation about fat people, fat bodies, and the alarming rate at which they were allegedly dying from obesity. It would also be cited repeatedly by officials including then Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson, several members of Congress, and creators of weight loss drugs seeking to draw attention and funding to anti-obesity efforts. From that moment forward, throughout the rest of that year, public officials and other media platforms used that report as evidence that obesity was the greatest threat facing the American people, and as justification for what would eventually become a forceful and strapping diet industrial complex. This was the start of "The Obesity Epidemic."

There were a few public indictments of the JAMA report, starting with Science magazine in May 2004. In a report of their own, they wrote: "Some researchers, including a few at the CDC, dismiss this prediction, saying the underlying data are weak. They argue that the paper's compatibility with a new anti-obesity theme in government public health pronouncements-rather than sound analysis-propelled it into print." This became, at least on record, the first acknowledgment of an emerging anti-fat theme within government, health, and science institutions. Soon after Science magazine's report, the Wall Street Journal published a story of their own that covered the errors in the study published in JAMA. On November 23, 2004, they opened their story with "America's obesity epidemic may not be as deadly as the government has claimed." Continuing, they wrote that the study "inflated the impact of obesity on the annual death toll by tens of thousands due to statistical errors." On April 30, just a month after the later-disputed report was published, Dr. Terry Pechacek, who was the associate director for science in the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, wrote in an email to his colleagues that he was "worried that the scientific credibility of the CDC likely could be damaged by the manner in which this paper and valid, credible, and repeated scientific questions about its methodology have been handled." After stating that he had warned two of the report's authors along with another senior scientist, Pechacek wrote, "I would never clear this paper if I had been given the opportunity to provide a formal review."

According to J. Eric Oliver in his book Fat Politics: The Real Story behind America's Obesity Epidemic:

"... the CDC researchers did not calculate the 400,000 deaths by checking to see if the weight of each person was a factor in his or her [or their] death. Rather, they estimated a figure by comparing the death rates of thin and heavy people using data that were nearly thirty years old. Although heavier people tend to die more frequently than people in mid-range weights, it is by no means clear that their weight is the cause of their higher death rates. It is far more likely that their weight is simply a proxy for other, more important factors such as their diet, exercise, or family medical history. The researchers, however, simply assumed that obesity was the primary cause of death, even though there was no clear scientific rationale for this supposition."
In other words, the CDC contrived this number from an estimation after reviewing data that was thirty years old. It was never a calculated number concluded from their own intense research; it was a scientific guess made with the hope to punish fat people for their bodies. And it worked. The damage had already been done. The people and institutions who would stand to benefit from that report had already won, and it was the start of the modern genocide of fatness and fat people. As Oliver states, fat people do tend to die at higher rates than their thin counterparts, but it isn't because of their weight. Fat people tend to die at higher rates than thin people because doctors misdiagnose them, or refuse to treat them, due to their fatness.
In January 2005, the CDC admitted that their 400,000 deaths number was a result of a "mathematical error," and in February of that same year-just after the CDC published a summation of the internal investigation that was launched following the initial report's release-the Los Angeles Times published a response to the investigation. Their report opened with this firm statement: "A controversial government study that may have sharply overstated America's death toll from obesity was inappropriately released as a result of miscommunication, bureaucratic snafus and acquiescence from dissenting scientists." This would become the second public acknowledgement of governmental disarray that was leading the nation in one of the most violent pseudoepidemics in the nation's history.

In April 2005, just a year after the initial report was published, the CDC released another report-also through JAMA-wherein they not only offered a much smaller number of deaths per year due to obesity, but also claimed that "moderately overweight people" live longer than people at a "normal weight." The new report in JAMA cut the death toll to 112,000, which was well under half of what was initially reported, but the damage had already been done. Around the world, people were using the CDC's original numbers as fuel for the war waged on fat people. The diet industry, at the time, was already well over a century old. Americans had been dieting and trying to lose weight for decades. But with this war waged on obesity, the early-to-mid 2000s is a pivotal moment in history for the creation of this modern diet industrial complex. The CDC's report cemented a growing belief: fat people were dying rapidly and the only solution was to kill them quicker-either through forcing them to transform their bodies or to die trying. Despite how theatrical that reads, that is what was being demanded of fat people. The goal was, and continues to be, to eradicate fatness. To do that, one was to either overinvest in dieting-which has proven to be ineffective-or die trying to reach an ideal weight defined by organizations like the CDC and WHO, either on an operating table or in a gym.

But this was not the first time in America's history that a genocide would be declared on an entire community at the behest of this country's leadership. Just three decades before the start of the War on Obesity there was the genesis of the War on Drugs.

In the 1960s, drugs were a prominent part of the sociopolitical climate of the times. They became associated with juvenile uprisings, and in many ways, they became emblematic of the political and ideological contestation over harmful policies and practices by the United States government-arguments led mostly by Black and other marginalized people. As such, the government ceased all research on the safety of these drugs and, in 1971, former president Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs. Nixon substantially increased the amount and power of federal drug control agencies in the country and bulldozed mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants into the forefront of the legislation being passed at that time. Though it passed during his tenure as president, the legislation picked up momentum under Reagan's presidency in the 1980s. By the early 1980s, local police had used over 1,500 no-knock warrants, according to Peter Kraska, a professor with the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University. By the year 2000, that number had increased to 40,000 per year. In 2010, it increased to 70,000 per year. Of these searches, over 40 percent impacted, and continue to impact, Black homes-including the home of Breonna Taylor who was killed in Louisville, Kentucky in 2020.

Soon after that legislation was passed, Nixon placed marijuana in the most restrictive category of drugs, schedule one, where it would stay until it was reviewed by a commission led by then Governor Raymond Shafer-a commission appointed by Nixon. Despite the concordant recommendation from the commission in 1972 to decriminalize the possession and distribution of marijuana-for personal use-Nixon ignored the report and did not adhere to the proposed recommendation. Irrespective of this, eleven states around the country decriminalized marijuana possession between the years 1973 and 1977-a year in which former president Jimmy Carter ran and was elected on a platform inclusive of the decriminalization of marijuana. And in that same year, the Senate Judiciary Committee motioned to decriminalize the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use. But soon after, these efforts were left behind as former president Ronald Reagan ushered in what would become known as "mass incarceration" through his expansion of Nixon's war on drugs. The incarceration of people charged with nonviolent drug offenses grew from 50,000 in Reagan's first year in office to 400,000 by the end of 1997. Stress levels and concerns induced by the fearmongering of the Reagan administration were high, forcing upon mostly Black communities a proliferation of arrests. By the end of 1999, over half a million Black people were held in state or federal prisons. In 1980, the overall federal prison population was 24,000. By 1996, the number had grown to 106,000-the majority of which were arrested for drug offenses. According to Kenneth B. Nunn in "Race, Crime and the Pool of Surplus Criminality: Or Why the 'War on Drugs' Was a 'War on Blacks,'" from 1979 to 1989, the percentage of Black people arrested on drug charges doubled from 22 percent to 42 percent of the overall number of drug-related arrests. Also during that time, the amount of Black arrests for drug use violations grew exponentially from 112,748 to 452,574-an increase of over 300 percent.

Ronald Reagan introduced zero tolerance policies in the mid-80s and Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates-who, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, once stated that "casual drug users should be taken out and shot"-founded the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) program that would soon be implemented in schools across the country despite there being no evidence stating that it was useful. This also meant, however, that there was no widespread evidence that it was ineffective-an unsurprising failing of the United States' medical industry. The Drug Policy Alliance also states that "the increasingly harsh drug policies also blocked the expansion of syringe access programs and other harm reduction policies to reduce the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS," making the War on Drugs not only a war on recreational use of drugs but also on medicinal use. They continue:

In the late 1980s, a political hysteria about drugs led to the passage of draconian penalties in Congress and state legislatures that rapidly increased the prison population. In 1985, the proportion of Americans polled who saw drug abuse as the nation's "number one problem" was just 2-6 percent. The figure grew through the remainder of the 1980s until, in September 1989, it reached a remarkable 64 percent-one of the most intense fixations by the American public on any issue in polling history. Within less than a year, however, the figure plummeted to less than 10 percent, as the media lost interest. The draconian policies enacted during the hysteria remained, however, and continued to result in escalating levels of arrests and incarceration.

In 1994, John Ehrlichman-domestic affairs advisor and top aide to Nixon, as well as a Watergate co-conspirator-told investigative reporter Dan Baum a truth that had long been understood but never really confirmed: the War on Drugs was a legal way to criminalize and abuse Black people. In his report, published in Harper's Magazine, Baum records Ehrlichman saying:

"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

In a recording of a conversation between Nixon and Reagan, released by the National Archives in 2019, Reagan-who was the governor of California at the time-was quoted saying, "Last night, I tell you, to watch that thing on television as I did ... To see those-those monkeys from those African countries-damn them, they're still uncomfortable wearing shoes." At best, this was a conversation between two anti-Black white men ranting about their hatred of Black people. At worst, this was a collusion of two anti-Black white men-both of whom held social, economic, and political power-who met with the intent to forge a plan that would help them leverage that power over the people and communities for whom they held a lot of hate. It was a success. The war-that was and has been more accurately called a genocide, waged first by Nixon-has been continued by every president that followed him, across party lines.

At the core of the War on Drugs is the Black, and at the core of the War on Obesity-even if not as explicitly so-is the Black fat. Black people make up roughly 13 percent of the American population, but about 51 percent of America's fat population. Obesity is determined by body mass index (BMI), something people have been taught is a direct measure of one's health. Over two hundred years ago, a Belgian man named Adolphe Quetelet created what we now know as the BMI. Quetelet was not a physician, nor did he study medicine in any capacity; Quetelet was a mathematician and a sociologist, and it was that on which the BMI was created. Quetelet is known for his envisioning of l'homme moyen-an image of what he understood to be "the average man"-which he developed through "the measurement of human features with the deviation plotted around the mean." He began the development with the use of physical features of the human, who-at least as his work suggests-he understood to be cisgender white men. Those features included the chests of Scottish Highland regiment soldiers. After, he moved on to moral and intellectual qualities like suicide, crime, and madness. On Quetelet, Erna Kubergovic writes in the Eugenics Archive:

"For Quetelet, the average body presented an ideal beauty; the normal, conceived of average, emerged as an ideal type to be desired. It was Quetelet that formulated the BMI, initially through the measurement of typical weights among French and Scottish conscripts. Instead of labelling the peak of the bell-curve as merely normal, he labelled it 'ideal', with those deviating either 'overweight' or 'underweight' instead of heavier than average or lighter than average. Thus, while informed by statistics, Quetelet was still working within the medical context of the normal; that is, he envisioned the normal (i.e., typical) as the ideal or something desirable."

What he had created was the standard for male beauty and health, built only with white Europeans in mind and determined by something that measured whole populations and not individuals. By the twentieth century, Quetelet's work was being used as the basis of, and justification for, eugenics. And though all of his work in that time period was based in anti-Black race science, he was clear that the intent of the BMI was to measure populations to develop statistics. Aubrey Gordon, creator of "Your Fat Friend" and author of What We Don't Talk about When We Talk about Fat, wrote more on this in an online essay:

"By 1985, the National Institutes of Health had revised their definition of "obesity" to be tied to individual patients' BMIs. And with that, this perennially imperfect measurement was enshrined in U.S. public policy. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health once again changed their definitions of "overweight" and "obese," substantially lowering the threshold to be medically considered fat. CNN wrote that "Millions of Americans became 'fat' Wednesday-even if they didn't gain a pound"-as the federal government adopted a controversial method for determining who is considered overweight."

It was that second change, Gordon notes, that gave way to "a new public health panic: the 'Obesity Epidemic.'" Gordon continues:

"By the turn of the millennium, the BMI's simple arithmetic had become a de rigueur part of doctor visits. Charts depicting startling spikes in Americans' overall fatness took us by storm, all the while failing to acknowledge the changes in definition that, in large part, contributed to those spikes. At best, this failure in reporting is misleading. At worst, it stokes resentment against bodies that have already borne the blame for so much, and fuels medical mistreatment of fat patients."

As covered in chapters 3 and 4, "health" was created as the antithesis of Blackness; the Black fat was always already removed from the possibility of "good" health-meaning always situated inside / under the label of "bad" health-and was to always and already be the criminal. From the moment white Europeans saw fat Africans, the science that followed was intended to always separate them from the rest. In this way, the BMI-created to maintain whiteness as superior -was always going to harm the Black fat and it is for this reason that Black people make up over half of the fat population and why Black people also have more "health risks" than their white counterparts.

Crack, too, is a "health" failing. The government convinced the public that Black people were the only ones doing hard drugs; that the "crackheads" were rummaging the streets looking to harm anyone who may stand in between them and their "fix"; that addiction was a moral failing rather than a direct result of one's immediate environment, overrun by poverty, anti-Blackness, and the inability to acquire proper (mental) health care. And it was this that led to punitive, carceral responses to drug addiction rather than methods rooted in harm reduction. Because the Black always already fails in, or is removed from, morality, and as such never has access to care.

The world's obsession with obesity and being overweight is less about health and is more about the cultural and systemic anti-Blackness as anti-fatness that diet, medical, and media industries profit from. Just like with the War on drugs and the crack epidemic, major institutions falsified evidence about the effects of fatness or obesity as a way to criminalize and profit off fat people-especially the Black fat. That damage is still being done. The Black fat is not dying from being obese, nor is the Black dying from drug addiction. The Black-the Black fat-is dying because of a medical industrial complex committed to seeing fatness, Blackness, and Black fatness as death; they are dying because of a lack of proper resources-like housing and employment -that would provide them with money, health care, and a place to rest their heads; the Black fat, in particular, is dying because of an inherently anti-Black system of policing that sees them as the deadly Beast that needs to be put down. This is the Belly of the Beast: removed from care and placed always in the way of harm.

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness is available for pre-order now.
JOIN WEAR YOUR VOICE ON PATREON - Every single dollar matters to us-especially now when media is under constant threat. Your support is essential and your generosity is why Wear Your Voice keeps going! You are a part of the resistance that is needed-uplifting Black and brown feminists through your pledges is the direct community support that allows us to make more space for marginalized voices. For as little as $1 every month you can be a part of this journey with us. This platform is our way of making necessary and positive change, and together we can keep growing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"Belly of the Beast" Excerpt: The War on Drugs and the War on Obesity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In March 2004, during a news conference with widespread coverage, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report that claimed that obesity was "killing 400,000 Americans a year," and that it was becoming America's "number one preventable death"-surpassing tobacco.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We live in a world that's hellbent on convincing us that we're impossibly fat, and that our bodies need changing. As a result, few of us would dare to call ourselves "thin," wrongly conflating how we feel about our own bodies with how our bodies are received by individuals and institutions around us.

But the benefits of thinness aren't reserved for people who consider themselves thin. Like many systems of preferential treatment, the social and economic benefits of thinness operate on a spectrum. Even among straight-size people, there's a gradient of treatment. A size 2 may not experience the tut-tutting about needing to lose those last few pounds that a size 12 might.

There are differing experiences of anti-fat bias and privilege among fat people too. For example, a smaller fat person (say, a size 16) might get a lecture about weight loss from their health care provider. A larger fat person (a size 26) might be told they can't get needed treatments until they lose weight. And a size 36 person might need to go to a junkyard to weigh in because their primary care provider doesn't have a scale that will hold them.

Those are all deeply different experiences. In the same way it's important to name the ways in which a size 8 experiences the world differently than a size 18, it's important to be able to distinguish how a size 18 experiences the world differently than a size 28 or 38 or 48.

But fat people's access to the benefits of thinness doesn't end there. Many of us exhibit some physical characteristics that afford us some proximity to thinness. A face without a double chin, a clearly defined waist, a clearly defined neck, not being visibly disabled, having relatively flat stomachs, lacking rolls in our arms and legs, and having a body shape that reinforces gendered ideals (hourglass figures for women, broad shoulders and barrel chests for men) can all help shield fat people from the most brutal aspects of anti-fatness.

When we hear about the experiences of people who are fatter than we are-or people who are more legibly fat than we are (i.e., people with double chins, fat faces, or body shapes that don't reinforce gendered norms)-many of us struggle to hear those experiences as anything other than a dismissal or minimization of our own.

None of that means we can't all participate in conversations about anti-fatness, about struggles with body image, or about institutional biases against fat people. But it does mean that we have to be honest with ourselves and others when we do. Acknowledging that people who are fatter than we are have experienced more gruesome aspects of anti-fat bias doesn't minimize our own experiences. Rather, it puts those experiences in some much-needed social context. And it keeps me from centering myself at every turn in complex conversations about pervasive societal biases.

It's on each of us to own up to the truths we're not telling about our own bodies and our experiences of marginalization. Because if we don't, we'll end up centering ourselves-privileges and all-in conversations that aim to fix entrenched social biases. And if we continue to center our own privileges in those conversations, we'll reproduce inequities and create new, subtler forms of exclusion.

If we really want everyone to experience body liberation, we've got to be willing to put our own stories in a context that allows us to truly see and hear others' stories too. We'll never see the forest if we can't look past our own tree.
Related:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How You Might Be Benefiting From Thinness-Even If You Don't Feel 'Thin'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We live in a world that's hellbent on convincing us that we're impossibly fat, and that our bodies need changing. As a result, few of us would dare to call ourselves "thin," wrongly conflating how we feel about our own bodies with how our bodies are received by individuals and institutions around us.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The UK parliament report 'Changing the Perfect Picture' shares findings of research into the causes and consequences of 'negative body image'.

Body image is their term, not mine. I don't think it's helpful. Well, it's helpful if you want to stabilise the idea of personal pathology and not be seen as a feminist kill-joy. But helpful for disrupting individualism, healthism, ableism, neoliberalism, and derailing binary thinking? Not so much.

One recommendation is that the se of BMI-based healthcare is scrapped. An approach called 'health at every size' or HAES is proposed instead. (BMI stands for body mass index. It measures the relationship between our height and weight and generates a number. In BMI-based healthcare this number is wrongly used as an indicator of personal health.)

It is essential to use safe, effective metrics in healthcare. And BMI-based practice falls way way short of this. It is harmful. It cannot accommodate the health impact of trauma, oppression, surviving war, or make sense of epigenetics, for instance. It co-constitues fat stigma. You can read more here if you like.

BMI-based healthcare asks us all to uphold the neoliberal delusion that says there is no such thing as society. So yes, we need to understand what is wrong with BMI and work to put things right.

Meanwhile, let's not be waylaid by this one useful observation about BMI. The report is a headf*ck. It talks about distal (at a distance) causes of 'body image' problems without naming the root cause of harm.

That's like lamenting the gendered nature and high incidence of non-accidental death by drowning and burning in 17th century England without using the terms witch hunt or Christianity.

Like I say, a headf*ck.

The root cause of fat stigma, body image dissatisfaction, eating disorders and body shaming is white supremacy. Giving rise to other inter-linked causes of like domestic violence, trauma, displacement.

To prevent white supremacist oppression - and hence reduce human suffering and disease and reduce a sense of alienation from our own bodies - we can use a framing of health justice. A test of usefulness is to ask "how does this policy/practice/suggestion improve the life of fat Black women?" Who have other intersecting identities too, of course.

And the answer is this report doesn't. Protecting and improving the life of fat Black women need us to collectively notice, name, and change white supremacy. That's the route to health justice.

Talking about the causes of 'body image' dissatisfaction without naming white supremacy, or headlining trauma, is a win for white supremacy. Business as usual. This means the toxic mindset of BMI won't disappear even if its use is banned, it will just re-emerge in disguise. Drowning instead of burning.

Why a fat Black woman? Because when her/their life improves, we are engaged in liberatory practice, a practice that is also earth-honouring. Caring seriously about the vitality and joy and pain and dreams and wisdom of fat Black women as an entry point to health justice tethers us to liberation, that's why.

That's how we tackle the actual causes of fat stigma and body dissatisfaction.

I don't know how the report's authors wanted the picture changed. I do know they have not managed to envision a world that prevents shame and thin supremacy, one that fosters healing, accountability, and collective wellbeing. However much they meant to unearth the root causes of body dissatisfaction they just buried them under another layer of spin. If this is HAES-aligned then another approach is needed.

To create a world not fuelled by shame and division we need to get serious about undoing white supremacy. We have to always act knowing Black Lives Matter.

At the moment the appeals to fairness and intersectionality are meaningless,tinsel. Derisive even, because the group has a heap of power and intellectual acumen and credentials that it is not using in the service of deep change. This is not allyship it is complicity and job security. It is white duplicity.

The point is that being sincere about social justice does not guarantee our scholarship will be liberatory.

In the UK we are schooled to not think about white supremacy as the underlying cause of suffering and health injustice. Being accountable means us taking our re-education seriously. What are our Black colleagues saying? Survivor activists? How about fat academics? As educators, how can we teach for liberation? Read what fat people have to say in The Routledge International Handbook of Fat Studies, just published.

If the report's authors were to regroup from here - acknowledge the harm done by their white-washing, pick up the torches of critical rigour and repair - then they really might help us picture and enact radical social change.
www.lucyaphramor.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BMI, Witch Hunts, White Duplicity and "Changing the Perfect Picture"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The UK parliament report 'Changing the Perfect Picture' shares findings of research into the causes and consequences of 'negative body image'. Body image is their term, not mine. I don't think it's helpful. Well, it's helpful if you want to stabilise the idea of personal pathology and not be seen as a feminist kill-joy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Storyline

Aquaporko! is the story of Melbourne's fat femme synchronized swim team sculling, egg beating and high kicking towards their first ever live performance. We follow fat activist and filmmaker Kelli Jean Drinkwater as she meets the team and uncovers a world of sisterhood, queer community and radical body politics. Kelli Jean chats to members of Aquaporko! about self-acceptance, embracing body positivity and how they as individuals and as a group challenge society's relentless negativity towards fatness. Colorful and camp, this heartfelt documentary, is overflowing with humor and humanity. Inspiring people of every size to celebrate our bodies in all their glorious diversity. Written by Anonymous

Details

Release Date:

February 2013 (Australia)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

See full technical specs "

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Directed by Kelli Jean Drinkwater, Anna Helme. With Kelli Jean Drinkwater. Aquaporko! is the story of Melbourne's fat femme synchronized swim team sculling, egg beating and high kicking towards their first ever live performance. We follow fat activist and filmmaker Kelli Jean Drinkwater as she meets the team and uncovers a world of sisterhood, queer community and radical body politics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meet Roz the Diva: Body Positive Pole Dancing Superhero

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meet Louise Green - the plus-size personal trainer who ditched diets and embraced fitness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Meet Louise Green - the plus-size personal trainer who ditched diets and embraced fitness - Independent.ie

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, the way we eat, and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier. While GH also publishes weight loss content and endeavors to do so in a responsible, science-backed way, we think it's important to present a broad perspective that allows for a fuller understanding of the complex thinking about health and body weight. Our goal here is not to tell you how to think, eat, or live - nor is to to pass judgment on how you choose to nourish your body - but rather to start a conversation about diet culture, its impact, and how we might challenge the messages we are given about what makes us attractive, successful and healthy.

Having privilege does not mean that everything is dandy in your life or that things are always easy for you. What having privilege does mean is simply that you may have traits (perhaps that you were born with or that come naturally) that give you explicit and implicit advantages in society - some of the the biggies in this country are being white, male, straight, or able-bodied. Another big one? Thin privilege.

What exactly is "thin privilege"?

Thin privilege represents all the social, financial and practical benefits a person gets because they are thin or in a relatively smaller body, according to experts. Like all forms of privilege, the person who has it may not realize they have any advantage, because it's simply normal for them to, say, not have to think about whether they can fit between tables in a tiny bistro, whether their size clothing will be readily available, or whether they can eat in public without being stared at. Public spaces and furniture - chairs, benches, tables, bus and theatre seats - are designed with smaller people in mind, and we wrongly judge each other by body size and shape as if it were a measure of a person's moral success or failure.

This is why we can't talk about thin privilege without a talking about fatphobia. For years, leaders in the fat acceptance and body liberation movements like the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) have been calling attention to the fact that people in larger bodies are harshly marginalized in our communities. Studies have shown that those considered "obese" are bullied, discriminated against in the job market, and receive lower quality medical care. Meanwhile, fat people in film and TV are often portrayed as rude, aggressive, and unpopular, instilling negative stereotypes in our psyches. "Being fat is seen as an expression of being dysfunctional or having an irresponsible lifestyle," says Jürgen Martschukat, Ph.D., a professor of North American History at the University of Erfurt and author of The Age of Fitness.

The bogus corollary to fat people being assumed to have all sorts of negative traits is, of course, that thin people are examples of living life righteously, virtuously and reaping the rewards from having done everything right. The problem is, these are just assumptions we make based on our biases. There's a load of older research that shows that even children perceive their thin peers as kinder, more clever and more friendly. One recent study found that a simulated jury held thin plaintiffs less responsible for accidents than fat plaintiffs.

People in smaller bodies don't have to deal with any of this. As Christy Harrison, RDN, MPH, author of Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Your Money, Well-Being and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating writes, "The term 'thin privilege' is meant to highlight this systemic disparity, and to call out the fact that dignity and respect and equitable treatment shouldn't be privileges reserved for smaller-bodied folks at all. They should be universal rights afforded to everyone, no matter their size."

Who has thin privilege?

If you are perceived to be of "normal" weight or below, as determined by (relatively arbitrary) BMI cutoffs, there are certain harms in society that you don't have to endure just because of your body size, and certain advantages you will receive and possibly not even notice. This is "thin privilege."

"Thin privilege is being able to go through life without having to think twice about the ways that your body [size] is interacting with others and not be instantly judged [negatively] on what your body looks like," says Natalie Sanders, a Health at Every Size informed IBBFA-certified Barre instructor. As for how that actually plays out, Kim Gould, LMFT, a therapist, certified personal trainer and owner of Autonomy Movement, says, "I wouldn't call myself thin, but because I can walk into a store and find my size or order online and trust that it will probably fit, I have thin privilege."

Sanders says, for example, people tend to see a person with flat abs and automatically think they are "disciplined" - or as a person who takes care of themselves. Positive judgements like these, true or not, can make it easier for a person to get a job, get more pay, make friends, network, date, and so on. (You can guess what being seen as "lazy, "weak-willed," or "careless" for having a belly gets you.)

Is thin privilege the same for everyone?

Having privilege in one area does not mean that you don't belong to other, less privileged groups. Thin privilege - like other types of privilege - is intersectional, says Justice Roe Williams, a male-identified trans personal trainer and founder of Fitness4AllBodies. This means that your race, your sex, your class and other factors can influence how you and your body are perceived.

Thin privilege is actually rooted in popular white aesthetics of the 19th century, according to Sabrina Strings, Ph.D., an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. Back then, "Scientists suggested that Anglo Saxons were taller and slenderer than other races and that that was an asset," explains Strings. "White women then were being pressured to be a particular body size and many of [these women] took this up as an expression of their whiteness."

This explains why a white man with a big tummy may be thought of as cute for having a "dad bod" while a white woman with a big tummy would likely not, and even why a Black man with the same frame as a white man might be seen as more a threat. Black women face some of the most criticism and discrimination because of how racism, sexism, and fatphobia often go hand in hand. One only needs to look at our current beauty standards to understand that being dark-skinned and thick still doesn't quite fly in the eyes of many.

And many people make assumptions about how capable you are, in part based on your body size. Sanders, who describes herself as apple-shaped, says, "There's a lot of folks who would only train with someone who looks like what they're trying to achieve," says Sanders. "And so, a thin instructor might be viewed as more of an eligible person just because they have a body that looks like that, when I might actually have more training or knowledge on certain types of movements."

What are some advantages thin privilege affords someone?

In additions to leading to easier interactions with other people, thin privilege is also built into the framework of our businesses and infrastructure. Here are a few of the many things people with thin privilege take for granted. They can...

Go shopping and not have to pay for the "extra fabric" used to make plus-size clothing

Board an airplane and not have to pay for an extra seat or ask for a seatbelt extender

See a doctor without worrying whether or not the appointment will be overly focused on losing weight or dieting

Walk into a gym and feel welcomed, supported, and taken seriously

Post a photo of themselves happily eating or relaxing on social media without being accused of "promoting obesity"

Why thin privilege is actually bad for everyone

Thin people also suffer under diet culture - the overwhelming environment we live in that celebrates thinness as a sign of health, status and moral virtue - although those in larger bodies suffer more. That's because diet culture creates an arbitrary hierarchy which says that only certain body types are worthy of success, respect and love.

So if you've always had thin privilege, when your body changes over time, as is natural with age or childbirth, it becomes harder to accept; you may become afraid of gaining weight and spend a lot of time, money and energy to keep to a smaller size - even when that may not be healthy for you; and you may develop disordered habits around eating and exercise in an effort to maintain or gain thin privilege. "Thin privilege diminishes what self-love is for everyone," says Williams.

What can we do to dismantle thin privilege?

Thin privilege is something that those of power and influence in Western society have collectively chosen over time. This means we can choose to create another reality - one that values equality and respect for all bodies.

Of course, creating a new balance takes time and a lot of conscious effort. Those who have thin privilege have an important role to play in making things more equitable for people of all body sizes. As Lindo Bacon, Ph.D., writes in their book Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, "You can use your privilege to make this a fairer, more compassionate world." If you benefit from thin privilege, here are a few great places to start:

Challenge your current beliefs about weight. For example, "overweight" does not always equal "unhealthy" as most people would like to believe. "Once we learn more about how fat people can exist without ever getting diabetes or any of these [diseases] that we're constantly worried about, that that's how we start to unwind thin privilege a bit more," says Sanders. And check the biases that fuel your behavior - even your well-intentioned actions, adds Sanders. Cheering on a stranger who is in a larger body at the gym may come across as patronizing and suggest that you are praising them for "taking care of themselves" by trying to get thinner.

Refrain from commenting on someone else's body size - even if you think its a compliment. "Compliments" like, "you look like you've lost weight" uphold the notion that thin bodies are superior. Not to mention you don't always know what someone else is going through. As writer Aubrey Gordon and author of What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat tweets, "Complimenting perceived weight loss may mean you are complimenting someone's eating disorder, their grief, their depression/mental illness, their trauma and more. Weight loss isn't always desired, and it can be the result of really tough times."

Really listen and believe people who speak about experiencing fatphobia and anti-fat aggression. "Talk to each other because then these experiences become normalized and real," says Williams. "There's a piece of discussion that's healing because as we are engaging with each other, we're beginning to process, even if we're not on the same page."

Call out fatphobia where you see it. And if addressing it isn't possible in the moment, talk to the person who was affected, denounce the fatphobic behavior and ask how you can be of support in the situation going forward.

Be a co-conspirator but let others lead, says Strings. Listen, read, and learn from fat activists, body liberation organizers, and allied scientists to understand their experiences and discover what needs to change. Amplify their voices on social media and mainstream media.

Call for equal representation in all visual media. If there's a brand or magazine you like, for example, let them know what you want to see in their advertising or content, which encourages them to "represent people with different body types, fat and thin, people with disabilities and able-bodies, so that more of that is normalized in society," says Sanders. Williams agrees: "This is about the depth of what it means to be inclusive. We all have to do the work daily because it's a process to unlearn ideas rooted in competition and to allow ourselves to experience joy in the way that we're allowed to."

Read More From Our Anti-Diet Series

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We Need to Start Talking About "Thin Privilege"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, the way we eat, and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(Image: Chris Radburn/PA Wire)

The use of the Body Mass Index (BMI) in determining if an individual's weight is healthy should be scrapped due to concerns it contributes to eating disorders, according to a report by MPs.

The all-party Women and Equalities Committee warned the impact of the pandemic, both on eating disorder sufferers and those at a high risk of developing one, has been "devastating".

Their inquiry into body image also branded the government's obesity strategy "dangerous" for those with negative body image, potentially triggering eating disorders in the people it is designed to help.

The report warns that BMI, used as a health risk indicator in individual patients who are then put on weight loss or weight gain programmes prompted by their score, contributes to issues such as eating disorders and poor mental health.

"We have been hugely saddened to hear of the number of people who have faced appearance and weight-based discrimination when accessing NHS services," the report said.

"The use of BMI inspires weight stigma, contributes to eating disorders, and disrupts people's body image and mental health."

It recommended that Public Health England stops using BMI as a measure of individual health and instead focuses on a "Health at Every Size" approach.

This honours differences in factors such as age, ethnicity and gender, and prioritises healthy lifestyle choices over correcting weight, according to the report.

On the obesity strategy, the committee said that it was "at best ineffective and at worst perpetuating unhealthy behaviours" and called for the government to commission an independent review into the evidence base for its policies.

It also urged the government to immediately scrap plans for calorie labels on food in restaurants, cafes and takeaways, amid concerns it will contribute to growth in eating disorders and disordered eating.

MPs also called on the government to bring forward legislation restricting or banning the use of altered images in adverts, over concerns this is contributing to poor body image.

Chair Caroline Nokes said: "Over the past 10 years, there has been a wealth of research and recommendations on how to tackle negative body image but government action in this area is limited - we need to see urgent action.

"The pressure will intensify as gyms and beauty salons reopen on Monday," the Conservative MP added.

"This may be exciting for some but it will be difficult for people who experience body image anxieties. It's critical that government action works towards improving body image."

Tom Quinn, director of external affairs at the eating disorders charity Beat, said: "This past year has been particularly difficult for those affected by eating disorders, with Beat's helpline alone delivering 100,000 support sessions and seeing a 302 per cent increase in demand, and we believe further measures urgently need to be taken to protect those at risk.

"BMI should never be used as the sole factor in diagnosing eating disorders, or for determining who is 'unwell enough' to access treatment.

"This can lead to potentially dangerous delays, and can drive people deeper into eating disorders in order to be taken seriously."

He said the government's obesity strategy "must be immediately reviewed, as it includes measures known to be dangerous to those unwell or vulnerable, such as listing calories on menus."

"We strongly support the call for increased, ring-fenced funding for eating disorder research, as they remain one of the most poorly understood mental illnesses."

Dr Agnes Ayton, chair of the Faculty of Eating Disorders Psychiatry at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "People with eating disorders should not be denied help based on their BMI.

"This could put them in a life-threatening position to reduce more weight in order to meet the threshold to access services.

"We urgently need resources and more funding for research if we're to deal with the hidden epidemic of eating disorders this pandemic has brought on."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "We know poor body image can be a factor in disordered eating for both men and women and we are committed to improving outcomes for those with eating disorders and related mental health issues - with record funding to expand dedicated services in the community.

"Early intervention services are being launched for young people with eating disorders which could see them begin treatment within two weeks.

"With over six in 10 adults overweight or living with obesity it is important that we take action to help people live healthier lives, and our approach is guided by the latest research and emerging evidence.

"NHS England has been clear it does not support the use of BMI thresholds."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
MPs call for Body Mass Index to be scrapped over eating disorder fears

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The use of the Body Mass Index (BMI) in determining if an individual's weight is healthy should be scrapped due to concerns it contributes to eating disorders, according to a report by MPs. The all-party Women and Equalities Committee warned the impact of the pandemic, both on eating disorder sufferers and those at a high risk of developing one, has been "devastating".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
UK-based doctor, Dr Natasha Larmie is on a mission to make medicine weight inclusive. Inspired by the Health at Every Size movement, Natasha is campaigning to take the weighing scales out of general practice and focus instead on health promoting behaviours.
Last year, as the pandemic escalated worldwide, UK GP Dr Natasha Larmie embarked on a new weight loss journey. "I'm 40 years old and since I was in my early twenties, I have been considered overweight or obese," says Natasha. "When all the data came out about obesity and severe COVID, I started to panic. I hadn't weighed myself in a very long time, but I thought if I am going to do it, today is the day."

Natasha discovered her BMI was over 40 and began a diet using the NHS weight loss plan which limits calorie intake and aims to promote safe and sustainable weight loss. "It worked beautifully, and I lost two and a half stone in three months. I went down from a BMI of 40.1 to much lower - probably lower than I had been in a while," she says.

But three months later, Natasha found herself spiraling due to depression. "It wasn't just the diet, but the diet was the catalyst, and I really began to struggle. I wanted to give up but a very good friend of mine told me that instead of abandoning it, I should talk about my experience, tell the truth and tell people what I was struggling with." Through her online blog fatdoctor.uk, Natasha documented her journey which led to the discovery of the Health at Every Size community.

"People were reaching out to me and saying, 'yes I totally understand what you're going through' and I would find out more from them and they'd be part of Health at Every Size."
Health at Every Size
Pioneered by Lindo Bacon, the HAES community supports people of all sizes in adopting healthy behaviors, recognising that health outcomes are driven by a range of social, political, economic, and environmental factors. The movement opposes the war against "obesity" which it emphasises is not about health but stigmatising fat bodies.

"The body mass index (BMI) which is used to define obesity was invented nearly 200 years ago by mathematician Adolophe Quetelet and it was never designed to be used as a measure of health," explains Natasha. "There are numerous studies that show without doubt, BMI is useless. It was based on white Western Europeans but is now used to influence key healthcare decisions such as access to surgery and IVF for all ages and ethnicities."

Despite several studies showing individuals with high BMIs are metabolically healthy and have a significantly lower risk for cardiometabolic abnormalities, change is yet to happen in healthcare. "We would never use such a useless screening tool in any other area of medicine, so why do we still use BMI?" Natasha says.

"I knew that weight stigma wasn't a good thing, but I don't think I appreciated what the philosophy of Health at Every Size really meant until recently.

"When I started to look at Lindo Bacon's research, I realised that actually I had got my approach to 'obesity' completely wrong. Using weight as an indicator of health is a new phenomenon and morality plays into it."

The problem, she believes, starts with confirmation bias. "We all believe that fat is bad, so we look for evidence that fat is bad. This means that when evidence comes along on the contrary - we just dismiss it. For example the 'obesity paradox', we call it a paradox because no one wants to believe it could be right. Universally almost all of us have this confirmation bias that fat is bad and that brings stigma into the GP consultation."

For most doctors that bias is implicit, she says. "They don't know they're doing it but for some people it is explicit, so we are discriminating within the consultation. You look at a patient and see they are overweight, and you make decisions about them without doing further assessments. There are studies that show physicians were less inclined to do cervical and breast cancer exams in bigger patients than they were in smaller patients."

Day-to-day, Natasha says she sees weight bias affect the doctor-patient relationship in general practice. "I know that if I bring weight into the conversation, even just by mentioning it or weighing a patient or telling them that they need to lose weight, I stigmatise them, and that patient loses their trust in me."

Patient compliance to doctor's advice is another challenge. "If you tell a patient to go and do some exercise and explain the benefits, the patients leave the room and think 'yes I am going to go out and exercise.' However, if you shame them, tell them they are overweight and give the same speech about exercise - the patient has stopped listening. They have no interest in what you're saying because you've hurt them.

"If the main goal of the doctor's conversation is to encourage physical activity why do they have to bring weight into it? The outcome will be the same. If you bring weight into the equation, they're less likely to comply so the doctor has actually done the exact opposite of what they set out to do."

The next issue is patients then begin to avoid seeing the doctor. "I cannot tell you how many patients come to see me and say, 'I would have come to see you sooner, but I was afraid you were going to blame it on my weight'. That scares me because it means that they are not coming when they need to be seen."

In the age of COVID-19, Natasha believes this could be a key factor between body weight and severe outcomes. "During the swine flu epidemic, obesity was considered a risk factor. But analysis of the data later showed it was not body size but delay in care that created the increased risk. My concern is years from now there'll be a paper published that once it adjusts for delayed presentations shows that of all the 'obese' people who died of COVID-19, the delay was responsible for some of those deaths."

Medical avoidance can lead to delayed diagnosis and poorer health outcomes across all disease areas, she adds. "A patient gets a bit of abdominal pain and thinks 'I'm not going to go see the GP - they'll blame it on my weight'. What if the pain was because of cancer? What if you waited two months and then your cancer spread?"

While Dr Larmie is aiming to find common ground with medical colleagues, she has encountered resistance. "I think some are receptive to the message but some not so much because they believe being fat is an issue of virtue. It is hard to change their mind because I think there are some people that don't see fat people as equal to thin people."
Challenging the status quo
Challenging the efficacy of dieting also threatens the weight loss industry which often contracts with the NHS for weight loss initiatives. "If I can't choose to be fat or thin, then the weight loss industry cannot convince me to buy their products. I am anti-diet culture because it's not about saying diets don't work; people can lose weight of course but that's not the point. The question is can they keep the weight off? Studies show they're very unlikely to."

"If you start saying weight isn't always a choice. It is something determined in part by nutrition and exercise but predominantly by your sex, genetics, hormones, whether you've had a baby, or you've gone through the menopause, have a particular medical condition, or you're on a particular medication etc. There are so many factors and a lot of that is not choice. A lot of that is just life - you have no choice."

In the UK, patients visiting their GP are assessed around four lifestyle factors - smoking, alcohol, physical activity, and weight. "I would argue that the fifth should be chronic stress and chronic stress reduction," says Natasha. "Mental health and physical health are very much interlinked. We use a tool to assess people's smoking and alcohol, but we don't ask about their diet, we calculate their BMI instead of asking people, what kind of diet do you eat? How much physical activity do you do? Shouldn't those be standard questions?"

Natasha's mission, with other allied healthcare professionals, is to make medical practice weight inclusive. "As a doctor, I think it is my responsibility to practice medicine fairly and without discrimination. What is in the best interest of our patients is to never do harm and give patients their own autonomy. Those are the fundamental principles of medicine but we're breaking every single one of these through weight stigma."

As one of a small group of medical professionals in England speaking out on the issue, Natasha is urging the pharmaceutical industry to assess internal fat phobia and avoid capitalising financially on the side effects of medications that induce weight loss, such as semaglutide.

"I would love the industry to ask themselves if they are challenging themselves to be anti-fat phobic. Are they being weight inclusive? We need to address those issues and the most important step is recognising that there is a problem."

"If people want to change their body then fine but they shouldn't feel pressured into doing it and health shouldn't be used as an excuse. We never would say we are getting a nose job for our health. There is a lot of scaremongering with weight which is untrue and that's the part I find uncomfortable."

For the NHS, taking weighing scales out of the GP room will result in focusing on health at every size, she concludes. "If we make medicine weight inclusive, all we're saying is we don't weigh people anymore. We do not make our medical decisions based on weight and stop using weight as a measure of health. Of course, that sounds simple, it is not easy at all, but it can be done over time. These are the debates we need to have for public health policy and make part of the public agenda."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Health at every size - making medicine weight inclusive -

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
UK-based doctor, Dr Natasha Larmie is on a mission to make medicine weight inclusive. Inspired by the Health at Every Size movement, she is campaigning to take the weighing scales out of general practice and focus instead on health promoting behaviours.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Molly Forbes, BHO Founder
Body Happy Kids: How to help children and teens love the skin they're in
No parent wants their child to grow up with anything less than wholehearted confidence in themselves. Sadly research shows that children as young as five are saying they need to 'go on a diet' and over half of 11 to 16-year-olds regularly worry about the way they look. Campaigner and mum-of-two-girls Molly Forbes is here to help.

The way we think and feel about our bodies affects our health and wellbeing, social relationships and how we show up in the wider world. Sadly, research shows children are questioning their bodies at a younger and younger age (as young as three years old in some cases) and the number of children feeling like their bodies aren't good enough is increasing at a rapid rate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Body Happy Kids: How to help children and teens love the skin they're in No parent wants their child to grow up with anything less than wholehearted confidence in themselves. Sadly research shows that children as young as five are saying they need to 'go on a diet' and over half of 11 to 16-year-olds regularly worry about the way they look.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Of course, nearly any description of discriminatory attitudes or behaviors can be pushed aside by those doing the discriminating. But rooting a conversation in implicit and explicit bias- which we increasingly understand to be universal -creates a more nuanced conversation, and one that isn't so readily shrugged off.

It invites defensiveness rather than transformation from the very people who most need to change. Prior to beginning my writing career, I spent a dozen years as a community organizer, predominantly working in LGBTQ communities. In those spaces, when someone was accused of being homophobic or transphobic, they didn't respond with introspection, apology, or an expressed desire to change. Instead they seemed to feel cornered, opting to defend their actions as unbiased and free of prejudice. Even when their actions demonstrably harmed LGBTQ people-that is, even when we were correct -calling them homophobic or transphobic derailed the conversation into one about their intentions, not the impact of their actions. What most effectively moved folks forward was a conversation that acknowledged that while their intentions might be good, their actions created impacts that weren't.

And right or wrong, many of us experience terms like homophobic or transphobic as assessments of our character, not our actions. So rather than focusing on the behaviors and attitudes that need to change, we end up mired in meandering and painful conversations about whether or not someone is a good person with a good heart. And in the process, we lose track of facilitating their growth and our own healing. Of course, no marginalized community is required to use terms that make our oppressors comfortable. The choice of what language to use is a deeply personal one for those who've been targeted by oppressive systems, and whatever words marginalized people choose to use to describe their experiences are valid and not up for debate.

But as an organizer, my job was to deliver change for communities that urgently needed it. And while it was both true and satisfying to call bigotry what it was, the most effective way to deliver a change in individual behaviors and in institutional policies was reliably to simply illustrate how those behaviors and policies hurt our communities without using language that made them think their character was being judged.

Given all of these pitfalls, a number of alternatives to fatphobia have emerged in recent years. Some use the term fatmisia, using the Greek miso-, meaning "hatred" (think ). Fatmisia is certainly more focused on the hatred and bigotry of anti-fat attitudes, though it's less intuitive to many and takes some defining with each use.

Others use , defined as "discrimination or prejudice directed against people because of their size and especially because of their weight." While sizeism is more easily understood than fatmisia, it isn't inherently explicit that fat people bear the brunt of anti-fat behaviors and policies. And when we aren't explicit about who pays the price for anti-fat attitudes, it opens the door for those with the greatest privilege (in this case, thin people) to recenter themselves as the primary victims of a system designed to underserve and exclude fat people.

Still others use fat-shaming, which reduces a complex oppressive system to individual acts of aggression and frequently invites derailing arguments about skinny-shaming. As ever, any term we use to describe a vast and heterogeneous community united by one characteristic will fall short for some.

Personally, I use the terms anti-fatness and anti-fat bias. Neither is perfect, but both are clear, descriptive terms that are easier to understand and more difficult to derail than the above options. I use both interchangeably, defining both as "the attitudes, behaviors, and social systems that specifically marginalize, exclude, underserve, and oppress fat bodies." They refer both to individual bigoted beliefs as well as institutional policies designed to marginalize fat people. Both are clear that the issue at hand isn't an oversimplified, internal issue of "body image" or "self-esteem"-a subtle kind of victim-blaming used to minimize our collective biases against fat people. These terms both underscore that the issue is those biases themselves. And neither requires extensive definitions, nor do they limit conversations about oppression to those well-versed in often inaccessible, academic language.

All of us are free to use whatever words we choose. My choice is to use terms that invite the change I'd like to see, that are accessible to anyone who'd like to converse about these issues, and that don't further stigmatize communities on the margins.
Related:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
I'm a Fat Activist. Here's Why I Don't Use the Word 'Fatphobia'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Of course, nearly any description of discriminatory attitudes or behaviors can be pushed aside by those doing the discriminating. But rooting a conversation in implicit and explicit bias- which we increasingly understand to be universal -creates a more nuanced conversation, and one that isn't so readily shrugged off.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
All Bodies on Bikes, a film by Shimano just dropped this morning:

Kailey Kornhauser and Marley Blonsky are bike riders on a mission - a mission to change the perception of who rides bikes. All Bodies on Bikes, a Shimano Originals film, follows Kailey and Marley on a two-day bikepacking trip along the Corvallis to Coast Trail, a 65-mile route through the gorgeous Oregon Coast Range. The pair, who both self-identify as fat, bond over their love of bicycle adventure and their shared desire to build a more welcoming and diverse cycling community.
"Nobody was talking about size inclusion or what it's like to be a fat person who rides bikes," Marley explains. "We realized we could contribute to this and we could make a difference. We want people to feel empowered that they can ride a bike wherever they want to go."

Enjoy!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
All Bodies on Bikes, a film by Shimano just dropped this morning: Kailey Kornhauser and Marley Blonsky are bike riders on a mission - a mission to change the perception of who rides bikes. All Bodies on Bikes, a Shimano Originals film, follows Kailey and Marley on a two-day bikepacking trip along the Corvallis to Coast Trail, a 65-mile route through the gorgeous Oregon Coast Range.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
CNN ran a recent headline "Fat but fit' is a myth when it comes to heart health, new study shows" and since then I've received a lot of requests to write about it, asking if that's really what the study shows.

The short answer is that the headline and article are deeply misleading. For reference, in my recent workshop on The Truth About Weight And Health I used this headline, article, and study as my example of nearly every research and common media issue and research mistake that I had just talked about for the last hour.

In the CNN article (which I'm not linking to, they don't get clicks from me) the study's autho r, Alejandro Lucia who is a professor of exercise physiology, was quoted as saying "One cannot be 'fat but healthy.' This was the first nationwide analysis to show that being regularly active is not likely to eliminate the detrimental health effects of excess body fat"

Except that's not remotely what his study showed, and not just because it was in no way designed to draw that kind of conclusion.

Let's start with what the study actually did. It looked at self-reported activity data from 527,662 adults from Spain. They grouped the subjects based on BMI (and we already know the use of BMI reflects a lack of scientific rigor but we'll move past that for now.) Then they classified activity level into three groups. No activity was considered "inactive," less than 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week was labeled "insufficiently active," (a label that is unnecessarily judgmental and ableist, and doesn't reflect the fact that studies have shown that small amounts of activity confer health benefits) and finally, 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week or more was labeled "regularly active."

The study's goal was to look at the impact of exercise on risk factors for cardiovascular issues, including diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Note that they didn't look at actual cardiac incidents (like heart attacks or strokes,) they just looked at factors that may raise the risk for such incidents.

So what did they find? Well, to quote their own paper

In summary, increasing PA [physical activity] levels appear to provide benefits in an overall dose-response manner (regularly active > insufficiently active > inactive for the risk of hypertension or diabetes) across BMI categories and should be a priority of health policies

Wait...what? You read that correctly - What they found was that activity provided health benefits to people of all sizes. (which is consistent with the findings of Wei et. al. and Matheson et. al, and Barry et. al. which found "Therefore, fit individuals who are overw*ight or obe*e are not automatically at a higher risk for all-cause mortality." (And as always, a reminder that health is an amorphous concept, is not an obligation, barometer of worthiness, or entirely within our control)

So why are they claiming that you can't be fat and fit? Well, because they found that fatter people's risk factors were not mitigated to an equal level with thin people's risk factors. Their (unsolicited) recommendation? "weight loss per se should remain a primary target for health policies aimed at reducing CVD risk in people with overw*ight/ob*sity." (With a reminder that those are terms that were literally invented to medicalize and pathologize fat bodies and that person first language for fat people is a terrible idea and also excuse me while I bang my head on my desk for a couple minutes.)

This is where we see perhaps the most common mistake that is made in this type of research. They assume that if fat people have higher risk, then it must be due to their body size, and that making fat people look like thin people is the solution. This is the kind of mistake that would get you failed in freshman research methods class, but it consistently makes it past peer review in articles around weight and health.

In order to avoid making a correlation vs causation error (one of the most basic concepts in research methods) we have to, at the very least, ask ourselves if there are other things that could cause these different outcomes in fat people. And, as it turns out, there are.. Peter Muennig's research found that the stress of constant weight stigma is associated with risk factors, and Bacon and Aphramor found that weight cycling (aka yo-yo dieting which is, by far, the most common outcome of more than one intentional weight loss attempt) is also associated with risk factors.

That means that when the study authors (whose language, especially in their intro paragraph, suggests that they are coming from a deeply fatphobic place) claim that exercise can't fully mitigate the risk of being fat, what they very well could have actually found is that exercise can't fully mitigate the risk of being constantly stigmatized and/or encouraged to diet repeatedly.

That makes their recommendation that "weight loss per se should remain a primary target for health policies" even worse that it originally seemed (and it originally seemed pretty bad..) First of all, they did not in any way study whether or not weight loss 1. is achievable or 2. lowers risk factors for cardiovascular incidents, so they have no basis in their own research on which to make that claim, and no basis in other research either.

It's important to understand that these are, in fact, two different things. So in order to recommend weight loss as a health intervention you would need:

1. Research that shows that weight loss is likely to be achievable and maintainable long-term (if not then there's no point in making it a recommendation regardless, it's like recommending levitation to solve knee pain, it might take the pressure off the joint, but since it's not likely to work, it's not an ethical, evidence-based intervention)

2. Research that shows that weight loss has positive health impacts, including when measured against any risk associated with weight loss attempts

Let's start with #1. They don't have that. What we know from other research is that by far the most common outcome of intentional weight loss attempts (about 95%) is short-term weight loss followed by long-term weight gain, with up to two-thirds of people gaining back more than they lost. So they are using the platform of this research to recommend something that has the opposite of the intended effect the majority of the time. Not a good look.

Onto #2. They don't have that. There is no study that compares those who have maintained weight loss to those who are fat to see if there are health outcome differences. Their recommendation is based on the assumption that if you make fat people look like thin people, they will have the same health outcomes, which ignores the possible impacts of weight stigma and weight cycling, and is roughly like saying that, since cis male pattern baldness is correlated with a higher risk of cardiovascular incidents, the solution is to figure out how to get all the bald folks to grow hair.

So does that study really mean you can't be fit and fat? No, it doesn't. That study means that, yet again, research that would have earned me a well-deserve F in freshman Research Methods class is instead getting CNN headlines, because when it comes to weight and health research any fatphobic nonsense will do.

If you want more information about the weight/health relationship and research, my workshop talk is available as a video with a pay-what-you-can option here.

UPCOMING ONLINE WORKSHOP:

The Role of Size Acceptance in Eating Disorders Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery

My March workshop is about the important of Size Acceptance, including Fat Acceptance specifically, in eating disorders prevention, treatment, and recovery. We'll discuss how using a framework of Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size prevents eating disorders and provides practical, realistic options to help those dealing with disordered eating and eating disorders, as well as anyone impacted by the damaging cultural messages we get about food, movement, and our bodies, to repair the damage these messages have done, and create strategies that support dealing with them moving forward, including through recovery journeys and beyond.

Plus an unlimited Q&A (I stay until all the questions are answered!) so you are guaranteed to get the information you came for!

Details and Registration: https://danceswithfat.org/monthly-online-workshops/
*This workshop is free for DancesWithFat members - login info is on the member page
Become a member here!
A recording is provided in case you can't make it live on March 24, 5:30pm Pacific (or if you want to listen again!)

Like This Blog? If you appreciate the work that I do, you can support my ability to do more of it with a one-time tip or by becoming a member. (Members get special deals on fat-positive stuff, a monthly e-mail keeping them up to date on the work their membership supports, and the ability to ask me questions that I answer in a members-only monthly Q&A Video!)
Here's more stuff you might like:
Wellness for All Bodies Program:A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight-neutral perspective. This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!

Price: $25.00 ($10 for DancesWithFat members - register on the member page)

Non-members Click here for all the details and to register!
Body Love Obstacle Course

This e-course that includes coaching videos, a study guide, and an ebook with the tools you need to create a rock-solid relationship with your body. Our relationships with our bodies don't happen in a vacuum, so just learning to see our beauty isn't going to cut it. The world throws obstacles in our way - obstacles that aren't our fault, but become our problem. Over the course of this program, Ragen Chastain, Jeanette DePatie, and six incredible guest coaches will teach you practical, realistic, proven strategies to go above, around, and through the obstacles that the world puts in front of you when it comes to living an amazing life in the body you have now.
Price: $99.00 Click here to register
($79.00 for DancesWithFat members - register on the member page)

Love It! 234 Inspirations And Activities to Help You Love Your Body
This is filled with thoughtful advice from the authors Jeanette DePatie, Ragen Chastain, and Pia Sciavo-Campo as well as dozens of other notable names from the body love movement, the book is lovingly illustrated with diverse drawings from size-positive artist Toni Tails.
Price: $9.99 softcover, $7.99 Kindle, ($6.95 + free shipping for DancesWithFat Members)

Book Me! I'd love to speak to your organization (and I can do it remotely!) You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Does That Study Really Say You Can't Be Fit And Fat?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CNN ran a recent headline "Fat but fit' is a myth when it comes to heart health, new study shows" and since then I've received a lot of requests to write about it, asking if that's really what the study shows. The short answer is that the headline and article are deeply misleading.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Can you be both fat and fit? That question has been the core of a lengthy scientific debate that basically boils down to this: Are cardiovascular problems associated with high weight attributable to the weight itself? Or can they be mitigated by fitness?

Many on the "no" side probably felt vindicated by the results of a widely publicized study of 527,662 Spanish adults released in January. The study examined associations among body mass index (BMI), physical activity and cardiovascular disease factors, and it concluded that the government needed to make weight loss, as well as physical activity, a primary target of health policies.

But although this study stirred the pot and grabbed some headlines, such as " 'Fat but fit' is a myth when it comes to heart health, new study shows," it had some major shortcomings. The design of the study can't establish cause and effect, let alone present a well-rounded picture of health risks. Perhaps worse, it goes on to propose unrealistic public policies.

Thinking about your weight? What you might be getting wrong about the Health at Every Size approach.

To conduct the study, researchers drew data from insured active workers across Spain, including their BMI, self-reported leisure-time physical activity levels and information from medical examinations on the presence of Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. They concluded that being active was associated with lower risk of having those health issues within each BMI category - "normal weight," "overweight" and "obese" - but that individuals in the higher weight groups had more cardiovascular risk factors than their "normal weight" peers, regardless of activity level.

The study was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology as a "research letter," which means it lacks the details found in full research reports and was subject to less scrutiny. Although the study included an impressive number of participants, it's notable that the authors did not look at eating habits, and that the activity levels were self-reported. But the cross-sectional design of the study - looking at data from a specific population at one point in time - brings up other issues.

"Specifically, from a cross-sectional study, you cannot know what came first. Did the health issue lead the individual to engage in more activity, or did the lack of activity lead to disease?" said Jennifer Kuk, an associate professor and researcher at York University in Toronto who specializes in how obesity, diet and physical activity relate to health. Kuk said it's also unclear whether factors such as income or socioeconomic status, ethnicity or a family history of chronic disease are affecting these results.

"A more accurate headline would have been: 'Another study confirms that cardiovascular disease risk factors are related to each other,' " said Fiona Willer, a Queensland, Australia-based dietitian and researcher and the host of the podcast " Unpacking Weight Science." "This study offers nothing really new or interesting. High blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, higher BMI and a sedentary lifestyle are all well-established as cardiovascular disease risk factors, and some of them share common metabolic origins, particularly diabetes and higher body weight."

Willer said research has already established that being physically active does not fully counteract those risk factors. "If that were the case, the only risk factor we'd care about would be physical activity level," she said, adding that, ironically, the new study did show that being physically active may lessen those risk factors, regardless of body size. She said that without information about who actually developed cardiovascular disease or experienced adverse health events over time, it is impossible to know how weight and activity level might influence the things we really care about, such as actual heart attacks. She also points out that an individual's physical fitness levels can fluctuate over a lifetime, but this study does not capture that information.

Alejandro Lucia, a professor at the European University of Madrid and one of the study's authors, acknowledged the study's limitations but said it still contributes valuable evidence. "In a world full of inactivity and obesity, with the figures even more worrying in the younger population segments, most adults don't seem to follow that advice of being active and thin. And policies in these matters have not been too successful in general," he said via email. He said the study's findings that active "obese" participants were more likely to have high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes support fighting or preventing excess body weight, "which, to the best of my knowledge, can only achieved by losing body weight, per se!"

However, although engaging in physical activity is a behavior, weight change is not. It's something that may or may not happen as a result of our behaviors, our genetics and other factors. Other researchers question how promoting weight loss as a health policy is realistic, given the fact that, despite decades of trying, no one has come up with a way to help people maintain weight loss for the long term.

What is intuitive eating, and how do you do it?

Willer said statements recommending weight loss are common in the conclusion sections of these kinds of "fat/fit" papers, even when the study didn't investigate intentional weight loss - something that, as a researcher, she finds disappointing. "The fact that it appears in this paper and that this very brief paper was deemed headline-worthy demonstrates the huge problem we have, not with weight itself, but with weight bias in scientific research and journalism." She said that if the authors had used all of the data at their disposal, including information from routine medical examinations, which would have included weight-related goals, it's likely that they would have found what other long-term studies have concluded: that lasting weight loss is unlikely beyond two to five years for most people who lose weight voluntarily.

"Public health policies have a moral and civic obligation to be feasible, achievable and effective for the target population," Willer said. "Weight loss targets have been at the center of public health chronic disease prevention campaigns for years. We have diligently observed the outcomes of these efforts for decades. We now know them to be unsuccessful at a population level, and for some, they have led to the experience of weight stigma, discrimination, disordered eating and eating disorders." She said the intention of these policies - improved health - was good, but it's time to recognize that they don't work.

Even though most people who lose weight don't maintain those losses long term, a small percentage of people do. Is there something we can learn from these outliers about whether weight loss leads to a longer, healthier life?

"The study of statistical outliers means that, by definition, we cannot generalize their experiences to the broader population," Willer said. She points to the Look AHEAD trial, which randomly assigned participants with Type 2 diabetes to receive either an intensive lifestyle intervention with a weight loss goal, or simply diabetes support and education. The trial was stopped after 10 years, because its researchers discovered that participants who lost weight were just as likely to have a heart attack or stroke - or to die - as those who didn't lose weight.

In a 2013 review of long-term, randomized controlled diet studies, researchers from UCLA and the University of Minnesota found no clear relationship between weight loss and health outcomes. They said this called into question whether weight change actually caused the few improvements observed in some studies; other factors, such as increased exercise, healthier eating, engagement with the health-care system and social support may have played a role instead.

Given that most people cannot sustain their weight loss for the long term, this begs another question: Instead of asking people in larger bodies to continually "fail" at losing weight, which could be even worse for their health, why not focus on helping everyone be more active, which, in some cases, may include making neighborhoods, towns and cities more walkable or bikeable? If we can't all be lean and fit, can we at least be fitter? Abundant research demonstrates that physically active people of all age groups and ethnicities have higher levels of fitness, health and wellness, and a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and several other chronic diseases, compared with people who are physically inactive.

"The main message is that physical activity and other lifestyle factors can have substantial health effects beyond changes in obesity," Kuk said. "This is particularly important for physical activity, because exercise is typically associated with very small, if any, differences in body weight, but still can cause improvements in body fat and health."

She said health experts should recommend a combination of lifestyle improvements to help lower the likelihood of developing obesity-related chronic conditions. "But even with a perfect lifestyle with wonderful diet, lots of physical activity, the right amount and good-quality sleep, not too much stress, etc., there will still be those who develop obesity and associated chronic diseases."

The bottom line is that being physically active is better for your health than not being active. There's no one-size-fits-all solution, but a good place to start is to find types of activity that you enjoy, suit your current fitness level and mesh with your schedule. This includes both "formal," planned exercise and incidental daily movement that helps you spend less time simply sitting - something many of us may have been doing more of during the past year.

Dennett is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Nutrition by Carrie.

Updated February 12, 2021

Your Life at Home

The Post's best advice for living during the pandemic.
Tell The Post: What's keeping you going through the pandemic? Share it with us
Health & Wellness: Vaccine terms explained | Tips to relieve mask-related ear pain | Mask FAQ

Parenting: Working moms deserve a tantrum | Self-care for parents | Taming the anxiety of remote school
Newsletter: Sign up for What Day Is It?, our 7-day email series that will help you recover your sense of time during the pandemic
Food: Solve your dinner dilemma | Cooking for one: Tips to keep things practical, flexible and fun

Arts & Entertainment: Old-fashioned network TV shows you can stream | The guide to every major streaming service

Home & Garden: Pruning small trees without going overboard | Lessons from a pandemic attic decluttering project

Travel: What you need to know about vaccine passports | New River Gorge in West Virginia is our newest national park
Show More Show Less
Today's Headlines

The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Perspective | A study claimed to end the 'fat but fit' debate. But it had its own problems.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Can you be both fat and fit? That question has been the core of a lengthy scientific debate that basically boils down to this: Are cardiovascular problems associated with high weight attributable to the weight itself? Or can they be mitigated by fitness?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Health at every size - making medicine weight inclusive -

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
UK-based doctor, Dr Natasha Larmie is on a mission to make medicine weight inclusive. Inspired by the Health at Every Size movement, she is campaigning to take the weighing scales out of general practice and focus instead on health promoting behaviours.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Tell me what I'm missing," my husband said. He, like many of us, had seen headlines about a recent study that surveys the weight, exercise habits and cardiovascular disease risk of over half a million people in Spain. It's being covered by media outlets as irrefutable proof that no, sorry, forget what the body positivity movement has told you-you cannot be both fat and fit. This is not a new argument. It's the comment made on every story I write, as a journalist who covers weight stigma (negative beliefs about large bodies that lead to discrimination against fat people). But in a burst of good news for internet trolls, the authors of this new study, who published their findings as a research letter in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, drew this same conclusion because the people in their study with high BMIs had a higher risk of diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol than the people with body mass index scores in the normal rage.

This relationship stood even when people in bigger bodies exercised regularly. Therefore, "weight loss per se should remain a primary target for health policies aimed at reducing CVD risk in people with overweight/obesity," the researchers wrote. So, what's missing from that conclusion, and this argument more broadly? Any acknowledgment of the way weight stigma (also known as fatphobia) impacted the study's design, the health of the participants, and our entire understanding of weight and health.

Let's start by noting that these conclusions contradict several other recent pieces of research. A 2017 study published in the same journal followed 5,344 Dutch people over the age of 55 for 15 years and found that folks with high BMIs who also had high levels of physical activity showed no increased risk for heart disease compared to equally active people with normal BMIs. An analysis of data on 22,476 Americans aged 30 to 64 published in 2020 found that being physically active was associated with a larger reduction in a person's 10-year heart disease risk than having a normal BMI. Both of these studies affirm the conclusion drawn in a 2014 meta-analysis of 10 studies that when it comes to mortality risk, fitness matters more than fatness.

But when researchers talk about these findings, they call them "the obesity paradox," because it's so startling to see fat people not dying of heart disease like we're always told they will. "The term 'obesity paradox' is a prime example of weight stigma in the scientific literature," Jeffrey Hunger, an assistant professor of social psychology at Miami University of Ohio told me when I wrote about medical weight stigma for the July 2020 issue of Scientific American. "Think about it: A paradox is something contradictory or seemingly absurd. This term came about because it was considered absurd that fat people could actually be healthy."

Weight stigma also shows up in the questions that researchers don't ask. In the new study, researchers took the participants' weight and health histories from medical records and asked them to self-report their activity levels. They did not track other established risk factors for heart disease, like diet and smoking history. And they did not ask any of the participants whether the doctors examining them displayed signs of weight bias, even though we know from other research that many doctors discriminate against patients in large bodies.

In one survey, 24 percent of physicians admitted they were uncomfortable having friends in larger bodies, and 18 percent said they felt disgusted when treating a patient with a high BMI. You are unlikely to improve the health of someone you find repulsive, and indeed, we see that doctors tend to undertreat, overtreat or even misdiagnose patients in bigger bodies, confusing tumors for fatness. And fat people are more likely to avoid medical care when they know they'll be treated badly, which means they are often sicker and harder to treat by the time they do see a doctor.

The researchers also did not ask their high-weight participants how the experience of fatphobia impacts their ability to be physically active in the first place. Can they find workout clothes that fit? Can they go to their local gym, or for a walk in the park, without fear of harassment? In her memoir Happy Fat, comedian Sofie Hagen recalls standing in a changing booth at her gym for 45 minutes, working up the courage to walk to the pool in her swimsuit and endure the stares of other slimmer swimmers. "Gyms are for thin people, staying home and eating chips is for fat people," she writes. "So for a fat person, going to a gym, or running in the park, or doing exercise in a place with people, can be anxiety-inducing because you are so on display doing something that is considered uncharacteristic."

Last, the researchers did not consider whether the increased risk for heart disease found in their fat-yet-active subjects might be due to the experience of living in that fat body, rather than the fat itself. A 2016 analysis of data collected from over 21,000 Americans found a significant association between a person's experience of weight stigma and an increased incidence of heart disease, stomach ulcers, diabetes and high cholesterol even after researchers controlled for their subjects' socioeconomic status, physical activity level and BMI. Other studies have shown that experiencing weight stigma consistently raises our cortisol levels and other physiological stress responses, which are tied to negative health outcomes.

But here's something the Spanish researchers find, despite their conclusion that you can't be fat and fit: Being physically active reduced a person's risk of heart disease compared to the less active people in their same weight class. So, a fat person who exercises may still be more likely to get diabetes or high blood pressure than a thin person, but the gulf is less enormous. (In fact, the study found that active people in the overweight BMI range had roughly the same risk for hypertension as inactive people in the normal BMI range.) More importantly, active fat people are less likely to get those conditions than if they didn't exercise at all. This means that you can still improve your health through physical activity even if you don't get skinny in the process. Which you probably won't; that's why so many of us have likely abandoned New Year's weight loss resolutions. "To give the impression that changing your weight status from obese to overweight or normal weight is this straightforward, easy thing to do is to effectively ignore 50 years of research," says Marlene B. Schwartz, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut.

That research usually gets ignored because weight loss sells. The diet industry was valued at $192.2 billion in 2019, according to a report by Allied Market Research. Weight loss pharmaceuticals alone accounted for nearly $1.7 billion last year, according to another recent report. These industries, along with food manufacturers, have long funded much of the science that gets done on weight and health. And independent reviews, including a 2018 meta-analysis, have found that industry sponsorship influences research agendas. '

The National Institutes of Health's decision in June 1998 to expand the obese and overweight categories on the body mass index to include 29 million more Americans preceded the FDA approval of two popular weight loss drugs, Orlistat and phentermine. In February, researchers at Northwestern University reported findings that semaglutide, a medication taken as a weekly injection, resulted in significant weight loss. The drug is currently marketed at a lower dose as a diabetes treatment and retails for around $1,000 a month; its potential for profit as a diet drug is enormous, especially because patients will have to take it for the rest of their life to avoid regaining weight.

When we define health and fitness exclusively through the prism of someone's pants size, we ignore the myriad of other measurements that matter more. Exercising regularly can build strength and flexibility, while reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, and it improves biomarkers of health like blood pressure and cholesterol-and that's just the start of the list. If people feel like they've failed at exercise because they didn't also get smaller, they'll miss out on all of its other benefits. And when obesity researchers and doctors keep pushing people towards weight loss as our "primary target" for health, what they're really saying is that those other health benefits don't matter; that our bodies will never be good enough; that we'll never be good enough-unless we get thin. When researchers-or doctors or your mother or internet trolls-say "you can't be fat and fit," what they really mean is, "you can't be fat and thin." This is true. But it also shouldn't be the goal.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In Obesity Research, Fatphobia Is Always the X Factor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Tell me what I'm missing," my husband said. He, like many of us, had seen headlines about a recent study that surveys the weight, exercise habits and cardiovascular disease risk of over half a million people in Spain.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Health Sheet Library - HAES Health Sheets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, the way we eat, and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier. While GH also publishes weight loss content and endeavors to do so in a responsible, science-backed way, we think it's important to present a broad perspective that allows for a fuller understanding of the complex thinking about health and body weight. Our goal here is not to tell you how to think, eat, or live - nor is to to pass judgment on how you choose to nourish your body - but rather to start a conversation about diet culture, its impact, and how we might challenge the messages we are given about what makes us attractive, successful, and healthy.

The dawn of a new year is when many scramble to make resolutions, and in the U.S., these are often earnest pledges to shrink, tone, chisel or otherwise alter our bodies. Like years before, in the first weeks of 2021, new signups for virtual workout subscriptions and searches for "diet" on Google are spiking, because after all, every January we're flooded with urgent broadcasts from every societal megaphone reminding us that it's time to detox our poor, puffy bodies of the bad food choices we made over the holidays-

Wait. Stop. Just there.
"...detox our bodies of the bad food choices we made..."
This language - and the entire concept - implies that our bodies have been poisoned by peppermint bark, cookies, latkes, and eggnog, and that an antidote must be administered urgently, or else. It assumes that certain foods are "bad" and what's more, we are bad for eating them, when in reality, this moralization of food and our collective desire to "fix" any perceived wrongdoings is a prime example of diet culture and just how easily it can sneak in under the radar. We can even fall into that trap here at Good Housekeeping, despite our best efforts, when we describe desserts as "sinful" or "no-guilt." ( Editor's note: Now that the brand is becoming more aware of diet culture and its effects, we are actively looking for ways to be more careful with our language choices.)

"There's a whole lexicon," says Claire Mysko, CEO of National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). When we say we need to "burn off" or "make up for" the cheeseboard we shared with friends; when we skip the dessert we want and ponder if even snagging a bite of our partner's dessert is " worth it"; whenever we ascribe virtue to our food choices, giggling that it's naughty when we choose to eat what we crave or what comforts us, or good when we opt for low-calorie, low-carb, or other foods diet culture has deemed healthy. "All of that talk is part of diet culture," says Mysko. And it is so inextricably woven into the fabric of our culture that many people aren't even consciously aware of the daily inundation.
So what is "diet culture"?
Diet culture has many definitions and facets but, in a nutshell, it's a set of beliefs that worships thinness and equates it with health and moral virtue, according to anti-diet dietitian, Christy Harrison, M.P.H., R.D., C.D.N., author of and host of the Food Psych podcast. And it has become our dominant culture - often in ways we don't even notice since it's the water in which we swim.

Think of diet culture as the lens through which most of us in this country view beauty, health, and our own bodies; a lens that colors your judgments and decisions about how you feel about and treat yourself. Diet culture places thinness as the pinnacle of success and beauty, and "in diet culture, there is a conferred status to people who are thinner, and it assumes that eating in a certain way will result in the right body size - the 'correct' body size - and good health, and that it's attainable for anybody who has the 'right' willpower, the 'right' determination," says therapist Judith Matz, L.C.S.W., author of The Body Positivity Card Deck and Diet Survivor's Handbook.

In actual fact, there is no "right" body size, and even if there were, it's not attainable to whomever does the "right" thing (or whatever weight loss trend may be viewed as "right" at the moment), as evidenced by the 98% failure rate of diets. This stat alone is proof of the no-win norm that we, as a society, have been groomed to abide by. In one fell swoop, diet culture sets us up to feel bad about ourselves - and judge other people, too - while also suggesting that losing weight will help us feel better.

Urging people to examine, question, and ultimately reject diet culture is at the heart of the anti-diet movement, whose prominent voices include Harrison, NEDA, a crowd of activists in the Health at Any Size movement, the body positivity movement, and many others. The anti-diet movement is, in part, working to debunk the diet culture myth that thinness equals health and raising awareness of and helping to end fat phobia and discrimination against people in larger bodies. And because a tenet of diet culture is, well, endlessly dieting to be thinner no matter the mental and physical cost, the anti-diet movement rejects diets for the purposes of weight loss.

Anti-diet does not mean anti-health.

And here's the thing: We are all products of diet culture, so it's understandable why roughly half of adults have been on a weight loss diet in the last year alone. Dieters are just doing what we've always been told is the best thing for our health and appearance, and by implication, will bring us the perceived shiny futures of the people in the "after" photos. To be clear, "the anti-diet movement [is not] anti-dieter," says Harrison. Rather, the anti-diet movement challenges diet culture and, as result, takes issue with the many restrictive diets that are scientifically proven to have a negative impact on cognitive function, heart health, and mortality, while contributing to social injustice and weight prejudice.

Even if you're not consciously trying to lose weight per se, diet culture often crops up in choices we think we're making for health, to feel or look good, fit in, or even just make conversation amongst friends over dinner ("oh, I know, I feel this cake making my hips bigger as I eat it," or, "ugh, we need to go to the gym after this"). But subconsciously, diet culture "creates this idea - and reinforces it at every turn - that you have to be thin in order to be successful, accepted, loved, healthy: All of these things that we want for ourselves that are just understandable human desire," saysHarrison. "It tells us that weight loss is the secret to that. It tells us that weight loss is a way to attain those things." And it's a house of cards, because it's not.

What are some more examples of diet culture?

Diet culture can be found in Barbie's thigh gap and 18-inch waist, which influences perceptions of what an "ideal" body should look like. It's Lululemon's founder saying publicly that it's a problem when women's thighs touch. It's Kim Kardashian explaining how "necessary" it is to squeeze into shapewear beneath a dress, saying, "without shapewear, you'd see cellulite and I just wouldn't feel as confident." (Also, that her shapewear brand, SKIMS, allegedly sold $2 million of product in minutes when it launched.) It's the fact that you may have been told (or recited!) that at the first sign of hunger, instead of giving your body the food it's asking for, you should delay and drink a glass of no-calorie water first in case you're "actually just thirsty." Even Good Housekeeping's own article on 1,200-calorie diets is a tricky juxtaposition: The article aims to serve the approximately 40,500 people who search for 1,200-calorie meal plans on Google every month despite a 2015 study that shows this number of calories falls within the realm of clinical starvation. Although GH strives to provide safe, nutritionist-backed advice, we also realize how this can contribute to the bigger problem.

As anyone who's ever looked into the mirror and wished for a flatter this or a bigger that can likely attest, there's an unattainable and rigidly narrow Western, white beauty ideal to which many of us often compare ourselves, and to which many of us are held by other people. "Nobody ever wakes up in the morning and says, 'Gosh, I look terrific. I feel so healthy, I'm so attractive: I think I'll go on a diet,'" Matz points out. "It always starts with negative thoughts."

Instagram influencer culture, movies, runways, fashion ads, and media outlets including magazines are rife with one type of person: A normatively feminine, usually white woman who is slim and tall and seemingly living fabulously. Could their charmed lives be because of those "perfect" bodies? The sample size for many designers is 0-2, while a 2018 study by National Health Statistics Reports published by the CDC places the average American adult woman in a size 18-20, and teen girls in a size 12.

While what is truly "average" varies greatly on genetics, family history, race, ethnicity, age, and much more, size and weight are actually not good indicators of health in the first place - you can be smaller-bodied and unhealthy, or larger-bodied and fit. Even so, "we're exposed to the steady stream of images and messages that reinforce diet culture and reinforce the idea that to be happy and successful and well-liked ... you have to look a certain way, have a certain body, and follow a certain fitness or meal plan or diet," says Mysko, which keeps people unhappy in their bodies, chasing something they can't ever catch, and spending loads of money to do so.

Why is diet culture harmful?

Anti-diet advocates argue that diet culture harms everyone with a body, particularly (but certainly not limited to) people who are in larger bodies. Though healthy bodies come at every size and shape, our societal experiences vary greatly depending on a given person's size - weight stigma and thin privilege are both very real - and no one is safe from feeling othered by diet culture. Even those in "average" or slender bodies can feel that they're not thin enough in the exact right places. This all "leads to people feeling a lot of shame about their body and feeling that being thinner is worth pursuing at all costs," says Matz.

The result: "People choose from hundreds, if not thousands, of diet plans or restrictive food plans." In November 2020, the CDC reported that more people are actually dieting now compared to 10 years ago. Part of the problem is that the term "wellness" is often now used as a euphemism for "diet." But understanding diet culture and how it impacts us isn't only about how any given individual responds to it: It's about recognizing that diet culture is baked directly into American culture and is intrinsically linked with racism and patriarchy. "What constitutes 'good' behavior is going to be far more accessible to white persons, to men, to wealthy persons, than people who do not fit into those categories," says Sabrina Strings, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine and the author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. This includes conventional thinness.

"When you have been told that you should only have [a certain number of] calories or that you must keep your BMI here, you will always feel like you are doing either good or bad, right or wrong by sticking to these dictates," Strings adds. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths, [including the concept that] if you just restrict your food, then you'll be able to attain that weight," says Matz. What's more, says Strings, "Whenever we create standards about how we all should live, these norms always benefit those individuals who are already in power." Here are some key issues with diet culture:

1. It promotes discrimination. Whether it's Bill Maher pleading for fat shaming to "make a comeback"or kids being teased in school because of their weight, the mocking and bullying of people because they're fat is a part of diet culture that is both common and harmful. But beyond that, weight-based discrimination actually impacts access to jobs, healthcare, and more. In 2012, a found that fat people are regularly discriminated against in "employment settings, healthcare facilities, and educational institutions," making it difficult for people in larger bodies to live functionally or fruitfully in our society.

And according to a , "stigma and discrimination toward obese persons are pervasive" which threatens their psychological and physical health, creates health disparities, and contributes to a looming social injustice issue that goes widely ignored. Then, in an attempt to gain equal access, fat people are led to diets that further harm them physically and mentally: Consider that one study showed the calorie intake for many popular diets is "comparable to that of the most undernourished global regions, where severe hunger interferes with individuals' ability to thrive and make meaningful contributions to society."

2. It fuels a business designed to take your money. Americans spend billions of dollars annually trying to attain what diet culture promises, almost always to no avail. According to Market Research, the total U.S. weight loss market grew at an estimated 4.1% in 2018 to $72.7 billion and is forecasted to grow 2.6% annually through 2023. "With that kind of money, with that kind of industry at stake, it's really hard to get that to go away - even with a growing and powerful movement like anti-diet," says Harrison.

3. It's a setup for feeling like a failure. Scientifically speaking, weight loss diets don't work. "There is zero research out there that shows any weight loss plan or product helps people achieve weight loss [and maintain it] over a two to five year period," says Matz. "If there was something that was sustainable for the majority of people, we would all know about it." (There isn't, so we don't: Instead, we get a new diet every month that fades away when the next glittery "fix" comes along.) Even doctors often prescribe weight loss as a cure to many medical maladies despite the fact that dieting is biologically set up to fail. "Up to 98% of people, according to research, regain all the weight that they lost within five years, and up to two-thirds of people end up regaining more weight than they lost," says Harrison, and that's because "our bodies are really designed to protect us against famine."

Matz agrees: "Our weight regulation system is beyond our conscious control." This is evidenced by a 2010 F1000 Medicine Report that shows there is an active, biological control of body weight at a given set point in a 10-20 pound range. "The message this culture gets is that you can decide what weight you want to be with enough willpower, but it's just not true," says Matz. So, Harrison wonders, "Why do 100% of dieters think they're going to be in the 2%?" Perhaps the larger problem is that because of diet culture, when we do gain weight back post-diet, we have learned to internalize it as a failure of self instead of accepting that it is ultimately a success for evolution and our bodies' way of protecting us from starvation.

98% of diets fail - Why do 100% of dieters think they'll be in the 2%?

4. It distracts from a larger societal issue. Our individualistic culture says that if you're not thin, not only is it your "problem," but it's your fault. Being in a large body is actually not a problem, but diet culture says it is because that's easier than investing money and energy in giving everyone access to fresh food and ample outdoor space in which to move, connect, and enjoy nature. "If you've ever visited a community that only has a convenience store as a local means of any type of nutrition, then you will know that people often don't even have fruit in their neighborhoods ... in a low income area," says Strings. These "food deserts," as they're called, are partially to blame for what a found: "The most poverty-dense counties are those most prone to obesity." The issue with this finding isn't obesity, which isn't an accurate indicator of health, but rather the fact that our society lacks adequate resources to foster health separate from weight across socioeconomic lines.

"If we lived in a society where neighborhoods were walkable and people could get access to clean drinking water and plenty of sleep, people would already be far healthier than they are now," says Strings. But, she continues, diet culture gives a permission structure for the finger to be pointed elsewhere. "Rather than focusing on these larger structural issues that could have a global impact on a population, we want to target individuals and tell them to change their bodies in ways that are unrealistic and unproductive."

5. It normalizes disordered eating. An eating disorder is a clinically diagnosable condition. But if you were to ask 100 people a series of questions that indicate disordered eating (per NEDA's screening tool: How afraid are you of gaining three pounds? Do you ever feel fat? Compared to other things in your life, how important is your weight to you? Do you consume a small amount of food on a regular basis to influence your shape or weight?), it would become clear that the issue is far more pervasive than you think.

A 2008 survey sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill showed that a whopping 75% of women reported disordered eating behaviors that "cut across racial and ethnic lines," and occurred in "women in their 30s and 40s ... at the same rate as women in their 20s." That means disordered eating is the norm in the U.S. for women of all ages and race. It's a staggering statistic, and one that goes under reported since a lot of these behaviors support the very underpinnings of diet culture itself.

6. It's self-perpetuating. Imagine if your vacuum had a 98% failure rate. You likely wouldn't blame yourself for the ensuing mess that grew each time the vacuum didn't start. You'd blame the machine (and you'd also presumably trade it in for a more reliable model pretty quickly). But when we diet and, later, gain the weight back, as 98% of people will, we instead berate ourselves. Dieters "do what diet culture teaches them to do by dieting," says Matz, "but then, when it doesn't work, they blame themselves rather than the diet." And then we restart the cycle instead of just buying a new damn vacuum.

How can I resist diet culture?
Diet culture can foster a toxic way of living for many people, but because of its pervasiveness, it can feel intimidating and deeply personal to pick it apart. Anti-diet culture aims to "dismantle this oppressive system of beliefs ... so that people have the chance and the choice to be able to be free of those stigmatizing and body shaming beliefs," says Harrison.

Being resistant to diet culture is also not anti-health or anti-nutrition: It's quite the opposite. With this movement, "It's absolutely possible that we can encourage and also give people the resources to eat healthy and to move their bodies in a healthy way without having to be the disciplinarians that tell people they must weigh a certain amount," says Strings. The anti-diet movement advocates for evidence-backed measures of health that are not about body weight, and there are even anti-diet dietitians and health professionals, like Harrison, who help guide patients out of diet culture and into decisions that are healthy for body and mind - and that don't aim to modify the body's appearance.

Anti-diet aims to free people from spending every waking moment policing their bodies, wasting precious time and energy obsessing over food choices, calories, macros, and the like. It aims to help people fill their bellies with the food they want and need, and without the distraction of constant hunger, allow their minds to see issues that are much bigger and more important than the way we look and how we eat. It helps us realize that the secret to happiness and freedom is not, in fact, locked within a smaller body requiring a "willpower" key, as diet culture has long made us believe.

Here are some aspects of anti-diet culture that can actionably put an end to the restriction and guilt cycle of diet culture:

Consider intuitive eating, an approach that was created in 1995 by registered dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. It is based on 10 core principles - like honoring your hunger, challenging the food police, and coping with your emotions with kindness - by which you let your body guide you in what and how much to eat.

"With intuitive eating, instead of eating from the outside in, instead of following rules from a diet, people learn to use their internal physical cues to decide when, what, and how much to eat," says Matz. By destigmatizing food choices, intuitive eating steers you back into your own body. Most people have "gotten so used to eating what they should and shouldn't eat, what's 'good' and 'bad', they've really lost touch with 'What do I want? What would satisfy me?,'" says Matz. There are a host of professionals trained and certified in intuitive eating standards, from counselors to psychotherapists to registered dietitians, who can help guide you through the process too.

Getting reacquainted with your body's natural hunger cues, cravings, and needs can take time, but can ultimately free you from the learned shoulds of diet culture. The irony: Most find that once you grant yourself permission to eat the things you want when you want, your "fear foods" (you know, the things you declare you "cannot have in the house or I'll eat the whole bag!") have less of a siren song. When the scarcity mindset drops, so does the need to overeat out of fear of never having it again. "Remember that we come into this world born knowing how to do this," says Matz. "Babies, when they're hungry, cry. So really, we're going back to the way we were born: Eating."
Anyone feeling like they are suffering from disordered eating or an eating disorder can and should reach out for help immediately. The Note: This article was originally published on January 23, 2021, and edited on January 29, 2021 to offer clarification on the anti-diet movement. NEDA helpline at (800) 931-2237 is available daily via call or text, and officials also are on standby in digital chats, ready to help you find resources in your area. If you are concerned about a loved one, learn more about how you can help.
Look into the Health at Every Size (HAES), a movement that recognizes "that health outcomes are primarily driven by social, economic, and environmental factors," not weight, to encourage the pursuit of health without a focus on weight loss. is built on pillars of weight inclusivity, health enhancement, respectful care, eating for well-being, and life-enhancing movement, all with the ultimate goal of tuning into your body's innate guidance to make food and movement choices that help you feel confident, nourished, fulfilled, and healthy inside your body without trying to change its appearance. "It looks at people's health status, separate from weight," says Matz, and it's "really doing a great job of giving people information that ... you can be healthy regardless of your size," says Strings.

Strings adds that HAES is built upon the belief that you are worthy of love and respect, regardless of your size. In a society that demonizes fatness, it's a simple but novel concept. As Strings says: "Just to love yourself and to know that you can be healthy regardless of your weight is really a revelation to probably most Americans."

Read More From Our Anti-Diet Series

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Jessica Teich, Good Housekeeping Institute

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, the way we eat, and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This blog was kindly contributed by recent graduate Abbie Jessop, Chair of Wellbeing Network at Bristol Students' Union (SU) 2017-18, who worked with student society Beat this Together to pass SU policy in June 2020.
On 8 June 2020, the Student Council at the University of Bristol Students' Union passed the motion ' Changing our language to embrace body positivity '. As active policy for the next three years, this motion commits multiple stakeholders - including the University's Sports, Exercise and Health team, societies and fitness instructors running exercise focused events for students, and the Students' Union - to undertake training around the harmful impact of weight stigma, diet culture and fatphobic language throughout student life and to develop a greater understanding of eating disorders.

The training will be developed by working with:

Beat this Together, the eating disorder awareness society at Bristol SU

the UK's largest charity for eating disorders

workED out, a Bristol-led campaign aiming to open up the conversation about eating disorders in the fitness industry

The aim is to create positive change in student activities at the University of Bristol in which movement is free from stigmatising attitudes for all bodies. Through these actions, sport and exercise will be less harmful for both those with eating disorders and those at risk of developing eating disorders as well as more inclusive and positive for all students and staff. We call for other UK universities to follow suit.
Defining the problem
An example of diet culture would be: 'let's burn some calories'.

An example of fatphobic language would be 'let's slim those waists'.

This rhetoric is common in the fitness industry but is harmful to both those with eating disorders and those at risk of developing eating disorders. It communicates the toxic ideals of diet culture, notably that thin equals health and exercise is only a compensatory activity to burn calories. Not only are these incorrect, but viewing our bodies according to such ideals that revolve around food and exercise perpetuates weight stigma which Janet Tomiyama - one of the leading weight-stigma researchers - articulated in 2014 as:

the social devaluation and denigration of people perceived to carry excess weight, which leads to prejudice, negative stereotyping, and discrimination toward those people.

Furthermore, weight stigma is associated with a plethora of damaging outcomes which include:

greater body dissatisfaction;

an increased risk of disordered eating;

increased risks of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem;

lower rates of physical activity; and

greater eating in response to stigma in controlled trials.

Clearly, perpetuating such a culture is profoundly harmful to people's wellbeing and tackling this language and misinformation at university should be a priority. Universities can start to tackle the issue by creating sports and exercise programmes that focus on making exercise and movement accessible and fun, and free of weight stigma, fatphobia and body-shaming.
Eating disorders in higher education
This motion is the first of its kind to be passed through a student democratic meeting at a UK university. The necessity for such a policy is evident when observing the results of the most comprehensive mental health survey at the University of Bristol within the Faculty of Health Sciences, which showed that almost 20 per cent of students thought they might have an eating disorder. These statistics are echoed in national research too: the report by The Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2011 Mental health of students in higher education found a 'relatively high prevalence of eating disorders in student populations'. Furthermore, in 2013, a BBC report highlighted that 32 per cent of students with eating disorders were diagnosed after starting their course and that 52 per cent said their university was not doing enough to support those with eating disorders or to identify those at risk and intervene to help them.

Mental health has risen up the agenda in recent years, but mental health and physical health parity is yet to be achieved. And as eating disorder statistics continue to skyrocket, it is clear this is a neglected area; indeed, there is currently no response from universities to address this problem - even at those universities which pride themselves on their work around mental health. Universities and Students' Unions should take responsibility for the way they label exercise and ensure they are promoting health and not a culture in which disordered attitudes around food and exercise thrive.
How can and why should other universities follow suit?
Higher education institutions can start by recognising the importance of the 'parity of esteem' between physical and mental health. When free of stigmatising attitudes and content, exercise and fitness spaces can provide a safe and inclusive environment for all to participate. By training all service providers at the university and their students' union on the harms of diet culture and fatphobic and weight stigmatising language, sports and exercise at the university will provide increasingly positive experiences for all. Disordered attitudes around exercise will cease to be promoted as part of an ideal for 'health' and instead students will be encouraged to be more in control of their own exercise routines and patterns within classes through listening to and respecting their own bodies.

If other UK universities follow Bristol's example, higher education can be at the forefront of promoting a healthier culture around health and exercise, challenging the insidious beliefs of diet culture. This is a vital frontier for universities to further engage with as they continue their work around mental health.

Co-founders of WorkEDout, Carly (a fitness professional) and Leah (a former eating disorder sufferer) have already seen first-hand the empowering and life changing impact of fostering an inclusive and body positive environment within fitness. They said:

It is essential that motions such as this be introduced within all universities. Doing so has the potential not only to change lives, but also to save them; [we must] empower both students and staff to explore, understand and begin to eradicate diet culture and fatphobic language within these settings.

Peter Burrows, the Physical Activity and Health Development Officer at Bristol University Sports Exercise and Health, said that this motion is a:

fundamentally necessary opportunity to begin to address the culture and use of language in physical activity. As a progressive, research driven institution we owe it to both our own and the wider community to take steps to improve here and share best practice, setting a new precedent in this arena. This student-led, insight driven approach gives me confidence that we can start to change the current, harmful narrative in exercise messaging that negatively affects our student community.

Sports and Student Development Officer at Bristol SU Rushab Shah is also committed to implementing the motion:

'Sports and exercise has a valuable role in improving student wellbeing. This year I'm looking forward to working with Beat This Together to challenge fatphobic language and help make our Sports, Exercise and Health programme more inclusive. Diet culture doesn't have a place here in Bristol. Together we can ensure that the opportunities offered at the University support and enable students to foster positive and healthy relationships with exercise'.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mental health: Weight stigma has no place in Sports, Exercise and Health - HEPI

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This blog was kindly contributed by recent graduate Abbie Jessop, Chair of Wellbeing Network at Bristol Students' Union (SU) 2017-18, who worked with student society Beat this Together to pass SU policy in June 2020. On 8 June 2020, the Student Council at the University of Bristol Students' Union passed the motion 'Changing our language [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Let's talk about fat bias and thin privilege | Madison A. Krall | TEDxMileHigh

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Very Real Consequences of Weight Discrimination

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Promoting HEALTH Instead of SIZE in Children with Kathy Kater, LICSW

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Heather Caplan is an anti-diet weight-inclusive registered dietitian. She hosts the podcast RD Real Talk, covering a range of topics related to anti-diet and weight-inclusive work. In her virtual private practice, she specializes in disodered eating and bringing intuitive eating to athletes and parents. She's also the founder of Weight Inclusive Nutrition and Dietetics, aka WIND, and co-founder of the Lane 9 Project-a virtual community for athletes experiencing hypothalamic amenorrhea. Her work has been featured on the TODAY show, and in the Washington Post, Outside magazine, EatingWell, and Runner's World. You can find her online at heathercaplan.com, or hang with her on Instagram @RDRealTalk.

Discussed in this episode:

-Heather on the TODAY Show

-Orthorexia in athletes

-Hypothalamic amenorrhea

-Non-diet and anti-diet

- Intuitive Eating

- Heath at Every Size (trademark)

-BMI is STUPID

-Weight stigma and fat phobia

-"Everything you know about obesity is wrong," Michael Hobbes HuffPost Article

Quote:

"I try to recognize that me showing up in a space with a straight-sized body, and white privilege, and cis-gender privilege, etc., brings a certain tone to the message...as a thin or straight-sized person talking about intuitive eating or talking about weight-inclusive care, I might make that message more palatable to someone because I present as their version of health. I've learned how important it is for me to not take up that space and to bring folks in who have different lived experiences than I do."

Follow Heather:

Instagram Twitter Follow Social Sport:

Website Instagram Facebook Twitter *This episode is sponsored by Paper Trails Greeting Co. Use code SOCIALSPORT for 15% off your order at papertrailsgreetingco.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Heather Caplan: weight-stigma and bias in athletic communities - Social Sport Podcast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Heather Caplan is an anti-diet weight-inclusive registered dietitian. She hosts the podcast RD Real Talk, covering a range of topics related to anti-diet and weight-inclusive work. In her virtual private practice, she specializes in disodered eating and bringing intuitive eating to athletes and parents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On Nutrition

Next week is Weight Stigma Awareness Week (Sept. 28 to Oct. 2), and if there was ever a year to be aware of the physical and mental health impacts of weight stigma, it's 2020. There's so much hand-wringing about the association between "obesity" and elevated COVID-19 risk, despite the fact that there's no magic wand we can wave to make everyone - including thin people with underlying health conditions - have "average" risk. We need more mask-wearing, less fat-shaming.

When you have prejudiced attitudes and beliefs about weight, and direct them against someone based on their weight, that's weight stigma. There's this pervasive idea in our society that if you shame someone enough about their weight, they'll "do something about it." But fat cells don't feel stigma, people do - and shame is not an effective motivator for positive change. Research confirms this.

Instead, weight stigma, especially when someone internalizes that stigma and fat-shames themselves, can harm both physical and mental health. Not only does weight stigma increase the risk of depression and anxiety, but it can cause chronic stress. This stress contributes to higher levels of inflammation and oxidative stress, along with disordered eating behaviors - including comfort eating, yo-yo dieting and possibly eating disorders. People who experience weight stigma often avoid exercise in an attempt to hide their bodies and avoid further stigma. Given what we know about the importance of physical activity in maintaining and improving health for people of all sizes, this is adding insult to injury - all this stress, disordered eating and exercise avoidance increases risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Lest you think these health effects are due to weight, not weight stigma, think again. Study after study finds that the negative health effects of weight stigma are over and above any effects that weight itself could have on health, and they happen regardless of actual body size. Someone in the "normal" range on the body mass index (BMI) charts can internalize weight stigma, hating their body because you think it should be smaller and living in fear of gaining weight.

Despite growing research about the negative impact of weight stigma, "concern trolling" - criticism disguised as support or concern - remains a popular pastime. When weight is the subject, it's often fat-shaming disguised as concern for someone's health. ("That's great that you're comfortable in your body, but what about your health?") Even is someone in a larger body has lost a "clinically significant" amount of weight, say 5%, they are still in the weight stigma crosshairs. If you weight 300 pounds, losing 15 pounds doesn't make you thin.

Sometimes, this "concern" stems from good intentions, sometimes it's simply a screen for bullies to hide behind so they can take offense when they're called out, but intent ceases to matter when the impact causes harm. Whether it's a public health campaign or a "concerned" comment on social media, you can't attack - or wage a war on - "obesity" without attacking people who move through the world in visibly large bodies.

The fallout of this war, these attacks, is perhaps the most evident in health care. Research shows that weight stigma is a significant barrier to getting the kind of preventive health care that can help ward off - or at least detect at an early stage- many of the health conditions that are so often associated with having an "obese" BMI. Patients - especially women - who perceive or directly experience weight stigma from health care providers may cancel or delay appointments and preventive health care screenings, especially if they have gained weight since the previous visit. Specifically, body shame may be a reason that many women avoid screenings for breast, skin and cervical cancers.

Many of my clients are in larger bodies, and I see these effects play out every day. The most egregious case was a client who had expressed concerns to her doctor about dying from cancer shortly before undergoing surgery for that cancer. Her doctor told her that her cancer wouldn't kill her, but her weight would. When she gained weight during recovery, the shame had prompted her to avoid follow-up care and screenings - as well as the exercise she loves.

I have clients in larger bodies who are thriving despite the pandemic, preparing produce from their CSA boxes and finding creative - and safe - ways to stay active now that their gyms and in-person yoga classes aren't viable options. Yet they dread going to the doctor. They are tired of being prescribed exercise and referred to commercial weight loss programs without even being asked how they eat, what they do for exercise and how they care for themselves. "It's like they think I just sit on the couch eating potato chips all day," one client said to me.

When they decide to find a new doctor - whether out of necessity or because they're fed up - they ask me if I can recommend a doctor who focuses on healthy behaviors rather than weight. "There are some out there," I say, "but it's like finding a needle in a haystack." (If you're a Health At Every Size-informed primary care physician in the Seattle area, or know of one, I encourage you to email me.)

In a 2018 paper, "What's Wrong with the 'War on Obesity'?" the authors wrote, "In a bitter twist of irony, there is evidence of a direct causal pathway from weight stigma to weight gain, with or without changes in eating behavior as a mediator, which demonstrates that ... a fat-hating environment makes people fat." I propose that we need less hate and more happiness, less shame and more support. It's past time to #EndWeightHate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Breaking down the negative impacts of weight stigma ahead of Weight Stigma Awareness Week

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Next week is Weight Stigma Awareness Week in the United States. To mark the occasion, read up on the stigma of weight and exercise - and why the COVID-19 pandemic is a more important time than ever to consider these...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
New study shows kids' physical fitness is more important than BMI

For adults, the goal of exercise is often to shed some pounds, but new research from the University of Georgia suggests the objective should be different for kids.

Physical education should focus on improving students' physical skills, knowledge of the benefits of exercise and motivation to be active. The goal should be to build students' cardiorespiratory endurance, a measure of how well the body handles long periods of exercise-not to help them lose weight, according to the study's authors. Kids can be overweight (as measured by the Body Mass Index, or BMI) and still able to reach the recommended 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day. And students who are more active during PE, despite their weight, are more likely to stay active after school as well.

"Research has shown that even in young children, people who are fitter in terms of cardiorespiratory endurance participate in more intense physical activities," said lead author Sami Yli-Piipari, an associate professor in UGA's Mary Frances Early College of Education. "It's not really your weight that matters. Children can be a little bit overweight but still be relatively fit."

P.E. matters

The study followed 450 children, ages 10 through 12, who took 90 minutes of mandatory PE every week. The students wore an accelerometer on their right hip during the day to track their total physical activity for a week, and simple tests-such as being able to do a regular or modified pushup or crunch- were used to determine their mastery of physical skills. The researchers also explored whether students enjoyed PE or participated out of obligation.

"Physical education matters," Yli-Piipari said. "It's not only where students learn the skills, abilities and motivation to be active; it's where students are having to do something active at a higher intensity than they probably would after school."

The study took place in Finland, where children have more PE on average than American students, and the class also focuses on the importance of exercise and how to incorporate it into everyday life. In keeping with previous research, boys tended to be more active than girls. But surprisingly, muscle strength and motor skills didn't play a role in activity levels. Neither did motivation-whether the child wanted to participate in PE-nor enjoyment of PE classes.

The students who didn't participate in after-school sports were also typically less active during their down time. For many of these students, PE was the only time they exercised hard enough to work up a sweat, which makes it even more important to use class time effectively in a way that will get students moving and motivated to keep it up.

How to get children physically active

To help children learn to be physically literate, Yli-Piipari suggests teaching them in a way that gets students up and active.

Don't just lecture and tell kids to do something. Take them to places, get them moving, and let them try different things themselves.

Variety is key. Introduce children to multiple ways they can get their heart pumping and explain why it's important to stay active.

Finally, model lifestyle and behaviors that show that physical activity and exercise have an important value for you. Help connect the dots from exercising to the positive physical and mental health effects it can have on an individual.

This study, done in partnership with the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, and the LIKES Research Centre for Physical Activity and Health, was published in the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Weight loss shouldn't be the only goal of physical education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
New study shows kids' physical fitness is more important than BMI For adults, the goal of exercise is often to shed some pounds, but new research from the University of Georgia suggests the objective should be different for kids. Physical education should focus on improving students' physical skills, knowledge of the benefits of exercise and motivation to be active.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
More than 71% of American adults are affected by overweight and obesity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Millions of these individuals regularly experience weight bias. Biases-including weight bias-are often based on stereotypes. As a health and exercise professional, you are likely to encounter individuals affected by weight bias and discrimination. Before diving further into the topic of weight bias, here are a few helpful definitions:

A stereotype is an exaggerated about a person or group. Stereotypes are often based on images in mass media, or reputations passed on my family members, friends, and other members of society. Stereotypes can be positive or negative, but even positive stereotypes can be harmful.

or is an opinion or about a group or its individual members.

Discrimination is a behavior or action that results in people being treated differently because of their group membership. Discriminatory behavior often begins with negative stereotypes and prejudices.

Weight bias is defined as negative weight-related attitudes, assumptions, and judgments toward individuals affected by overweight and obesity (Alberga et al., 2016).

The Consequences of Weight Bias in Society

Weight bias has several negative consequences. Weight stigmatization has been linked to discrimination in hiring and promotion opportunities, ultimately reducing a person's earning potential. This is especially true for women. Additionally, weight bias has been shown to affect the quality of care for patients with obesity, leading to poorer health outcomes and increased risk of mortality. When weight bias is internalized, it can lead to poor body image, low self-esteem, disordered eating, avoidance of physical activity, anxiety, depression and even suicidal ideation (Friedman and Puhl, 2012).

Weight bias is everywhere-in workplaces, schools and even healthcare settings. A report published by the World Health Organization (2017) revealed that:

54% of adults with obesity experience weight prejudice from coworkers

69% of adults with obesity report experiencing weight prejudice from healthcare workers

School-aged children affected by obesity are 63% more likely to be bullied than their non-obese peers

72% of media images stigmatize individuals affected by obesity

Like other types of bias and discrimination (on the grounds of race, gender, ability, sexual orientation, etc.), weight bias is often rooted in ignorance and misconceptions. Overweight and obesity are caused by a complex combination of behavioral, biological, social and environmental factors. However, the narratives around overweight and obesity are often oversimplified. How many times have you heard variations of the "Eat less; move more" message? Probably too many to count. These messages, though well-intended, can be counterproductive as they fail to address the complex process of behavior change and the myriad factors related to overweight and obesity.

Reducing Weight Bias in Health and Fitness Settings

Weight stigmatization is far-reaching. One study published by the American Psychological Association tracked 46 participants with a mean BMI of 30.52 for 14 days. On average, the participants reported experiencing 11 episodes of weight bias during the two-week study period. Furthermore, the more frequently weight bias was experienced, the less motivated study participants were to diet, exercise and lose weight (Vartanian, Pinkus and Smyth, 2018). Unfortunately, health and fitness settings are just as vulnerable to weight stigmatization as other spaces. As a health and exercise professional, what can you do to reduce weight bias? Here are some practical ideas to help get you started:

1. Evaluate your own biases. Do I make assumptions about a person's level of fitness based solely on his or her weight or size? Do I ever conflate thin with healthy and overweight with unhealthy? Keep in mind that bias does not always operate at a conscious or explicit level. In fact, our implicit attitudes are sometimes better predictors of our behavior than our explicit attitudes and beliefs. Fortunately, once we become aware of our own biases, we can do something about it. You can learn more about implicit bias here.

2. Create physical activity spaces that focus on behavior, not body size or weight. Educate your clients about the current Physical Activity Guidelines, and help them to create behavioral and action-oriented goals (e.g., "I will attend two group exercise classes this week," or "I will aim to get the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity this week.") Weight-loss goals are not bad, but if these are the only goals a client is working toward, disappointment is inevitable. When a client who is trying to lose weight hits a plateau, behavioral goals can still be celebrated. For example, "You didn't miss one workout this week!" When we focus on behavior, clients can feel successful even when short-term weight-loss goals are not met.

3. Set clients up for success with appropriate exercise program design. It is important to avoid making snap judgments when working with clients affected by overweight and obesity. At the same time, be aware of (and, when appropriate, provide) variations for resistance exercises, high-impact activities and other types of exercise that could place excess stress on the joints.

References

Alberga, A.S. et al. (2016). Weight bias: A call to action. Journal of Eating Disorders, 4, 1, 34.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2018). Obesity and Overweight.

Friedman, R. and Puhl, R. (2012). Weight Bias: A Social Justice Issue.

Vartanian, L.R., Pinkus, R.T. and Smyth, J.M. (2018). Experiences of weight stigma in everyday life: Implications for health motivation. Stigma and Health, 3, 2, 85-92.

World Health Organization (2017). Weight bias and stigma: Considerations for the WHO European regions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Weight Bias: What Is It and What Can We Do About It?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
More than 71% of American adults are affected by overweight and obesity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2018). Millions of these individuals regularly experience weight bias. Biases-including weight bias-are often based on stereotypes. As a health and exercise professional, you are likely to encounter individuals affected by weight bias and discrimination.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you've spent any time browsing health topics on social media, you've likely encountered ripples of the anti-diet movement, such as Jameela Jamil's " I Weigh " campaign or the backlash against Macy's for selling plates showing restrictive serving sizes.

The topic has even managed to make the front page of legacy health outlets (see: "SELF" and Tess Holliday).

If you still feel at a loss or even a bit defensive when people talk about Health at Every Size or why diets don't work, you're not alone.

We've been conditioned to believe that diets - intentional weight loss efforts and wellness plans - are the best, if not the only, solution to the "obesity epidemic." Getting information that blatantly rejects long-standing beliefs can feel disorienting!
But that's what is important to remember: that the anti-diet movement is not an attack on you or your individual actions.
It's a movement that promotes overall well-being rather than size reduction. It's a statement that people deserve to exist and don't have to engage in weight-loss attempts to earn respect. The movement targets the diet industry and culture at large - not you! And science backs the theories behind the movement.

So let's walk through these common gut reactions. Since #AntiDiet is going to become more common (and for good reason, since the movement cares about the whole person), here's what you need to know.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... well, that "lifestyle change"? It's a duck.

Word got out about "diets not working" in the early 2000s, and diets haven't been calling themselves diets for a long time. Instead, diet culture has been slowly moving away from the word "diet."

Now it's about "health." It's about "living your best life." It's about weight, but the letters W, E, I, G, H, and T are silent. Even Weight Watchers rebranded as WW in an attempt to capitalize on this movement.

But just as WW is still about weight, diets are still about weight loss. Foods are still being policed and restricted. Rules are still imposed. It sure looks like a duck - with a new slogan.

The anti-diet movement still fights that

The movement is rooted in the belief that a person's food doesn't need to be policed or restricted with rules and that weight is not the most important health marker (or any other marker).

One way to recognize this particular "duck" is to notice whether a wellness plan suggests that achieving health requires weight loss - or, these days, whether weight loss is implied.

Another red flag? Adding morality to food. Food is not moral. It's food. You're not a bad person for eating a doughnut, nor are you a better person for eating kale.

Because the truth is, the human body is so unique from person to person that we can't predict what will happen to it. By not dieting, you'll have the opportunity to learn what does and doesn't make your body feel its best, and then you can choose what you want to eat. Intuitively, you learn.

There are so many diets out there. And when you're following a certain diet plan, it's really easy and normal to feel emotionally invested. You kind of have to be! Investment is what makes following a diet for any length of time actually work.

So when someone talks about how diets don't work, it's normal to feel a bit attacked.

The larger picture is that the diet funnel is rigged. It's rigged to make you believe not only that your diet is different or superior but also that you have to restrict yourself to it in order to be happy, healthy, or allowed to participate in the world around you.

And that's the mindset the anti-diet movement is speaking out against

Not you, but the system that wants you to believe, this time, that another restrictive diet will be different. To get out of that mindset, think of it like The Matrix: The more you see it, the more you can't unsee it. It's systemic bias that you can opt out of participating in.

It can take a while to feel comfortable going against the status quo. It can take a while to be confident living against systemic expectations. It won't be an easy journey, but it will be a freeing one.

And, thankfully, there are ways to navigate that. Intuitive eating is a big one: coming back into the trust that we can truly listen to our bodies and relearning that our bodies have always been sending us signals and giving us feedback.

This is probably the hardest to argue with - not because I agree or because I think it's not healthy or OK to be in a fat body.

But because it's hard.

It's hard because being in a fat body and not actively trying to lose weight, or even - *gasp* - liking your body, can get you labeled a social deviant, which is an extremely difficult position to be in.
But I encourage you to think about ways you can improve your health independent of weight.
Will physical therapy help you be more active, pain-free? Will taking fish oils help with your cholesterol? Maybe you'll feel better and be healthier. And maybe your weight will stay the same. And maybe you won't have to add the stress of a restrictive diet.

We have less control over our health than we have been led to believe. The truth is, you can't learn anything about a person's health from their body size or the way they look alone.

Even "healthy eating" is only one small factor among all the determinants of health. The rest of the health checklist includes everything from recreational drug habits to genetics to whether someone has access to quality healthcare.

And that big picture of health is part of the reason the anti-diet movement is here.

The movement wants to help people recognize that not all of health can be rectified with food. By accepting this and allowing for other lifestyle changes, as well as other definitions of health, we allow for a more expansive and nuanced relationship with our bodies.

Dieting gives most people a honeymoon period - a period when it's easy to lose weight or to keep it off. But then it stops working. Does this sound familiar? If it does, it's because this is the experience of most people who try to lose weight.

A 2012 study that followed participants from adolescence into adulthood also noted that people will regain the majority of the weight they've lost, if not more, within 5 to 7 years. Even if you keep up the behavior that led to your weight loss, it's likely you'll regain weight.

And that's because your body interprets dieting as a threat. In my professional experience as a dietitian and my personal experience as someone constantly bombarded with diets, I've never met anyone who has maintained weight loss long-term.

I know it's not impossible. But I also believe that those folks are like lottery winners. Unicorns. A few exist, but banking on that being your experience will likely result in some disappointment.

If this is all true, then what? Well, the anti-diet movement is trying to move past the pesky idea that health is about thinness.

We do this by attempting to call out the impossible beauty standards society has created (and we have perpetuated). Because every human is worth so much more than their body size and their attempts to change it.

It's normal to be angry after you've been harmed. And the fat activist movement, which was founded by folks with skin in the game? We have been harmed.

A person's point is not less valid when they're angry or emotional. Anger doesn't make a point less valid, no matter where it comes from. Calling the opposition angry is, at its core, tone policing and gaslighting. It reinforces the idea that you must be palatable to be worth listening to.

When you're in a marginalized body, others tend to label anger itself as "out of control," even if that anger is a valid and true expression. It can just add to the "too much"-ness that people use as an excuse not to listen.

Think of another time you may have found someone angry. This social pattern has become so ingrained that we don't notice when it's being done to us or realize when we do it to others.

And here's another nugget of truth: Anger is a human reaction. When our belief systems about ourselves or the world are challenged, no matter how true the challenge is, we get angry. It's human, and it's a sign to check in.

Another human reaction? Gaslighting and tone policing, which tend to be reactions of fragility.

If you notice that your response is to set the emotional context of the conversation or downplay the reaction of the person without listening to what they're saying, check if you're feeling defensive. It's a sign that you may not be really listening or that your response might only make the other person feel worse.

Try taking a step back and unpacking the why before responding.

In a word: No.

Obesity was named a disease when the American Medical Association decided to name it a disease. The AMA's own research committee stated that the evidence did not a show a direct cause-and-effect relationship between obesity and morbidity and mortality.

Obesity, as a disease state, has also been a questionable diagnosis. And the stigma of labeling body size as a disease and attempting to treat it as such is far more likely to lead to negative health outcomes than the weight itself.

Researchers also pointed out that establishing social and public health campaigns against obesity could cause further stigma and unnecessary treatments.

Anti-diet isn't about denying that there might be an increased risk associated with certain body sizes, but "Fat is killing us" is hyperbolic.

"So why is obesity still a problem? Why do doctors warn against it?"

Again, it's that rigged system. Yes, bias in medical care and medical research affects the way bodies are treated. That's why the anti-diet movement is also a social justice movement.

We've been on this path for so long and the biases are so entrenched that we have to change not only the way research is done but also the way researchers and medical professionals view fatness.

It's about improving healthcare and bringing awareness to mental health and to social justice.

And it's about you. It's about recognizing that your body is yours and it is unique. It's worthy of proper healthcare and respect and love - regardless of the size of it, the foods you eat, or even the health conditions you're living with.

The anti-diet movement cares about health. All of it. Mental health, cultural health, and lifting up those who have spent their lives feeling marginalized and excluded. Emotional reactions are common, and anti-diet advocates are angry and emotional. But we aren't angry at you.

We aren't attacking your personal diet or your personal experience. Because those are yours. You get to choose those things for yourself.
Amee Severson is a registered dietitian whose work focuses on body positivity, fat acceptance, and intuitive eating through a social justice lens. Learn more and inquire about services at her website, Prosper Nutrition and Wellness.
We are angry at the culture that has told us that fitting a size is the only way to live your life, angry at the rigged system and the emotional toll for those who have been harmed by the attempts to help. And we will keep pushing for change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is Anti-Diet Culture? Here's What the Movement Is Striving For

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you've spent any time browsing health topics on social media, you've likely encountered ripples of the anti-diet movement, such as Jameela Jamil's " I Weigh " campaign or the backlash against Macy's for selling plates showing restrictive serving sizes. The topic has even managed to make the front page of legacy health outlets (see: "SELF" and Tess Holliday).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The expectations of what a ballerina should look like - graceful, elegant, skinny - were perfectly clear to Colleen Werner when she was young.

"I first dieted when I was 10 years old," Werner, 24, told TMRW. "I found a Weight Watchers book in my living room."

Two years earlier during a routine physical, her pediatrician had advised her to "eat more salads."

"It was the first time I really questioned my body," Werner said. "I started to notice a disconnect between my size and (those of the) other dancers. When I would go see professional performances or look in dance magazines, there was no one who looked like me."

Werner developed an eating disorder that lasted for years. Eventually, she stopped dancing entirely. But today she is back at the barre as a dancer for Black Sheep Ballet, a virtual ballet company that fellow ballerina Brian Syms formed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Werner and Syms are part of a small but growing movement to make ballet more inclusive and prove that high-level, professional ballet is not reserved for one body type, gender or race.

"In the Black community, a lot of people don't understand ballet, but that's mainly because we've kind of been left out of it," Syms, 22, told TMRW. "It's been seen as a Eurocentric dance form for so long. People in my community are like, 'That's white people stuff.' It's programmed into everyone to think it's not an option for us."

Werner is a graduate student and therapy intern in Nashville, Tennessee. Her goal is to one day create an eating disorder treatment program specifically for dancers. (Dancers are more likely than the general population to have an eating disorder; one study found that they affect 16.4% of ballerinas.)

Her own recovery was a slow process, made more difficult by the mixed messages she received. Even as Werner realized she had an eating disorder, she also found herself getting better roles and more compliments.

"I didn't think it was a problem because everyone was like, 'You look great,'" she said. "Meanwhile, I was constantly lightheaded. I was exhausted. My body was weak."

Werner began therapy. She switched her college major from dance to psychology. And she took a break from ballet.

"It was really hard because my body shifted a lot - because I was nourishing my body, and my body is naturally meant to be larger," she said.

On Instagram, where Werner has nearly 40,000 followers, she shares personal stories about her own struggles with mental health alongside beautiful videos and photos of her standing en point in a blue tutu, for example.

In fact, that's how Syms, a professional ballerina in Hartford, Connecticut, found her. Now they spend weekends together - virtually, of course - along with the handful of other members of Black Sheep Ballet, rehearsing for their debut performance this spring. They begin with a 90-minute ballet class, led by Syms, followed by two hours of rehearsal.

"It's a commitment," he said. "We're all lined up at our barres or our countertops. It's just going to be a bunch of learning choreography, putting our heads together, figuring out how we can deliver the most professional work with what we have together at home."

Syms, a dancer for the New England Ballet Theatre, came up with the idea for a virtual dance company at the beginning of the pandemic, after admiring how creative other performing arts companies had been in creating beautiful, virtual work. He envisioned a space for dancers who are often excluded from other dance spaces, especially ballerinas.

"So often I've seen people pushed away from classical dance for things they couldn't control," he said. "If you can professionally execute the work, then you have a place with us."

Their first official performance will likely be in April, although they're also rehearsing for a virtual fundraising gala in March. They'll perform both classical and original works, Syms said, although he's still figuring out what that will look like - whether the audience will see multiple boxes on their screen or if he'll splice together snippets from each performer's feed, for example. The goal is to figure out how to make a virtual performance feel just as special as going to the ballet in real life. Yet even when theaters and venues reopen, Syms believes that there will still be a place for virtual performances.

After all, the goal of Black Sheep Ballet is diversity, and that goes beyond the dancers themselves. Syms sees his company as a way to bring ballet to the masses.

"Ballet is inaccessible to so many audiences," he said. "I had never seen a full ballet on stage when I was younger, and it's something that I really could have benefited from."

It's too expensive for many people, he points out, so their performances will be donation-based.

"I hope that Black Sheep is able to reach the people I want it to - the little boys or little girls like me somewhere who might not feel like this is an option for them," Syms added. "Because everyone deserves to be represented. Everyone deserves to follow their dreams."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Black Sheep Ballet is making dance more inclusive and accessible for all

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The expectations of what a ballerina should look like - graceful, elegant, skinny - were perfectly clear to Colleen Werner when she was young. "I first dieted when I was 10 years old," Werner, 24, told TMRW. "I found a Weight Watchers book in my living room."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
But it doesn't have to be that way. You can create your own vision. One thing I've found helpful in doing so is analyzing what you want out of your fitness routine.

Take out a pen and paper and write down the things that are most important to you when it comes to your fitness and health, including your mental health. What values do you think of when you think of health and well-being? How are you best motivated? Think of a time when you really enjoyed exercise (or even just moving) and reflect on what was going on. Start to develop your vision so you have a clear understanding of what works for you and what doesn't.

For many businesses, developing a mission statement helps keep them on brand. It can do the same for you. What is your wellness mission and brand?

2. Reflect on what feels good and brings you joy.

We must enjoy the movement we are doing in order for it to be sustainable. We can't hate running and expect for it to stick. But because of fitness idealism-what kind of workout you think you should be doing-many of us have participated in things we don't enjoy.

If you've lost your joy for exercise, think back to your childhood and recall your favorite ways to move back then when it may have felt less loaded.

Maybe you loved team sports. I just joined a soccer team this year in my 40s! Maybe you loved swimming. A few years ago, I took adult swimming lessons to improve my stroke for a triathlon. You can find activities or workout types that mimic the same things you loved about physical activity as a kid. There may be some trial and error, but take note of how you feel after each activity and do more of what makes you happy and excited to do it again.

3. Establish your "why."

There is definitely a honeymoon period to most fitness routines, where it's all sunshine and unicorns. But then the fitness reality sets in, and we start to understand that establishing a routine means suiting up even when we may not really want to. The idea is to stay consistent.

Establishing a solid "why" or motive to your action is essential for those days when it's tough to get going.

Think about what is motivating you to start. You may wish for the confidence to say yes to a hike or a kayaking trip and trust your body will be able to do it. On the other hand, it can be watching a parent in poor health that motivates you or wanting to be able to keep up with your kids. Maybe you just want to feel good in the skin you're in. What is it that drives you to move?

4. Understand that our bodies evolve.

We can't turn back time, no matter what Cher wishes. Our bodies are evolving, expanding, shrinking, birthing, and aging, and that is okay.

In order for us to have a healthy relationship with movement, we have to stop putting harsh demands and expectations on our bodies if they don't perform or look as they used to. It's unrealistic and unfair to ourselves. Our bodies are amazing and deserve their due respect.

I've found that simply telling yourself to understand this, though, isn't the most effective way to drive it home. But these actions have been helpful:

Follow social media accounts of people with similar body types and ages as yours. Get inspired by people who are killing it who share a likeness to you. Learn to celebrate your body as it is now.

Write love letters (positive affirmations) about your body and post them where you can see them daily. They can be as short as one word-"strong," "warrior," "capable"-or longer in length, you decide.

Take a moment at the end of each day to reflect on how your body moved that day. Give thanks and gratitude for your body for showing up.

5. Celebrate non-scale victories.

You don't have to "earn" food with movement-it's not a nourishment reward system. It's important to not make weight loss the goal of starting or sticking with movement. It can create a fleeting relationship with moving our bodies, and that's not what we want!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Ways to Heal Your Relationship With Exercise and Movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
But it doesn't have to be that way. You can create your own vision. One thing I've found helpful in doing so is analyzing what you want out of your fitness routine. Take out a pen and paper and write down the things that are most important to you when it comes to your fitness and health, including your mental health.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's been more than five years since I became a fitness and strength coach. Since then, I've become very well-acquainted with body liberation and the general body positivity space. But to this day, I can't help but notice that this space continues to be overwhelmingly white.

Not only that, but the body positivity movement tends to hyper-focus on individual self-love without acknowledging the intersections of identity that can make it more difficult for some people to feel safe in their bodies. And trust me, we need to talk about those intersections. I've been writing about wellness and anti-racism education for years now, yet I still get nasty DMs and emails from people who are upset that I'm discussing these topics. It's not fun, but it further solidifies that I need to continue - because Black bodies, including my own, are being harmed within a space that was created to center us. As such, we have to question our cultural obsession with thin, white bodies and our incessant desire to pursue that status quo.

As Sabrina Strings, Ph.D. discusses in her book Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, Black people have historically, and intentionally, been linked with fatness dating as far back as the 19th century. "One of the things that the colonists believed was that Black people were inherently more sensuous, that people love sex and they love food, and so the idea was that Black people had more venereal diseases and that Black people were inherently obese because they lack self-control," writes Strings. "And of course, self-control and rationality, after the Enlightenment, were characteristics that were deemed integral to whiteness." (Related: How Racism Affects Your Mental Health)

Over time, this connection between Black people and gluttony has become internalized and upheld, making diet culture's rejection of larger bodies inherently racist, argues Strings.

"I spent much of my life believing the lies of diet culture, and the reality is that no amount of thinness was going to make me more aligned with whiteness," says Leavell. "I could be thinner, but I couldn't ever truly attain Eurocentric standards of beauty. I could never be white."

Food deserts, ICYDK, are areas where access to affordable, healthy food options (fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, lean meat, etc.) is limited or, in some cases, nonexistent, because grocery stores are too far away or too expensive. Communities of color tend to face the most difficulty accessing grocery stores: Only 8 percent of Black people in the U.S. live in a census tract (a region defined for the purpose of taking a census, with an average population of 4,000) with a supermarket, compared to 31 percent of white people, according to statistics from the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teaching Tolerance program.

I spent much of my life believing the lies of diet culture, and the reality is that no amount of thinness was going to make me more aligned with whiteness.

- Lauren Leavell, N.A.S.M., C.P.T., a Philadelphia-based body positive trainer and coach

Additionally, the narrative of "food is fuel" is often pushed without considering that, for many BIPOC cultures, food represents a place of gathering and community, notes Patterson.

It's great that body positivity inspires so many people to love and accept themselves. But the fact is, body positivity isn't just about loving your own body. It's about demanding justice for all bodies, especially those who face the most discrimination. Body positivity must not only acknowledge, but celebrate the intersections of identity that, too often, make it harder for people to arrive at a place of self-love, particularly within a society that caters to Eurocentric beauty standards. If we aren't dismantling diet culture and the systems of oppression that uphold it - the same systems that make it difficult for BIPOC to feel safe in their bodies, whether they're simply out bird-watching in Central Park or seeking help from an RD - then the body positivity movement is meaningless.

"I think body positivity has definitely been co-opted, which is a huge part of the reason I don't center myself as part of my Instagram page," says Soto. "I realize that I do fit some of the ideal Eurocentric standards of beauty and I check some of the boxes, so instead of centering my body and myself, I elevate the voices of those who don't have as much privilege as I do. I think it's important that we begin to acknowledge our privilege within the space and understand the roots of the movement."

The truth is, we all have unlearning to do. Whether we consciously realize it or not, we're all influenced by diet culture, racism, and the inextricable links between the two. It's not easy, but we have to recognize this in order to understand their roots in anti-Blackness and fatphobia.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Anti-Racism Helps to Dismantle Diet Culture

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's been more than five years since I became a fitness and strength coach. Since then, I've become very well-acquainted with body liberation and the general body positivity space. But to this day, I can't help but notice that this space continues to be overwhelmingly white.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
January is the month for resolutions, when we promise ourselves that, this year, we will finally be fitter, happier, and more productive. (Or you know - just survive the next twelve months in one piece.) But of the promises we mutter to ourselves as the ball drops end up failing. In fact, January 19 is known as "quitters day" so there's a high likelihood that by time you read this some of you will have already set your lofty goals aside.

What if instead of slotting ourselves into strict definitions of happiness, success, or fitness, we took time to slow down, listen to our minds and bodies, and figure out what made us feel our best?

Here are five women busy transforming the concept of wellness. From powerful yogis, to reconnecting with the land, to a hashtag with an important message - there are so many different ways to live well. And these women are here to help us do just that.

Jessamyn Stanley, Yoga Instructor and Founder of The Underbelly

Jessamyn Stanley is a yoga instructor, founder of online studio The Underbelly, podcast host, and body-positivity advocate who doesn't give a crap if you call her fat. (Which is a great way to stop trolls into their tracks.) After suffering through Bikram yoga as a teenager, and revisiting it with curiosity as a young adult, it was vinyasa flow that was ultimately incorporated into her practice that she shares through regular online classes. Ultimately, the goal is to demystify what can seem like a very elite practice. As Stanley points out, creating a practice that allows you to feel your best isn't as complicated as it might seem.

"Check out a variety of free classes on YouTube," she says. "If you don't like it and if the teacher doesn't vibe with you, just try a different class or teacher. There are so many free resources, and so much you can do from your bed or the couch or the desk. You don't need to buy anything or know anything more than you do right now - you have all the tools you need at your disposal."

How she's dealing with stress during a pandemic:

"I think that the most important thing that I've done is allowed myself to feel anxious, and just let it be there. A lot of what ends up making me feel more anxious is trying to pretend like I'm not anxious. When I'm really spiraling, I totally unplug from social media as much as possible - I put my phone somewhere else and try to forget it's there. Meditation and journaling are the most important to me, and then yoga postures. I have self-care practices that are as non-negotiable as a habit like brushing my teeth. Things like: cleansing the house with herbs, wearing my crystals, drinking water, drinking water, and drinking water. I ask, what does my inner 5-year-old need right now? and try to remember that I'm still a tender child."

Why she's reclaiming the word fat:

"People are very offended whenever I call myself fat because fat is usually considered to be a form of profanity at this point, and that is why I use it - because I have to reclaim it for myself so I am not weighed down by what's been attempted to be used as an insult, as a weapon against me. But I don't really put a lot of stock in whether or not we collectively as a whole change our perspective about the word fat. I don't think focusing on that is going to help me on an individual level with the word. The more people that understand that fat is just an adjective, and reclaim it for themselves, the more we'll see a change in our society, but that's not a point of focus for me...I think that there is much more tokenism and fetishization than there was before [in the yoga community]. I see more diversity when I look at who is posting about their practices on social media, and there is a dramatic shift in the number of people who defy the mainstream definition of a yoga body. People who defy a traditional yoga body have always been practicing, but what we're seeing now is people being more open about it, sharing their practice, and a larger community blooming there, which might be impossible without the internet and social media. "

On venturing into the podcast world:

" has opened me up to what it means to really share the practice of yoga in a way that is less defined by physical postures. Ultimately, everything that we talk about on Dear Jessamyn is all yoga - it's all about accepting the forces that are within you and the forces within your partners, and you can't change anybody else. It's always about acceptance, and if you don't accept yourself there's no way to accept another person. That has opened the door to a genealogy project that I'm looking forward to sharing, and we want to keep making space for dialogue in our ever-evolving world as things become more catastrophic."

Cindy Y. Rodriguez, Founder of Reclama

All her life, Cindy Y. Rodriguez has found joy in nature - particularly her family's land in Peru where she'd spend hours wandering by the river. "My mom would always push for me to be outside and play," she laughs. "She must have known something I didn't about what put me at ease, because that was a setting she always put me in."

However, when life events turned into a seven year stretch of being unable to make it back to Peru, the New Jersey-based writer discovered just how vital that connection was to her. In an attempt to connect with nature, she took a 7000-mile road trip, where she visited national parks across the U.S. What she discovered was that there's a wealth within our reach, and non-white communities are not encouraged to explore it.

Her response was to connect with likeminded people. Started in 2018 and officially solidified in 2019, calls itself a "spiritual wellness community helping women of color reclaim themselves through hiking and journaling." Through monthly hikes around the New York and New Jersey area, women are encouraged to meet, set intentions, and write. As Rodriguez notes, simply connecting to the land and each other has led to dramatic, life-changing transformations.

"Why are we not doing this?" asks Rodriguez. "Why don't more people know about these national parks? I want people to know about the real, ancestral spiritual, indigenous history of our land there. It's just disconnected in a very odd way."

On making a place for women of color in nature:

"[My hikes are] for women who feel like they have been inching towards nature, wanting to come out. But they maybe felt like it was a white people thing. Or they felt like they didn't belong, they felt odd. Or they just didn't even know where to begin because the way it's advertised, with the need for all of this equipment. If you want to start, you can get good sturdy sneakers and go on a pretty chill hike, and just ease your way in. But no one really talks about that. And they don't talk about what it is to be out there and have eyes stare at you in a weird way, the microaggressions of being a person of color out in nature. Do you know where you're going? Your first time hiking? And it's not so much the question - it's the implication and the tone that you are either not supposed to be there or that you're kind of wrong. And I've been there for those incidents, and I've had to really show in front of them how I handle those situations. At first [my hiking groups] they're a little thrown off, but then they're so empowered. They use those same skills when they go out on their own."

How the hikes take on a life of their own:

"Like a teacher, I have a lesson plan that we stick to for the most part. But I also let things live, in a way. Like, if I see that, for some reason, we're just all talking about having a hard time with familial boundaries, then that's where it goes. Maybe everyone's resonating with that message, because they need to hear something. It's very free flowing in that way. I kind of love that part.

And for the people who have come regularly for the last two years, the ride-or-dies, those who are there no matter if it's snowing or like 80 degrees, [they say] there's always a shift in their lives after a hike. They're like, I just feel like I clear some kind of blockage that either I didn't know was there, or this helped open my eyes just by one thing someone said or that you said. So, it's really cool to watch, because I've seen people go from not having a job, not owning their own place, and now they have their own place to have their own business - they launched the thing. They're coming out, they lost the weight, they're happier, they left the guy - it's amazing to see people's journey in the last two years."

Why journaling is such an important element of her hikes:

"I've done workshops on how to get unstuck, how to not take journaling so seriously, because I've noticed and meet a lot of people who love journaling, and I meet a lot more people who get anxious at that blank page and want their handwriting to be perfect. And they want it to be this prolific entry. And I'm the first girl that's like, the reason why the journals that I give you are so simple is because I want you to mess them up. I want you to just go bananas, don't censor yourself!

I feel like my place in the world is to give people that liberty because I understand that anxiety right before the pen hits the paper. Because I'm a professional writer. So, I've applied all those unstuck things to journaling. I'm always listening, I'm really good at troubleshooting. I try to find where people are stuck, and I try to go from there. And I just remind people that journaling is you getting whatever's on your mind on paper, making room in your mind for new ideas to develop. I'm a big believer that you can't really have those wonderful visions in your head grow if you haven't given them the space to grow. So, getting it down on paper is the first step. And there's a lot of magic when it happens when it comes to the intention and letting things go on paper, the energy that you put into it."

Melissa Blake, freelance writer, blogger, and disability activist

It's difficult to see social media as a wellness space - particularly when it's been proven to affect users' body image and mental health. But in 2019, writer, blogger, and activist Melissa Blake, who was born with Freeman-Sheldon syndrome (a rare genetic syndrome that causes skeletal malformations), turned that trope on its head. After an anti-Trump op-ed for CNN Opinion made her the target for online bullying, she tweeted a several selfies with the defiant message, "During the last round of trollgate, people said that I should be banned from posting photos of myself because I'm too ugly. So I'd just like to commemorate the occasion with these 3 selfies."

Her buoyant response quickly went viral. Encouraged by the response, she began posting a selfie every day, marked #MyBestSelfie, a hashtag that's now become synonymous among her followers, many who are part of the disabled community, for being confident and happy to take up space. As Blake says, she's proud that not only was she able to hold her own, but that she's helped create a safe space for so many other people.

"It was my cheeky, defiant response to being told that I don't deserve to be seen," she recalls. "Because that comment didn't just take a dig at me, it was an insult to all disabled people. We're constantly told that we're repulsive and ugly and not good enough to be seen."

On changing her view of mental health:

"When we're young, so much of how we view the world and even ourselves is shaped by the messages we get from society. Growing up in the 1990s, our culture was just starting to change in how we view mental health - it was a shift from that 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' approach to one where mental illness was viewed more in the same way as a physical illness. I noticed my thinking shifting, too. I started to realize that things like depression and anxiety, which I've battled in the past, weren't necessarily things you could just get over. They're not your fault and they don't make you weak or a bad person. I'm so glad more people feel that way now too."

Learning through daily selfies:

"I've been able to start and continue a very important conversation around disability and beauty, which is something I never expected. I also never expected that people would relate to my story as much as they have. I've gotten so many messages and emails from people who see themselves in my journey toward self-acceptance and learning to love myself as a disabled woman. And I love when people share their own selfies. As cliché as it sounds, I really feel like I've found this great community on social media - all because of mean comments! The worst of the internet has helped me find the best. It's a journey I think I'll be on forever, but the whole experience has given me more self-confidence and really helped me become more comfortable in my disabled body. Loving who I am hasn't always been easy, but I'm grateful that the self-love is coming little by little."

Her advice to would-be allies:

"Listen to us! That's what disabled people need right now. I feel like we're so often dismissed by society, underestimated by society and just generally left out. But we have a voice and so much ableism could be eliminated if people would just listen to us."

Sophia Holly, Exhale to Inhale Program Manager

When Sophia Holly first turned to yoga, it was simply a trendy way to get fit. (She laughs, recalling Madonna's toned arms - a pop culture touchstone for the powers of yoga at the time.) However, she discovered the practice helped heal her eating disorder and relationship with her body. It's that restorative spirit that Holly brings into her role as an instructor and program manager at Exhale to Inhale, a yoga studio that looks to equip and empower survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. (While based in New York, the studio has expanded into pre-recorded classes, and has been able to reach survivors outside the city, including notable numbers in Canada and California.) While it may seem like magic, as Holly explains, there's a biological reason why Exhale to Inhale has been so successful in serving their community and changing the lives of those who practice with them. Namely, moving releases tension.

"With opossums, their natural reaction - and there's actual footage of this - if they're being chased by a predator, is that they would actually freeze in their bodies and play dead, and then the predator leaves. When the video continues to roll the possum then starts to shake, to do these almost modern dances, shaking out the whole body. And so, that's almost like this sense of discharging all that energy and fear. We don't get to do that as humans. So, especially for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, sometimes that's happening, day to day, it's just continuing, you don't get to shake it out."

On teaching trauma-informed yoga:

" Our methodology is that we're really focusing on safety, simplicity, and choice making. So, the idea that the individual who's taking class is guided to listen to themselves and take the class at their own pace. You're learning about what works for you, what you need and what you don't need. And you're also reclaiming this sense of choice, because often when an experience happens, you don't have that sense of choice. And we are really conscious of what language we use, so language that is not as triggering. The yoga space is slow enough that we can have the most potential for healing where we're using language that's supportive and that's nourishing, so that folks can really calm the chatter of their mind and their body and tap into themselves. There's this term that we hear a lot, 'listen to your body.' And you hear it over and over again, and it's like, well, some folks don't know what that means. And actually, our trauma response of listening to the body might not be what our deep healing body needs. So, the idea is that our methodology is slow enough so that folks can uncover that and start to learn."

How yoga changes lives:

" We have a wellness survey that we offer our students that measures stress, personal agency, and bodily sensations. So, the idea is that it's helping people check in how they are before and after practice. Am I tight? Can I even feel my body? How am I to handle life's daily challenges? We have a lot of testimonials, and these are why we keep going, because it's just exciting to us to see how magic the practice of yoga feels. I had one person write a note that was like, 'I feel like I can take on the world,' who had previously been in a domestic violence situation. That's so powerful. We've had folks who have described their being in court to fight for custody of their children, because often the person who is the abuser is manipulative and will try to get custody and it's just so complicated. So, this person described the ability to feel their feet on the floor, and to breathe in the moment to be so powerful to engage in this really stressful situation."

How teaching has expanded her view of yoga:

"Yoga started as something that I just thought was cool and wanted to do, because other people were doing it. I went from wanting a yoga body to being something that actually felt like was a lifeline. Instead of doing these certain behaviors that are perhaps not healthy for me I'm going to do yoga instead. Even without realizing it, a yoga practice just [feels] like layers peeling away - it's almost hard to describe. But I feel like because the journey of healing is so slow and not linear, it's hard to put it into words - it feels almost like magic. So, that's what we're trying to share with other folks. Overall, really seeing yoga as a less of a physical practice and more of an emotional, mental, and, for some folks, spiritual practice. Really well-rounded healing, where you're not just like doing a down dog to get strong arms. You're perhaps doing a down dog to find a strong inside, or to learn if down dog even works for you."

Mirna Valerio, long distance runner, motivational speaker, body positivity advocate

Mirna Valerio still remembers the doctor's appointment in 2008 where she was told she had health issues. Although she was once a high school and college athlete, where she took up running as a way to stay fit for field hockey and lacrosse, in the time since then, being a mother, full-time teacher, and running a dorm at a boarding school had taken its toll. Changes had to be made.

"The next day I got back on my treadmill," she recalls. "I knew running was the thing that would get me back to where I need to be...sometimes your body is sending you messages, but you are not ready or willing to hear that. And sometimes you need a doctor to say, 'you really need to change, or you are not going to live to see your son grow up.'"

Although boundlessly optimistic, Valerio doesn't downplay the fact it was hard to return to exercising. But her endurance grew with the help of a friend who functioned as a summer-vacation exercise buddy, writing down lists of exercise moves and then checking them off during their epic five-hour training sessions. ("Eventually I started just putting [the papers] it in my bras," she laughs. "When I was tired we were done!") The races she'd enter as a form of accountability grew from 5k to 10k to half and full marathons - and even ultramarathons

It was while training for first marathon in 2011 that Valerio created her blog Mirnavator, then called "Fat Girl Running." It became a place not just to celebrate her "journey" (a word she only likes when Schitt's Creek uses it), but to encourage other women who might not look or feel like the "typical" athlete. It's still a platform that she takes seriously. Ultimately her goal is simple.

"I'm just going to show my body doing it," so people can see that all types of bodies can be runners," she says.

"'How much weight are you losing?' you know, without even having a conversation with me, or seeing me at the gym, or see me running. So, I wrote about that kind of thing. And I also wrote about going to a doctor's office, for example. And after I said, 'Oh, I'm in between two marathons. I had one last week, and I'm doing one this weekend. And I have this issue,' my doctor still says things like, 'Do you work out?' A lot of fat people face that! So, that particular post got like 14,000 views, which was, you know, not viral, but that was more views than I've ever gotten. And I think that's the post that got me on the map and noticed by things like Wall Street Journal. And then and then it was like a snowball."

On learning to protect her energy:

"You can have everything, but not everything at the same time. So sometimes, you have to outsource stuff. If you are able to get a babysitter, or trade with somebody else so that you can take care of yourself - I had to learn that. It was a very very tough lesson. If it's getting one of those meal services, even if it's like one meal a week, if you can afford that. And I know that not everybody can afford that. But anything that can take something off of your plate so that you can focus on yourself is really, really important. Whether it costs money or not. Whether it's a trade or not. Anything that you can do to take care of yourself is the absolute most important thing, because if you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of anybody else. Put your mask on first."

On leading by example:

"I never had the thought that I wasn't a runner, or that I didn't have a runner's body. Other people had those thoughts. But it was just dumb to me. Because if I ran, I was a runner, right? That was the thing that was important to me. So, I was a runner. I've been given all of these opportunities to kind of live that, I don't necessarily go out with the intention of proving that. But because I think it's the truth, I'm just going to show my body doing it, so people can see that all types of bodies can be runners. Running all types of paces are running paces. You don't have to have a certain body type or pace. Whatever it is that makes people think that you are a traditional runner - you don't have to have anything like that. And so, that's been a really cool benefit from just being myself. I get paid to do that, which is really awesome."

Laura Studarus is a Los Angeles-based travel writer with bylines at Fast Company, BBC Travel, and Thrillist. Sometimes she can go several hours without a cup of tea. Follow her adventures on Twitter.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Five Women Changing the Way We Think About Wellness

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
January is the month for resolutions, when we promise ourselves that, this year, we will finally be fitter, happier, and more productive. (Or you know - just survive the next twelve months in one piece.) But of the promises we mutter to ourselves as the ball drops end up failing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For Andy Duran, nothing compares to the feeling of smooth pavement.

Whether he's stepping off BART or seeking out driveways and parking lots, he skates to find a special rhythm between him and his board. "It's a thrill," he says. "When it all aligns, it feels like a dance." However, it hasn't always been easy for the 36-year-old, who works as a sex educator, to find his footing.

As someone who skated in his youth, Duran decided to revisit it as a way of staying active and having fun during lockdown - but he says that while researching skateboards for fat folks, he couldn't find much gear, if any. What he discovered instead was that fat shaming and baseless stereotypes still prevailed in the skating world. "I started to find people who were saying fat folks couldn't skate if you're over 190, that you shouldn't be on a skateboard, or that the deck won't support you." His response to that? "Show people that I can skate at 340."

Disproving these stereotypes is part of the reason why Duran founded Chub Rollz, a body positive, trans- and BIPOC-led skate group by and for the Bay Area's fat and plus-size riders of "quads" and "boards." After compiling a list of recommended products for fat skaters and hosting virtual roller skating and skateboarding classes in January 2021, the group has already received an overwhelmingly positive response. As part of their first sponsored giveaway, SFGATE met with the group at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park to talk about their fight for fat representation - and what members hope to accomplish in the New Year.

When we arrive at the park, which is just adjacent to a major shipping terminal on the edge of Oakland, it's humming with life. Nearby, the gears of maritime industry slowly turn. Cranes lurch and groan; spectral freight ships drift along the horizon. As Duran and his partner, Jennifer Marshall, prepare skate decks for the giveaway, Chub Rollz member Dane Isaac practices kickturns on his skateboard. After a few tries, he nails it. "I did it!" he yells.

Isaac says that when Duran invited him to join Chub Rollz, he was excited to unite with other plus-size skaters. There are few fat folks in the skateboarding community, and Isaac says that he's experienced discrimination in the world at large - especially as someone with a disability. Health care professionals treat his weight as the source of all his ailments, even though evidence shows that weight alone doesn't determine whether someone is "healthy."

Strangers have also mocked Isaac in public spaces. "A week after Christmas I was going for a run, and some guy was like, 'Starting your New Year's resolution early?' That comment is the worst," he groans. Chub Rollz, he says, establishes a safe space for him to not feel judged, allowing him to hone in on his skateboarding skills and defy expectations. "It's rewarding as a fat person to do things that society says you can't do," he says, fuschia-colored hair peeking from his helmet. "I love to go on adventures. I love to prove society wrong. Screw that."

Duran agrees that it's important for fat folks to collectively take up space because oftentimes, members feel simultaneously isolated and scrutinized. "We were used to being the only fat person at any event, or the one at the restaurant that can't fit in the chair. It's great to be in a space where we can take over and be ourselves, and don't have to be embarrassed when the board squeaks when we stand on it."

Aside from strengthening community and promoting visibility, skating is a positive way for Chub Rollz members to overcome grief. For reasons unrelated to COVID-19, Duran lost nine friends in a span of nine months, and the pandemic only compounded his sense of urgency to pursue skateboarding. Marshall feels similarly. Her mother contracted COVID and passed away in April, and since then, she's been coping by learning how to balance and glide on her favorite pair of Moxi Beach Bunnies.

To Marshall, representation is critical because it demonstrates that fat bodies can and should express joy. "No one can say what any one body can do. Everyone is so unique. We need more fat representation in skating and exercise and not representation that focuses on weight loss or mastering something - just fat people playing; that is so important."

As we wrap up our conversation, members of all ages and abilities trickle in to pick up their gear. Duran and Isaac take turns helping the group's newest - and youngest - member balance on her board. Despite her age, Duran describes the adventurous 20-month-old as a "ripper." It's impossible to disagree.

By the end of the giveaway, one thing becomes clear: Wheels know no limitations, and neither do the defiantly optimistic skaters of Chub Rollz. "We need to push each other and show the rest of the world we can do it, too," Duran says. "When you invite us, we'll play with you too."
Ariana Bindman is a freelance writer in the Bay Area, find her on Instagram at @ariana.bindman.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
340-pound skateboarder shatters stereotypes with new Bay Area club

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For Andy Duran, nothing compares to the feeling of smooth pavement. Whether he's stepping off BART or seeking out driveways and parking lots, he skates to find a special rhythm between him and his board. "It's a thrill," he says. "When it all aligns, it feels like a dance."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, our shapes, the way we eat and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier. Our goal here is not to tell you how to think, but to start a conversation about diet culture, its impact, and how we might challenge the messages we are given to find alternative ways to feel attractive and successful.

The dawn of a new year is when many of us scramble to make resolutions, and in the U.S., these are often earnest pledges to shrink, tone, chisel or otherwise alter our bodies. Like years before, in the first weeks of 2021, new signups for virtual workout subscriptions and searches for "diet" on Google are spiking as millions of us look to detox our poor, puffy bodies of the bad food choices we made over the holidays and start the year fresh-

Wait. Stop. Just there.
"...detox our bodies of the bad food choices we made..."
This language - and the above concept - implies that our bodies have been poisoned by peppermint bark, cookies, latkes, and eggnog, and that an antidote must be administered urgently, or else. It assumes that certain foods are "bad" and what's more, we are bad for eating them. To be totally transparent, we can fall into that trap here at Good Housekeeping too - we recently published a recipe called "Christmas Crack," which perpetuates a trend that equates a delicious, sugary treat to a dangerous, addictive drug that could actually kill you. This problematic nickname for a chocolatey candy concoction is a prime example of diet culture and just how easily it can sneak in under the radar.

Diet culture, a set of beliefs that places thinness as the pinnacle of success and beauty, has become our dominant culture - often in ways we don't even notice since it's the water in which we swim. "There's a whole lexicon," says Claire Mysko, CEO of National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). When we say we need to "burn off" or "make up for" the cheeseboard we shared with friends; when we ponder snagging a bite of our partner's dessert then immediately wonder, "Is it worth it?"; whenever we ascribe morality to our food choices, giggling that it's sinful when we choose to eat what we crave or what comforts us, or good when we opt for low-calorie, low-carb, or other foods we've deemed healthy. "All of that talk is part of diet culture," says Mysko. And it is so inextricably woven into the fabric of our culture that most of us aren't even consciously aware of the daily inundation.

Even if you're not actively on a diet or trying to lose weight, diet culture can crop up in choices we think we're making for health, to feel or look good, fit in, or even just make conversation amongst friends over dinner. But subconsciously, diet culture "creates this idea - and reinforces it at every turn - that you have to be thin in order to be successful, accepted, loved, healthy: All of these things that we want for ourselves that are just understandable human desire," says Christy Harrison, M.P.H., R.D., C.D.N., author of and host of the Food Psych podcast. "It tells us that weight loss is the secret to that. It tells us that weight loss is a way to attain those things." And it's a house of cards.

So what is "diet culture," exactly?

"Diet culture refers to all of the messages and the attitudes around what's valued about body size and style," says therapist Judith Matz, L.C.S.W., author of The Body Positivity Card Deck and Diet Survivor's Handbook. "In diet culture, there is a conferred status to people who are thinner, and it assumes that eating in a certain way will result in the right body size - the 'correct' body size - and good health, and that it's attainable for anybody who has the right willpower, the right determination." In actual fact, there is no "right" body size, and even if there were, it's not attainable to whomever does the "right" thing, as evidenced by the 98% failure rate of diets. This stat alone is proof of the no-win norm that we, as a society, have been groomed to abide by.

Diet culture can be found in Barbie's thigh gap and 18-inch waist, which influences little ones' perception of what an ideal body "should" look like. It's Lululemon's founder saying publicly that it's a problem when women's thighs touch. It's Kim Kardashian explaining how "necessary" it is to squeeze into shapewear beneath a dress, saying, "without shapewear, you'd see cellulite and I just wouldn't feel as confident." (Her shapewear brand, SKIMS, allegedly sold $2 million of product in minutes when it launched.) It's the fact that we've all been told (or recited!) that at the first sign of hunger, you should drink a glass of water first in case you're "actually just thirsty." It's the popular article here on Good Housekeeping's own websiteabout " 1,200-calorie diets" that netted over two million search users in 2019 alone - our second-most-read story of the year - despite the fact that the number of calories falls within the realm of clinical starvation (Holocaust concentration camp prisoners were fed 1,250-1,400 calories per day).

In one fell swoop, diet culture sets us up to feel bad about ourselves while also suggesting that maybe losing weight will help us feel better. As anyone who's ever looked into the mirror and wished for a flatter this or a bigger that can likely attest, there's an unattainable and rigidly narrow Western beauty ideal to which we often compare ourselves. "Nobody ever wakes up in the morning and says, 'Gosh, I look terrific. I feel so healthy, I'm so attractive: I think I'll go on a diet,'" Matz points out. "It always starts with negative thoughts."

Instagram, movies, runways, and fashion ads are rife with slim, tall women living a life that somehow always looks better than our own - could it be because of those perfect bodies? The sample size for many designers is 0-2, while a 2018 study by National Health Statistics Reports published by the CDC places the average American adult woman in a size 18-20, and teen girls in a size 12. While what is "normal" varies greatly on genetics, family history, race, ethnicity, age and much more, size is actually not a good indicator of health - you can be smaller-bodied and unhealthy, or larger-bodied and fit. "We're exposed to the steady stream of images and messages that reinforce diet culture and reinforce the idea that to be happy and successful and well-liked ... you have to look a certain way, have a certain body, and follow a certain fitness or meal plan or diet," says Mysko.

The "average" American woman is a size 18-20; designer sample sizes are 0-2.

The truth is that healthy, attractive, desirable bodies come at every size and shape. But for many people in larger bodies, people in "average" bodies, or even slender folks who don't feel that they're thin enough in the exact right places, a lifetime on the hamster wheel of feeling othered "leads to people feeling a lot of shame about their body and feeling that being thin is worth pursuing at all costs," says Matz. The result: "People choose from hundreds, if not thousands, of diet plans or restrictive food plans."

But it's not our fault: Diet culture has long been institutionalized and is part of an oppressive system that's intrinsically tied in with racism and patriarchy. "Whenever we create standards about how we all should live, these norms always benefit those individuals who are already in power," says Sabrina Strings, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine and the author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia.

"What constitutes 'good' behavior is going to be far more accessible to white persons, to men, to wealthy persons, than people who do not fit into those categories," says Strings. This includes conventional thinness, and "when you have been told that you should only have [a certain amount of] calories or that you must keep your BMI here, you will always feel like you are doing either good or bad, right or wrong by sticking to these dictates," Strings adds. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths, [including the concept that] if you just restrict your food, then you'll be able to attain that weight," says Matz. The reality, as we'll get to, is much different.

Why is diet culture harmful?

In short, it keeps us unhappy with ourselves, chasing something we can't ever catch, and spending loads of money to do so. Here's how:

1. It's a business designed to take your money. According to Market Research, the total U.S. weight loss market grew at an estimated 4.1% in 2018 to $72.7 billion and is forecasted to grow 2.6% annually through 2023. "With that kind of money, with that kind of industry at stake, it's really hard to get that to go away - even with a growing and powerful movement like anti-diet," says Harrison.

2. It distracts from the real issue. Our culture says that if you're not thin enough, it's your fault. That's because it's easier to put the brunt of the problem on the individual instead of investing in fixing the problem at large. "If you've ever visited a community that only has a convenience store as a local means of any type of nutrition, then you will know that people often don't even have fruit in their neighborhoods ... in a low income area," says Strings.

"If we lived in a society where neighborhoods were walkable, and people could get access to clean drinking water and plenty of sleep, people would already be far healthier than they are now." But, she continues, "rather than focusing on these larger structural issues that could have a global impact on a population, we want to target individuals and tell them to change their bodies in ways that are unrealistic and unproductive."

3. Scientifically speaking, diets don't work. "There is zero research out there that shows any weight loss plan or product helps people achieve weight loss ... over a two to five year period," says Matz. "If there was something that was sustainable for the majority of people, we would all know about it." (There isn't, so we don't.) Even doctors often prescribe weight loss as a cure to many medical maladies despite the fact that "up to 98% of people, according to , regain all the weight that they lost within five years, and up to two-thirds of people end up regaining more weight than they lost," says Harrison. "Why do 100% of dieters think they're going to be in the 2%?"

It's no coincidence that in November 2020, the CDC reported that more people are dieting now compared to 10 years ago - yet obesity rates have increased by nearly 10%. Diet culture conditioning leads us to assume that more diets must mean better population health, but trending upward right alongside the growing number of dieters, "mean weight, waist circumference, and BMI in adults have increased over the past 18 years," according to a . There's also that yo-yo dieting (or weight cycling) may be responsible for all excess mortality and cardiovascular risks for diseases associated with being in a larger body. But perhaps the larger problem is that because of diet culture, when we do gain the weight back, we have learned to internalize it as a failure of self.

98% of diets fail - Why do 100% of dieters think they'll be in the 2%?

4. It promotes and normalizes disordered eating. If you were to flat-out ask 100 people, "do you have an eating disorder?", many would bristle and disagree. But if you were to ask 100 people a series of questions that indicate disordered eating (per NEDA's screening tool: How afraid are you of gaining three pounds? Do you ever feel fat? Compared to other things in your life, how important is your weight to you? Do you consume a small amount of food on a regular basis to influence your shape or weight?), it becomes clear that the issue is far more pervasive than you think.

A 2008 survey sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill showed that a whopping 75% of women reported disordered eating behaviors that "cut across racial and ethnic lines," and occurred in "women in their 30s and 40s ... at the same rate as women in their 20s." That means disordered eating is the norm in the U.S. for women of all ages and colors. It's a staggering statistic, and one that goes under reported since a lot of these behaviors support the very underpinnings of diet culture itself.

5. It's self-perpetuating. Imagine if your vacuum had a 98% failure rate. You likely wouldn't blame the ensuing mess that grew each time the vacuum didn't start. (You'd also presumably trade it in for a more reliable model pretty quickly.) But when we diet and, later, gain the weight back, as 98% of people will, we instead turn inward and berate ourselves. Dieters "do what diet culture teaches them to do by dieting," says Matz, "but then, when it doesn't work, they blame themselves rather than the diet." And then we restart the cycle instead of just buying a new damn vacuum.

How can I resist diet culture?

The first step is understanding the science of the matter: Dieting is biologically set up to fail, and the human tendency to regain lost weight is ultimately a success for evolution. "Our bodies are really designed to protect us against famine," says Harrison. "The message this culture gets is that you can decide what weight you want to be with enough willpower, but it's just not true," says Matz. "Our weight regulation system is beyond our conscious control." According to a 2010 , there is an active, biological control of body weight at a given set point in a 10-20 pound range. "When people diet, they mess with that, says Matz. "Diets work in the short-term, but then our weight regulation system kicks in to help us out: To keep us alive."

Anti-diet does not mean anti-health.

Anti-diet culture aims to "dismantle this oppressive system of beliefs ... so that people have the chance and the choice to be able to be free of those stigmatizing and body shaming beliefs," says Harrison. It's discarding the broken vacuum and investing in one that works beautifully and will last a lifetime. The anti-diet movement tosses out the bones of conventional dieting (i.e.: restriction, rules, omission, strict adherence) and replaces these with flexibility, acceptance, and ultimately peace with food and our bodies. Here are some aspects of anti-diet culture that can actionably put an end to the restriction and guilt cycle of diet culture:

Intuitive eating is a practice founded on 10 core principles in which you let your body guide you in what (and how much) to eat. "With intuitive eating, instead of eating from the outside in, instead of following rules from a diet, people learn to use their internal physical cues to decide when, what, and how much to eat," says Matz. By destigmatizing food choices, intuitive eating steers you back into your own body. Most people have "gotten so used to eating what they should and shouldn't eat, what's 'good' and 'bad', they've really lost touch with 'What do I want? What would satisfy me?,'" says Matz.

Getting reacquainted with your body's natural hunger cues, cravings, and needs can free you from the learned shoulds of diet culture. The irony: Most find that once you grant yourself permission to eat the things you want when you want, your "fear foods" (you know, the things you declare you "cannot have in the house or I'll eat the whole bag!") have less of a siren song. When the scarcity mindset drops, so does the need to overeat out of fear of never having it again. "Remember that we come into this world born knowing how to do this," says Matz. "Babies, when they're hungry, cry. So really, we're going back to the way we were born: Eating."

Health at Every Size (HAES) is a movement that encourages the pursuit of health without a focus on weight loss. It's built on pillars of weight inclusivity, health enhancement, respectful care, eating for well-being, and life-enhancing movement, all with the ultimate goal of tuning into your body's innate guidance to make food and movement choices that help you feel confident, nourished, fulfilled, and healthy inside your body without trying to change its appearance. "It looks at people's health status, separate from weight," says Matz, and it's "really doing a great job of giving people information that ... you can be healthy regardless of your size," says Strings.

Strings adds that HAES is built upon the belief that you are worthy of love and respect, regardless of your size. In a society that demonizes fatness, it's a simple but novel concept. As Strings says: "Just to love yourself and to know that you can be healthy regardless of your weight is really a revelation to probably most Americans."
Anyone feeling like they are suffering from disordered eating or an eating disorder can and should reach out for help immediately. The helpline at (800) 931-2237 is available daily via call or text, and officials also are on standby in digital chats, ready to help you find resources in your area. If you are concerned about a loved one, learn more about how you can help.
Jessica Teich Deputy Editor Jessica is the deputy editor at the Good Housekeeping Institute and a longtime product tester, reviewer, writer, and editor of beauty, lifestyle, and home content.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Throughout 2021, Good Housekeeping will be exploring how we think about weight, our shapes, the way we eat and how we try to control or change our bodies in our quest to be happier and healthier.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Body Positivity became a social media buzzphrase. Variations of it (body love, body positive, and of course, #BOPO) have now been used millions of times. Today, for every celebrity who's repping for a diet company, there's another who's reminding us to love ourselves exactly as we are.

But many of the most popular Body Positivity role models only have "imperfect" bodies when they take off their clothes and draw arrows pointing to their imperfections. Visibly fat influencers - those who are undeniably fat no matter what they're wearing - also have their own followings, but they deal with more harassment, more account bans, and more pushback for "glorifying obesity." Intersectional influencers who were dealing with oppression in more than one areas were often the most outspoken. Where early fat activism hadn't always made space for fat Black and brown people, Black and brown fat people were more able to carve out their own spaces online.

Unfortunately, as more people started using hashtags like #loveyourbody and #allbodiesarebeautiful, the most marginalized bodies in society have become marginalized again within the very movement they started.

Some Body Positive believers say that weight loss talk should be included in Body Positivity messaging, as losing weight makes people feel better about themselves. Even major diet companies describe themselves as Body Positive. Some activists still embrace Body Positivity as a gateway to more radical body liberation movements. To others, the phrase has become so meaningless that they've either adopted variations or simply won't use it at all.

Body Positivity is nothing without its Fat Activist grandparents of all genders. It's also nothing without the Black women and femmes who amplified the message at the beginning of the trend. The women who wrote the Fat Manifesto ended it by saying, "We commit ourselves to pursue these goals together." If together doesn't include the fat people and Black people who made Body Positivity possible - as well as other marginalized bodies - it's not Body Positivity at all.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
From New York to Instagram: The history of the body positivity movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Body Positivity became a social media buzzphrase. Variations of it (body love, body positive, and of course, #BOPO) have now been used millions of times. Today, for every celebrity who's repping for a diet company, there's another who's reminding us to love ourselves exactly as we are.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Barbara Altman Bruno, Ph.D., DCSW. Previously posted on the Health At Every Size® Blog and reposted here with author permission.
The decade of the 1980s was characterized in part by Reagonomics and a "greed is good" business ethos; the burgeoning size of Americans along with a greater societal focus on physical fitness; women increasingly entering and competing in the workforce; the emergence of AIDS; the explosive rise of personal computing, and the end of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War.

Questions were being raised about dieting. Bob Schwartz's 1982 book, Diets Don't Work, was based on his program of the same name. Schwartz noticed how people ate who were not worried about food and weight, and taught what would later be called intuitive eating. Molly Groger wrote a book about her training program, Eating Awareness Training, which also helped people return to intuitive eating. Both Groger and Schwartz, however, suggested that by following intuitive eating, people's extra weight would melt off over time.

Two other books raised major concerns about the ineffectiveness and harmfulness of weight-loss diets: The Dieter's Dilemma by William Bennett, MD, and Joel Gurin, and Breaking the Diet Habit, by Janet Polivy and C. Peter Herman. Bennett and Gurin posited that nearly all people had setpoints, which regulated each person's body fat and weight. Dieting resulted in lowered metabolic rates and rebound weight gain, and was all but useless. Polivy and Herman discussed the "natural weight" range, which varied by individuals in a species, and recommended intuitive eating (not yet named as such) and accepting one's natural size, as an alternative to struggling with dieting. They also reframed dieting as "restrained eating," wherein one ignored body signals and instead responded to external cues, such as the time of day or the amount of food on a plate. Another of their concepts was the "what-the-hell effect," in which restrained eaters overate in response to having come off their diets.

Bennett, in a 1982 speech to NAAFA, addressed the medicalization of obesity (for profit and prestige) and proposed "preventive measures-the kind of effort everyone, fat, skinny, or whatever, should be doing to maintain and improve general health."

Feminist writers and thinkers like Kim Chernin ( The Obsession: Reflections on the Tyranny of Slenderness) noted that as women increasingly competed with men in the work force, the societal imperative to be thin weighed ever more heavily on them, and there was a dramatic increase in eating disorders.

In 1984, Alice Ansfield began Radiance: The Magazine for Large Women. Published quarterly for 16 years, "its purpose was to support women 'all sizes of large' in living proud, full, active lives, at whatever weight, with self-love and self-respect." (quoted from the website).

In 1985, the National Institutes of Health's Consensus Development Conference on the Health Implications of Obesity, ignoring much of the evidence presented, asserted, "The evidence is now overwhelming that obesity, defined as excessive storage of energy in the form of fat, has adverse effects on health and longevity," and declared obesity a disease.

Researchers Paul Ernsberger and Paul Haskew wrote a very clear, well-documented monograph titled, " Rethinking Obesity: An alternative view of its health implications," which was the Summer 1987 issue of The Journal of Obesity and Weight Regulation. Among many tables in the article were a chronology of hazardous treatments for obesity and a long list of health benefits of obesity. Obesity was associated with lower incidences of cancer, many cardiovascular, gynecological, respiratory, bone and obstetric diseases, and lower mortality from cancer and infectious diseases. The authors panned the 1985 NIH Consensus Development Conference on the Health Implications of Obesity as drawing from biased information, mostly from the insurance industry, and rejecting the vast majority of epidemiological evidence. They predicted many of the problems with its antifat bias, and stated, "It is no longer appropriate to consider obesity a disease if it has benefits as well as hazards."

Australian psychobiologist Dale Atrens, in Don't Diet (1988), wrote a similar book for the lay reader. Among his statements: "There is no good reason to consider the general increase in fatness an epidemic. People are becoming taller, too, but nobody talks about a height epidemic. Nor is there any good reason to consider fatness a disease. The people of the Western world are both fatter and healthier than ever before." (p. 238)

In the Midwest, nutritionist Ellyn Satter was working with parents and children, clarifying that children were responsible for what and whether they ate, while parents were responsible for what food they provided and when it was provided.

Enraged at the way diet programs deceived and mistreated their customers, health writer and former home economics teacher Frances Berg began writing a weekly newspaper column, which would eventually become the Healthy Weight Journal. The journal-which evolved into the Healthy Weight Network-was dedicated to "exposing fraud and deception, and to reshaping society's attitudes toward size and weight."

Susan Kano published Making Peace with Food: A step-by-step guide to freedom from diet/weight conflict in 1985, to help people befriend food and their bodies.

In the field of psychotherapy, New England psychologist Marcia Germaine Hutchinson recommended "learning to love the body you have" in her 1985 book, Transforming Body Image. Psychotherapists Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter viewed "compulsive overeating" as a soothing disorder, healed by legalizing all foods and tuning in to physical hunger, in their program and 1988 book, Overcoming Overeating. Oregon psychologist Nancy Barron founded and ran Ample Opportunity, a size acceptance organization for women which promoted active living, and published Ample Information.

Their motto was, "A good life is the best revenge." Psychologists Esther Rothblum and Laura Brown edited Overcoming Fear of Fat, originally published as Women & Therapy in 1989, and including a chapter by Barron. The publication targeted fat oppression, rather than fatness, as the problem.

Budding psychologist Deb Burgard started a fitness program for larger women, called "We Dance," in the early 1980s. Soon after, she met Pat Lyons, an RN and health educator who was researching fitness for larger women, and would go on to run the "Great Shape" fitness program for Kaiser Permanente. Lyons and Burgard published Great Shape: The First Fitness Guide for Large Women in 1988.

Lynn Meletiche, RN, NAAFA's medical advisor, wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Fat People in Health Care in 1988. It included the right "to refuse participation in weight loss programs of all kinds, including diets, surgery, aversive psychological conditioning, and chemical regimes, without jeopardizing access to other treatment and care."
References
Atrens, D.M.( 1988). Don't Diet. New York: William Morrow and Company.

Bennett, W. & Gurin, J. (1982). The Dieter's Dilemma. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

Brown, L.S. & Rothblum, E.D. (1989). Overcoming Fear of Fat. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.

Ernsberger, P. & Haskew, P. (1987). " Rethinking Obesity: An Alternative View of its Health Implications." The Journal of Obesity and Weight Regulation, 6.

Groger, M. (1983). Eating Awareness Training. New York: Summit Books.

Hirschmann, J.R. & Munter, C.H. (1988). Overcoming Overeating. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.

Hutchinson, M.G. (1985). Transforming Body Image. Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press.

Kano, S. (1989). Making Peace with Food: A step-by-step guide to freedom from diet/weight conflict. Amity Publishing Co.

Lyons, P. & Burgard, D. (1990). Great Shape: The First Fitness Guide for Large Women. Palo Alto: Bull Publishing.

Polivy, J. & Herman, C.P. (1983). Breaking the Diet Habit. New York: Basic Books, Inc.

Schwartz, B. (1982). Diets Don't Work! Houston: Breakthru Publishing.
Join the NAAFA mailing list for a monthly peek at historic fat activism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The History of Health at Every Size®: Chapter 4: The 1980s - naafa

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The decade of the 1980s was characterized in part by Reagonomics and a "greed is good" business ethos; the burgeoning size of Americans along with a greater societal focus on physical fitness; women increasingly entering and competing in the workforce; the emergence of AIDS; the explosive rise of pe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
At age six, Shannon Kaneshige started practicing yoga with their mother, following Lilias on her show "Lilias, Yoga and You," which aired on PBS from the 1970s to 1999. (Kaneshige is a non-binary person who uses they/them pronouns). This was pre-internet, so they expanded their practice using books and videos.

"I was heavier than other kids around me when I was 8 or 9," they remember. "I avoided activity in public because I would be teased for my body or slowness."

Kaneshige continued their yoga practice into adulthood, adding weight training ten years ago. To avoid fat phobia, they learned from YouTube instead of going to a gym because "I had so many bad experiences in gyms and 'fitness' spaces that I wasn't willing to put myself through that again."

Two years later, Kaneshige moved to Hawaii and started hiking and scrambling a couple times a week. Scrambling is similar to hill walking, rock climbing and mountaineering, often described as hiking on steep terrain, involving your hands.

Body Positive Fitness

In 2018, they moved to Toronto and found Body Positive Fitness. Founded by anti-diet personal trainer Jenna Doak, the studio promises "no weight loss talk, no diet talk, no body shame and 100% size inclusive. ALL fitness levels welcome!" Kaneshige joined and was delighted to start weight training in, as they put it, "an environment I felt safe in."

Kaneshige had always been drawn to activities that increase strength and allow them to track their progress so they can see improvement. Hiking and weight training fit that bill. But it wasn't easy. They found that there was also a lot of ego wrapped up in weightlifting. "It also took me a long time to remove the idea of self-worth being tied to external indicators," they say.

And while Kaneshige enjoyed the time in nature that hiking provided, they did not enjoy meeting people on the trails. People would often assume that they were a beginner (because of those hikers' stereotypes about fat people) and feel the need to provide reassurance, which Kaneshige found both frustrating and insulting.

Because of fat phobia, Kaneshige was "often actively discouraged from participating at gyms and yoga studios" - until they discovered Body Positive Fitness. Until then, Kaneshige recalls "assumptions were made about my abilities, or it was assumed I was there for weight-loss." As a non-binary person, they are also often misgendered.

Yoga for All Bodies

When Body Positive Fitness began offering yoga with Shanèl Dear, Kaneshige didn't hesitate. Dear taught variations for different body sizes and shapes and, for Kaneshige, it was a revelation: role models of larger bodies doing poses. And they learned that the modifications they had been making intuitively in their own practice were actually encouraged. "I realized I didn't have to look like the people on the DVDs to have a serious practice."

While their yoga practice began as a way to measurably improve flexibility, it grew to be much more. "After years spent disconnecting and ignoring my body because society said it was wrong," Kaneshige shares. "Yoga has helped me restore the mind-body connection and heal my relationship with my body."

Kaneshige's journey into body acceptance was also deeply influenced when their six-month-old son was diagnosed with cancer. They recall, "I realized I had almost no pictures with him. I had been so mean to myself and my body, when it had served me so well. It really reframed my relationship with my body. I also wanted to be able to set an example for my son, that no matter what society says about your body, it is yours and worthy of compassion and respect."

Fat-Positive Yoga

Wanting to share that with others, Kaneshige made the decision to teach yoga. And so, Fringeish - their fat-positive yoga company - was born. Kaneshige is active on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, where they have over 8,000 followers. One of their favorite things as an instructor is "helping someone find a pose variation where they can truly experience feeling strong and connected to their body, without self-judgment or shame. Helping my students gain confidence and reconnect to their bodies by using their practice for self-compassion."

Doing that work comes with personal sacrifice. "I am constantly trolled online, told that I am too fat to be teaching. I try very hard to remember that it is a reflection of their own insecurities much more than my abilities or appearance."

Because of their experience being judged, excluded and on occasion actively mocked or harassed, Kaneshige is dedicated to helping people build a home practice, giving them a chance to feel safe and build confidence before deciding if they want to join a group class at a studio

When I ask Kaneshige in what ways they feel they aren't a "stereotypical" yoga practitioner and teacher, they respond, "I honestly think I am more stereotypical of yoga practitioners than the media would suggest. People of all body types, races, abilities and genders practice asana, but you generally only see images of straight-sized, cisgender, white women. I am white, but I am super-fat and non-binary. Many people automatically see me as an outlier, but the irony is that I am not, especially when we look on a global scale. The image of a white, perfectly flexible practitioner is the outlier."

How to Make Fitness Studios More Inclusive

How can studios be more welcoming and inclusive? Kaneshige offers some suggestions:

Include images of fat bodies participating without it being in a weight-loss context.

Hire fat teachers.

Training straight-sized staff in variations that are accessible for all.

Include non-binary and LGBTQIA folx by respecting pronouns and use ungendered language in yoga classes.

Be mindful of the dysphoria a lot of transgendered folx experience.

Become educated about how to provide a supportive environment.

For teachers and practitioners, they add, "honestly, just don't make assumptions about someone based on how they look. Fat people can do all types of asana. Don't assume gender, and tell people what your pronouns are. Make space for those who need mobility devices, and treat people with kindness.

Kaneshige's son is now four years cancer free. During September, Childhood Cancer Awareness month, they used their platform to raise funds for Hawaii Children's Cancer Foundation, which provided support during their son's treatment. They are also teaching yoga to people around the world using Zoom, "helping folx learn how to take up space in the world, both on and off the mat."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At age six, Shannon Kaneshige started practicing yoga with their mother, following Lilias on her show "Lilias, Yoga and You," which aired on PBS from the 1970s to 1999. (Kaneshige is a non-binary person who uses they/them pronouns). This was pre-internet, so they expanded their practice using books and videos.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's not you. It's biology.

{copyShortcut} to copy Link copied!

The real reason you can't lose weight

It's not you. It's biology.

{copyShortcut} to copy Link copied!

Hide Transcript Show Transcript

bring out the red wine. The Mediterranean diet wins Best Diet of 2021 making it the fourth year in a row of winning overall best diet insider reports Every year, U. S news and World Report ranks the best diets for the year ahead, and the Mediterranean diet once again takes the lead, thanks to its non restrictive eating patterns shown to help prevent chronic diseases and improve longevity. The Panelists who came to that conclusion are formed by nutritionists and specialists in diabetes, heart health and weight loss, the categories in which the ranking was based, or nutritional completeness. How easy the diet is to follow the potential for long and short term weight loss. The safety and possible side effects and the potential to help prevent illnesses like heart disease and diabetes. A Mediterranean diet is typically high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, and olive oil, even some red wine in moderation, according to the Mayo Clinic. Popular diets, they're ranked low on the list yet again, where the Keto, Dukan and Whole 30 diets. Although the Keto Diet and the Biggest Loser diet ranked fourth for short term weight loss, they took the 37th place overall. Whole 30 is not only very restrictive, it is not backed by science and experts are skeptical of it and the high protein, low carb Dukan diet took the last place as it's packed with rules and could risk kidney damage.

The real reason you can't lose weight

It's not you. It's biology.

{copyShortcut} to copy Link copied!

At any given time, about half of all Americans are trying to lose weight - and we can assume it will be even more than that once everyone emerges from our collective bread-and-cookie-insulated quarantine cocoon. That means millions of people are doing keto, paleo, intermittent fasting, Optavia, Atkins and all the other diets that limit what, when and how you eat. And as you can tell from all those "before and after" Instagram shots, many dieters do lose weight - at least at first. But for the vast majority - some 98% - it inevitably comes back, leading to a national reckoning of guilt, disappointment and the biggest question of all: What am I doing wrong? Why can't I keep off the weight?Here's the truth: It's not you. It's biology.The dirty little secret of the dieting industry is that most diets are destined to fail. But we are still bombarded with the message that if we only find the right diet we will be thin - which has been conflated with "beautiful" in our culture - and all our troubles will melt away along with our love handles. "The diet industry is a $72 billion dollar business, so there's an extraordinary amount of money that's hooked into selling the idea that there is something wrong with us, and if only we buy their product, we can find salvation," says Lindo Bacon, PhD, associate nutritionist at UC-Davis and author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. But according to one well known study at UCLA, not only do most people eventually gain back the weight they lost on diets, but as many as two-thirds may wind up gaining back more. That type of "failure" can take a huge emotional toll, says Alissa Rumsey, RD, a certified intuitive eating counselor and the author of the upcoming book Unapologetic Eating: Make Peace with Food and Transform Your Life. "People who have dieted have been led to think that if you can't lose weight, it's your fault and it's all about willpower - and there's a lot of shame around that. But in reality, it has nothing to do with willpower."What really happens to your body on a dietAt first, it's simple math - as you decrease the number of calories you're consuming (whether by counting points, eliminating categories of food, or restricting the hours when you can eat) you will certainly lose weight. But then your body and your brain catch on, and they try to stop the process. In essence, your body thinks you're starving and it's trying to save you, protecting you at all costs. This is largely thanks to the hormone leptin, which is produced in fat cells, explains Dr. Caroline Apovian, professor of medicine and pediatrics and director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston University Medical Center. "One of the main functions of leptin is to protect your fat stores, because you need fat to make sure that you have an energy source in case there's no food available," she explains. Leptin is what tells your brain you're full - as you reduce the amount of fat in your body, you produce less of it, so you don't get that same sense of satiety you once did after dinner or a midday snack. Instead, your body starts receiving hormonal messages saying, "All hands on deck! We have to get this person to gain weight!"One of the ways it does this is to send a message to your thyroid to slow down your resting metabolism rate (RMR) - the number of calories your body burns to keep you breathing and digesting. If you typically burn a certain number of calories a day at rest, your RMR may slow down to burning a few hundred fewer a day, as your body adjusts to hold on to as much energy as possible to use later. In fact, one headline-making study that followed contestants from The Biggest Loser six years after they appeared on the weight-loss show found that most had not only regained the weight and body fat they had lost, but their RMR had dropped from an average of 2,607 calories per day before the show to 1,900 calories a day six years later. The contestants' slowed metabolisms may not have been the only reason they regained the weight, but it is true that the more you diet, the fewer calories you burn, meaning you have to restrict your diet even more to keep losing weight, or even to maintain your current weight.Your happy weightThis life-preserving system is called "defense of body weight," and its goal is to keep you within a 10 to 20 pound range, or your "set point" weight. Bacon describes the set-point system as similar to a thermostat, with your body constantly making adjustments to stay at the same weight. "There's a certain fat level that your body wants to maintain, and when you drop below that range, your body's going to put all kinds of mechanisms into place to try to get you back in a healthy range," Bacon says. "At first it will try to elicit your help, by making you feel hungry . But if that doesn't work, it can get more aggressive, by slowing down your metabolism." But wait, there's more: Not only do you get the double whammy of feeling hungrier and having a slower metabolism, but the types of food you crave may change, too. "When you lose body fat because you're dieting, your hunger center is triggered, and that includes the rewards center, which makes you crave sweets because that's the easiest way to get a lot of calories," says Dr. Apovian. You might even get cravings for foods you would normally walk right by without a second thought, Bacon adds: "You're willing to eat anything because your body's trying to just get you the calories that it wants to restore." Losing touch with your own hungerAnother side effect of dieting: When you pay attention only to external rules of what and when to eat - and how guilty you should feel if you eat the "wrong" thing - you can become disconnected from the cues from your own body, says Rumsey, who points out that researchers have seen some of the same behaviors - such as binge-eating and bulimia - in people who are dieting and in people who are dealing with a true scarcity of food. "We get disconnected from our feelings of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. And we also lose that sense of food as being something we enjoy, that feels good in our body," Rumsey says. But what about all those people losing weight and keeping it off?Attention, anyone who is reading this article and saying, But what about Rebel Wilson, Adele or Jennifer Hudson? How did that guy Matt from college drop 50 pounds and keep it off for years?: For more than 20 years, the National Weight Control Study has tracked more than 10,000 people in the 2% who have beaten the odds and maintained a weight loss of more than 30 pounds for at least five years, and it found that they do it with constant vigilance, says Dr. Apovian. But obsessing about your weight every day and considering what you eat every meal is a huge commitment - and for many people, it's just not a realistic (or desirable) way to spend your mental energy or time, especially if you're working full-time or juggling family care. What happens when you go on vacation, get too busy to cook or are stuck at home during a pandemic? The fear and guilt from slipping just once or twice can throw your entire regimen off, leading to renewed resolutions to be stricter with yourself. It's a setup for more guilt, more vigilance and more all-too-human "slipping up." Wash, rinse, repeat. So what can I do to be healthy? But when you start to look at health and well-being as separate from the numbers on a scale (and yes, you can be perfectly healthy without being thin), a whole new way of living comes into focus. "It's about food and nutrition, but also movement and stress management and coping skills - all those things coming from a place of self-care," Rumsey says. "It's making decisions about what to eat not from a negative place of restriction and control, but from a place of taking care of yourself. It's about coming back into your own body and figuring out what that looks like for you." Through the practice of intuitive eating, you replace an external set of dietary rules with the wisdom of your body. "You learn to pay attention to the physical sensations that arise in your body and let those cues guide you," Rumsey explains. You can also find some kind of exercise that brings you joy - whether that means long, meditative walks, Zoom dance classes or playing softball every weekend with your friends-since movement is crucial not only for brain and heart health, but keeps your metabolism humming along. What do you get from saying good-bye to commercialized restrictive diets and respecting your body, in whatever beautiful, healthy shape it comes in? "There is a real sense of freedom that comes from not thinking about food all the time, not feeling guilty, and being able to just eat a meal and move on," says Rumsey. "I've had clients say, 'I have to find a new hobby - I have so much extra time in my day from not obsessing about food!'"

At any given time, about half of all Americans are trying to lose weight - and we can assume it will be even more than that once everyone emerges from our collective bread-and-cookie-insulated quarantine cocoon. That means millions of people are doing keto, paleo, intermittent fasting, Optavia, Atkins and all the other diets that limit what, when and how you eat. And as you can tell from all those "before and after" Instagram shots, many dieters do lose weight - at least at first. But for the vast majority - some 98% - it inevitably comes back, leading to a national reckoning of guilt, disappointment and the biggest question of all: What am I doing wrong? Why can't I keep off the weight?

Here's the truth: It's not you. It's biology.

The dirty little secret of the dieting industry is that most diets are destined to fail. But we are still bombarded with the message that if we only find the right diet we will be thin - which has been conflated with "beautiful" in our culture - and all our troubles will melt away along with our love handles. "The diet industry is a $72 billion dollar business, so there's an extraordinary amount of money that's hooked into selling the idea that there is something wrong with us, and if only we buy their product, we can find salvation," says Lindo Bacon, PhD, associate nutritionist at UC-Davis and author of Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight. But according to one well known study at UCLA, not only do most people eventually gain back the weight they lost on diets, but as many as two-thirds may wind up gaining back more.

That type of "failure" can take a huge emotional toll, says Alissa Rumsey, RD, a certified intuitive eating counselor and the author of the upcoming book Unapologetic Eating: Make Peace with Food and Transform Your Life. "People who have dieted have been led to think that if you can't lose weight, it's your fault and it's all about willpower - and there's a lot of shame around that. But in reality, it has nothing to do with willpower."
What really happens to your body on a diet
At first, it's simple math - as you decrease the number of calories you're consuming (whether by counting points, eliminating categories of food, or restricting the hours when you can eat) you will certainly lose weight. But then your body and your brain catch on, and they try to stop the process. In essence, your body thinks you're starving and it's trying to save you, protecting you at all costs.

This is largely thanks to the hormone leptin, which is produced in fat cells, explains Dr. Caroline Apovian, professor of medicine and pediatrics and director of the Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston University Medical Center. "One of the main functions of leptin is to protect your fat stores, because you need fat to make sure that you have an energy source in case there's no food available," she explains. Leptin is what tells your brain you're full - as you reduce the amount of fat in your body, you produce less of it, so you don't get that same sense of satiety you once did after dinner or a midday snack. Instead, your body starts receiving hormonal messages saying, "All hands on deck! We have to get this person to gain weight!"

One of the ways it does this is to send a message to your thyroid to slow down your resting metabolism rate (RMR) - the number of calories your body burns to keep you breathing and digesting. If you typically burn a certain number of calories a day at rest, your RMR may slow down to burning a few hundred fewer a day, as your body adjusts to hold on to as much energy as possible to use later. In fact, one headline-making study that followed contestants from The Biggest Loser six years after they appeared on the weight-loss show found that most had not only regained the weight and body fat they had lost, but their RMR had dropped from an average of 2,607 calories per day before the show to 1,900 calories a day six years later. The contestants' slowed metabolisms may not have been the only reason they regained the weight, but it is true that the more you diet, the fewer calories you burn, meaning you have to restrict your diet even more to keep losing weight, or even to maintain your current weight.

Your happy weight
This life-preserving system is called "defense of body weight," and its goal is to keep you within a 10 to 20 pound range, or your "set point" weight. Bacon describes the set-point system as similar to a thermostat, with your body constantly making adjustments to stay at the same weight. "There's a certain fat level that your body wants to maintain, and when you drop below that range, your body's going to put all kinds of mechanisms into place to try to get you back in a healthy range," Bacon says. "At first it will try to elicit your help, by making you feel hungry [that's thanks to hormones such as ghrelin]. But if that doesn't work, it can get more aggressive, by slowing down your metabolism."

But wait, there's more: Not only do you get the double whammy of feeling hungrier and having a slower metabolism, but the types of food you crave may change, too. "When you lose body fat because you're dieting, your hunger center is triggered, and that includes the rewards center, which makes you crave sweets because that's the easiest way to get a lot of calories," says Dr. Apovian. You might even get cravings for foods you would normally walk right by without a second thought, Bacon adds: "You're willing to eat anything because your body's trying to just get you the calories that it wants to restore."
Losing touch with your own hunger
Another side effect of dieting: When you pay attention only to external rules of what and when to eat - and how guilty you should feel if you eat the "wrong" thing - you can become disconnected from the cues from your own body, says Rumsey, who points out that researchers have seen some of the same behaviors - such as binge-eating and bulimia - in people who are dieting and in people who are dealing with a true scarcity of food. "We get disconnected from our feelings of hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. And we also lose that sense of food as being something we enjoy, that feels good in our body," Rumsey says.

But what about all those people losing weight and keeping it off?

Attention, anyone who is reading this article and saying, But what about Rebel Wilson, Adele or Jennifer Hudson? How did that guy Matt from college drop 50 pounds and keep it off for years?: For more than 20 years, the National Weight Control Study has tracked more than 10,000 people in the 2% who have beaten the odds and maintained a weight loss of more than 30 pounds for at least five years, and it found that they do it with constant vigilance, says Dr. Apovian.

But obsessing about your weight every day and considering what you eat every meal is a huge commitment - and for many people, it's just not a realistic (or desirable) way to spend your mental energy or time, especially if you're working full-time or juggling family care. What happens when you go on vacation, get too busy to cook or are stuck at home during a pandemic? The fear and guilt from slipping just once or twice can throw your entire regimen off, leading to renewed resolutions to be stricter with yourself. It's a setup for more guilt, more vigilance and more all-too-human "slipping up." Wash, rinse, repeat.

So what can I do to be healthy?

But when you start to look at health and well-being as separate from the numbers on a scale (and yes, you can be perfectly healthy without being thin), a whole new way of living comes into focus. "It's about food and nutrition, but also movement and stress management and coping skills - all those things coming from a place of self-care," Rumsey says. "It's making decisions about what to eat not from a negative place of restriction and control, but from a place of taking care of yourself. It's about coming back into your own body and figuring out what that looks like for you." Through the practice of intuitive eating, you replace an external set of dietary rules with the wisdom of your body. "You learn to pay attention to the physical sensations that arise in your body and let those cues guide you," Rumsey explains.

You can also find some kind of exercise that brings you joy - whether that means long, meditative walks, Zoom dance classes or playing softball every weekend with your friends-since movement is crucial not only for brain and heart health, but keeps your metabolism humming along.

What do you get from saying good-bye to commercialized restrictive diets and respecting your body, in whatever beautiful, healthy shape it comes in? "There is a real sense of freedom that comes from not thinking about food all the time, not feeling guilty, and being able to just eat a meal and move on," says Rumsey. "I've had clients say, 'I have to find a new hobby - I have so much extra time in my day from not obsessing about food!'"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It's not you. It's biology. {copyShortcut} to copy Link copied! The real reason you can't lose weight It's not you. It's biology. {copyShortcut} to copy Link copied! Hide Transcript Show Transcript bring out the red wine. The Mediterranean diet wins Best Diet of 2021 making it the fourth year in a row of winning overall best diet insider reports Every year, U.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
End weight stigma - that's the focus of this year's World Obesity Day, observed on Oct. 11.

It comes as a recent study showed parents who urge their kids to diet may not only be condemning their own children to be overweight or to have eating disorders; they may also be dooming their grandchildren.

The findings support what much other research has shown: Weight-shaming kids doesn't encourage healthier habits and can instead hardwire a vicious cycle of binge-eating, skipping meals and a lifetime of self-loathing.

"Furthermore, the negative effects of parent encouragement to diet can compound over time, not only impacting the person directly receiving the messages, but also potentially hurting generations to come," Jerica Berge of the University of Minnesota Medical School and colleagues wrote in their report, published in the journal Pediatrics.

Their study of teens who grew up to be parents themselves found that those whose parents encouraged them to diet were more likely to be obese and to have eating disorders. And years later, when they had kids of their own, they made the same mistakes.

Parents may think they are helping their children by telling them the hard truth, but even those who manage to lose weight hate their bodies, the study found.

"Experiencing parent encouragement to diet as an adolescent was significantly associated with a higher risk of overweight or obesity, dieting, binge eating, engaging in unhealthy weight control behaviors, and lower body satisfaction 15 years later as a parent," Berge's team wrote.

"My mother constantly gave me diet advice, and I can still hear her voice in my head 40 years later," said Michelle, a Washington, D.C. writer who did not want to give her last name because she has a teenage daughter.

"The only time she approved of my weight was when I was literally starving myself. Looking back, I can remember exactly what I weighed, and I was close to being underweight," said Michelle, who is now 58.

Yet Michelle remembers thinking herself fat even when her body mass index (BMI) fell to 18.5 - the lowest limit of what is considered healthy for her height.

"I wish I could have seen myself then as I look back and see myself now," Michelle said. "Now I really am overweight and still hate myself when I look in a mirror."

The findings didn't surprise Dr. Albert Hergenroeder, chief of adolescent medicine at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston.

He sees children with eating disorders every day.

"We have pre-teens, teens and kids who are of normal weight who perceive that they are overweight and they come in malnourished by any standards," said Hergenroeder, who was not involved in the study.

"They're starving themselves. They're hyper-exercising while they're starving themselves."

Many are of completely normal weight but have a distorted body image, he said.

"Some of this comes from the parents, so we have to work with them separately," he said.

Hergenroeder described the case of a young athlete whose father had also been an athlete and who wanted his daughter to be thin.

"He was using really hurtful terms to describe his daughter's body appearance," Hergenroeder said. "Chunky" was one, he said.

"Let's think of the kinds of words you don't want to say to your daughter," he said.

For their study, Berge and colleagues followed 556 people who were teens in 1998-1999 and then again in 2015-2016.

They had previously found that nearly 40 percent of parents admitted they encouraged their children to diet - even children as young as 2.

That's even though there is plenty of research to show that such encouragement backfires. Kids told to diet will starve themselves, binge-eat and will learn to hate their own bodies.

With 40 percent of America's kids considered obese, it's clear that parents are doing something wrong. But research shows that telling kids they are too fat does not work.

Research does makes clear what parents should be doing. They should be modeling healthy eating behavior:

Amy Greene says that is just what her mother did, with great success.

"She projected a healthy image about food. We never talked about getting fat," said Greene, a Silver Spring, Maryland social worker.

The same is true of her three sisters, said Greene, who says she enjoys regular exercise including running and weight-lifting.

"None of us have eating issues at all. That's four daughters - none of us diet," said Greene.

"We never talked about dieting in general. She never said 'Don't eat that - you'll get fat'." But Greene's mother also did not tempt her girls with junk food. "She never brought a lot of sweets into the house. We did not get dessert every night," Greene said.

Instead, they just ate good food, said Greene, who says she has never struggled to keep at a healthy weight.

"I like how I eat. Maybe some weeks I have a lot of ice cream but I don't obsess about it," she added.

That doesn't mean she doesn't look at herself critically in the mirror, Greene said. "To say that I don't worry about my weight would be a lie. I think every woman does," she said.

But she tries to keep up the same healthy food attitudes with her two sons.

And her mother passed on other wise advice about weight, Greene remembers.

"The one thing that always struck me though she always said you should never comment about somebody else's weight," said Greene.

"People think it's a compliment to say 'you lost weight, you look amazing'. But you never know what they did to get there. You could be promoting a negative behavior. That always stuck with me."

That's a good habit to keep with children, too, Hergenroeder said.

Kids are already hypercritical of their own bodies. In the last century, it was fashion magazines. Now it's websites and a selfie culture that drive children to want to be "perfect", Hergenroeder said.

"They perceive themselves to not have an attractive body," he said. "It's unrealistic."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Pressuring kids to diet can create a vicious cycle that lasts for years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
End weight stigma - that's the focus of this year's World Obesity Day, observed on Oct. 11. It comes as a recent study showed parents who urge their kids to diet may not only be condemning their own children to be overweight or to have eating disorders; they may also be dooming their grandchildren.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Crawford's work on healthism was published before some major public health crises and panics in the U.S. It was published just before the AIDS crisis began, and queer and trans people watched one another die at astronomical rates, with a delayed government response that many LGBTQ+ people experienced as indifference to our very lives. It was published before obesity was declared an epidemic, and before we declared a "war on obesity," often fighting that "war" by stigmatizing fat bodies. And it was published before health became, in a sense, a moral imperative-and one that nearly all of us feel compelled to enforce at one moment or another.

As a fat person, my health is one of the primary grounds offered by those who mock, harm, and reject me as a fat person. Cruel and judgmental behavior is often justified with an off-handed I'm just concerned about your health. As if my health were their responsibility. As if I owed it to them, a debt I'd never taken out and could never repay.

And often, as many fat people know, trolling often masquerades as genuine concern-that's what makes it so insidious, and what can make it so cutting. But underneath its explicit message of caring concern, there's a clear implicit judgment. You're doing it wrong. You have failed. I have been monitoring your health. I know your body better than you.

And healthism isn't just a problem for fat people-it's a tool used to further anti-fat bias, yes, but also ableism, transphobia, misogyny, racism, and more. Healthism shows up when we joke about getting diabetes from a single dessert, or refer to a rich meal as a "heart attack on a plate"-implying that those health conditions are caused by failures of a perceived personal responsibility to be healthy, not by structural forces that disproportionately harm the health of people living on the down side of power. Healthism shows up when we suggest that trans people should be more worried about the side effects of long-term hormone therapy than their own lived experience of their gender.

Healthism isn't just an individual problem, either-it's present in many of our systems and institutions. Until the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, U.S. insurers routinely (and legally) denied health insurance to people with "pre-existing conditions." Paradoxically, we had a system where people were not healthy enough to qualify for health care coverage-and countless patients were unable to meet their most basic needs as a result. Healthism even shows up in the war on drugs, when we culturally and politically respond to drug dependency-strongly linked to environmental factors like poverty, stress, and trauma-as a personal responsibility to "just say no." And it shows up in the worlds of fertility, pregnancy, and lactation, all of which pressure expecting parents to become pregnant, be pregnant, and give birth in one or two "right ways."

To be clear, healthism isn't the root cause of transphobia, ableism, racism, anti-fatness, or misogyny-but it can be a tool to enforce all of them. That's in part because healthism assumes a playing field that simply isn't there. And when it stubbornly attributes societal and community outcomes to "individual choices," it reinforces the biases facing marginalized communities. If health is a personal responsibility, and so many marginalized communities have such bad health outcomes-well, they must just be less responsible. It's an insidious and powerful kind of bias, and one that many of us perpetuate every day-even if we don't know it, and even if we don't mean to.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We Have to Stop Thinking of Being 'Healthy' as Being Morally Better

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Crawford's work on healthism was published before some major public health crises and panics in the U.S. It was published just before the AIDS crisis began, and queer and trans people watched one another die at astronomical rates, with a delayed government response that many LGBTQ+ people experienced as indifference to our very lives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Vincci Tsui, RD | Calgary Registered Dietitian

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Whether you call it "body positivity," "non-diet," "weight-neutral/inclusive" or Health At Every Size (HAES), the idea of shifting the focus away from weight and towards health has become-I hate to say this, but- trendy.

It makes sense-no one wants to see themselves as fat-shaming or causing harm, yet there's a lot that's misunderstood when it comes to Health At Every Size, even among health professionals. As part of her PhD dissertation, dietitian and researcher Fiona Willer found that while weight-neutral approaches were viewed more positively than weight-centric approaches amongst Australian dietitians, only 37% correctly identified that a weight-neutral approach is not compatible with a weight loss goal.

Here are some of the top myths that I often see, and the truths behind them.

Myth #1: "Surely you can't be healthy at any size."

Truth: It's Health At Every Size, not "healthy" at "any" size.

One of the most common misconceptions is that HAES claims that everyone is healthy, regardless of their size. The distinction between "health" and "healthy" is important, because HAES is really about the ability of anyone to pursue health (if that is what they want,) not a commentary on a person's health status. The HAES paradigm also rejects the notion that weight and body size are proxies of health. In other words, the pursuit of health doesn't involve weight loss, or achieving a certain body size or shape.

#HealthAtEverySize is about the ability of *anyone* to pursue health (if that is what they want), not a commentary on a person's health status. Click To Tweet

Myth #1a: "But surely there is a point where someone is too fat and would benefit from weight loss, or even too thin and would benefit from weight gain."

Truth: No, it's not possible to be too fat or too thin for HAES.

In a recent episode of Dietitians Unplugged, hosts (and dietitians) Aaron Flores and Glenys Oyston do a fantastic job of tackling the question of whether there is a size limit for HAES:

If listening to a 35-minute podcast is not your thing, here's my answer:

While HAES practitioners recognize that higher body weights are associated with negative health outcomes, there is no evidence to show that weight itself causes these outcomes, nor is there evidence that weight loss prevents or improves these outcomes. In fact, there is evidence that weight stigma is associated with the same negative health outcomes that are often blamed on weight. Recommending weight loss as a medical intervention is ineffective not only because weight is regained for the vast majority of people, but can also cause harm by encouraging weight cycling, disordered eating, and reinforcing weight stigma.

Similarly, when it comes to thinness, it's not about the absolute weight of the person; weight inclusivity includes both ends of the weight spectrum. If the lower weight is a result of poor health, such as restriction or malnutrition, then that is the concern that needs to be addressed, not the weight.

Myth #2: "It's OK to be fat, as long as you're healthy."

Truth: Health, or the pursuit of health, is not a prerequisite for basic human decency and respect.

Health, or the pursuit of health, is not a prerequisite for basic human decency and respect. #bodyliberation #HAES Click To Tweet

I would say this is like "Myth 1b," but at this rate I would never hit five myths, so I'm making it its own. ?One of the reasons why some fat activists and allies actually feel uneasy about the Health At Every Size movement is its emphasis on health. The focus on health perpetuates what is often called a "good fatty/bad fatty" dichotomy-the idea that a fat person who is healthy, or pursuing health behaviours is more worthy or "good," compared to a fat person who is struggling with health concerns, or not "actively" trying to improve their health.

This myth is actually particularly hard to overcome for health and wellness professionals, who are usually in the field because they value health. In fact, I've seen some o-word organizations try to differentiate between "fat" and "o-word" by defining the former as someone in a larger body without health concerns, and the latter as someone with health issues "because" of their weight or body fat. The reality is, everyone is worthy of respect, regardless of their health status or whether they value health. A fat person who runs marathons is not any more worthy than one who doesn't.

Myth #3: "My practice is weight-inclusive-I never talk about weight, only wellness."

Truth: Weight-inclusive care is not as simple as not talking about weight. Weight concerns are not going away any time soon (at least not in our current culture) and choosing to ignore them will simply make people feel invalidated and unheard.

I admittedly fell into this trap when I first made the shift to a weight-inclusive practice, and quickly learned that when your job title is "dietitian", people will still come to you seeking weight loss, no matter what you write in your blog or share on social media. I'm still doing my own work when it comes to noticing my own reaction to weight concerns in session, and making sure my clients know that their concerns are valid, without agreeing that weight loss is the answer. (See points about ineffectiveness and causing harm above.)

So, how can you address weight concerns without promoting weight loss? I've been returning again and again to these words from fellow non-diet dietitian Josée Sovinsky:

What if my client *wants* to lose weight? Shouldn't I be providing client-centred care? YES! You can:

1. Validate the person's desire to lose weight given our social and medical context.

2. Help them explore their desire and discuss what they hope to achieve through changing their body.

3. Look at various ways beyond weight loss they can achieve those goals.

4. Help them explore the pros and cons of various strategies, discussing previous attempts to modify their weight and how it impacted them.

5. Listen. Listen. Listen. And listen some more.

None of this is promoting weight loss or shaming a person for wanting to lose weight. All of it is centring a person's experience.

Myth #3a: "You're not allowed to talk about weight loss if you're working with a HAES practitioner. In fact, they'll shame you for wanting to lose weight."

Truth: Though intentional weight loss is not aligned with HAES principles, respecting body autonomy is an important component of HAES and body liberation work.

Disagreeing that weight loss is the answer to a person's weight concerns is the piece that some people use to paint HAES practitioners as "extreme," "unreasonable," or "not practicing client-centred care." Fiona Willer has kindly allowed me to share her response to a post about how HAES practitioners think that "wanting to lose weight is a sign of self-hate:"

"Showing up to a health professional for assistance is a sign that you love yourself, wanting to have a smaller body is utterly understandable in the face of weight-centric bs (like this!) However, actively assisting someone to be temporarily smaller and giving them the impression that whether it lasts or not is solely in their hands is unethical. HAES practitioners refusing to support weight loss efforts is because they're mostly ineffective and sometimes harmful.

And, people don't actually want to go through the motions of losing weight, they want to BE a lower weight. They're asking you to deliver for them a lower weight in the long term that will give them the things they think that it comes along with. It's those things that are relevant, not the weight. That's the stuff that needs unpacking. The desire for weight loss is an expression of the desire for positive change to something meaningful to them. It's never just the kgs."

A HAES practitioner should never make you feel ashamed for wanting to lose weight. Instead, our job is to help you unpack what is behind the desire to lose weight, what the research tells us about weight, and ultimately leave it up to you to decide your next steps.

Myth #4: "HAES is a relatively new concept, created by Dr. Linda Bacon."

Truth: The history of HAES can be traced back several decades to the beginnings of fat activism in the 1970s.

Though Dr. Bacon may have popularized Health At Every Size with their book of the same name published in 2008, they were not the creators of HAES, nor do they own the trademark. That honour goes to the Association of Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH), which was formed in 2003. But even before that, the concepts that form the foundation of HAES can be traced back to the 1970s, with the start of the fat activism movement. When it comes to the history of science and healthcare, it can still be argued that HAES is a relatively new (and still evolving) framework, but it's not as young as many people perceive it to be.

Myth #5: "HAES is anti-science."

Truth: Being critical of how research is conducted and presented is not anti-science. In fact, continuous inquiry is the point of science and how our knowledge will continue to evolve and grow.

Many accuse HAES practitioners of being anti-science because we are often critical of conclusions that are drawn from studies that look at weight and health. For example, we may point out the small sample sizes, short follow-up times, research methods, and/or confounding factors that may amplify the "benefits" of intentional weight loss. Digging deeper into the history of science, we might even note the inherent biases of having researchers and subjects who are predominantly white, straight, cis-gender men.

In our current society, science has almost become its own religion. There is this belief that it gives us unbiased answers, when in reality, though science as a framework might be unbiased, research is conducted by humans, who hold biases and can make mistakes. Being critical of research is not about being anti-science, but rather it's a call to continue to improve our methods so that our knowledge can truly evolve and grow.

Have you heard of, or even believed in, some of these myths? What are some other beliefs that you have heard about HAES that you're unsure about? Please share your questions and insights in the comments below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
5 Popular Health At Every Size® (HAES®) Myths Busted - Vincci Tsui, RD | Calgary Registered Dietitian

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Whether you call it "body positivity," "non-diet," "weight-neutral/inclusive" or Health At Every Size (HAES), the idea of shifting the focus away from weight and towards health has become-I hate to say this, but-trendy. It makes sense-no one wants to see themselves as fat-shaming or causing harm, yet there's a lot that's misunderstood when it comes [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Body Stories: How Practicing Yoga Helped Jessamyn Stanley Love Her Body | SELF

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The "war on childhood obesity" has only caused shame.

By

Ms. Gordon is the author of the forthcoming book "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat."

Credit... Angie Wang

I was in the fourth grade, sitting in a doctor's office, the first time my face flushed with shame. I was, I had just learned, overweight.

I will remember the pediatrician's words forever: It's probably from eating all that pizza and ice cream. It tastes good, doesn't it? But it makes your body big and fat.

I felt my face sear with shame.

There was more: Just imagine that your body is made out of clay. If you can just stay the same weight, as you grow, you'll stretch out. And once you grow up, you'll be thin and beautiful. Won't that be great?

I learned so much in that one moment: You're not beautiful. You're indulging too much. Your body is wrong. You must have done it. I'd failed a test I didn't even know I'd taken, and the sense of failure and self-loathing it inspired planted the seeds of a depression I would live with for many years.

As the holiday season approaches, with its celebratory family meals and seasonal treats, I worry about the children across the country who will endure similar remarks, the kind that shatter their confidence, reject their bodies and usher them into a harsh new world of judgment.

For the rest of my childhood, I weathered the storm of conversations like the one I had at the doctor's office. Well-meaning, supportive adults eagerly pointed out my perceived failings at every turn. As the years went on, more and more foods, I was told, were off-limits.

It wasn't just that I shouldn't eat them; it was that they were sinful, bad, tempting. Many of those foods - eggs, nuts, avocados - would later fall back into the good graces of healthy eating. At the time, though, they were collateral damage in a crusade to cut calories at all costs. Fiber, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, protein - they were all sacrificed at the altar of calories in, calories out. The focus was never on enjoying nutritious foods, just on deprivation, will and lack.

My life was filled with self-flagellation, forced performances to display my commitment to changing an unacceptable body. Adults asked openly about what I had eaten, when I had exercised and whether I knew how to do either correctly. After all, if I was still fat, it must be my fault.

My body wasn't just a body, the way a thinner one might have been. It was perceived as a burden, an inconvenience, a bothersome problem to solve. Only thinness would allow me to forget my body, but despite my best efforts, thinness never came.

The more I and others tried to change my size, the deeper my depression became. Even at such a young age, I had been declared an enemy combatant in the nation's war on childhood obesity, and I felt that fact deeply. Bodies like mine now represented an epidemic, and we were its virus, personified.

The war on obesity seemed to emerge, fully formed, near the turn of the millennium, but its roots run deeper than that. C. Everett Koop, surgeon general under President Ronald Reagan, made fatness a priority for his office in the 1980s. In 2004, nearly three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Surgeon General Richard Carmona compared the war on obesity to the war on terror. Suddenly, fat people weren't just neighbors, friends or family members - we were enemies to be feared.

The war on childhood obesity reached its zenith with the 2010 introduction of the national "Let's Move!" campaign, "dedicated to solving the problem of obesity within a generation." It was a campaign against "childhood obesity" - not specific health conditions or the behaviors that may contribute to those health conditions. It wasn't a campaign against foods with little nutritional value, nor against the unchecked poverty that called for such low-cost, shelf-stable foods. It was a campaign against a body type - specifically, children's body types.

In 2012 Georgia began its Strong4Life campaign aimed at reducing children's weight and lowering the state's national ranking: second in childhood obesity. Run by the pediatric hospital Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, it was inspired in part by a previous anti-meth campaign. Now, instead of targeting addiction in adults, the billboards targeted fatness in children. Somber black-and-white photographs of fat children stared at viewers, emblazoned with bold text. "WARNING: My fat may be funny to you but it's killing me. Stop childhood obesity." "WARNING: Fat prevention begins at home. And the buffet line." "WARNING: Big bones didn't make me this way. Big meals did."

The billboards purported to warn parents of the danger of childhood fatness, but to many they appeared to be public ridicule of fat kids. Strong4Life became one of the nation's highest-profile fat-shaming campaigns - and its targets were children.

These declarations of an obesity epidemic and a war on childhood obesity all doggedly pursued one question, and one question only: How do we make fat kids thin? In other words, how do we get rid of fat kids?

Overwhelmingly, childhood anti-obesity programs hinged on shame and fear, a scared-straight approach for fat children. As of 2017, fully half of the states required that schools track students' body mass index. Many require "BMI report cards" to be sent home to parents, despite the fact that 53 percent of parents don't actually believe the reports accurately categorize their child's weight status. And observational studies in Arkansas and California have shown that the practice of parental notification doesn't appear to lead to individual weight loss or an overall reduction in students' BMIs. One eating disorder treatment center called the report cards a "pathway to weight stigma" that would most likely contribute to development of eating disorders in predisposed students.

Experiencing weight stigma has significant long-term effects, too. A 2012 study in the journal Obesity asked fat adults to indicate how often they had experienced various weight-stigmatizing events. Seventy-four percent of women and 70 percent of men of similar BMI and age reported others' making negative assumptions. Twenty-eight percent of women and 23 percent of men reported job discrimination. For various of the subcategory, the effects of stigma were especially dire for young people, very fat people and those who started dieting early in life. To cope, 79 percent of all respondents reported eating, 74 percent isolated themselves, and 41 percent left the situation or avoided it in the future. Rather than motivating fat people to lose weight, weight stigma had led to more isolation, more avoidance, and less support.

Despite ample federal and state funding, multiple national public health campaigns and a slew of television shows, the war on obesity does not appear to be lowering Americans' BMIs. According to the Centers for Disease Control, since 1999 there has been a 39 percent increase in adult obesity and a 33.1 percent increase in obesity among children.

Weight stigma kick-starts what for many will become lifelong cycles of shame. And it sends a clear, heartbreaking message to fat children: The world would be a better place without you in it.

Yet, despite its demonstrated ineffectiveness, the so-called war on childhood obesity rages on. This holiday season, for the sake of children who are told You're not beautiful. You're indulging too much. Your body is wrong. You must have done it, I hope some parents will declare a cease-fire.

Aubrey Gordon, who has written under the pseudonym "Your Fat Friend," is a columnist for Self magazine, a co-host of the podcast "Maintenance Phase" and the author of the forthcoming book " What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat."
The Times is committed to publishing Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here's our email: letters@nytimes.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The "war on childhood obesity" has only caused shame. By Ms. Gordon is the author of the forthcoming book "What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat." I was in the fourth grade, sitting in a doctor's office, the first time my face flushed with shame.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dear PE teachers,

During my school days I encountered quite a few of you, and now, at the age of 42, you all blur into one. I'm sure that you feel the same about all the fat kids you taught over the years. And I'm also sure that there are certain things you said or did to me, one particular fat kid, that you've long forgotten about, but which I will remember for the rest of my life.

A study has shown that PE teachers show bias towards fat kids. This will come as no surprise to people who were once fat kids who dreaded PE. The cross-country running in the rain that made no concession to different children's abilities to do such a thing, and means you are out in the cold for so much longer if you're overweight. The enforcing of tiny gym skirts that don't flatter anyone, but are particularly awkward for bigger-bodied kids whose bulges are accentuated and often awkwardly sexualised by clothes designed to look sleek on more athletic types.

It is baffling to me now, looking back, that you seemed so unaware that bodies are capable of different things. My arms weren't strong, so I couldn't climb a rope, though you kept making me try. And I couldn't get my body out of the swimming pool without using the steps. I'd spend the entire swimming lesson dreading the moment when you would come along and haul me out of the water like some gross beached thing.

I couldn't clear the hurdles you put on the track. As you still expected me to run the race, I chose an outside lane and ran around them. Looking back, I feel quite proud of this solution, but I lost the race, of course. I'd had to run further than everyone else to get around the hurdles.

Perhaps you were trying to help. Maybe you thought if you made me feel bad enough about my body I would do something about trying to change it. But studies show that shame does not make people lose weight. Surprise! Any fat person could have told you that being humiliated by being dragged out of a swimming pool in front of all your peer group doesn't make anyone want to reach for a salad.

Being dragged out of a swimming pool in front of all your peer group doesn't make anyone want to reach for a salad

The same study also found that PE teachers assumed fat kids would be less good at reasoning and social skills - things that have nothing to do with being overweight. And you know what, PE teachers, I'll give you this, with this one, it isn't just you. We might all know the stereotype of the PE teacher picking on the fat kid, a stereotype that this study has proved to be true. But most fat people will also be able to tell you about a time when their inability to lose weight was deemed indicative of a lack of intelligence.

And you know what, PE teachers? Stereotyping fat kids is rotten, but there are also stereotypes about you that are probably just as mean and unfair. Like people unfairly assume fat people are stupid, the same crass assumption is made about people who teach PE. So maybe we should be on the same team and fight back against dumb prejudices, instead of perpetuating them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A letter to my school PE teachers, from a former fat kid | Mathilda Gregory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A new study suggests PE teachers are biased against overweight children. I know that no one benefits from stereotyping - not even the teachers themselves

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the second of this four-part series, Jacques Peretti charts the story of the fitness industry and examines the links between exercise and weight loss. He speaks to the former Global Head of Health at PepsiCo and asks why the food industry puts so much money into promoting exercise. Peretti also examines some of the pharmaceutical solutions available for weight-loss as he tells the story of the race to find a safe and effective pill to make us thin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the second of this four-part series, Jacques Peretti charts the story of the fitness industry and examines the links between exercise and weight loss. He speaks to the former Global Head of Health at PepsiCo and asks why the food industry puts so much money into promoting exercise.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Health At Every Size Community Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Let's face facts.

We've lost the war on obesity. Fighting fat hasn't made the fat go away. And being thinner, even if we knew how to successfully accomplish it, will not necessarily make us healthier or happier. The war on obesity has taken its toll.

Extensive "collateral damage" has resulted: Food and body preoccupation, self-hatred, eating disorders, discrimination,
poor health, etc. Few of us are at peace with our bodies, whether because we're fat or because we fear becoming fat.

Health at Every Size is the new peace movement. It helps us recognize that health outcomes are primarily driven by social, economic, and environmental factors, requiring a social and political response. It also supports people of all sizes in adopting healthy behaviors. It is an inclusive movement, recognizing that our social characteristics, such as our size, race, national origin, sexuality, gender, disability status, and other attributes, are assets, and acknowledges and challenges the structural and systemic forces that impinge on living well.
*An edited excerpt from Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon, PhD.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Health at Every Size community provides free supportive resources. Health at Every Size® principles help us advance social justice, create an inclusive and respectful community, and support people of all sizes in finding compassionate ways to take care of themselves.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Before highlighting the best body positive books, with a focus on adult and young adult titles, let's talk about what body positive even means.

What is body positivity?

Body positivity was born from the fat positive movement, a radical and revolutionary movement from the 1960s that spoke up and advocated for the rights of fat people. They revolted against size discrimination.

By signing up you agree to our terms of use

In the last couple of decades, body positivity has been in vogue. Where fat positivity was specific in goals and aims, body positivity is a more watered down version, based on the idea that all bodies are good bodies and that every person has something-maybe even multiple somethings-they're not happy with. It doesn't have to be their size. It can be ears or dimples or toes. Where fat positivity was explicit in its aims, body positivity is much more fluid and open to interpretation, and while it does include fat bodies beneath its meaning, it can and does often overlook bodies outside an "acceptable" range in size, focusing on media-friendly and average-sized bodies.

That's not to say body positivity isn't good. It is, and it's often the first step in how we understand the political nature of our bodies in the West. Body positivity can be a powerful tool in understanding size discrimination, in the capitalization of bodies, as well as acceptance of one's own body and responsibility in advocating on behalf of bodies deeply unlike their own.

These best body positive books are indeed body positive, but many of them are also radical in their approach to this movement. They might be explicitly fat positive and argue for fat acceptance. They may also be about the power of understanding your own unique body in a way that helps you remember you're not wrong-what's wrong is the systemic worshipping of a single image of young, white, cis, healthy, thin, and abled in much of Western pop culture and culture more broadly.

What's not included on this list of best body positive books are those that exalt diet culture, that offer ways of eating well, or books about exercise or movement. Though books about movement and exercise can absolutely be body positive-think Jessamyn Stanley's excellent Every Body Yoga -this list takes a bigger picture.

Body positivity, fat activism, and other body-driven political movements require work, and they can sometimes verge on policing feelings one has about their body (see the essay in Body Talk by Book Riot's own Patricia Elzie to dig into this further). Take these books slow, take notes, highlight, underline, and journal. What do they make you think about? How do they make you feel? None of these books, despite being excellent, will have all of the answers. But it's through interacting with them actively one becomes better aware of-and more involved with-their own bodies, as well as the bodies of every other human and non-human around them.

The body is political.

Add The Best Body Positive Books To Your TBR

Body Positive Power: How Learning to Love Yourself Will Save Your Life by Megan Jayne Crabbe

Seeing Gender: An Illustrated Guide to Identity and Expression by Iris Gottlieb

This list of the best body positive books is far from comprehensive, and there are a tremendous number of other outspoken, hardworking body activists writing and doing the work. May these books help lead you even more deeply into body positivity, fat positivity, and body liberation.

Itching for more body positive books? You'll absolutely want to read some of the best books about mental health, as well as excellent books about disability.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
These Are The 30 Best Body Positive Books You Can Read | Book Riot

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Before highlighting the best body positive books, with a focus on adult and young adult titles, let's talk about what body positive even means. Body positivity was born from the fat positive movement, a radical and revolutionary movement from the 1960s that spoke up and advocated for the rights of fat people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When I was about nine years old, I begged to play little league with my brother. I was the only girl on the team and I wasn't any good, but I liked playing. The night before each game, I stretched my damp-from-the-washing-machine uniform top over the large lounge chair in the living room to make sure it would fit my round little body. I was hyper-aware of the visible outline of my belly when I tucked in my uniform, but we weren't allowed to leave them untucked. Running from base to base, I imagined what the crowds were thinking about my jiggly belly underneath my little league getup. I was nine years old and somehow I already knew, just by being in the world, that I was too fat to play sports.

Growing up, I don't recall seeing any fat athletes. The first I ever saw was Cheryl Haworth, a U.S. Olympic weight lifter who was photographed for a book that showcased athletes' bodies against a black backdrop. She was big and powerful and standing next to images of toned and muscular thin women. She looked majestic. I was 31 years old.

For all that time, I had thought that fat bodies were inherently unathletic. Why would I imagine otherwise when I hadn't seen a fat person, let alone a fat woman, being athletic in my lifetime?

Fast forward to the spring of 2018. At this point, I've been doing yoga for almost a year and I'm rehearsing for a very physical role in a play. Nothing about those things seems "athletic" to me. Because I'm the one doing them. And I'm a fat woman. And fat bodies aren't athletic.

I meet a man through a dating app. A thin, strong, athletic man who loves to hike and kayak and backpack. After we go out several times, he says he's concerned that our lifestyles won't be compatible because he likes to be "outdoorsy" and I don't seem to have that as a priority.

I'm crushed. All the shame of childhood rushes back. I tell him that he's right, I don't have an attachment to those activities, but I've also never really tried them. "My family wasn't hiking, camping, kayaking people," I tell him. "If you don't grow up doing those things, how do you get involved in them without an introduction? Have you ever seen a woman of my size in an ad for hiking boots?" I ask. He's silent for a while and then he responds, "No, I haven't."

I ask him to take me on a hike and he's happy to oblige. We've been on quite a few now, the most recent with an incline that felt like a damn roller coaster but I love it. I have to stop several times to catch my breath, but I keep moving upwards and the view at the top is worth every minute of exertion.

Then he takes me on a long hike around a lake where he used to go fishing. About one-quarter of the way around, he asks if I can go the full loop. I tell him I want to do it, and he doesn't question me. He doesn't see any limitations in me. I hike three miles around a beautiful lake, and when I finish, I cry because it didn't occur to me that I could do that until I did it.

Around the same time, I start taking weekly yoga lessons. My instructor uses blocks, bolsters, and other props to help modify poses to fit my body, not the other way around. If something like yoga, an elegant and athletic activity, can be modified to fit the needs of my body, why wouldn't this be true of other activities? There are modifications for athletes with prosthetics, with injuries, and with mobility devices. Why couldn't sports be modified to fit the needs of my fat body?

It's simple when I look back on it now. The world had convinced me that my body was my own moral failing and I did not deserve to have the joy and pleasure of athleticism and sport. I did not deserve access. My world is so much bigger; full of pleasure and joy now with the inclusion of movement and athleticism in my life. My yoga teacher has asked if I would consider getting trained as an instructor to help at her studio and I'm considering it. Both because I enjoy it and I want to be an example to other large-bodied people that they are allowed to enjoy their bodies in an athletic way.

To the thin-bodied folks out there: Please don't assume that fat-bodied people aren't capable of sharing and enjoying movement and athleticism. Invite them on that hike or to play backyard football with you. Show your kids fat athletes and celebrate their success not as an anomaly, but as a natural diversity of bodies that engage in sports. There might be a little round 9-year-old that needs your encouragement to make it around all the bases.
The following is a guest post by Emily Richman, MS, LMHC. Emily Richman is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Speaker, and Performing Artist. She currently resides and works in Southeastern Washington State.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When I was about nine years old, I begged to play little league with my brother. I was the only girl on the team and I wasn't any good, but I liked playing. The night before each game, I stretched my damp-from-the-washing-machine uniform top over the large lounge chair in the living room to make sure it would fit my round little body.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH), the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), and the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) are pleased to offer the Health At Every Size® Curriculum for the education of college and university students and health professionals. The Health at Every Size model is a health-focused, weight-neutral approach to health that promotes the right to be peaceful in one's body. This curriculum was developed to educate others on adopting a weight neutral approach towards health, thereby filling a void in health curriculum at colleges, universities, and professional training programs.

PowerPoint presentations of the three main components of the HAES Curriculum ( Overview, Developing a Healthy Relationship with Food and Exercise, and Size Acceptance) may be obtained by clicking on the links below. For more information about the curriculum, including a description, learning objectives, and instructor tips, please see the " About" page of this website. Videos of the three components have been recorded, and supplemental materials are also available for download. We also welcome Feedback after you have used the curriculum. All feedback will be considered in future revisions of the curriculum.

License: The HAES Curriculum is licensed pursuant to Creative Commons. We give permission for any educational, non-commercial use of this curriculum. By downloading any portion of the HAES Curriculum, you are agreeing to use it for educational, non-commercial purposes and in its unaltered, original format. Thank you!

Please note that the following PowerPoints do not include voiceovers. If you wish to enjoy these with voiceovers, that may be done on the Videos page.

Download theOverview
PowerPoint.
En español aquí.

DownloadDeveloping a Healthy
Relationship with Food and Exercise
PowerPoint.
En español aquí.

Download theSize Acceptance
PowerPoint
En español aquí.

Health At Every Size® Curriculum by ASDAH, NAAFA, & SNEB is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Association for Size Diversity and Health (ASDAH), the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), and the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior (SNEB) are pleased to offer the Health At Every Size® Curriculum for the education of college and university students and health professionals.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Stay Informed

I'm traveling the world building community, offering workshops, speaking at conferences, schools, worksites,
and other venues, writing about injustice and revolution, and fostering transformation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Resources (organized by topic) - Lindo Bacon, PhD, formerly Linda Bacon

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I'm traveling the world building community, offering workshops, speaking at conferences, schools, worksites, and other venues, writing about injustice and revolution, and fostering transformation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Unpacking Weight Science is a source of professional development and educational resources about the science of Health at Every Size (HAES), the Non-Diet Approach and other health-oriented size acceptance approaches.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Social Justice in Globalized Fitness and Health 1st edition | 9781315163314, 9781351670807 | VitalSource

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Social Justice in Globalized Fitness and Health Bodies Out of Sight 1st Edition by Laura Azzarito and Publisher Routledge. Save up to 80% by choosing the eTextbook option for ISBN: 9781351670807, 1351670808. The print version of this textbook is ISBN: 9781315163314, 1315163314.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Christy Harrison - Intuitive Eating Dietitian, Anti-Diet Author, & Certified Eating Disorders Specialist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Welcome to Food Psych®, a podcast dedicated to critiquing diet and wellness culture.

In weekly episodes, I answer listener questions and talk with guests about making peace with food, healing from disordered eating, (re)learning intuitive eating, challenging harmful beliefs about wellness, and more-all from a body-positive, anti-diet perspective. Along the way, I share my own journey from disordered eater and dieter to food writer and anti-diet dietitian.

This podcast challenges diet culture in all its forms-including the restrictive behaviors that often masquerade as wellness and fitness.

Launched in 2013, Food Psych is now regularly in Apple's top 100 Health podcasts, with tens of thousands of listeners worldwide. Explore the most recent episodes below, and be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts (or your favorite podcast app) so you never miss an episode!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Food Psych Podcast - Christy Harrison - Intuitive Eating Dietitian, Anti-Diet Author, & Certified Eating Disorders Specialist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In weekly episodes, I answer listener questions and talk with guests about making peace with food, healing from disordered eating, (re)learning intuitive eating, challenging harmful beliefs about wellness, and more-all from a body-positive, anti-diet perspective. Along the way, I share my own journey from disordered eater and dieter to food writer and anti-diet dietitian.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ASDAH - Association for Size Diversity & Health. A professional organization promoting .....

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why NAAFA?

One-third of the world's population is fat, yet fat people are discriminated against in all aspects of daily life. For over 50 years, NAAFA has worked to make the world a better place for fat people through education, advocacy, and support. We are a multigenerational, intersectional social justice organization creating opportunity for big bodied people and building community for fat people and our loved ones. Our work towards #EqualityAtEverySize is changing the world!

All bodies deserve care, love and respect. The Campaign for Size Freedom continues the fight to end body size discrimination. The Campaign is led by NAAFA and FLARE (Fat Legal Advocacy, Rights and Education Project, a project of the law office of Brandie Solovay), and supported by Dove.

NAAFA is proud to announce the new 2022 study, The Size of It: Fat Bias in the News, created in collaboration with Pamela Mejia, MS, MPH.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NAAFA is the premier fat-rights organization working to end discrimination based on body size. We are a member supported, all-volunteer, non-profit organization established in 1969. We promote Equalty At Every Size and are working to see body size added to the anti-discrimination legislation in all

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Self- Love Revolution is a self-help book that promotes body positivity in young women. I'm not exactly young (38!) but still found this book inspiring and interesting. I hadn't heard of this author before but now know she is well known in USA as a leading expert on weight based discrimination. I especially loved the paragraph "Hating ourselves takes up a lot of energy and time. Imagine all the stuff you'd get done if you didn't feel self-conscious or worried about what other people think... ...more

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Self- Love Revolution is a self-help book that promotes body positivity in young women. I'm not exactly young (38!) but still found this book inspiring and interesting. I hadn't heard of this author before but now know she is well known in USA as a leading expert on weight based discrimination.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Embrace is a social impact documentary that explores the serious issue of body loathing, inspiring us to change the way we feel about ourselves and think about our bodies. Released in 2016, this film is relevant, relatable, highly engaging - but above all life changing.

Nominated for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award for Best Documentary, Embrace has been seen by millions of people across the world and has created a ripple of positive change.

The documentary was supported by 8909 KickStarter pledgers who responded to the fundraising trailer released in 2014. The trailer has now had over 45 million views.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Embrace is a social impact documentary that explores the serious issue of body loathing, inspiring us to change the way we feel about ourselves and think about our bodies. Released in 2016, this film is relevant, relatable, highly engaging - but above all life changing.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Why I Recommend Bumping This UP On Your TBR:
This is a MUST READ educational novel about how to live your best life and how to improve this world. The author is intelligent, has an impressive way with words, inspires, validates, and address many important topics that revolve around our health, our community/ies, and our world. I cannot emphasize enough how much I got out of this and how much I know that you will too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why I Recommend Bumping This UP On Your TBR: This is a MUST READ educational novel about how to live your best life and how to improve this world. The author is intelligent, has an impressive way with words, inspires, validates, and address many important topics that revolve around our health, our community/ies, and our world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I have been learning about Health at Every Size and the Fat Acceptance movement and am thus trying to read it's canon of literature. The basic idea is that dieting and self-loathing are equally bad for you and one can take better care of oneself by eating and exercising in ways that feel good. This book and others like it are making me more of a feminist and more compassionate to the bodies of others and to my own body.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I have been learning about Health at Every Size and the Fat Acceptance movement and am thus trying to read it's canon of literature. The basic idea is that dieting and self-loathing are equally bad for you and one can take better care of oneself by eating and exercising in ways that feel good.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Some people seem to fundamentally misunderstand what HAES is, I see this on social media all the time. It is about self-care, about moving away from negative self-criticism and unhelpful judgmental thoughts which fill eating and exercise behaviours with feelings of obligation and guilt, and about realising that everyone is worthy of respect and being treated as a human being - not just those who attain the socially accepted standards. It is not about "glorifying obesity" or whatever rubbish some ...more

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Some people seem to fundamentally misunderstand what HAES is, I see this on social media all the time. It is about self-care, about moving away from negative self-criticism and unhelpful judgmental thoughts which fill eating and exercise behaviours with feelings of obligation and guilt, and about realising that everyone is worthy of respect and being treated as a human being - not just those who attain the socially accepted standards.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Disordered-eating behaviors don't exist in a vacuum. If you start eating to soothe yourself after experiencing trauma, for example, you're not doing that in a culture of "Do what you gotta do to get through the day, and also let me help you process your trauma." No, you're doing it in a culture of "OMG YOU'RE EATING SO MUCH, YOU'RE GONNA GAIN WEIGHT AND THAT'S ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE-YOU NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT, STAT! (And PS, trauma? What are you even talking about? Just suck it up and move on!)" So even when people start eating to self-soothe, without any connection to weight or body image, they eventually end up absorbing our culture's toxic beliefs about food and bodies. In our society at this moment in history, it's basically impossible not to fall into diet culture's clutches at some point."

"Your health isn't entirely within your control, either, despite what diet culture wants you to think. Health isn't something you can wrestle into submission by sheer force; certain circumstances beyond our control-genetics, socioeconomic status, experiences of stigma, environmental exposures-can affect our health outcomes. We can't permanently change our body size through food intake and exercise, the way we've been told we can, and the same is true of our health-which, of course, is not dependent on body size. That is, even if everyone ate the exact same things and moved their bodies in the exact same ways, we'd all still have different health outcomes because of genetic differences, experiences of poverty and discrimination, and even deprivation that our mothers experienced during pregnancy. Many things contribute to health, meaning it's not all down to personal responsibility, the way diet culture wants us to believe-not by a long shot."

More quotes...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Disordered-eating behaviors don't exist in a vacuum. If you start eating to soothe yourself after experiencing trauma, for example, you're not doing that in a culture of "Do what you gotta do to get through the day, and also let me help you process your trauma."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
MISS REPRESENTATION - The Representation Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Miss Representation exposes how mainstream media and culture contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
While I am currently living in a state (North Carolina) that has begun easing stay at home restrictions. For my safety and the safety of those I may come in contact with. I have made the decision to continue the suspension of all in-person training until further notice. Decolonizing Fitness will continue to offer sliding scale online training that is weight neutral (no diet or weight loss talk), trans friendly (no gendered assumptions) and disability friendly (ask for and anticipate access needs). There is also a growing catalog of workout videos (including some awesome seated workouts) available on the Decolonizing Fitness Patreon with membership packages starting at $2 a month.

As a Black trans person with chronic health issues I am filled with fear and uncertainty during these times. However, I believe no matter what we keep each other safe and supported.

Please consider making a one time donation so that I may continue to provide affirming and accessible services to our most impacted communities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While I am currently living in a state (North Carolina) that has begun easing stay at home restrictions. For my safety and the safety of those I may come in contact with. I have made the decision to continue the suspension of all in-person training until further notice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
These white female dietitians have helped steal and monetize the body positive movement. And I'm sick of it.

A censored image of an instagram post from a well-known "anti-diet dietitian's" page. (Cred: Me)

In the midst of working on this essay, a fellow member of a Health At Every Size Facebook group posted about an encounter with a popular dietitian on Instagram. This dietitian has branded herself as an anti-diet dietitian and body positivity advocate. She has over 50k followers. She sells courses on how to kick one's dieting habit that cost $250.

This group member politely commented on this dietitian's post to explain that their frequent posting of "before and afters", complaints about being unable to celebrate her own weight loss, and pictures with "stomach rolls" (like in the image above) contributes to the falsehood of fat bodies being "before" bodies and exacerbates the hypervisibility of privileged, straight-sized people in the body liberation movement.

Her comments were deleted and she was blocked.

She then attempted to engage this dietitian through a private message from her main account in hopes that that would be more effective. She was sympathetic to the difficult task of owning up to one's privilege, but emphasized that one cannot be "anti-diet" without engaging with body positivity as a space for fat people. She received an incredibly hostile response in which the following and more occurred:

The dietitian said that she is "not causing harm" and if her "journey" "harms you or anyone else....it's not [she] that has internal work to do."

The dietitian stated that she was trying to cultivate a "peaceful space" and comments pointing out the problematic nature of her posts do not "spark" that.

The dietitian claimed that "researchers, like [her] mentors in [her] doctoral program built this movement... not social justice warriors" and that individuals who want her to check her privilege "are taking things to a place where it divides people and it's just not necessary or effective to get people to shift their views."

This is not an anecdote, but the whole story.

As Stephanie Yeboah once told Jameela Jamil ( who then stole her words):

"[Body positivity] stems from the fat acceptance movement, which is more political than anything, [and] was created as a safe space for fat women to celebrate themselves as no one was celebrating us or seeing us - and all our interior amazingness - for what we were. Now it's used as a marketing term and has forgotten about the very bodies that created it..."

Stephanie is not alone in her assessment. For Wear Your Voice magazine, Briana Hernandez interviewed Rochelle Brock, a body positive photographer. When asked about what she didn't like about the body positive (BOPO) movement, Rochelle said the following:

"While the BOPO movement is getting a lot of clout, people who don't fit the ideal norm - [people who are] bigger, rounder, blacker - are getting the shit end of the stick... Smaller, hourglass-shaped women are banking off of the term, and unfortunately, a lot us are getting left behind or ignored completely when decisions are made."

Plenty of others have also criticized the appropriation of the body positive movement by people who do not face oppression on the basis of physical "abnormality". Skinny women taking pictures in bikinis to preach about how others should accept their bodies. Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty and every advertising scheme like it. Describing weight loss as " self love ". These are just a few examples of how body positivity has been reformed to serve many different desires, all of which are represented in the grift of many "anti-diet" dietitians.

Dietetics is the science of how food and nutrition affect our health. Dietitians work in many different areas, including health communication, food safety, and improvement of nutritional quality of manufactured foods. Many dietitians design and sell individual therapies intended to help people deal with health issues through specialized diets. (These individuals are the focus of this post.)

As I've written before, science has always said that fat people do not belong in any worthwhile vision for the future of humankind. As such, dietetics has always been a worthwhile eugenic tool to craft a "better" human race.

Dietetics as a field has served as an important avenue through which women have fought for access to training in medicine and the sciences. It was a favored career among white, middle-class, Protestant women in the 1900s and was bolstered by wartime activities that made nutrition an important specialization in the US military. However, as the status of dietitians rose and they sought to formalize their field by creating professional associations and scientific journal publications, the overt Whiteness of the field became solidified. For example, white female dietitians often wrote journal articles linking diseases and deficiencies to the specific dietary practices of racial and ethnic groups; these functioned to assert their superiority over women of color attempting to find success in dietetics, as well as further the associations between Protestant Whiteness, health, and prosperity.

This is just one part of a wide legacy of oppression. White women have always promoted eugenics alongside white men who are just as eager to "preserve" the white race. Gertrude Davenport, wife of famed eugenicist Charles Davenport, was one of the first to ascribe degeneracy to the biology of socially unacceptable (read: immigrant) mothers. Her contributions to eugenics have long been overshadowed by the legacy of her husband, as well as shrouded by her reputation as a progressive feminist. Adept at performative frailty and feminized victimhood, white women manage to contribute to the systemic oppression of "social undesirables" and simultaneously force their way into liberatory spaces.

Dietetics as a profession doesn't look too different from its origins. According to the Commission on Dietetic Registration, 93.9% of currently registered dietitians are women. 81.1% of currently registered dietitians are white. And, as I mentioned, w hite women have long been agents of racism and anti-Blackness. What happened to Emmett Till and George Stinney Jr. and Black Wall Street were all caused by white women. As Ezinne Ukoha brilliantly wrote, the audacity of white feminism is the core of white supremacy.

The marketization of the body positivity movement has been partially driven by white women who describe themselves as "anti-diet" practitioners. Christy Harrison, a notable "anti-diet" dietitian, describes the anti-diet lens as "anti-diet culture". Anti-diet is supposed to be in opposition to the social beliefs that weight loss improves health, that health and fat are not compatible, that diets work, and that thinness is the superior physical and moral form. Diet culture tells us that foods can be "good" or "bad", that bodies can be "good" or "bad", and that the solution to our problems lays in changing our physical embodiment through restrictive eating, hyper-vigilance, and deprivation.

"Anti-diet" dietitians are described by Harrison as utilizing evidence-based nutrition therapies to hone and honor your body's natural signals for hunger and satiety. They also deliver medical nutrition therapy needed to help people manage conditions like diabetes and celiac disease in ways that do not replicate diet culture in the care space. Except in some cases of eating disorder recovery, weight gain or loss is not a central part of anti-diet practice; it's about learning to listen to, trust, and respect your body.

These are all good things. But how do they go wrong in the context of the body positivity movement, racism, and fatphobia?

A collage of instagram posts by "anti-diet dietitians" (Creator: Me)

Christy Harrison does mention that "in one of the shadiest moves of all time, diet culture even includes people trying to sell the anti-diet movement as a weight-loss method." She is right. Diet culture is gonna diet culture. But while those individuals she's mentioned are extremely predatory, they're not even the ones I'm maddest at or focused on in this post.

I'm mad at the anti-diet dietitians (ADDs) that sit in their photos to show their stomach (read: skin) folds. I'm mad at the ADDs that feign eating desserts or pizza or something equally demonized for pictures that they post with captions like "no foods are bad!" or "you don't have to work out to earn food!" I'm mad at the ADDs who say that you can still love your body and want it to be smaller. I'm absolutely pissed at the ADDs who stand in their mirrors or on the beach to display their minor bloating or the small dimples in their thighs.

They post "before and after" pictures a minute, a year, a decade apart to show how much "better" their bodies became once they "quit dieting" or to show how even svelte bodies in spandex can be less perfect if they pull their waistbands down and that no matter how many rolls they have they're still the same fit women they always were.

The white hot rage I feel when these women tell me to flaunt my body, that I am still sexy no matter my size because they're sexy at their size in the positionthey feel fattest in.

If you are an "anti-diet dietitian" and you do any of these things, brand my words into your mind:
You are diet culture.
There is no way to be a thin white female ADD and do the things I've described or screen-grabbed above without promoting diet culture and fatphobia and Whiteness. By portraying your miniature rolls and folds as things to love despite their existence, despite the way they distance you from perfection, you are not only saying that my fat body is inherently worse than yours, but you are subliminally communicating that rolls and folds are only "okay" and "normal" and "sexy" on a body like yours - so thin, so white, so unbearably conventional. And by implying you are equally hurt by diet culture as a fat Black or brown person is, you're just straight up lying for your own gain.

When thin white women use their womanhood to invade the body liberation space while simultaneously benefitting from Whiteness and thinness, when they violate this space to enrich themselves as anti-diet dietitian saviors who "get it" and "have been there" and can save you from yourself, they are committing a violation. They are being violent. They are hurting people in the way white women have always hurt people. And, by using anti-diet dietetics as both scientific legitimacy and a woke signal, they are protecting themselves from criticism and accountability while doing so.

A screenshot I took of recent photos tagged with #normalizenormalbodies. See a pattern?

Many anti-diet dietitians want to normalize all bodies and feel they're more effective if they share their own "journeys" and bare their guts for their viewers. They want to portray that they, too, are not perfect. They want their followers to know they are not models or Aphrodites just because they are unambiguously thin, just because they can hide their small layer of subcutaneous fat in the waistband of their exercise leggings. To some small degree, these goals make sense.

But forget about perfection and models. Look above at the results of my search for #normalizenormalbodies on Instagram. Look at these consecutive photos of thin white women posing on sandy beaches. Do these bodies look abnormal to you?

If you are a thin white person, your body is as normal as it gets. Clothes and public spaces and medical standards and media are made with you in mind. The bodies in these pictures do not need to be uplifted. Your body does not need to be uplifted. Body positivity is not for you.

Again.
Your body does not need to be uplifted. Body positivity is not for you.
As Wear Your Voice's Sherronda Brown once said, "what most people don't understand about body positivity [is that it started in response to] white society's fear of the racial Other." By eschewing social demands for thinness and conventional beauty, fat acceptance and body positivity are radical. They grasp at the root. They pour gasoline on our foundational understandings of health, science, and morality and light a match. But when thin white people - thin white women, in particular - feel it is appropriate to trample these spaces to comfort themselves as they aspire to white ideals of womanhood and femininity, they are, once again, agents of destruction.

This is the nature of oppression. While you slowly die from exclusion, your only safe spaces are open to those who are always safe. They flood the doorway, take the seating, stand on it to survey the room. They build nests and nurture their own and buoy themselves where you used to find solace. Slouching and pushing out their stomachs all the while, they shout: "Normalize my body! I get bloated too! Eat that cupcake! You deserve to take up space!"

If only they'd left any for you.

This article was bolstered by a lively discussion in a Health At Every Size group started by the very cool Molly Robbins, as well as a recent twitter thread of mine.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Unbearable Whiteness and Fatphobia of "Anti-Diet" Dietitians

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the midst of working on this essay, a fellow member of a Health At Every Size Facebook group posted about an encounter with a popular dietitian on Instagram. This dietitian has branded herself as an anti-diet dietitian and body positivity advocate. She has over 50k followers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This piece is part of Bustle's All Levels Welcome, a column about making fitness culture as accessible and inclusive as possible.
Even for people who generally enjoy engaging in physical activity - whether it's dancing, boxing, or weight lifting - there are huge barriers to getting into the gym. On top of financial barriers and issues of physical access, gyms are often designed and operated with a particular body type in mind. Even a U.S. District Court Judge has declared that the design of physical fitness standards are discriminatory to women. This kind of bias is also present in gendered fitness marketing; gym design that privileges men's comfort over women's safety; class instruction that excludes people with disabilities; and personal trainer hiring rates that discriminate against trainers with large bodies.

The fitness industry's widespread body shaming makes billions of dollars off of convincing people - particularly young girls and women of color in fitness - that their bodies are wrong, but the right type of fitness can "fix" them. However, there are many people and organizations making their way into the fitness industry that have a different message: body-positive fitness invites people with variously marginalized bodies into fitness spaces, reclaiming the word "health." To address these glaring problems in the fitness industry, many fitness enthusiasts, particularly queer people of color, are taking matters into their own hands.

"Your body doesn't have to be able to do anything at all in order to justify its existence and the way it is," Ilya Parker, creator of Decolonizing Fitness, a social justice platform geared toward education and providing affirming fitness spaces,tells Bustle. "All bodies deserve to be treated with respect and care."

Parker is an ACE-certified personal trainer and physical therapist assistant. He identifies as a fat trans personal trainer and points out that fitness "expertise" does not have to come with a certification to be valid. "Healers and wellness 'experts' can be awkward, fat, queer, trans, disabled, sex workers, chronically ill with mental health issues," he says. "We don't always need special certifications. Healing is a collective effort." Parkerexplains that typical fitness certification trainings lack awareness of trans experiences, weight-neutral approaches to fitness, all the while pushing the idea that fitness is a moral obligation. "Toxic fitness often looks like a series of practices that uses corrective or penalizations tactics to elicit a certain response," they tell Bustle.

Resisting the myths of toxic fitness culture within your own body is different for different people, according to Lindsey Page, personal trainer and founder of the Radically Fit gym in Oakland, CA. "I can do incredible things with my body," she tells Bustle, "but according to the fitness industry, I do not ' look' like I am in shape. This is what we are fighting against and this is why we exist." The tagline at Radically Fit is "Fit Is Not A Body Type," in order to affirm people who share Page'scontinuing journey with fitness. "I have personally had to work to undo 20-plus years of being told that my body was never good enough," she says. "No matter how many miles I ran, how many core exercises I did - I would never look like a skinny white cis woman."

As experienced as Page is in the industry, she still has to remind herself that "The fitness industry has worked hard on making money off of making people feel badly about how they look." Internal experiences of body shame are not, then, an inherent flaw in her body but rather, perpetuated by a deeply integrated and damaging norm of the fitness industry.

" Body positive" is a term often used in a diluted way to include "every" body - a well-intentioned but misinformed practice that strips the movement from its mission to uplift marginalized bodies. But places like Radically Fit serve as an active reminder that body-positive language was created by fat women of color in movements for fat liberation. Of the ways that Radically Fit attempts to combat fat-shaming fitness norms within its own walls,Page says that "We hold and prioritize space for our Blackand brown community by offering a POC-only class that feels welcoming and safe for those members."

Page adds, "We also use language and messaging that is not only body positive, but fat positive. Overall, we are creating a space where the QTPOC community can feel safe and seen in every way." At Radically Fit, for example, instructors don't assume that fat-identified people can't do jumping jacks, lift weights, or touch their toes, and refuse to "warn" only fat-identified people that intense workouts might be harder for them.

Parker says that in their experience trying to transform fitness both within yourself and structurally, it is important to ask yourself questions about who has access to the fitness spaces you're in. While Parker says there's no one way to work with marginalized communities (especially queer and trans communities of color), both fitness professionals and folks in any fitness situation need to interrogate who traditional fitness practices are designed for.

In fitness spaces, Parker says, people can ask themselves, "Do I have the power to ensure my needs are met? Do I have the power to impact someone else's circumstances in a harmful or supportive way?" Sometimes, just asking yourself these questions can help you realize you have power, with yourself and to share with others in fitness spaces, that you didn't realize you have. Which is exactly what fitness, no matter what it means or looks like for you, is supposed to do: remind you exactly how powerful you are.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Body-Positive Fitness Spaces Must Include Fat People, Queer Folks, & POC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This piece is part of Bustle's All Levels Welcome, a column about making fitness culture as accessible and inclusive as possible. Even for people who generally enjoy engaging in physical activity - whether it's dancing, boxing, or weight lifting - there are huge barriers to getting into the gym.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Editor's Note: This month, that is July 2020, FII's #MoodOfTheMonth is Feminism And Body Image, where we invite various articles about the diverse range of experiences which we often confront, with respect to our bodies in private or public spaces, or both. If you'd like to share your article, email us at pragya@feminisminindia.com. Posted by Prapti Sarkar
It's difficult to not be aware of the body positivity movement - it still exists quite rampantly, saturating our Instagram feeds with cute, marketable captions about how "beauty comes in all shapes" and how you must "love yourself." In a sense, body positivity is all about body-love and self-love, which are, of course, important, although new ideas like body neutrality seek to challenge this. But the body-positivity movement is also extremely limiting and denies access to the very bodies it claims to want to uplift. These limits exist mainly because body positivity has forgotten its radical and political roots from when it first started as the fat acceptance movement.

Image Source: Feminism In India

A History Of Fat Acceptance

The body positivity movement that we see today emerged from the fat acceptance movement of the 1960s. The history of the fat acceptance movement began in 1967, in New York's Central Park, when 500 people conducted a sit-in to protest against societal anti-fat bias. The protesters ate, carried signs, and burnt diet books. In 1969, the first organization for fat people was created - NAAFA, or the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. In 1972, The Fat Underground was formed as a more liberal and feminist offshoot of NAAFA and they spoke and wrote extensively about systemic fat oppression. Their Fat Liberation Manifesto criticized the commercial exploitation of fat bodies by both corporations and scientific institutions:

' We believe that fat people are fully entitled to human respect and recognition. We are angry at the mistreatment by commercial and sexist interests. These have exploited our bodies as objects of ridicule, thereby creating an immensely profitable market selling the false promise of avoidance of, or relief from, that ridicule. We see our struggle as allied with the struggle of other oppressed groups, against classism, racism, sexism, ageism, capitalism, imperialism, and the like. '

Also read: 3 Plus Size Myths That Need To Be Debunked Now

In a sense, body positivity is all about body-love and self-love, which are, of course, important, although new ideas like body neutrality seek to challenge this. But the body-positivity movement is also extremely limiting and denies access to the very bodies it claims to want to uplift. These limits exist mainly because body positivity has forgotten its radical and political roots from when it first started as the fat acceptance movement.

What Is Fat Acceptance?

The fat acceptance movement aims to fight for the basic human dignity and rights of fat people, which they are often denied. The diet industry makes billions each year by selling the myth that a person's self-worth, especially a woman's, is determined by how much they weigh and their body-size. Fat acceptance claims that a 'diet is a cure that doesn't work for a disease that doesn't exist'. Fat activists argue that anti-fat stigma not only has psychological impacts on fat people, but it also keeps them from receiving proper medical care. Doctors and nurses are more likely to treat their fatness as a cause for any underlying problems, and fat people are also at a risk for harassment by medical professionals.

Anti-fat bias and fatphobia are systemic and ingrained within our society, to the extent that this impacts employment opportunities for fat people as they are considered to have less leadership potential and are expected to be less successful. Fat people are far more likely to be bullied and victimised for their weight. The prejudice against fat people is so normalized in society that anti-fat biases have been seen in children as young as four years old.
Body Positivity Is Not Enough
If fat people face systemic oppression, then fatphobia or fat shaming cannot be equalized to skinny-shaming. The conversation goes beyond self-love and accepting your own body. Even if a fat person accepts their own body, they will experience oppression and discrimination for just existing as they are. Body-positivity, as it is represented today, does little to actively counter anti-fat biases and stigmas.

The fat acceptance movement aims to fight for the basic human dignity and rights of fat people, which they are often denied. The diet industry makes billions each year by selling the myth that a person's self-worth, especially a woman's, is determined by how much they weigh and their body-size. Fat acceptance claims that a 'diet is a cure that doesn't work for a disease that doesn't exist'.

Instead, it is almost exclusively represented by cisgender, able-bodied, white women who are often thin or have acceptable small-fat bodies. A hashtag search of "body positivity" on social media will yield results of bodies that are thin and white, and therefore, privileged in ways that fat bodies are not. Plus-size bodies are increasingly represented as ones with thick thighs and a flat stomach - yet another ideal that is perpetuated in the name of diversity, but is just as harmful.

Also read: Can Plus Size Ever Become Socially Acceptable And Mainstream?

This is not to say that thin women, especially those that have struggled with eating disorders, should not love their bodies. There is nothing inherently wrong about embracing your own body. However, they cannot be the face of the radical, social movement that body positivity was always meant to be. Privileged bodies, if they are the centre of such a movement, derail the conversation away from marginalized bodies.

Fat black and brown women, fat disabled women, and women who are fatter than what is deemed acceptable, are, ironically enough, denied a space in a movement that should be fighting for them and their visibility. Body positivity has failed because it has become solely about self-love, while conveniently forgetting to fight against systemic fatphobia and the oppression and discrimination faced by fat people.
Prapti is a student of Literature and an aspiring writer, based in Kolkata. Her interests include gender, popular culture, sexuality, and media. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram. Featured Image Source: Feminism In India

Guest Writers are writers who occasionally write on FII.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why You Should Trade Body Positivity For Fat Acceptance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Editor's Note: This month, that is July 2020, FII's #MoodOfTheMonth is Feminism And Body Image, where we invite various articles about the diverse range of experiences which we often confront, with respect to our bodies in private or public spaces, or both. If you'd like to share your article, email us at pragya@feminisminindia.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Watch the new CBSN Originals documentary, "Speaking Frankly | Fat Shaming," in the video player above.
It's a simple little tool that's been used by doctors for decades, but the system of measuring Body Mass Index, or BMI, is increasingly coming under fire. Critics have denounced BMI as not just unreliable but sexist and , and even many clinicians who see value in it also recognize its flaws.

BMI is a formula that uses a person's height and weight ratio to assess whether they're underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese, although it is not a direct measure of body fat. First invented nearly 200 years ago by the Belgian mathematician, astronomer and statistician Adolphe Quetelet, it was originally known as the Quetelet Index until American physiologist Ancel Keys came up with the term Body Mass Index in 1972.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, BMI is an "inexpensive and easy screening method" that is "strongly correlated" with weight-related medical conditions - serious health problems including heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea and breathing problems, and numerous types of . About 40% of U.S. adults are considered .

But in recent years, doctors, scientists and dietitians have expressed concerns over the shortcomings of BMI. Though it's used to diagnose obesity - defined as having a BMI of 30 or above - it does not provide any information about how weight actually impacts an individual's health.

"The problem with the BMI, while it does adjust for height, it does not adjust for what makes up the weight," said Dr. David Katz, an expert in preventive medicine and founding director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center. "So somebody who's extremely muscular could have a high BMI and yet have a very low percent body fat, which is what you're really concerned with. Somebody who has very little musculature could actually register as lean on the BMI scale, and still have an excess body fat."

Many professional athletes are considered clinically obese based on the BMI scale, because it cannot distinguish the weight of muscle from the weight of fat.

Dr. Lindo Bacon, a physiologist based in California, says people considered "normal weight" based on their BMI can also suffer from diseases like diabetes and heart disease, which are typically associated with excess weight.

"I think that this has been one of the most damaging tools in medicine today because what we know is that it's a very poor predictor of health and that, for example, there are many people that are in the overweight and obese categories that live long disease-free lives," Bacon told CBSN Originals. "But yet, they're put into these categories and told that they're unhealthy and told to do a lot of damaging things that then get in the way of their health."

A group of Canadian doctors published new guidelines this month urging physicians to rethink the way they care for patients with obesity. Among other things, they suggested that BMI should not be used alone as a tool to evaluate health. "Although BMI is widely used to assess and classify obesity (adiposity)," they write, "it is not an accurate tool for identifying adiposity-related complications."

Some researchers are advocating for a new kind of classification system based on the concept of Adiposity-Based Chronic Disease (ABCD) - focusing more on the health issues associated with obesity rather than body size alone. It would incorporate BMI as just one of several considerations to help determine a more specific and individualized course of action for patients.

Other researchers cite studies over the years that indicate it is in fact a useful predictor of health outcomes, especially for those with very low or high BMIs. Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health acknowledges that while "BMI is not a perfect measure," and tends to overstate levels of fat in people who are muscular or athletic, "most people are not athletes, and for most people, BMI is a very good gauge of their level of body fat." Tracking BMI over a person's life can provide important insight into whether the person is at a healthy weight.

Despite its shortcomings, Katz says BMI still has some value when looking at obesity trends more broadly.

"The BMI is a crude but useful tool," he explained. "Here's why the BMI is a useful epidemiologic ally: because we do not have an epidemic of muscularity in the United States ... we do have an epidemic of obesity. So when you look at populations and you look at trends in BMI, does it tell you what's happening to the obesity epidemic? Absolutely. At the population level, the highly muscular group is a rounding error."

But on an individual level, Bacon argues categorizing people based on their BMI does them a disservice, and that we shouldn't rely on it.

"We really need a much more sophisticated, nuanced discussion that's going to help people to be healthier, and it's really quite damaging when we make assumptions based on BMI," said Bacon. "There are a lot of other ways to help to figure out whether or not people are healthy that give us much more valuable information than BMI ever can about health."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The problem with BMI: Why measuring obesity is so controversial

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Watch the new CBSN Originals documentary, "Speaking Frankly | Fat Shaming," in the video player above. It's a simple little tool that's been used by doctors for decades, but the system of measuring Body Mass Index, or BMI, is increasingly coming under fire.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
dance fitness hip hop exercise choreography instructor trainings classes events certifications

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At Pop Fit Studio we motivate through music. Our classes get you moving and loving it. Whether you enjoying dancing, bouncing or barre classes we have someth...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Grace Hull was a gifted junior swimmer and as she began to rise through the state ranks, her coaches sought out any edge they thought would help her swim faster.

When she was 15, that included the drastic proposal to have a breast reduction.

"I did have bigger breasts than most female swimmers. I was told that I had terrible posture because of this and as a result, my posture in the water wasn't good enough," she recalls.

"At this point, it was suggested by coaches and support staff that I get a breast reduction ... and it was framed that this would definitely help my swimming."

While the now 22-year-old didn't take that advice, it was one example of many where her body was under the microscope.

And it all coincided with one of the most vulnerable times in any girl's life - puberty.

As she naturally matured and developed, she was forced to relentlessly reflect on her body's changes.

That constant scrutiny eventually led to significant body image and mental health issues, which drove her away from the sport.

Why puberty can be a curse for female athletes

Grace started swimming competitively when she was only eight years old and at 14, she was selected for an elite all-age state squad.

Grace Hull (left) was selected for an elite all age state squad at 14.(Supplied)

She was rubbing shoulders with Olympians and thought it was "one of the coolest things ever," but soon discovered it came with a heavy price.

If you need help with an eating disorder, contact:

Everyone in the group had to do regular weigh-ins and skinfold tests - which is common in high-performance sport.

But as a teenager going through major physical and emotional changes, it started to take its toll.

"I think every girl goes through a stage in their athletic career where they start to plateau through puberty," the distance swimmer says.

"A lot of my plateau was blamed on my weight gain and how my body was changing shape. And it was heavily criticised by coaches and support staff."

Things got worse when she was selected for the Australian junior team at 15.

There were daily public weigh-ins, with the results passed around for everyone to see.

"It was just a constant reminder that my body wasn't good enough.

"No matter the times I was swimming, no matter if I was on the Australian team or not. That my body was the reason that I wasn't swimming fast enough."

Catriona Bisset knows just how destructive the endless pursuit of thinness can be.

Catriona left athletics after developing an eating disorder and struggling with anxiety and depression.(ABC News: Andrew Ware)

The Australian 800m champion and national record holder qualified for her first national titles at 12.

But soon after, as she hit puberty and her performance dropped off, she felt pressure to "have a certain body and to be small, and to retain that boy's body."

"I even remember at the time saying to myself, 'you're never going to make it in this sport. Because you're just not mentally strong enough'.

"You're not mentally strong enough to cut that food out so you can be skinny."

So is being leaner actually a benefit?

Squeezing into an all-exposing swimming costume or a midriff-baring crop top can be confronting for many women, let alone girls who are performing on very public sporting stages.

If they compete in sports where there's a big focus on appearance or weight requirements, they're at higher risk for body image issues and eating disorders.

They could also fall into the trap of not eating enough to match their level of exercise - a syndrome called relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S).

That can affect their periods, they may have weaker bones, and their immunity and cardiovascular health could be compromised.

And a lot of it comes back to that message of leaner being better.

That's linked to power-to-weight ratio, or the idea that if an athlete's lighter, they'll be faster.

Catriona qualified for her first national titles at 12, but soon after her performance dropped off.(Supplied)

"A lot of the time, you do get a lot of benefit from being leaner," Catriona admits.

"But there's a huge number of trade-offs to it. And if you don't do it in the right way, it can ruin your entire career."

"I was asked to keep my first-ever food diary at the age of 11," Grace says.

"No 11-year-old should ever be in a position where they're asked to write down everything that they're eating in the day for the coach to criticise.

"I used food as a weapon when really food should be used as fuel. I started to realise that these practices were not OK."

Sports dietician Rebecca Hay says it's important for athletes to follow their bodies' cues for hunger and not follow arbitrary meal plans.

Fertility fight

Why would young, healthy women who keep their body in peak physical shape struggle to conceive? Well, it's complicated.

Read more

And she's seen how gaining weight can actually improve performance.

"Being lighter possibly means that there's an over-restriction with food, which means that maybe their training is not as effective as it could be and they're not recovering properly from their training sessions."

She's also witnessed many athletes slip into disordered eating in order to live up to the perceived ideal body type.

"And unfortunately, quite often when a female athlete changes their body or their body becomes smaller, there'll be really positive comments surrounding that and that then reinforces that behaviour, so they keep going."

Loading...

How do we move forward?

Catriona developed an eating disorder at a young age and she also struggled with anxiety and depression.

Loading...

She left competitive athletics for several years and eventually sought treatment.

The Melbourne-based runner still sees a lot of the same problems in the elite environment and believes there's a "guru mentality" amongst many coaches who think they know what's best.

"It's just really lazy coaching. There are so many different things that go into how a person's body looks. But it's just really easy, if someone has a bad run, you can be like, 'oh, well, it's because they're fat'."

She thinks more women in leadership positions throughout sport and more research into women's bodies can make a big difference.

"We're biologically completely different and we should be treated that way. Instead, we're being treated as a lesser version of the men in a lot of ways."

Grace developed anxiety and depression as a result of her body image issues and left the sport at 17.

She wants coaches and support staff to become more accountable for the way they speak to athletes and the practices they utilise.

"We shouldn't be saying, 'you need to get skinnier or you need to get leaner, you need to lose weight.' We need to say, 'are we eating the right foods to produce peak performance?'"

While organisations like the AIS are taking action, Rebecca Hay wants to see greater coach education to identify problematic behaviour early.

"If their performance is dropping, if they're isolating themselves, if they won't eat in front of their teammates - all of those things are really important warning signals."

Sport can be a problem, but it's also a cure

Despite their negative experiences, returning to their respective sports has been an essential part of Grace and Catriona's healing process.

Culture clash

Natasha Hill was living out her own Bend it Like Beckham storyline, sneaking out of her family home to play football. Now her mum is her biggest fan.

Read more

"I think finding running again as an adult has completely changed my life," Catriona reflects.

"Just the way it's made me think about my body as this beautiful, functional machine that responds to good food and to nurture and it will reward me when I treat it well.

"It's fundamentally changed the way I think about myself."

"I think it's great that I've been able to educate myself and realise that what happened back then was a result of a system that was a little broken, and that didn't support me well enough as a young athlete," Grace adds.

"No number on a scale or on a tape measure can take away how much hard work I am putting into this."

If you need support with an eating disorder or body image issues, contact the Butterfly Foundation's National Helpline 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673) or support@thebutterflyfoundation.org.au This story is part of a women in sport series called In Her Words. Head over to ABC iView to watch all episodes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
At 15, competitive swimmer Grace was advised to get a breast reduction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Grace Hull was a gifted junior swimmer and as she began to rise through the state ranks, her coaches sought out any edge they thought would help her swim faster. When she was 15, that included the drastic proposal to have a breast reduction. "I did have bigger breasts than most female swimmers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Health At Every Size (HAES, pronounced "hays") is an approach to well-being. It is rooted in science and evidence-based healthcare, and its tenets have been proven effective in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Health At Every Size proponents believe:

1) Fatness isn't inherently unhealthy.

Health and body size are not inherently related to each other. We believe that no convincing evidence shows that higher weight actually causes health issues. Thin people can be "healthy" or "unhealthy", and likewise fat people can be "healthy" or "unhealthy". We cannot look at a person's body shape and size and know whether they are "healthy".

You'll notice I put those terms in quotation marks - that's because we talk about health in such black-and-white terms in our society, which is a gross oversimplification. When pressed, most people can't actually define what "health" really is.

This is also the key reason that Health At Every Size advocates shun the terms "overweight" and "obese" - we believe these terms shouldn't exist and that there is no magical weight at which people become healthy or unhealthy.

2) Intentional weight loss via dieting is not sustainable in the long term.

This is a huge one. There have been numerous, numerous studies done that show that at least 95% (possibly more) of dieting attempts in medical literature do not result in sustained weight loss.

There is no doubt that it is possible to lose weight in the short term. I've done it, and you have probably done it too. But be honest with yourself: hasn't the weight always crept back on?

You blamed yourself. We all blame ourselves, and that's natural, because the dieting industry is set up to make us blame anyone but them. But the truth is that your body actively fights against being lighter than its "set-point weight" (this is a range of about 15-20 pounds where each person's body wants to be).

You'll notice the word "intentional" in the title of this section. Health At Every Size is not against weight loss in general. After all, weight loss naturally occurs due to a number of reasons, such as stress or illness. It can even occur naturally when you adopt intuitive eating behaviors if your weight has been artificially higher than its set-point (due to binge eating behaviors, for example). The only type of weight loss that Health At Every Size does not support is intentional weight loss through food restriction and exercise (otherwise known as dieting).

3) Health and well-being improvements can be made regardless of size.

If someone does want to improve their health and well-being, Health At Every Size believes in that possibility no matter what the person's size.

This is not to say that every person is "healthy" at their current size, or that everyone can achieve "optimal health" (whatever that is) at any size, no matter what. But because the Health At Every Size approach believes that intentional weight loss (i.e., weight loss from dieting) is not sustainable in the long term, the goal is to focus on behaviors that promote health and well-being instead.

A good example is this: say a larger person is struggling with joint pain. The traditional medical response would be for the person to try to lose weight to relieve pressure on their joints. The Health At Every Size response would be to focus on ways to reduce your joint pain that don't involve trying to lose weight. The approach would likely be strengthening the muscles around the joint to be better able to sustain the person's weight (this would be standard advice for a thinner person), and helping the person find a form of movement they can enjoy with minimal pain (perhaps swimming).

4) Health and well-being are not exclusively about physical health.

We have a real bias towards promoting physical health over other types of health in our society. Yes, there are actually many types of health, including mental health, spiritual health, and social health.

We chase thinness because we equate thinness with optimal physical health (which isn't true, but that's beside the point right now.) Pause and do an honest assessment of your mental health when you diet. Have you felt sad, deprived, guilty, shameful, or maybe even angry?

What about your social health? Do you stay at home when your friends go to a new restaurant because they won't have things you can eat? Has dieting led to binge eating that you have to hide from your partner? What other ways has dieting hurt your relationships with friends, family, or your partner, if you have one?

Somehow we've forgotten about the importance of our entire well-being. Health At Every Size looks at health holistically. It is an approach that allows us to pursue improved physical health while also improving our mental, social, and spiritual health.

5) Eating well and moving regularly can promote health.

Health can be improved by behaviors like eating well and moving regularly, but we define these terms differently than typical diets do.

We believe that food needs are incredibly individual, and thus we promote approaches like intuitive eating that focus on satiety, hunger, nourishment and satisfaction rather than forcing individuals to monitor calories, macronutrients, and the like. We believe that each individual body knows what it needs in any moment, and that natural food variety and moderation will result when we tune into its messages.

We also believe that regular movement can promote physical and mental well-being. The key to making movement a regular part of one's life is tuning into the body's needs for movement as well as finding movement that is pleasurable. We don't believe in carrot-and-stick approaches to fitness that require guilt and shame as motivators.

6) Everyone in our society deserves respect regardless of their health status.

Health At Every Size isn't about pushing "health" on every person. It believes that size discrimination is deeply problematic and that health discrimination (also known as "healthism") is too. It is each individual's choice to whether to pursue or not pursue specific behaviors that promote their own health in various ways, and no one is more or less worthy as a human being because of their choices.

References

Rather than including multitudes of references here, I want to direct you to some key books on Health At Every Size. Start with Body Respect and Body of Truth; they will explain everything that I've addressed here in much greater detail.
Learn more:
Warmly,

Ready to give up dieting and make peace?

I am here to guide and support you with a combination of compassion and expertise.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What is Health At Every Size? - Made on a Generous Plan Coaching

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Health At Every Size (HAES, pronounced "hays") is an approach to well-being. It is rooted in science and evidence-based healthcare, and its tenets have been proven effective in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Health At Every Size proponents believe: 1) Fatness isn't inherently unhealthy. Health and body size are not inherently related to each other.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Crawford's work on healthism was published before some major public health crises and panics in the U.S. It was published just before the AIDS crisis began, and queer and trans people watched one another die at astronomical rates, with a delayed government response that many LGBTQ+ people experienced as indifference to our very lives. It was published before obesity was declared an epidemic, and before we declared a "war on obesity," often fighting that "war" by stigmatizing fat bodies. And it was published before health became, in a sense, a moral imperative-and one that nearly all of us feel compelled to enforce at one moment or another.

As a fat person, my health is one of the primary grounds offered by those who mock, harm, and reject me as a fat person. Cruel and judgmental behavior is often justified with an off-handed I'm just concerned about your health. As if my health were their responsibility. As if I owed it to them, a debt I'd never taken out and could never repay.

And often, as many fat people know, trolling often masquerades as genuine concern-that's what makes it so insidious, and what can make it so cutting. But underneath its explicit message of caring concern, there's a clear implicit judgment. You're doing it wrong. You have failed. I have been monitoring your health. I know your body better than you.

And healthism isn't just a problem for fat people-it's a tool used to further anti-fat bias, yes, but also ableism, transphobia, misogyny, racism, and more. Healthism shows up when we joke about getting diabetes from a single dessert, or refer to a rich meal as a "heart attack on a plate"-implying that those health conditions are caused by failures of a perceived personal responsibility to be healthy, not by structural forces that disproportionately harm the health of people living on the down side of power. Healthism shows up when we suggest that trans people should be more worried about the side effects of long-term hormone therapy than their own lived experience of their gender.

Healthism isn't just an individual problem, either-it's present in many of our systems and institutions. Until the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, U.S. insurers routinely (and legally) denied health insurance to people with "pre-existing conditions." Paradoxically, we had a system where people were not healthy enough to qualify for health care coverage-and countless patients were unable to meet their most basic needs as a result. Healthism even shows up in the war on drugs, when we culturally and politically respond to drug dependency-strongly linked to environmental factors like poverty, stress, and trauma-as a personal responsibility to "just say no." And it shows up in the worlds of fertility, pregnancy, and lactation, all of which pressure expecting parents to become pregnant, be pregnant, and give birth in one or two "right ways."

To be clear, healthism isn't the root cause of transphobia, ableism, racism, anti-fatness, or misogyny-but it can be a tool to enforce all of them. That's in part because healthism assumes a playing field that simply isn't there. And when it stubbornly attributes societal and community outcomes to "individual choices," it reinforces the biases facing marginalized communities. If health is a personal responsibility, and so many marginalized communities have such bad health outcomes-well, they must just be less responsible. It's an insidious and powerful kind of bias, and one that many of us perpetuate every day-even if we don't know it, and even if we don't mean to.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We Have to Stop Thinking of Being 'Healthy' as Being Morally Better

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Crawford's work on healthism was published before some major public health crises and panics in the U.S. It was published just before the AIDS crisis began, and queer and trans people watched one another die at astronomical rates, with a delayed government response that many LGBTQ+ people experienced as indifference to our very lives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If a research group today conducted a study on a single gender or ethnic group, critics would be quick to point out that its findings couldn't reasonably be applied to anyone outside of that gender or group. It seems like basic logic, right?

Unfortunately, such is the case with the Body Mass Index (BMI), a weight-to-height ratio used by health care providers, insurance companies and the scientific community.

There is growing criticism for the use of BMI. For example, it doesn't take body composition (fat versus muscle) into account, and a person's weight doesn't correlate directly with their health. However, there's not much mainstream discussion about its racist roots or the way it furthers the oppression of and discrimination against certain groups.

A growing number of experts believe it's time to change that.

The BMI is inherently racist and sexist.

The racist roots of the BMI go back a long way. Created by Belgian mathematician Adolphe Quetelet in 1832 as the "Quetelet Index," the scale was created using data from predominantly European men to measure weight in different populations.

Although Quetelet noted that it was a population-level tool and not meant to be used on individuals, physiologist Ancel Keys reintroduced the calculation in 1972 as the Body Mass Index, and it has since been adopted by the medical community as a way to measure individual health. A BMI outside the "normal" range (18.5-25) is considered less healthy, and an indicator of greater health risks.

While the BMI has countless failings as a reliable tool, racism is chief among them, said Sabrina Strings, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine.

"It is racist, and also sexist, to use mostly white men within your study population and then try to extrapolate that and create norms and expectations for women and people of color," Strings told HuffPost. "They have not been included in the initial clinical analyses, and therefore their actual health outcomes cannot be determined by these findings."

In short, the way BMI is being used is unscientific because of its origins and the homogenous population it was created from.

Weight standards have long been used to perpetuate racism.

In her book " Fearing the Black Body," Strings outlines the history of body standards and the ways in which thinness was used to uphold white superiority as recently as the early 20th century.

She describes how the thin bodies of northern and western Europeans were upheld as the ideal, while the often larger bodies of eastern and southern Europeans, as well as Africans, were considered signs of their inferiority. All of this was before we really knew anything about the (still blurry and confounding) relationship between weight and health. The modern BMI and its categories ― underweight, normal, overweight and obese ― have inherited much of that racism.

"Even after all of the work that I've done and the work that I've read about the creation of these weight categories, I've long wondered, 'Who is this even based on?'" Strings said. "This 18.5-25 'normal' BMI category that they arbitrarily came up with ― what is that even about? There's something so strange about that. I feel almost certain that they were not researching people in places like Samoa, where people can be healthier at much heavier weights."

"There are so many ramifications of trying to create one normative table for the diverse people of the world," Strings added. "The whole thing is preposterous."

LeoPatrizi via Getty Images

Making assumptions about a person's health based on their BMI is preposterous.

Racism aside, BMI just isn't a very good measure of a person's overall health.

"At present day, [BMI] has been widely adopted by the medical world as a shorthand for healthy or unhealthy," said Jennifer Gaudiani, an internal medicine physician and certified eating disorder specialist based in Denver, Colorado. "That fact is unscientific and harmful."

For one thing, it can blind physicians to a patient's actual medical conditions. Many males with anorexia nervosa go undiagnosed because they are technically within the "normal" BMI category, Gaudiani said. The same thing happens to people at higher weights, who often don't get screened for eating disorders despite things like significant recent weight loss, symptoms of malnutrition or reported eating disorder behaviors.

"There are so many ramifications of trying to create one normative table for the diverse people of the world. The whole thing is preposterous."

Gaudiani described another instance where a former patient of hers had lymphoma that was written off by her former doctor as "part of her fat neck" until it was stage 4.

While Strings and Gaudiani both pointed out that weight is linked to certain medical conditions, they emphasized that being at a certain weight doesn't make a person healthy or unhealthy.

The experience of racism can affect BMI.

It's important to note that while the average adult American BMI falls into the "overweight" category, there are marked differences between ethnic groups. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the prevalence of "obesity" (a BMI over 30) is highest among Black adults, followed by non-Black Hispanic adults. But it's discriminatory and unfair to make blanket statements without examining why this is the case.

"The question is, what contributed to higher weight across an entire [ethnic] population? The answer lies in poverty, in minority stress, in experienced traumas related to food inaccessibility and fear and worry in the household about safety or financial security," Gaudiani said. "It lies in the propulsion of diet culture onto certain groups in ways that start weight cycling from a really early age and do not honor body diversity."

She explained that a young girl of color might go to a pediatrician at age 7 or 8 and be told that they're fat, when in fact they're just experiencing a normal prepubescent weight surge earlier than a young white girl might.

"That sets up in them a body consciousness and fearfulness or maybe even dieting pattern, that may indeed affect metabolism and, later in life, body weight," Guadiani said.

What's more, just the experience of racism can affect a person's weight and BMI.

"I think that racism has a multi-system impact on the body," said Lesley Williams, a family medicine physician and certified eating disorder specialist based in Phoenix, Arizona. "It's waking up every day and dealing with micro- and macro-aggressions that you're maybe not even familiar with but your body is absorbing ... It has an impact on stress levels, which can then increase cortisol levels, which then impacts the body's composition."

FatCamera via Getty Images

In turn, those at higher BMIs experience even more discrimination.

While discrimination and lack of access to quality medical care can affect BMI, they can also simultaneously be the result of a higher BMI ― an endless cycle.

Williams explained that many doctors believe that when a person is at a higher BMI, it is not only their right but their obligation as a doctor to try and intervene: to encourage the patient to lose weight, discuss the patient's body size and eating habits without the patient's permission, and address this "issue" of weight before discussing whatever medical problem the patient may have come in for.

"That's doing harm, and can negatively impact someone's mental and physical health," Williams said.

"I've had so many patients who have specifically sought me out in the past because I advertise that it's a safe environment, who have been avoiding health care because they have felt that it is unsafe," Williams added. "I hear time and time again, 'My physician wouldn't listen to me. I had this myriad of complaints that had nothing to do with my weight, and all they wanted to do was talk about my weight, and I was not being served, and I've just elected not to go back.'"

As Gaudiani mentioned, this can lead to legitimate health issues going unchecked and unmonitored, which in itself can greatly worsen health outcomes. Yes, a person's weight might serve as one data point in their medical profile, but no single number can determine how healthy someone is overall.

"We cannot use weight as a marker of health," Gaudiani said. "It just does not correlate, except on the very extremes."

"We cannot use weight as a marker of health. It just does not correlate, except on the very extremes."

Unfortunately, there's no easy substitute. Both Gaudiani and Williams agree that the answer isn't to just replace the BMI with another basic measurement ― say, taking a person's muscle mass or body fat percentage and using that instead. These too are only single factors, and can't predict health outcomes.

Instead, Williams thinks that doctors must take all of a person's health markers into account when determining their health. That includes factors like their background, their stress levels, their access to food and dietary habits, any underlying health concerns or conditions, their relationship with movement and exercise and more.

Of course, this takes more time and doesn't come out to a single number that can be entered into a chart.

"I think BMI is used because it's a very blunt tool, if you will, and it's easy," she said. Instead of making assumptions based on a patient's BMI, she focuses on whatever issue brought them to her office, collects the data she needs, and targets her intervention based on those specifics. It might be a little more time-consuming, but it's also more accurate and patient-centered.

The BMI won't disappear overnight, nor will racism or discrimination against those at higher weights. But the number of physicians and other experts beginning to reject, or at least seriously question, its validity as a tool for measuring health is growing. While we all work to break down racism and racist systems in America, we must also hold the medical community accountable for their role in perpetuating these systems through the use of flawed tools like BMI.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The BMI Is Racist And Useless. Here's How To Measure Health Instead.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If a research group today conducted a study on a single gender or ethnic group, critics would be quick to point out that its findings couldn't reasonably be applied to anyone outside of that gender or group. It seems like basic logic, right?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By: Emily Cutler and Kaz DeWolfe

In Consultation With: Megan Mills, Keith Gottschalk, and Malaika Puffer

Photo by Tatiana Gill, purchased from stock.bodyliberationphotos.com

As anti-diet and size equality activists in the mental health recovery and peer movement, we have unfortunately witnessed a surprising amount of fatphobia and sizeism within peer/recovery spaces. For example, we have witnessed fat activists being body shamed and told to lose weight by other people in the movement, as well as receiving unsolicited recommendations to come off psychiatric medication in order to be thinner. While the mental health recovery movement often claims to view mental health through the lens of social justice, recognizing the ways mental health and well-being are affected by various forms of oppression and marginalization, sizeism and diet culture often go unacknowledged as sources of distress and inequality.

In order for the recovery movement to be truly social justice informed, we believe that it needs to be aligned with anti-diet, pro size equality values. We define size equality as the absence of discrimination and bias on the basis of size, shape, and weight, as well as the recognition of sizeism as a form of systemic oppression that needs to be addressed. Diet culture, which goes hand in hand with sizeism, is the idealization of thinness as equivalent to health, wellness, and self-discipline, and the promotion of restricting food intake and exercising in order to become thinner. Anti-diet and size equality values recognize that an individual's weight does not determine their health, nor is it indicative of what food or exercise choices they may make. Nor does it reflect on the person's degree of personal cleanliness, industriousness, or self-control.

Size equality and anti-diet activism are not only important in and of themselves, but they are crucial components of anti-racism and feminist activism. Diet culture and sizeism are rooted in patriarchal and white supremacist ideologies. Historically, Black bodies have been associated with fatness as a way to reinforce the stereotype of Black people as lazy, gluttonous, and lacking self-control, and to justify the enslavement and oppression of Black people. (Click here to read about the racist roots of the BMI.) In our contemporary medical system, the disproportionate rates of health problems among Black people are often misattributed to their weight and size, allowing us to overlook the role structural racism plays in the health of people of color. Similarly, diet culture is often used as a tool of patriarchy: women and femmes are encouraged to shrink their bodies as much as possible and focus on pursuing the thin ideal, rather than pursuing their dreams and passions. As part of striving toward racial justice and gender justice within the peer and recovery movement, it is incredibly important to center size equality and fat justice as part of this.

Combating sizeism and diet culture are also important components of opposing healthism, i.e. a belief system that judges people's human worth according to their health status. Healthism views individuals' health as the result of their personal choices and perpetuates the idea that individuals are morally obligated to pursue societal definitions of health. This belief system overlooks the impact of structural oppression, abuses, and social inequities on our health. It also fosters ableism and prejudice against disabled and chronically ill folks. Diet culture often misattributes health problems caused by external or genetic factors to people's food or exercise habits, which can result in victim-blaming and shaming attitudes. Additionally, it promotes the myth that we are somehow morally obligated to make particular food or exercise choices. As mental health activists, it is important to emphasize that our worth is not dependent on our health. And it is important to acknowledge the complexity of factors that can affect our health that have nothing to do with personal choices or behaviors.

Below is a list of ways that we feel the recovery movement can become more aligned with size equality, anti-diet, and anti-healthist values.

-Research the Health At Every Size paradigm, and the harms of diet culture and sizeism. If you are still defending the idea that thinness is better or healthier than fatness, please know that you are actively doing harm to people in larger bodies and people with eating disorders/disordered eating. This is true even if you claim to be accepting of people of all sizes.

-Research the Fat Acceptance/Fat Liberation Movement, and the principles, ideals, and history of the struggle for human rights of people in larger bodies. It is important to understand that Fat Acceptance and Fat Liberation activism are not just about "learning to love one's body" or being "body positive." They are about recognizing and combating the systemic abuses and oppression faced by people in larger bodies.

-Acknowledge the racist, patriarchal, and capitalist roots of diet culture and sizeism. There is a whole lot of research showing that our society's promotion of thinness was not borne out of a desire for people to be healthier. It was borne out of patriarchy, racism, and capitalism. You cannot claim to be a feminist or anti-racist if you are still promoting diet culture and weight loss. For more information on this, we recommend checking out The Body is Not An Apologyand Fearing the Black Body. Additionally, it is very important to connect diet culture and body shaming to our predatory capitalist and profit-driven system. An estimated 45 million Americans go on a diet each year; and Americans spend $33 billion each year on weight loss products (source: bmc.org). A major focus of commercial advertising is the covert and overt message that not only is something wrong with you, but you also won't find love or acceptance unless you buy a particular product. These messages are everywhere and inescapable.

-Stop making assumptions about people's health, food choices, or exercise habits on the basis of their appearance. As mental health activists, we know that people who are depressed and suicidal sometimes mask it and look like they are just fine. On the other hand, people may be talking to themselves as a result of hearing voices or fidgeting/stimming and be totally okay with this. Similarly, people in larger bodies may be engaging in restrictive eating and starving themselves, while people in smaller bodies may be eating a lot and not exercising. You can't judge what kinds of habits a person has based on appearance or size. Also, food choices and exercise habits play only a small role in our health and well-being. What plays a much bigger role is socioeconomic status, access to healthcare and other resources, and social connectedness. (You know what really doesn't make a person feel socially connected? Your assumptions about them based on their size.)

-Stop making judgments about people's food choices. Our nutritional needs and reasons for eating different types of food are far too complex for dietary habits/food choices to be categorized as either "healthy" or "unhealthy," or for any particular food group or type of food to be demonized. All foods can be part of a healthy, balanced diet (aside from legitimate medical conditions/allergies). Some people may experience feelings of being "out of control" around food or concerns around overeating (which can occur in individuals of any weight or size); this is NOT due to lack of self-control but rather could be for any number of reasons. Many studies show that physical and emotional restriction is a major cause of feeling "out of control" around food. Others may experience this concern due to trauma, loss, food insecurity, and other external factors that have nothing to do with self-control or self-discipline. Sometimes, food can be a healthy and healing way to cope with trauma or tough emotions, as the shared experience of cooking and eating can bring people together, or particular foods may serve as reminders of positive memories or cultural values. Regardless of why anyone is making a particular food choice, it is important to stop judging whether a food choice is "good" or "bad" or assigning moral value to it.

-Stop using stigmatizing/pathologizing language like "obesity" and "overweight." These are terms designed to pathologize fatness/higher weights and promote medical interventions that have proven to cause far more harm than good, such as intentional weight loss and restrictive eating. Language like "higher weight people," "people in larger bodies," and "people in bigger bodies" is much more neutral and descriptive rather than pathologizing. In addition, many people are reclaiming the term "fat" as a descriptive word rather than an insult. Please respect people's choices to identify as fat rather than using euphemisms or pathologizing language.

-Center the voices of fat activists/people in larger bodies. Include size diversity as part of your efforts to make your organizational staff, board, keynote speakers at conferences, etc. more diverse. If all of your staff members, keynote speakers, etc. are thin, this sends a strong message about who you think of as worthy of these titles.

-Acknowledge your own thin/straight-sized privilege when sharing your recovery story (if this applies to you). If you are not categorized as "overweight" or "obese," you have had the benefit of not being denied medical care, job opportunities, quality mental health care, etc. due to your weight, as well as not facing constant and pervasive sizeism from people around you. While we are sure that you worked very hard for your recovery and deserve to be proud of it, it is important to acknowledge that the process was made less difficult by not having to face these obstacles.

-Acknowledge sizeism and weight stigma as a real social issue and source of distress/crisis/suicidality. Too often, sizeism and weight stigma are trivialized in the movement. We have seen these forms of oppression framed as an individual need to "learn to love themselves" and "have a better body image." The reality is that sizeism and weight stigma are systemic, not individual issues; higher weight individuals are frequently denied medical treatment, job opportunities, and quality mental health care on the basis of their weight. One study recently showed that one in eight adults experience suicidal thoughts due to negative thoughts about their bodies; another study shows that the odds of suicidal ideation are significantly greater for adolescents categorized as "obese" relative to those who are not. This is rooted in incredibly harmful cultural messages around weight and size. Sizeism has dangerous consequences that should not be dismissed. The dismissal/trivialization of sizeism and diet culture amounts to trauma upon trauma - in addition to experiencing judgment and shame, and any disordered eating behaviors this leads to, many people endure minimization of their experiences. The traumatic effect of sizeism, weight stigma, and diet culture on our mental health should be acknowledged in peer support and trauma-informed care trainings and advocacy efforts.

-Acknowledge eating disorders as a form of lived experience that needs to be talked about. We feel that while the recovery movement does an excellent job highlighting the voices of people with lived experience of many different mental health diagnoses and experiences, people with eating disorders/concerns are often overlooked. This is especially true for higher weight people, who are often praised for disordered eating behaviors and discouraged from recovery. This is also true for people of color, disabled people, trans people, and other marginalized groups; eating disorders are largely assumed to only affect thin,white, young cis women, which is a harmful myth.

-Acknowledge the absolutely life-destroying and soul-shattering effects of eating disorders and disordered eating. Eating disorders are one of the most deadly mental health issues. Restrictive eating, over exercise, weight cycling, and other disordered eating behaviors severely impact the body on a physical level. Emotionally, being consumed by self-hating thoughts about one's body and the obsession with pursuing thinness leaves little room for just about anything else in one's life. People with eating disorders are not only at increased risk of a wide variety of physical/neurological health complications (heart failure, heart problems, kidney failure, GI problems, osteoporosis, insomnia, memory loss, cognitive impairments), but also face a far higher risk of suicide. Almost everyone in a malnourished state experiences depression and anxiety; restricting food intake can even induce paranoia and psychosis. All of these risks are present for those with eating disorders regardless of size/weight. For a detailed account of how starvation can destroy the body and mind, even years after a person has begun the re-feeding process, we recommend reading the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. There is absolutely no doubt that starvation, malnourishment, and body shaming are traumatic for people regardless of size; please recognize this when providing and teaching trauma-informed care.

-Stop encouraging weight loss as part of initiatives to promote health among people with mental health issues. It is great that so many peer-run and recovery organizations want to help people with mental health issues to take steps toward improving their physical wellness. However, studies show that intentional weight loss is far more harmful than helpful to our physical and mental health, and a person's weight does not determine their health. Sizeism and weight stigma are far more harmful to our physical and mental health than so-called "obesity." Also, evidence shows that dieting does not work: 95 percent of diets fail, and dieting is much more likely to lead to a disordered relationship with food and weight cycling than any long-term health benefits.

-Stop promoting restriction, diets, or "healthy eating" as part of wellness. Even if you're not promoting weight loss directly (which is great!), you might be unintentionally promoting diet culture through the encouragement of restricting food intake, cutting back on certain food groups, or encouraging people to eat more "healthy" foods and fewer "unhealthy" foods. The reality is that all foods have important nutrients our bodies need, and categorizing food as "healthy" or "unhealthy" is oversimplistic. Categorizing food this way, or encouraging people to reduce food intake in any way (this includes cutting back on certain food groups), can quickly lead to disordered eating habits. If you want to include food as part of promoting health and wellness, focus on encouraging people to eat ENOUGH food (that is one of our primary needs, and unfortunately many people don't do this out of their fear of gaining weight) and not restrict their intake. For more information about the harms of restriction and reducing food intake, look into the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

-Acknowledge the real, even fatal impact of fatphobia and sizeism in both mental and physical healthcare. Sizeism often causes medical professionals to overlook potentially deadly health issues as a result of misattributing symptoms to a person's weight. Similarly, mental healthcare professionals sometimes encourage people in larger bodies to diet and pursue weight loss rather than offering them quality emotional support and therapy. It is important to make sure not to perpetuate the same dynamic in peer-led/recovery services.

-Stop referring people to food addiction support groups (e.g. Overeaters Anonymous, Food Addicts Anonymous, etc). We understand and recognize that many people feel "addicted" to food, and that is totally valid. However, many studies show that the sensation of "food addiction" most often results from restriction -when we deprive ourselves physically or emotionally of foods, our bodies crave them and we feel out of control with them. So many people have found a way to a healthier relationship with their bodies and minds and eating through allowing all foods and aiming to listen to their body's signals rather than shutting them down. Many food addiction programs do a great deal of damage by encouraging people to restrict their food intake and completely eliminate particular food groups, which is widely recognized as disordered and harmful by most dieticians. Please exercise caution in referrals to groups that encourage restrictive eating. If someone is interested in a 12-step group for eating disorders, we recommend Eating Disorders Anonymous, which encourages balance rather than abstinence. There are also many eating disorder support groups led by HAES aligned dieticians and therapists.

-Please be cautious in recommending exercise/movement as a way to improve wellness/mental health. Many people do find mental health (and physical health) benefits from exercise, but many others have a disordered/compulsive relationship with exercise. For people with disordered eating habits and eating disorders, exercise is often used as a form of self-injury and punishment for eating. For people in eating disorder recovery, it is often recommended to abstain from exercise for a significant period of time. Instead of recommending exercise, we recommend exploring joyful movement, which is any form of movement that a person enjoys. This could include anything from stretching to dancing in one's chair to washing the dishes or folding laundry. Please be sensitive and respectful to whatever a person's individual movement needs/preferences are.

-Recognize eating disorders as valid and the need for many people to use this language to point out the harm done to them by diet culture. Many people in the recovery movement are critical of various psychiatric diagnoses and advocate for less pathologizing/stigmatizing language to be used. This is very important, and we strongly support people's rights to talk about the harm that has been done to them due to receiving a particular diagnosis. However, we also ask that you recognize that for many people, receiving an eating disorder diagnosis can be a crucial part of healing. Many people are encouraged, praised, and applauded for engaging in disordered eating behaviors. Individuals who are starving themselves or using compensatory behaviors are often praised and assumed to be "healthy" due to losing weight. It can be scary to let go of these behaviors due to the fear that restoring weight will result in less praise/social valuation. For this reason, receiving a diagnosis of an eating disorder can be helpful in claiming the right to stop punishing oneself through disordered eating and to acknowledge the real, tangible harm that diet culture has caused.

-Include accommodations for people in larger bodies at conferences and events. Make sure your events are accessible to people in larger bodies! If you need help with this, hire a fat positive consultant to make this happen. This brings more people into the movement and helps them feel welcomed and accommodated.

-Stop talking about weight gain as the worst thing that can happen as a result of psychiatric medication, and using weight gain as evidence of psychiatric medication being unhealthy. We recognize that many, many people have valid reasons to talk about negative experiences with psychiatric medication. Psychiatric medication can have many adverse effects that cause emotional and physical suffering. However, please stop portraying weight gain as inherently bad, and especially as a reason not to take psychiatric medication. It's perfectly okay to acknowledge that it can be difficult to gain weight in a sizeist society, but there is not necessarily anything inherently unhealthy or bad about weight gain. How would you feel if someone said, "I came off all my psychiatric medication so that I wouldn't have to look like you!" This is how these conversations can sound to people in larger bodies. Please be sensitive in how you discuss this.

-Recognize that health is not a moral imperative or a universal value. No one owes health to anyone else; being "healthy" or "unhealthy" does not make anyone more or less valuable. In addition, health means different things to people and there is no one-size-fits-all definition. Anti-diet and size equality activism mean respecting everyone's right to define health for themselves.

-Make sure to take an intersectional approach when discussing issues of sizeism, diet culture, and disordered eating/eating disorders. Like all social justice issues, people of color, LGBTQ people, and disabled people are disproportionately impacted by sizeism and diet culture and often do not have access to treatment for eating disorders/disordered eating. It is very important to center the voices of people with multiple marginalized identities in all social justice conversations. Some activists who are doing incredible work to discuss the intersections of diet culture with other systems of oppression include Sonya Renee Taylor, Sam Dylan Finch, Jess Stohlmann-Rainey, Haley Jones, Alishia McCullough, Shelby Gordon, and Jessica Wilson.

Recommended Resources:
Food Psych Podcast Association for Size Diversity and Health National Eating Disorders Association National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance Trans Folx Fighting Eating Disorders Nalgona Positivity Pride The Body Is Not An Apology The Minnesota Starvation Experiment Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand About Weight
Click here for a piece by Keith Gottschalk about his personal experiences of fatphobia and diet culture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Need for Size Equality in the Mental Health Recovery Movement: Ways that Peer/Recovery...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By: Emily Cutler and Kaz DeWolfe In Consultation With: Megan Mills, Keith Gottschalk, and Malaika Puffer As anti-diet and size equality activists in the mental health recovery and peer movement, we have unfortunately witnessed a surprising amount of fatphobia and sizeism within peer/recovery spaces.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Judith Matz, LCSW, ACSW, is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of diet culture, binge eating, emotional eating, body image, and weight stigma. She is co-author of The Diet Survivor's Handbook and Beyond a Shadow of a Diet, and author of the children's book Amanda's Big Dream. Her work has been featured in the media including NPR, New York Times, and Psychotherapy Networker. Judith has a private practice in Skokie, IL. www.judithmatz.com

Amy Pershing, LMSW, ACSW, CCTP-II, is the founder of the Bodywise Binge Eating Disorder Recovery Program and Clinical Director of the Center for Eating Disorders in Ann Arbor, MI. Amy is an internationally known pioneer in the treatment of binge eating disorder, weight stigma, and body image. She is the author of Binge Eating Disorder: The Journey to Recovery and Beyond. She practices at her center in Ann Arbor. www.thebodywiseprogram.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Judith Matz, LCSW, ACSW, is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of diet culture, binge eating, emotional eating, body image, and weight stigma. She is co-author of The Diet Survivor's Handbook and Beyond a Shadow of a Diet, and author of the children's book Amanda's Big Dream.

# data[].attributes.headline
California May Stop School Physical Fitness Tests – That’s Great News

# data[].attributes.subject
California May Stop School Physical Fitness Tests – That’s Great News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Actor and activist Matt McGorry shares how he lost himself to diet culture - and what it took to come home

CW: disordered eating and exercise

I've gained quite a bit of weight. I mean, I've really let go. And as a result, my health has been impacted.I have a healthier relationship with my body than ever before. I've let go of internalized fatphobia, and all correlating notions that I have to look a certain way to deserve love, dignity, and respect. Yeah, I've really let go of the myths and bullshit around what my body is supposed to look like. And I'm more joyful, more free, and more fulfilled because of it.

I'll always remember my first big shirtless scene on television. It was also my first big acting gig, as Correctional Officer John Bennett on Orange Is the New Black. I was still moonlighting as a personal trainer at the time, and I prepared for the scene accordingly. In the two weeks before the shoot, I shifted from my normally restrictive diet to something more severe, rapidly dropping weight as a result. I also doubled my time in the gym and had a dehydration plan - a standard for bodybuilders, most fitness models, and many actors. As a result, my energy tanked, my sex drive became nonexistent, and I was constantly irritable and miserable, which put a good deal of strain on my relationship with the woman I was living with at the time. My free-falling energy levels made it impossible to focus on anything other than making it to the next meal, my obsession with food and losing weight, and my body, which I checked in the mirror many times a day. All the while, most of the people around me offered me the validation I craved as I pushed myself to unhealthy extremes.

The social power afforded to me as I reached the ideal body type was undeniable. I was high on it all.

Of course, this unhealthy obsession - and the resulting positive feedback loop - didn't develop overnight. I was 14 when I first began working out with a personal trainer, and 18 when I became one myself. Before that, I was often teased for being chubby, as so many of us are as kids. I remember once, in an act of desperation, swimming countless laps in the pool at summer camp, only to pass out on my cabin floor afterward. Another memory: ordering exercise DVDs that promised "ripped abs," and taking whatever diet pills came with them. This was all before high school.

But things began to change as my body did. The bullying stopped; there was no more being made fun of. Instead, I was admired for my discipline, work ethic, and willingness to sacrifice in many other areas of my life - prized attributes in our hyper-individualistic, bootstrap culture, especially for men. The social power afforded to me as I reached the ideal body type was undeniable. I was high on it all. It had always been explicitly clear to me that some bodies were more valuable than others - that much is unmistakable, for anyone who grew up in this culture - but the experience of trading in my softer, chubbier body for a muscular one made this realization a part of my personal narrative.

Becoming a personal trainer would allow me to distance myself even further from that chubby kid and the pain he'd endured - or, that was the hope. It probably looked like I'd succeeded from the outside: I rose to the top of my field over the course of a decade, writing for magazines like Men's Fitness and Men's Health while competing as a nationally ranked powerlifter. I even won a bodybuilding competition - with dangerously low body fat levels, of course. I'd wanted to prove my ability to exert discipline over my body, and to gain the social benefits that came with it - and I did, fleeting as they were. The owner of my gym, who agreed to measure my body fat a week before the competition, gave me his nod of approval for the first time ever when he told me I'd reached a ridiculously low body fat percentage (which was also very unhealthy, not to mention unsustainable). My win also meant other trainers and experts now saw me at a new level, which translated into more clients, more media exposure, more assumed credibility, and more revenue.

But now, when I look at pictures of myself from the day after the competition, I remember deprivation, not success. I remember being so dehydrated I would dream about water. My body was incapable of producing enough heat to stay warm, even in reasonable temperatures. My sex drive was nearly non-existent, with nothing coming out when I orgasmed. And I was proud of this, all of it.

My heart sank when I went in to record sound for post-production and caught a brief preview of my first shirtless scene. I felt I should've been leaner. That I had fucked up this opportunity to show how "great" my body could be, how worthy I was of being cast as a "leading man" - and of the success and validation that came along with such a role. I was desperately trying to make my mark on Hollywood, get my foot fully in the door. And seeing myself on screen, I felt I'd blown my opportunity. But when the show aired, no one had anything to say other than that I was "hot," or that I had a six pack. And while this felt good at the time, it still could not assuage the deep insecurity that existed within me.

No, people didn't make terrible comments about my body online, the way I'd anticipated they would. No one did, except the owner of the gym I worked at, who jokingly advised me that I should see him for advice next time, if I really wanted to get lean. Only, he wasn't joking. The message was that I wasn't as lean as I should have been. And I agreed with him - not with the overwhelmingly positive feedback I'd received from everyone else. I remember thinking, "What I had in that scene is not a six pack." When I'd say this to other people, they'd tell me I was "lean enough." Unfortunately, the lack of negative feedback could not counter my investment in the oppressive standards I felt my body needed to meet, and the harm I caused myself trying to fit those norms.

In taking extreme measures to "achieve" this deprived body, I was unknowingly complicit in inflating the standards of what is considered "normal."

Instead, the image of my "imperfect" body on TV recycled itself again and again in my head. I'd set this nearly impossible bar for myself that I imagined I'd now always have to aspire to. And as a public figure, I was also setting the bar for other men and boys, who saw me on their televisions and absorbed what a "real man" should look like from my example - even as I felt unable to meet this oppressive standard myself. In using my bodybuilding photos for the press I'd do as an actor, in taking extreme measures to "achieve" this deprived body, I was unknowingly complicit in inflating the standards of what is considered "normal."

I upheld this "normal" by restricting my food intake to maintain what I deemed low body fat levels, despite almost always feeling that I was losing this unwinnable game. I convinced myself that what I called "eating with moderation" or "being healthy" or "ditching bad habits" was about health. I was clueless about the impact all of this was having on my actual health, not to mention my happiness or ability to thrive as a person. As it often is in our culture, the facade of "health" was a smokescreen for what was, primarily, about looking a certain way.

The ability to pummel my body into submission, to reach a valued place in the hierarchy of men's bodies: this allowed me to feel superior...to the images I believed I was supposed to emulate.

I don't mean to give the impression that I wasn't proud of some aspects of my physical achievements; that's not the case. But a lifetime invested in diet culture never brought me to a point where I regularly felt satisfied with myself. No matter what "fitness" goal I reached, it never resulted in a real, deep sense of well-being, born of self-love and self-respect. More and more, it became difficult to confuse the high of external validation for a true sense of joy. My sense of power was not rooted in genuine confidence, but in a mindset of domination, which our culture teaches everyone - but especially boys and men - to value from a young age. The ability to pummel my body into submission, to reach a valued place in the hierarchy of men's bodies: this allowed me to feel superior - or, at least most of the time, not inferior - to the images I believed I was supposed to emulate. But self-love never followed because, when it comes down to it, love is never born out of domination and control - whether it's the love we share with others or the love we show ourselves.

What is diet culture? Dr. Kate Browne defines it as "a system of knowledge, values, and meanings that supports interpretations of personal health choices as moral character." You might think your eating habits exempt you from this system, but it's not as simple as it sounds. I never called my eating habits "dieting," either; we'd created plenty of euphemisms for it by then. Perhaps you've also restricted your intake in the name of "clean eating," "moderation," "healthy eating," "a lifestyle change," or a "nutrition program." Even Intuitive Eating, an inherently anti-diet movement, is now being co-opted and packaged as a way to lose or "manage" weight. If you're still tempted to dismiss the influence this system has over you, remember the "culture" in "diet culture" - the impulse to restrict or otherwise "manage" our diets is ingrained in the collective; it's not something we can opt out of without consciously choosing to do so.

And until we do, we won't think twice about the messages we receive from commercials or at the grocery store, where foods are described as "good" or "bad" - labels that easily translate to how we feel about ourselves when we eat them. How about the vast number of foods marketed as "guilt-free," and how most of us rarely stop to question the harmful implication that we deserve to feel guilty when we make "sinful" food choices? We feel we've earned "being bad" or a "cheat day" when we've "been good" long enough, or once we've paid penance with a workout that "killed" us. Meanwhile, a fat person could do serious damage to their health through dieting, overexercising, or having an eating disorder - in fact, many do - and they would still never measure up to cultural assumptions of how they "should" look. (They'd still receive constant reminders that they're "just not trying hard enough," though.) This is diet culture. And, together with fatphobia, it leads to many horrific situations. By the age of 10, 80% of girls have been on a diet and, in a large study of 14 and 15 year olds, dieting was the greatest predictor of developing an eating disorder. Those who dieted moderately were five times more likely to develop an eating disorder, and those who practiced extreme restriction were 18 times more likely to develop an eating disorder than those who did not.

You may be familiar with those stats - no doubt young, thin, white, middle-to-upper class women are often thought of as the "face" of disordered eating and body issues. But this short-sighted vision of diet culture is inaccurate, and it masks very real problems for everyone else. Trans people, for example, experience eating disorders at much higher rates than cisgender women and men. People in larger bodies exhibit disordered eating at higher rates than straight size populations, too, yet they're half as likely to receive a clinical diagnosis. And low income communities face unique challenges at the intersection of food scarcity and diet culture, which we overlook in favor of the narratives our culture is accustomed to. In Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison writes:

A 2017 study of [a] low-income population in urban San Antonio, for instance, found that food insecurity is associated with significant levels of rebound eating, with more than 56 percent of participants reporting binge eating, overeating, or night eating. The risk of these issues increases with rising levels of deprivation, and 17 percent of people with the most severe food insecurity were found to meet the clinical criteria for an eating disorder - far higher than the single-digit rates of clinically diagnosed eating disorders in the general population. This shows that the stereotypical view of eating disorders as a disease of wealthy white folks is sorely mistaken; most of the participants in this study were Latinx and black people living far below the poverty line.

Food insecurity and diet culture don't exist in separate silos, either: the same study found that those with the greatest degree of food insecurity also had the highest levels of internalized weight stigma, as well as the highest levels of bulimic behaviors and overexercising as a way to compensate for eating. (Those last two findings surprised even the researchers, who had expected not to find compensatory behaviors in this highly food-insecure population). So even if binge eating begins in response to food insecurity rather than concerns about weight and shape, it's clear that diet-culture beliefs about body size also come into play for those who lack reliable access to food.

Oppressive systems and societal beliefs always have a negative impact on the collective, regardless of their intended target. For example, patriarchy privileges men over women and non-binary people, while simultaneously dehumanizing men. You can see this in the way our culture conflates masculinity with an inability to feel or express emotions, or in the way we treat male teachers or nurses - any male in a caretaking role, really - as suspect. You may know, logically, that you are not a direct target of fatphobia - yet that does not protect you from absorbing unconscious beliefs and standards that affect how you value yourself and others. Only when I began to do the deep and uncomfortable work of learning how all aspects of my life had been impacted by patriarchy could I see how my relationships with other people, of all genders, were harmed by the beliefs I'd internalized. And only when we understand the origins of our ingrained beliefs around weight and food, and how they're perpetuated daily, can we make a conscious choice to free ourselves of them.

Understanding the impact internalized and societal fatphobia has had on my own health and psyche has required me to simultaneously hold two ideas in my head. The first: I am among the most privileged in our society. I'm a white, non-disabled, cisgender straight man who has financial privilege and fame. I have a body type that more closely aligns with what's considered "good looking" and traditionally masculine. These attributes give me privilege and access. The second: That I must learn to recognize the privileges I have, even as I allow myself to feel my pain and create room for my healing. That, despite my privilege, the pressure to conform to an ideal was, and still is, enormous.

This is why the work I do - as a man committed to feminism or as a white person committed to anti-racism - is not a charitable act, or a favor for women and/or people of color. I do it because I understand my stake in dismantling any system of oppression that degrades my humanity or otherwise keeps me silent and complicit. I understand how the pressure to conform to traditional notions of masculinity has lulled me into upholding the oppression of women and gender non-conforming people, while also stealing my happiness and wholeness. Just consider such joy-stealing slogans as "pain is weakness leaving the body" - ideas like this cause men to deprive themselves, self-administering pain and courting disconnection just to get high on the noxious fumes of power. We are all negatively impacted by such oppressive systems. And yet, those with the most privilege - the foremost benefactors of these systems - are still in the best position to dismantle them.

It's not enough to change the way we feel about ourselves as individuals; we have to change the way we feel about fatness as a whole.

That's why, however difficult it may be, those of us with great privilege cannot afford to limit this conversation to our individual struggles. My lifelong battle with body image has been painful, even at a more culturally acceptable size, yet it is still different than experiencing fatphobia in bodies that are larger than mine. We mustn't equate the experience of body image issues (which can occur among people of all sizes) with the marginalization experienced by those in larger bodies. When we in smaller bodies do not name or acknowledge our privilege in these conversations, we often erase these differences, lumping everything under the more palatable banner of "everyone struggles with body image." This elevates the experience of those who already live in more privileged bodies, and distracts from the more severe consequences that anti-fat oppression has on those most marginalized by fatphobia: people in larger bodies.

It's not enough to change the way we feel about ourselves as individuals; we have to change the way we feel about fatness as a whole. And in order to do that, we need to understand the ways we've been conditioned to see fat as a moral failure, which has roots - like so many issues do - in the oppressive system of racism. In her seminal text, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, Sabrina Strings writes:

It is not surprising that the French and British were at the helm of the eighteenth century racial scientific discourse marking black people as 'gluttonous.' The growing codification of black people as greedy eaters developed against the backdrop of the accelerating slave trade among these two colonial powers of the eighteenth century. This, together with the exigencies of reasoned self-management in the context of High Enlightenment, transformed the act of eating from personal to political. Indulging in food, once deemed by philosophers to be a lowbrow predilection of slow-witted persons, became evidence of actual low-brow breeding. It bespoke an inborn, race-specific propensity for laziness and ease, an unbridled desire to meet the demands of the flesh at the expense of cultivating higher pursuits. Such behavior was deemed wholly uncharacteristic of the rational thinkers sitting atop the new racial hierarchy.

Fatphobia is why, in large part, we see stereotypes about fat people mirroring those of Black people, and why those who share both identities experience exponential levels of oppression. Stereotypes suggesting laziness, gluttony, overindulgence, lack of control, unintelligence, etc. are all used against fat people and people of color, particularly Black people. And like fat people, Black people suffer the consequences of these stereotypes when seeking medical help or guidance. In a 2006 study, clinicians were presented with identical case studies of patients with disordered eating symptoms. When the patient was identified as white, 44% of the clinicians identified the behavior as problematic. When the patient was identified as Black, only 17% of the clinicians found that same behavior problematic. The clinicians were also less likely to recommend that Black women seek professional help.

Anonymous writer Your Fat Friend illustrates how this medical bias plays out in the daily lives of fat people. In an essay for Self magazine, she describes her many dehumanizing experiences with doctors, which kept her out of their offices for a decade. She describes one doctor recoiling at the sight of her, telling her to lose weight before she came back again - all without examining her, or even touching her. During another appointment, a nurse took her blood pressure four times because she couldn't believe it was in the normal range. She writes, "Every doctor I saw looked past me. They did not ask about my diet or exercise. Instead, my body spoke on my behalf, proof positive of my assumed irresponsibility and neglect." She cites a number of studies that show how medical professionals internalize weight stigma, and how it affects fat patients and the care they receive. These studies show that doctors build less emotional rapport with fat patients, hold negative views about them, and see them as "awkward, unattractive, ugly, and noncompliant." As a result of this stigma, many fat people delay or skip doctor's visits to avoid such encounters. In both gyms and doctors' offices, fatphobic beliefs become a barrier to entry, diminishing the chances fat people have to access the very tools that could actually support better health, like medical care or a place to exercise.

These are just some of the harmful effects of "healthism." In Body Respect, co-authors Dr. Lindo Bacon and Lucy Aphramor eloquently state:

The nonmaterial or social effects of living with deprivation and discrimination account for a huge portion of the social gradient in health - much more than attributed to health behaviors... maintaining the primacy of the individual-lifestyle focus - without being transparent about larger influences - is an affront to people living in disadvantage, as it reduces ill health to poor 'choices' and blames them, all the while contributing to the stigma and judgmental thinking that fuels oppression, worsens their health, and expands the health divide between the advantaged and the disadvantaged.

The hypocrisy of claiming to care about health and wellness, while creating barriers to entry and ignoring how marginalization and oppressive systems are more detrimental to our well-being than individual "choices," reveals the true motivation of the health, fitness, and wellness industries. Rather than facilitating good health, these industries profit off of people's fear and hatred of fatness. To be clear, I'm not against people pursuing ways to improve their own well-being. I support people finding joyful ways to move their bodies, or eating in ways that allow them to feel their best. But separating what is really best for our health from the deeply entrenched fatphobia permeating most of our beliefs about exercise and eating is work. And it's work that must be undertaken by all of us, especially by those supposed gatekeepers of "health and wellness."

Because what those gatekeepers know and won't say is that fitness, as we often use the term, tells us virtually nothing about how fit we are to complete certain tasks. When we say someone is "fit," it's almost never because we saw them demonstrate said fitness, but because they have a certain body type that leads us to assume what they can or can't do. These industries aren't selling fitness, but the promise of a socially acceptable body. I mean, why else would almost every "fitness" plan feature models with six packs, if they weren't also selling aspirational leanness? I still remember how chubby trainers or nutritionists in the industry would be judged by others - myself included, even if in silence - when we had no way of knowing anything about their fitness or well-being from looking at them, and when neither of those factors have any bearing on how adept they are at their job. Rather than the "fitness industry," we should call it the "thinness/leanness industry." An accurate name for the goals we're pursuing would at least force us to be honest about what we value: thinness and leanness, not health and wellness. If the reverse were true, we would focus on the fact that we undermine people who are trying to move their bodies and eat intuitively for their well-being when we make intentional weight loss a goal.

Those in health, wellness, and medical professions may feel it's not their responsibility to undo these oppressive systems, but that's exactly the kind of apathy that got us here. If we don't address these issues head-on, we will continue to be complicit. And again: the responsibility ultimately belongs to all of us, because the system impacts all of us. Fatphobia is so entrenched in American institutions as to be unavoidable, regardless of who you are. In Body of Truth, Harriet Brown writes:

It is rare to find an obesity researcher who hasn't taken money from industry, whether it's pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers, bariatric surgery practices, or weight-loss programs. The practice isn't limited to lesser-known luminaries, either. In 1997, a panel of nine medical experts tapped by the National Institutes of Health voted to lower the BMI cutoff for overweight from 27 (28 for men) to 25. So, overnight, millions of Americans became overweight thanks to the NIH. The panel argued that the change brought BMI cutoffs into line with World Health Organization Criteria and that a 'round' number like 25 would be easier for people to remember. What they didn't say, because they didn't have to, is that lowering BMI cutoffs put more people into the overweight and obese categories, which in turn made more people eligible for treatment. More patients to treat means new markets and more money to be made from doctors and hospitals to pharmaceutical companies and yes, researchers.

It's for this reason that many fat activists - and myself, as a result - refuse to use the terms "overweight" or "obese." I am not interested in legitimizing arbitrary designations that have more to do with politics than with true equity, health, and wellness. I do not identify as "overweight" or "obese" because I am not interested in validating the Body Mass Index, a system that was never originally intended to measure individual health and which has extremely racist origins. Weight loss is a $59 billion a year industry. And 95% of people who lose weight will gain it all back within five years. So either 95% of people are flawed, or perhaps the game is rigged.

For most of us, the concepts of weight and health are so tightly linked that we have a hard time even imagining what it would be like to improve our health without losing weight or falling back on the lies diet culture has sold us. But we absolutely must do the work of untangling these beliefs, because we know that the norm is not sustainable, and that losing and regaining weight is detrimental to our health. On an individual level, a Health at Every Size (#HAES) and Intuitive Eating approach offers a true alternative. When we refuse to do that work, we will continue to offer people false solutions that result in internalized shame and hopelessness, especially for those in larger bodies who will never meet society's standards and will always be judged as "unhealthy," no matter their actual health.

Most of all, we must recognize that health does not have a moral value. No matter a person's health, they are worthy of respect and dignity. And they will never receive those things unless we are actively dismantling fatphobia and diet culture. No one should have to "earn" their way out of oppression. Just like the person who emphasizes "personal responsibility" in conversations about systemic racism, the person who defends diet culture by making it about health is not helping those they claim to be concerned for; rather, they're merely revealing their own bias and misunderstanding of the issues. If justice has to be earned, then we need a better definition of justice.

"When did you first realize you loved your body?"

This is what my mentor and empowerment coach, JLove Calderón, asked me a few months ago. I answered truthfully. It wasn't after going to the gym for the first time at age 14, or after winning that bodybuilding competition, or after years competing as a nationally ranked powerlifter. It was within the last two years, once I walked away from diet culture for good. Inspired by the Health at Every Size and Fat Acceptance movements, I committed myself to unlearning the lifetime of fatphobic messaging etched into my psyche. For the first time ever, I embraced who I naturally was, releasing my white-knuckled grip on who I thought I needed to be to live the life I wanted. I began to feel more in touch with my true self, releasing the pressure to conform to who society told me I should be. For the first time, I worked to embrace sensuality and joy in my daily life, instead of equating deprivation with "character building." And I decided to challenge the unconscious belief, rooted in traditional masculinity, that I always needed to be ready to have sex - a belief which often gave me anxiety.

The joy I received from divesting myself of these unconscious notions of what men are "supposed to be like" cannot be understated. For so long, I believed I had to "earn" positive feelings by relentlessly dominating my goals, that "nothing easy is worth having." What a recipe for a joyless, disconnected life. And yet, so many of us men are faithful to these ideologies, even as they sever our connections to ourselves and those around us. Many of us believe our being worthy of love and respect is predicated on having the "right" kind of body - and we're not alone in perpetuating these limiting ideologies.

I've gained weight since I decided to love, and heal my relationship to, my body. And people notice. They comment that I've gained weight since they last saw me on TV, tell me I shouldn't "give up on myself." They give me unsolicited advice at the gym (which never would've happened when I was leaner) and talk about their restrictive diets, their juice cleanses for "health." It's exhausting to feel like I have to prove my worthiness - and the worthiness of other people in larger bodies - when people make assumptions about me, my health, and my well-being. It's beyond frustrating to be subjected to other people's diet plans - which is commonplace at the gym - when I'm summoning all the courage I have to make peace with myself and allow myself to gain weight as part of my healing.

Photos by Nick Onken

Whether we realize it or not, comments about weight - our own, or someone else's - are rooted in our own insecurities and internalized fatphobia, and they negatively impact ourselves and everyone around us. I'm not just talking about the critiques and unsolicited advice we give when someone has gained weight. The compliments can be just as toxic. We're groomed to comment on people's weight loss as though it's a positive change, a sign of a job well done. We often don't consider if weight loss is the result of an eating disorder ( eating disorders are the deadliest mental illnesses, by the way), physical/ mental illness, or the result of dieting - lost weight that, for most of us, will return. And this sets us up for more cycles of shame and disappointment. As we gain the weight back - a statistical likelihood, as 95% of dieters will gain back the weight they lost within five years - no longer will we receive praise for our socially acceptable bodies. Instead, it's back to the body society has deemed undesirable, and the shame we feel we deserve for failing to restrict ourselves. It's incredibly common, and incredibly harmful. In Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison writes:

Weight cycling has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular problems and higher mortality from all causes. Indeed some research indicates that weight cycling can account for all of the excess mortality risks for certain diseases associated with being in a larger body. One large-scale, long-term study followed more than 3,100 people over thirty-two years; it found weight cycling correlated with an increased risk of death from all causes and an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease, even after controlling for BMI and other potentially confounding factors such as preexisting illness and smoking. Not only that, but the relative risks attributable to weight cycling were comparable to the risks that typically get blamed on being in a larger body - suggesting that if all studies were to control for weight cycling, any excess risk from so-called 'overweight' or 'obesity' might disappear... Until all research can control for weight cycling and weight stigma, we can't say that being at the higher end of the BMI spectrum causes any health conditions - even if higher weights are associated with these health conditions.

Just consider what it might be like if we reversed the traditional "before and after" weight loss photos, posting our "after" once we've gained back the weight. These images would more accurately reflect the typical weight loss journey - yet, deep down, most people would see those images and be genuinely confused as to why anyone would want to highlight that they've regained weight. We assume that weight gain is a physical and moral failure. This belief is so ever-present in our culture that we don't even need anyone to shame us for having gained weight in order to feel ashamed. It's that insidious.

In our culture, it's "normal" for thin people to self-deprecatingly call themselves fat, revealing how they feel about fat people (albeit, wrapped in a joke). They talk about avoiding certain foods in anticipation of a "summer body," or how they're dreading the holidays for their weight-gain potential. More recently, they joke about gaining "The Quarantine 15" during the coronavirus pandemic. When someone laments that they've gained weight, the underlying assertion is that "fatter" is worse and "thinner" or "leaner" is better. Thin people may feel these comments are harmless, empathetic, relational, or simply self-deprecating. Most of them are probably well-intentioned, and I don't intend to shame anyone for what they've internalized. I had to do a lot of personal work these past few years to unlearn these very same ideas. It's been a deep process, requiring a great deal of self-reflection and re-education.

Which is how I know it simply isn't enough to have good intentions. These comments do not occur in a vacuum. They exist in the context of a fatphobic culture, where people have histories and traumas. Those tempted to respond to the issue with, "I don't hate fat people" or "I think all bodies are beautiful" illustrate how deeply we misunderstand the insidious nature of anti-fatness. If a person of color were to tell me I did something racist, I would not respond with, "But I love people of all races," because whether I do or not has nothing to do with the impact of what I said. Platitudes do not undo oppression. A commitment to acknowledge when you've messed up, and a promise to do better, can. If we really want to "help," we must be willing to understand how we've internalized these oppressive beliefs, and prepare to make some big changes.

Rather than hiding behind the half-joking, "I feel so fat today," we'd all be better served by making more objective, truthful, and vulnerable statements like, "I'm really struggling with my body image today." And yet, it's understandable why so many may not choose this route. Particularly for people in larger bodies, engaging with fatphobia in the daylight means opening yourself up to a wide range of assumptions and questions: people ask if you're healthy, suggest that you've lost weight or that you should, or make comments indicating that you're not actually that chubby - what are you so worried about? The subtext of that last one is, "Fat is bad/ unattractive/ unworthy of respect - you, though, are not bad/ unattractive/ unworthy of respect, because you're still in an acceptable range." This reinforces the idea that some bodies are acceptable, and others are not. The underlying message is not that you're fine as you are, it's "at least you're not like one of those people."

The larger a person is, the more difficult and triggering these conversations can be, given the frequency and severity of their othering and dehumanization. I must acknowledge that my privileges shield me from the worst of these fatphobic conversations. Despite my personal investment in anti-fatness, I'm still more likely to be seen as an objective voice, given my various identities - and even my history in bodybuilding, powerlifting, and personal training - than someone who is considered fat and can easily be written off as making excuses for their own laziness (or whatever else is projected onto fat people in our society). But when we write off "those people" and their experiences, we exhibit our bias and fail to understand how these ingrained beliefs impact us all.

As a culture, we are much more comfortable acknowledging systemic bigotry than we are interrogating our own unconscious beliefs. We can easily recognize explicit hatred, for example, yet we often become defensive when anyone suggests that what happens unintentionally can be just as hurtful and affecting. Unsolicited advice, dismissal, and other microaggressions are perpetual reminders that one is "other" or "less than." I can attest from my own experience that it doesn't take many of these incidents to cause immense stress, sparking a hyper-vigilance that is more emotionally and psychologically taxing than those who do not experience it can understand. Walking into a gym, or just about any other setting, is still an anxiety-inducing experience for me, because I know the odds of someone saying something fatphobic are high. At times, I even become unsure whether something I've experienced was actually fatphobic, or if the trauma of living in this larger body, where I'm gaslit by society on a daily basis, is causing me to imagine a dynamic that isn't there. In more ways than one, fatphobia constantly makes one question their own reality.

When trying to relate these struggles to my thinner or leaner friends, I'm often met with an unconscious minimization of my experiences. Their responses make it that much more difficult to share how I, and millions of others, feel, perpetuating the silence that allows fatphobia and related oppressive systems to thrive. One of the reasons I wrote this article was to not have to go through the heavy emotional labor of educating every person in my life about their anti-fatness as I simultaneously witnessed and experienced it. My anti-sexist and anti-racist activism work informs me of parallel dynamics: why women often don't tell men about sexual harassment or abuse; why people of color don't feel obliged to tell white people about the racism they experience daily. Nobody who has suffered pain and trauma due to their gender, race, size, etc. wants their experiences disregarded, nor do they benefit from misguided advice like "just love yourself!"

Even with my privileges, this hasn't been an easy conversation to have. As I've begun to challenge fatphobic ideas and explore how they impact me, I've found others often make the initial assumption that it can't be true. Men like me can't possibly feel deeply, or have complex layers of emotions. It's a notion born out of the patriarchal mandate that men cannot, or should not, experience sadness, self-consciousness, anxiety, or depression. Nor can they struggle with their image or size. In reality, 25% of people who suffer from anorexia nervosa are men, and they're more at risk of dying from the disorder due in part to our cultural assumptions preventing them from receiving prompt and accurate diagnosis. Subclinical patterns of disordered eating - such as binge eating, purging, laxative abuse, and fasting for weight loss - are also nearly as common for men as they are for women.

When a belief is already the cultural norm, it doesn't take much to put the person questioning it back in their place: the slightest look or word carries a lifetime of inertia.

Yet there's still a refusal to accept that this might be a conversation we need to have. Even when someone senses the seriousness with which I'm approaching this issue, I often feel they want to skate past it. They don't have to tell me to "man up" to send the message that they think I'm being "dramatic." When a belief is already the cultural norm, it doesn't take much to put the person questioning it back in their place: the slightest look or word carries a lifetime of inertia. And because I often don't trust most people to truly hear what I'm saying on a deep and full level, I find myself wondering how much of my own personal pain I'll have to disclose to get them to take me, and my experiences, seriously. If I do decide to perform my pain for them, will they even be able to hear it? Or will I feel even more out in the cold, as I reach deeper into my own trauma only to find that the other person cannot, or will not, give me what I need?

It's not lost on me that, in attempting to redefine masculinity for myself and to become my own person, I'm told I'm no longer qualified to play a "leading man" on-screen. The incredibly superficial industry of Hollywood tells me that, due to the changes in my body shape, I am not seen as physically worthy of an on-screen relationship - even at my relatively small size. This underscores how our culture terrifies us with the idea of being fat. Literally, the message from my industry is that, to play someone who's worthy of being loved, I must treat myself in a way I know to be detrimental to my health and well-being: physically, mentally, and spiritually.

This message doesn't just impact me as an actor, but as a human. As I watch films and TV shows, I find myself witnessing men being targeted with body shaming and fatphobia, as if it's somehow acceptable or "progressive" to do to men what has been done to women for far too long. Hollywood is one of the largest propagators of fatphobia in our culture, and I recognize the importance of challenging its ideals while acknowledging the complexity of my working within that industry, which allows me to continue my art and career, as well as build my platform for change. I consistently seek to challenge all systems of oppression within my industry while recognizing that it's not a battle that can be won overnight. It's taken me decades to even recognize the fatphobia, racism, and sexism I internalized, just growing up on Hollywood stories. I've been absorbing this toxic buffet of garbage since I was a child. So I know unlearning it all - personally and collectively - will require sustained and conscious effort.

I also know it's not easy. It's not easy to think about all the time I spent chasing bouts of extreme exercise and dieting with shame-filled, compulsive eating, my body's loving way of trying to feed me despite the trauma I'd put it through. It's not easy to see that I was holding my body hostage at the expense of my own joy and well-being. I have moved through intense feelings of sadness as I become more aware of how I've treated my body all these years. I have poked and prodded my belly, unconsciously checking it in the mirror every time I found myself in a bathroom. I thought obsessively about food for years, because my body's survival mechanisms were trying to get me to be less restrictive. I allowed my life to be controlled by my workout and food plans, never recognizing the stress and anxiety this made me feel. In The Self-Love Revolution, Virgie Tovar imparts great wisdom:

The truth is that you know your body better than anyone on this planet ever will. This makes you an expert. Your body tells you when it likes something and when it doesn't. Your body tells you when it likes a person and when it doesn't. Your body knows when you're in danger and when you're safe. Listen to your body. It's giving you information all the time. Your job is to clear away as many obstacles as you possibly can so that you can hear all the messages and secrets it has for you. Obstacles include things like toxic relationships, abusive households, teachers who put you down, friends who don't support you, bullying and emotional abuse, self-criticism, dieting, sexism, and fatphobia.

For so long, I thought "chubby" was the worst thing I could be. Men are "supposed" to be tough, strong, and rugged, and I associated chubbiness with everything that came with being a boy. You're weak, not powerful. You're soft, not strong. This is patriarchy, combined with anti-fatness, at work. At the suggestion of Megan Jayne Crabbe, I have reclaimed the word "chubby" for myself, even when it first terrified me. And because I did, I'm more powerful than I've ever been. I no longer rely on the metrics of oppressive systems to tell me how I should value myself.

It takes a great deal of time and intention to separate the idea of weight from health. Even as someone with an extensive history of personal training, it's taken quite a bit to understand what it means to pursue health while surgically removing the malignant beliefs about fatness that have been unnecessarily intertwined with it. I had to understand that binging was a result of constant deprivation, rather than a lack of willpower. I had to trust that giving up dieting in favor of an intuitive eating approach would allow me to break old patterns and finally achieve greater physiological and psychological balance. I now listen to the primal human function that is my hunger.

I am worth so much more than a lifetime of obsessing over food, exercise, and weight. I am a beautiful, powerful being, defined by so much beyond how I look. I just had to strip away layers and layers of societal bullshit before I could realize it. I had to investigate the lies about weight I'd internalized, and replace them with beliefs that actually served me. And the journey continues, as I still have to unpack and challenge the lingering ways these belief systems continue to lurk in the shadows of my psyche. I am still healing from the psychological, physiological, and spiritual damage of having spent over half my life trying to restrict myself into a body that I felt I needed, a body that would shield me from fatphobia. There are still times when the stories, the lies, and the fears creep in, but I am more equipped than ever to manage them. I still have a great deal of internal work to do, but I've decided I will no longer actively participate in my own dehumanization, and there is a great power in that. In a world where most of us turn our eyes away from injustices perpetrated in the name of patriarchy, whiteness, and wealth, I choose to base my identity in a passion for love, justice, and equity, and in my commitment to personal and collective growth. Not how many abs I have showing, or how angular my jaw looks. I'm ready to continue tapping into the deep and beautiful wisdom of my body, to grab hold of those intuitions and feed the hunger I have long suppressed.

The radical politics I've learned over the last five years have built my capacity to self-examine, have fierce conversations, work on the practice of being an ally, and take powerful stances against giant systems of oppression like diet culture. Learning from and listening to the most marginalized has been an absolutely essential part of this process. I am beyond grateful that my social justice politic has allowed me to claim my freedom, joy, and liberation. My magic, splendor, and spirituality. So my journey with weight and body positivity continues to unfold in this light.

For anyone committed to removing themselves from diet culture, and more broadly, unlearning social and cultural forms of oppression, know that it is a lifetime's worth of work. We must seek to be as gentle with ourselves as we are committed, as we recognize how we perpetuate our own dehumanization and the marginalization of others. As society tells all of us that we do not deserve love, dignity, respect, or joy, we must work to reclaim it, with justice and self-respect as our compass. And as Sonya Renee Taylor writes in The Body Is Not An Apology:

It is critical that we find communities of care and compassion. In their absence, we are relegated to an echo chamber of pathological body hatred and oppression. Radical self-love environments are all around us, and thanks to the power of technology we can find people all over the world who are committed to interrupting body shame.

I could never have gotten to the place of understanding, healing, and fighting against fatphobia without seeking a loving community that had different values than the larger culture. Following many of the incredible fat activists on Instagram has been an essential tool for shifting what is normally an incredibly fatphobic platform into a liberatory one, and I can't highly recommend enough that you consider doing the same (I've included resources below).

In a culture that seeks to elevate the most privileged, even in social justice movements, it is also critical that we're aware of the ways we may unconsciously keep hierarchies intact. This is why the movement for "body positivity" cannot only center thin white people, or on a narrative exclusively about "self-love." Self-acceptance alone does not break down the walls of oppression that harm the most marginalized. And so, while self-acceptance is a valuable goal, those of us with the most privilege must consistently work to challenge our own biases that allow us to paint these movements in broad strokes of individualism. Likewise, as a white person working to be an anti-racist accomplice, or a man working to be a feminist accomplice, my goal cannot simply be to "empower women" or "empower people of color." The systems and culture itself, along with our own beliefs, must be shifted to imagine a world where all people are free, not just better able to survive within oppressive systems.

If any of what I wrote rings true for you, I ask that you follow your intuition and stay on the path toward learning. Have the conversations and ask the questions. This is the kind of work it takes to dismantle racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and homophobia, and it is the same for defeating the forces of diet culture and anti-fatness. This is how we live up to our values of equity and justice. There is no quick fix or magic bullet for achieving social justice. And yet, this is some of the most important work we can do. At times, I still struggle with my own internalized fatphobia, though now I recognize that it's part of a process. A provocative and challenging process. As Virgie Tovar says about dieting in You Have the Right to Remain Fat, "You cannot learn to love yourself by walking a path paved by self-hatred." This process is necessary for us to be able to liberate ourselves, and those who are most marginalized. There is no liberation without mutual liberation, so let's all get fucking free.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
My Journey Toward Radical Body Positivity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CW: disordered eating and exercise I've gained quite a bit of weight. I mean, I've really let go. And as a result, my health has been impacted.I have a healthier relationship with my body than ever before. I've let go of internalized fatphobia, and all correlating notions that I have to look a certain way to deserve love, dignity, and respect.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lizzo has criticised body-shamers in an exercise video shared on TikTok, saying, "I'm not working out to have your ideal body type."

Throughout her increasingly successful music career, Lizzo has used her growing platform to condemn those who insult her appearance.

A few days ago the singer called out people who write her name when referring to "big girls" in TikTok videos, saying that it is a "compliment".

Download the new Independent Premium app

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

In a new video shared on the social media platform, the 32-year-old said she has "been working out consistently for the last five years".

"It may come as a surprise to some of y'all, that I'm not working out to have your ideal body type," she stated.

"I'm working out to have my ideal body type. And you know what type that is? None of your f***ing business."

The video featured a compilation of clips showing Lizzo doing various exercises, posing in lingerie and looking at her reflection in a mirror while wearing a swimsuit.

"Because I am beautiful, I am strong, I do my job, and I stay on my job," she said in a voiceover.

"So next time you want to come to somebody and judge them, whether they drink kale smoothies or eat McDonald's or work out or not work out, how about you look at your own f***ing self and worry about your own goddamn body, because health is not just determined on what you look like on the outside."

Lizzo finished her video by telling her viewers that "health is also what happens on the inside, and a lot of y'all need to do a f***ing cleanse for your insides".

"Namaste, have a great day," she said as she signed off.

Several TikTok users praised the "Good As Hell" rapper in their comments underneath the video.

"Louder for the people in the back!!!" one person said.

"The way you love yourself has helped me love myself even more. Thank you Lizzo," another remarked.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lizzo tells body-shamers 'I'm not working out to have your ideal body type'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Lizzo has criticised body-shamers in an exercise video shared on TikTok, saying, "I'm not working out to have your ideal body type." Throughout her increasingly successful music career, Lizzo has used her growing platform to condemn those who insult her appearance.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In my last blogpost, "Too Much? No, Not Enough," I discussed the online harassment from alt-right sites and neo-Nazis that Dr. Darci and I experience because of our work in fat studies and fat activism. We even wrote a separate piece about this for Conditionally Accepted. Honestly, I thought I'd said everything I needed to say about the topic for a while. But here's what I left out: both the blogpost and the Inside Higher Ed piece focused on the pushback Darci and I receive from people we don't know who want us to shut up and get back in our place. What I didn't talk about was how often we receive these messages from people we encounter in our everyday lives.

First, some context is in order. I live in a bubble on social media, created by my own design. I love my mother, but I am not even 'friends' with her on Facebook. My research and teaching on racism, sexism, fat studies, etc. means I spend a lot of time navigating difficult discussions, so I don't want to deal with hate speech and intolerance in my personal online spaces if I can help it. If we are not connected on social media, let me give you the flavor of what I typically post or tweet about: (1) upcoming events in my community; (2) my kids; and (3) reputable social justice-oriented news stories. I often share these stories with little or no commentary or perhaps a quote that stood out to me in the reading. I don't get into fights, debate people, or "rant" (okay, I may have ranted once or twice) on social media. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if anyone else does, but I don't.

Right now we are in the midst of a global pandemic and are having a global dialogue about systemic racism, especially in policing. There have been A LOT of news stories to share about both and I have. A few weeks ago, I received a DM from someone I am connected to on social media and know IRL peripherally (my kids would be impressed that I even know these acronyms). Nevertheless, they apparently felt they knew me well enough to write to tell me, and I quote, "Laurie, please work a little harder at managing your anger," and threw in a Gandhi quote for good measure. I can only assume she didn't like the onslaught of stories I was sharing related to police brutality and instead of simply unfollowing me wanted to let me know personally how she felt.

I was incredulous for several reasons. I immediately told my partner and then I messaged Darci and her partner just to make sure they were as incredulous as I was. Then, I went on about my day. But the next morning as I lay in bed I was still ruminating on what happened. I do not use words like "trigger" lightly, but there is no other word that truly captures how I felt: I was triggered by this womxn's unsolicited message.

The reason I was triggered was because this was just one more example in a lifetime's worth of examples of me being asked to tone it down, be a little nicer, take up less space, make myself more palatable for the world in which we live. So while my last blogpost focused on the correspondence Darci and I receive from people we don't know personally, let me give you just a few examples of the times I was told I needed to watch myself by well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning people I have encountered in everyday life.

There was the female colleague at one of the university's I taught at who told me that I needed to be careful about coming across as "too emotional" in faculty meetings where male colleagues often yelled and cursed at one another in the same meetings. There was the time I was asked to chair the board of a non-profit organization and the white, male head of the organization at the end of our first meeting following the transition implored me, "Just be nice to me, okay?" Or this experience that I can't even talk about to this day without getting that same sick feeling in my gut I had throughout the entire episode:

An organization I worked for hired an outside "consultant" to come in and address interpersonal conflicts in our office. It was clear from my first encounter with this older, white man that among the things he was tasked with doing during his visit was putting me and a female coworker in our place. There were many problematic things said to me during his visit, but perhaps the one that takes the cake is when he told me that I should start modeling my behavior off a white, straight, cis, able-bodieminded man in my office because, and again I quote, "people seem to like him." I remember sitting there, my family's livelihood at stake, and feeling totally helpless. I knew anything I said to defend myself would be used as proof that I was an unruly womxn. The narrative had been set; I was completely silenced. The organization later apologized, but the damage was done.

Now, at this point some of you may be wondering just what I have done to evoke these kinds of responses. Believe me, as someone who is very self-reflexive (read: way too hard on myself), I get it. And I'm the first to admit when I make a misstep. But I've been studying these interactions more closely the older I've gotten and I am no longer accepting them at face value like I did in my twenties and thirties, when my immediate go-to was 'Wow, I must have really screwed up here.' And here's the conclusion I've come to: I am already managing my anger, and I am not convinced that is a good thing.

What I've come to realize is that overwhelmingly these attempts to shut me up or dress me down are not about how I said something, but rather that I said it at all. I always say when you speak truth to power, power speaks back. Turns out, white people don't like it when you talk about white supremacy; men don't like it when you talk about patriarchy and misogyny; people who say they support equity work don't like it when you hold a mirror up and ask them to account for the substantive equity work they have done; and a lot of people who are invested in fatphobia, diet culture, and healthism don't like it when two, fat womxn professors challenge all three.

I actually fear I spend TOO MUCH time trying to "manage" my emotions, including my anger. A quick case in point: recently, an email went out to small group of people including myself soliciting feedback about an issue. The two highest-ranking folx in the email chain were myself and a man who might be described as 'having all the privilege.' While I was spending an exorbitant amount of time crafting a response that I didn't want to sound too assertive, bossy, or make me seem "unlikeable," the man responded with a short, direct, authoritative response. I am embarrassed to admit I spent almost thirty minutes working on an eight sentence email because I was hemming and hawing over every word. That thirty minutes could have been better spent on so may other worthwhile things.

I know this blogpost deviates from previous ones Darci and I have written in that it doesn't focus primarily on fat bodies. But the experiences I have shared here are wrapped up in my whiteness, my fatness, my social class, and other identities I hold. In my lived experiences over the past several weeks, I can testify sexism is alive and well. Now, imagine that sexism amplified by racism, ableism, fatphobia, transphobia, and/or homophobia, for example. The experiences I share here, while salient to me, are only further exacerbated when we consider the ways systems of oppression work together to produce injustice, as Dr. Patricia Hill Collins and intersectionality theory reminds us to do.

Finally, we live in a world that continually works to cut womxn down to size, literally and figuratively. And you know what? I am angry about that. We live in a world where systemic racism exists in every institution. I am angry about that, too. We live in a world that is ableist, transphobic, and homophobic. Yep, angry again. And here's the thing: we should all be angry about this. So, no, I won't work on managing my anger a little better. Frankly, I'm spending too much time trying to do that already. Instead, I'm going to keep having hard conversations and continue working to dismantle systems of oppression. I hope you will, too.

In my last blogpost, "Too Much? No, Not Enough," I discussed the online harassment from alt-right sites and neo-Nazis that Dr. Darci and I experience because of our work in fat studies and fat activism. We even wrote a separate piece about this for Conditionally Accepted. Honestly, I thought I'd said everything I needed to say about the topic for a while. But here's what I left out: both the blogpost and the Inside Higher Ed piece focused on the pushback Darci and I receive from people we don't know who want us to shut up and get back in our place. What I didn't talk about was how often we receive these messages from people we encounter in our everyday lives.

First, some context is in order. I live in a bubble on social media, created by my own design. I love my mother, but I am not even 'friends' with her on Facebook. My research and teaching on racism, sexism, fat studies, etc. means I spend a lot of time navigating difficult discussions, so I don't want to deal with hate speech and intolerance in my personal online spaces if I can help it. If we are not connected on social media, let me give you the flavor of what I typically post or tweet about: (1) upcoming events in my community; (2) my kids; and (3) reputable social justice-oriented news stories. I often share these stories with little or no commentary or perhaps a quote that stood out to me in the reading. I don't get into fights, debate people, or "rant" (okay, I may have ranted once or twice) on social media. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if anyone else does, but I don't.

Right now we are in the midst of a global pandemic and are having a global dialogue about systemic racism, especially in policing. There have been A LOT of news stories to share about both and I have. A few weeks ago, I received a DM from someone I am connected to on social media and know IRL peripherally (my kids would be impressed that I even know these acronyms). Nevertheless, they apparently felt they knew me well enough to write to tell me, and I quote, "Laurie, please work a little harder at managing your anger," and threw in a Gandhi quote for good measure. I can only assume she didn't like the onslaught of stories I was sharing related to police brutality and instead of simply unfollowing me wanted to let me know personally how she felt.

I was incredulous for several reasons. I immediately told my partner and then I messaged Darci and her partner just to make sure they were as incredulous as I was. Then, I went on about my day. But the next morning as I lay in bed I was still ruminating on what happened. I do not use words like "trigger" lightly, but there is no other word that truly captures how I felt: I was triggered by this womxn's unsolicited message.

The reason I was triggered was because this was just one more example in a lifetime's worth of examples of me being asked to tone it down, be a little nicer, take up less space, make myself more palatable for the world in which we live. So while my last blogpost focused on the correspondence Darci and I receive from people we don't know personally, let me give you just a few examples of the times I was told I needed to watch myself by well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning people I have encountered in everyday life.

There was the female colleague at one of the university's I taught at who told me that I needed to be careful about coming across as "too emotional" in faculty meetings where male colleagues often yelled and cursed at one another in the same meetings. There was the time I was asked to chair the board of a non-profit organization and the white, male head of the organization at the end of our first meeting following the transition implored me, "Just be nice to me, okay?" Or this experience that I can't even talk about to this day without getting that same sick feeling in my gut I had throughout the entire episode:

An organization I worked for hired an outside "consultant" to come in and address interpersonal conflicts in our office. It was clear from my first encounter with this older, white man that among the things he was tasked with doing during his visit was putting me and a female coworker in our place. There were many problematic things said to me during his visit, but perhaps the one that takes the cake is when he told me that I should start modeling my behavior off a white, straight, cis, able-bodieminded man in my office because, and again I quote, "people seem to like him." I remember sitting there, my family's livelihood at stake, and feeling totally helpless. I knew anything I said to defend myself would be used as proof that I was an unruly womxn. The narrative had been set; I was completely silenced. The organization later apologized, but the damage was done.

Now, at this point some of you may be wondering just what I have done to evoke these kinds of responses. Believe me, as someone who is very self-reflexive (read: way too hard on myself), I get it. And I'm the first to admit when I make a misstep. But I've been studying these interactions more closely the older I've gotten and I am no longer accepting them at face value like I did in my twenties and thirties, when my immediate go-to was 'Wow, I must have really screwed up here.' And here's the conclusion I've come to: I am already managing my anger, and I am not convinced that is a good thing.

What I've come to realize is that overwhelmingly these attempts to shut me up or dress me down are not about how I said something, but rather that I said it at all. I always say when you speak truth to power, power speaks back. Turns out, white people don't like it when you talk about white supremacy; men don't like it when you talk about patriarchy and misogyny; people who say they support equity work don't like it when you hold a mirror up and ask them to account for the substantive equity work they have done; and a lot of people who are invested in fatphobia, diet culture, and healthism don't like it when two, fat womxn professors challenge all three.

I actually fear I spend TOO MUCH time trying to "manage" my emotions, including my anger. A quick case in point: recently, an email went out to small group of people including myself soliciting feedback about an issue. The two highest-ranking folx in the email chain were myself and a man who might be described as 'having all the privilege.' While I was spending an exorbitant amount of time crafting a response that I didn't want to sound too assertive, bossy, or make me seem "unlikeable," the man responded with a short, direct, authoritative response. I am embarrassed to admit I spent almost thirty minutes working on an eight sentence email because I was hemming and hawing over every word. That thirty minutes could have been better spent on so may other worthwhile things.

I know this blogpost deviates from previous ones Darci and I have written in that it doesn't focus primarily on fat bodies. But the experiences I have shared here are wrapped up in my whiteness, my fatness, my social class, and other identities I hold. In my lived experiences over the past several weeks, I can testify sexism is alive and well. Now, imagine that sexism amplified by racism, ableism, fatphobia, transphobia, and/or homophobia, for example. The experiences I share here, while salient to me, are only further exacerbated when we consider the ways systems of oppression work together to produce injustice, as Dr. Patricia Hill Collins and intersectionality theory reminds us to do.

Finally, we live in a world that continually works to cut womxn down to size, literally and figuratively. And you know what? I am angry about that. We live in a world where systemic racism exists in every institution. I am angry about that, too. We live in a world that is ableist, transphobic, and homophobic. Yep, angry again. And here's the thing: we should all be angry about this. So, no, I won't work on managing my anger a little better. Frankly, I'm spending too much time trying to do that already. Instead, I'm going to keep having hard conversations and continue working to dismantle systems of oppression. I hope you will, too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
No, I Will Not Work A Little Harder at Managing My Anger

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In my last blogpost, "Too Much? No, Not Enough," I discussed the online harassment from alt-right sites and neo-Nazis that Dr. Darci and I experience because of our work in fat studies and fat activism. We even wrote a separate piece about this for Conditionally Accepted.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I created Fat Kid Dance Party to help folks learn to love their bodies, embrace their awkwardness and open up to self care! A childhood of bullying because of my weight kept me off the dance floor. When I found the idea that all bodies are worthy of love no matter what, it changed my life. I have been reclaiming dance floors along with teaching, performing and writing about body positivity for nearly two decades.

Fat Kid Dance Party is an act of dance floor reclamation

If you've ever been called "too much," "too fat," or felt too awkward to dance, this is the supportive class for you. A mash-up of dance aerobics, line dancing, sing alongs, mindful stretching and unbridled enthusiasm.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Diversity & Inclusion in Fitness Topics - Wakelet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This board will explore and demonstrate resources related to the many isms that show up in fitness/wellness: racism, sexism, genderism, ageism, ableism, etc. We can do better when we are aware and work to improve.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In that way, body neutrality perpetuates a problem that has long plagued body positivity: the conflation between body image and body-based oppression. Body image refers to how each of us individually feel about our own bodies. Body-based oppression is about how the world around us treats our bodies. So, for example, a fat disabled person might not have issues with how they see their own body, but may struggle with a lack of acceptance from those around them and in the environments they're in. Conversely, a thin, white, able-bodied person may struggle mightily with an eating disorder, but not have to contend with the same kind of street harassment, discrimination, or access issues, as many of us whose bodies are marked by difference do.

As a fat person who writes about what it's like to be fat, I'm intimately familiar with this conflation. Too often, when I talk about employment discrimination, I'm met with advice to screw the haters, as if that pays the bills for fat people. When I and other fat people talk about the danger substandard health care poses to us, we're told to just love ourselves. Which isn't bad advice, but it's irrelevant to whether or not we experience discrimination. Doctors who refuse to see fat patients aren't doing it because we "don't love ourselves."

After all, none of our bodies are received "neutrally" by those around us. Countless data points show us, time and time again, that those of us whose bodies are marked by difference are treated differently in nearly every aspect of our lives. And simply changing our mindsets, feeling neutral about or loving our bodies won't address the bias marginalized people so regularly face.

For those of us whose bodies lead to systemic adverse treatment, self-love isn't as simple as a mindset shift, a light switch to turn on. To be sure, self-love and body neutrality are powerful things. But they aren't so powerful that they can divert or erase others' harmful actions or make unjust systems more just. And body neutrality alone can't address our own learned biases, either. While working toward neutrality with our own bodies may make some limited shifts in how we see others', it won't do the work of uprooting our biases for us.

None of that means any of us need to abandon body neutrality. But it does mean we'll need to stop ourselves from misinterpreting our personal healing practice with addressing our own biases. And we certainly need to be crystal clear that while body neutrality can be a useful individual tool, it is not a movement for body-based justice or liberation.

All of us will need to do what's right for our own healing-especially those of us in recovery for eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and more. If the best tool for you is body neutrality, I wish you the best with it. But I also ask that you remain steadfast and clear with yourself and others that, as helpful as body neutrality may be, it's far from the kind of systemic shift we need to address body-based oppression.
Related

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Body Neutrality Is Cool and All, But It Still Won't End Body-Based Oppression

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In that way, body neutrality perpetuates a problem that has long plagued body positivity: the conflation between body image and body-based oppression. Body image refers to how each of us individually feel about our own bodies. Body-based oppression is about how the world around us treats our bodies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I'm a big Star Wars fan. And one of my favorite arcs in the whole franchise is from "The Last Jedi." (Yeah, I like the new trilogy, die mad about it, haters.) Luke Skywalker, Jedi of myth and legend, is talking to Rey. Rey is a young girl from nowhere, daughter of no one, she says. She grew up as an orphan on a dull planet, scrapping mechanical parts for food. She's got lots of raw talent with The Force, but Luke is skeptical of her. He's educated. He's run a school for Jedi! He knows where the cave is that has the sacred Jedi texts! He teaches her a lesson, both literally and figuratively. It's not just about moving rocks, he sneers at her, calling back to his on Jedi training on Dagobah where he frequently struggled to move rocks. Being a Jedi, and understanding The Force, is about something bigger, something more important, he insists.

Luke is distrustful of Rey and sees a darkness in her. He is scared of the dark side of The Force - he lost his father to it many years ago. His fear of the dark side of The Force also lead him to nearly murder his nephew, Kylo Ren, while training him to be a Jedi, a traumatic incident that ended up securing his move to the Dark Side. Luke determines that the Jedi must be destroyed.

Later on in the movie, Rey saves the entire Resistance. By moving rocks.

What does it mean? Well, one thing it means is that Rey is more than the nobody she thinks she is. But it also means that Luke was wrong. It's not just about the sacred texts, or the philosophy, or the practice that a beginner would never understand. Sometimes, it's just about moving rocks. Sometimes moving rocks can do more than a lifetime spent studying can do.

And that brings us to our tale today.

Much like Luke's determination to destroy the Jedi, there are certain actors who believe that the Health at Every Size needs to be destroyed. I am talking, specifically, about Lucy Aphramor. Lucy is a poet and dietitian who co-authored the sacred Jedi texts of HAES, "Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, and Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight." This and other books are foundational to the current understanding of HAES. But it may come to a surprise to some that Lucy is the co-author: they are often written out of the conversation about these books. And I have no knowledge whatsoever of the behind-the-scenes issues that may have lead to that, but in practical terms, at least part of it is that Lucy is now critical of HAES as a construct and a movement.

This week, Lucy published a HAES-critical piece on Medium called "Eight Signs of White Supremacy in HAES (Health at Every Size) and Ideas for Action" and posted it in several groups for fat studies and HAES professionals. Because of Lucy's exalted position as a "founder" of HAES, the piece was largely met with hushed reverence from other thin, white HAES professionals. But other people in these groups were pretty pissed. A few friends of mine who saw it chatted me about it: "Have you seen this?!" If you make your way through it, you might be able to understand why, but here's a quick breakdown:

1. Jargon and "Inside Baseball" Talk: The language in this piece is impenetrable, even by people who are entrenched in academia. This is Activism 101. If you want your words to have an impact, they need to be accessible. This is not an accessible piece of writing. Example: "Exalting western science represses other cosmovisions, which is incompatible with liberation. The infrastructure of EBP strongly aligns with the values and practices of supremacist thinking." Huh? Cosmovisions?

2. Naming Problems Without Providing Evidence: So, the structure of the piece is eight things that are wrong with HAES. Okay, cool! I have one of those, too. But there are very few, if any, examples of the harm being named in action. The piece presents these problems without really substantiating that they exist. We're just supposed to trust, based on the author's HAES bonafides. But isn't that the same thing this piece is arguing against?

3. Failing to Provide a Road Map Forward: So, there's a problem. Okay, call it out! But, where do we go from here? If we're going to burn it to the ground, how do we rebuild? Do we really need to burn it to the ground, or can we work on these issues? Lucy's answer to these questions is to sign up for their newsletter. (A friend did. The friend did not learn anything about it.) There are some suggestions, sure, but they are more of the impenetrable jargon and less a clue as to what we should actually do moving forward.

4. Throwing Fat People Under the Bus: I'm just going to say it: there is a thick fog of deep discomfort with fat people emanating from this piece and Lucy's other posts. I have no idea if that is the case, in their heart. But this post seems to posit that HAES is guilty of the worst kind of white feminism and colonialism and thus needs to be thrown out... despite the fact that many of the people who are in HAES communities and adhere to its concepts are fat, BIPOC, disabled and/or chronically ill, queer, gender-nonconforming, and economically disadvantaged. Where are fat people in this piece? Honestly, where are the people in this piece? This is all about systems, and not about people, and certainly not about fat people.

Update 6/15/2020: It looks like Lucy has updated their piece with a paragraph referencing fat activism and a footnote that this paragraph was in the draft, but removed. First, the comment that, "The HAES I know through the actions, sensibilities, and scholarship of a community and its canon isn't true to these radical roots," is inadequate because it erases the scholars and professionals who are very much STILL RADICAL, STILL DOING THE WORK, STILL CENTERING BODY LIBERATION, and STILL BEING INTERSECTIONAL AF. We're here! I've talked to them lots since this first piece was published! I'm not sure how to convince Lucy that we exist and do count! The footnote also does not address the absolute gobs of feedback that have been given to them since they published this piece, which prompted them to add the paragraph "back in," making it seem like it was just an editing mistake, which erases the conversation that was had in its aftermath. The dogged erasure of people and professionals who don't fit the point Lucy is trying to make here (many of them fat, BIPOC) adds to the very thing this piece is arguing is a problem.
So, there's a problem we're not really allowed to talk about in many spaces, and it's this: Lindo Bacon and Lucy Aphramor's books did not invent Health at Every Size as a movement. The ideas behind the books, and the movement, have been around for a very long time. They have been around since the 1960s and 1970s, since NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) was formed. Books like Paul Campos' "The Obesity Myth" were released years prior to "Health at Every Size." Marilyn Wann started her zine Fat?So! in 1994, and it was published as a compilation in 1998. There were plenty of people doing this work long before it was ever called "HAES." There was just one problem: many of the people promoting these ideas were fat. And they were angry fatties. Many of them were fat lesbians, gasp! How off-putting, right?! How scary!

Health at Every Size (HAES) came along and did two things: it put the basic tenets of what fat activists had been saying for decades into a context of academia and research. And it gave it thin spokespeople who were more trustworthy than, you know, unsightly fat people with lived experience. They approached the issue of fatness from, "Well, how can we get them to be healthier?!" This was palatable to thin people, some people in science and medicine, and some dietitians. It lived in that comfortable space of talking about fat people as problems to be solved, only presenting the solution as "health-promoting behaviors" rather than weight loss. It was a little bit of fat activism, but also a little bit of fat obedience. It was talking about fat people, sometimes around them, rather than fat people talking. Somehow, framing the issue of weight stigma and size discrimination as harmful to the goals of health clicked with people in ways that fat people telling the world that fatphobia was harmful to them did not. And so it began.

We experienced something of a sea change both in how the general public feels about dieting, how eating disorders are treated, and how health in general is approached. The combination of Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size was once radical, but is now the norm in many realms. Dietitians who are promising weight loss are often shunned, while those who promise to help people find peace with food and freedom from dieting amass large followings, publish books, and find careers. Some doctors are even starting to get loud about weight stigma! It has been awesome to see. And since fat people needed this to, you know, access healthcare, we were okay with a little bit of erasure.

But, now, we seem to have entered a world in which fat people seemingly don't exist, except as misery porn or thought experiments. Lucy Aphramor managed to write a whole piece about HAES without really mentioning fat people, or outlining fat erasure as a problem. We have been pushed further to the margins, by thin, white social workers and dietitians who are drunk on paradigm shifts. Thin eating disorder patients (and thin eating disorder patients who treat other people with eating disorders) took precedence over us. It's become a place where we constantly wave our hands in the air going, "HELLO WE ARE RIGHT HERE, PLEASE NOTICE US, WE HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY" and thin people still continue to treat us as intellectual exercises, theoretical beings. The qualifications required to discuss HAES in any meaningful, respected, lucrative manner kept getting raised - lived experience? No, you need at least a Master's to be listened to, and no, we would not like to talk about how academia has a race and a class problem, we acknowledge our privilege... while leaning into it.

And now those same people want to burn HAES to the ground for not being inclusive enough.

One of the things that has been done as we have been pushed aside while The Grownups talk is pointing out all the other problems in the world. HAES is intersectional, they say. How can we possibly try to address This Specific Problem without trying to address this Very Big Problem?! Maybe we just shouldn't try at all!

Here's the thing. HAES should be intersectional; fat activism definitely is. "Intersectional" does not necessarily mean that a single movement must solve all of the social issues that intersect at once. It means that, when we are talking about access to medical care, we must recognize that the Blacker or browner, fatter, queerer, and poorer someone is, the more profoundly they are affected. It means that we should fight for more fat trans people to have access to gender affirming surgery alongside talking about access to knee replacement surgeries for fat patients. It means that we must address the issue of Black and Latinx women being more likely to engage in bulimic behaviors and less likely to be diagnosed with and treated for eating disorders. It means we must fight for a world where healthcare is considered a right and all people can access it equally. It means we must move the rocks and boulders that sit in people's paths as they try to live their lives and take the best care of their health that they can, whatever that looks like for them. Some people are being crushed by those boulders; those are the people we need to attend to first.

It does not mean that we cannot talk about advocating for MRI machines that fit larger bodies until we completely solve racism. It does not mean that we cannot advocate for more accessible seating and equipment in medical practices until we've arrived at a fair and equitable society in every sense. It does not mean we can't develop apps telling fat people whether there is a fat-accessible bathroom in a public space without also addressing every other imaginable accessibility need. It does not mean constantly moving the goalposts so that there is no realistic condition under which weight stigma can be addressed. It does not mean using intersectionality as a cudgel. It's not a zero-sum game. Intersectionality means that these systems of oppression are all connected. Intersectionality should not be used to to invalidate systems of oppression that you think are less urgent, or less real. (That's what it's really all about, isn't it?)

Fat activism (and HAES) is often sidelined in favor of other issues. We can't focus on _____, this other issue is more important! But that's not true. Because like The Force, they are all connected. HAES is simply one tool in the toolbox that can be used to fight systems of oppression.

And while we're dismantling other systems, we can still move rocks.

We really and truly do not need to burn HAES as we know it to the ground and start again. (And that's another problem - Lucy is promoting something called "Well Now" with this piece, and in response to questions from fat people about what it is, has simply told them to sign up for their mailing list for more information.) We just need to go back to its roots. Sure, the Jedi texts that Lindo Bacon and Lucy Aphramor wrote are important, but we don't need to burn the texts and start again. We just need to remember where they came from: fat activism, the thing HAES strategically erased to make it more palatable to the masses.

It really doesn't need to be more complicated than that. Thin, white academics have appointed themselves the gatekeepers of HAES. They have elbowed everyone else out of the room only so they could wring their hands about why they were the only ones in the room. (While marginalized people bang on the door going, "HEY WE ARE OUTSIDE, CAN YOU PLEASE LET US IN, THIS IS OUR MOVEMENT & WE NEED IT???") Lucy's piece notes this, but then engages in it, and doubles-down on the idea that they built the room. They did not. Other people built the room, but they claimed ownership, invited all their friends, and decided it needed to be burned down. (If we want to talk about colonialist attitudes, okay, there ya go.) It feels like a coup.

This is very simple: Fat people need access to compassionate, competent medical care. "Fat people" is a group that includes a lot of people: Black people, indigenous people, Latinx people, queer people, trans people, white people, cis people, rich people, poor people, disabled people, chronically ill people. We need to move more rocks, remove more barriers that prevent people from getting the care they deserve, whether that is through advocating for universal healthcare or advocating for more size-accessible seating at your doctor's office. All of these things have a place. None of these things take away from any other social justice cause, because fat people are a marginalized group where people often live their lives in the intersection of multiple oppressive systems. F at activism is social justice work. HAES is social justice work. HAES advocates are supposed to be Rebel Scum, fighting for the resistance. If you aren't, well, you can move over and let the real resistance take over. We're ready to fight. We've been fighting, while y'all were hiding in a cave with Luke Skywalker talking about COSMOVISIONS.

Of the popular phrase, "health is not a moral imperative," Lucy writes in their Medium piece: "The slogan collapses 'health' to personal practices. There's no way of incorporating the fact that racism harms health. It removes power and relationship and denies we have any moral accountability for each other's wellbeing. Adding riders about health being multi-dimensional doesn't repair the core problem with the paradigm." And then presents their new program/approach/paradigm/praxis/cosmovision Well Now™ as the new evolution that will save us all by properly addressing race. EXCEPT WE'VE BEEN DOING THAT, BEEN HAVING THESE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RACE AND HEALTH, IT'S EVEN IN CHRISTY HARRISON'S PIECE ON RACE, BMI & COVID-19 FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, NO ONE IS IGNORING SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH. Just because you just thought of it in the past few weeks does not mean that it has not been part of the discussion before you entered the chat.

Is this lead gen for a new business? Polite spilling of tea related to other people in the HAES game? (Which it certainly seems like, given that "Epistemic Justice" is the #7 wrong thing and Lucy lists themselves as a victim of it, alongside Cite Black Women, while also failing to cite the Black woman on Instagram who inspired this post in the post itself, only tagging her in some social media posts.) HAES, as a movement, could certainly improve, and the people pushed to the margins have been banging at the door for a long time, trying desperately to be heard. If this is truly what the academic overlords of HAES want to see, more diversity, more voices, less white feminism, THEN STEP ASIDE. Let 'em in. Let them have the room you elbowed them out of. Fat people have been begging you to listen to us. Black & Latinx women have been trying to be heard over the din of white people fretting about the lack of diverse voices for a long, long time. We don't need another coup. We don't need yet another paradigm shift.

We need you to return what was ours in the first place, and step aside, so we can continue moving rocks.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Moving Rocks: On Burning Health at Every Size to the Ground

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I'm a big Star Wars fan. And one of my favorite arcs in the whole franchise is from "The Last Jedi." (Yeah, I like the new trilogy, die mad about it, haters.) Luke Skywalker, Jedi of myth and legend, is talking to Rey. Rey is a young girl from nowhere, daughter of no one, she...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Christy Harrison - Intuitive Eating Dietitian, Anti-Diet Author, & Health at Every Size Advocate - Food Psych Programs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Coach and educator Ilya Parker of Decolonizing Fitness joins us to discuss moving away from toxic fitness culture toward an intuitive relationship with movement, how diet culture has shape-shifted to hide its racist roots, the experience of being a Black trans person trying to get gender-affirming medical care, toxic masculinity in white trans-masculine culture, and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a listener question about how health and mental-health providers with various forms of privilege can work to help create a weight-inclusive world without perpetuating systems of oppression.

Ilya (pronouns he/they) is a grassroots organizer and educator whose work centers gender, racial and healing justice. He is also a Physical Therapist Assistant and Medical Exercise Coach. Ilya decided to merge their love for restorative based movement practices and community advocacy to create Decolonizing Fitness, LLC which is a social justice platform that provides affirming fitness services, community education and apparel in support of body diversity. Find him online at DecolonizingFitness.com.

We Discuss:

The restrict-binge cycle that Ilya and his family went through with food growing up

The gender policing that Ilya experienced of his food and body as a person who was assigned female at birth

How their relationship with food growing up is/was reflected in their relationship with food as an adult

How his transition helped him to become a more mindful and intuitive eater

The medical gatekeeping he experienced during his transition

The power imbalance between doctors and Black trans patients

Ilya's family lineage of activists

How diet culture has shape-shifted to hide its racist roots

Christy's reflections on how she perpetuated white supremacy and diet culture earlier in her career

How diet culture often blames poor health on a person's food choices, ignoring other factors like stress and social determinants of health

Internalized ableism, and how it often leads to self-blame when living with a chronic condition

Social media as a resource for body liberation

White trans-masculine culture and how it perpetuates toxic masculinity

How the "violation of patriarchy" often exposes trans folks to violence

Ilya and Christy's experiences shifting their work from diet culture to an anti-diet perspective

The importance of representation of different types of bodies

How Ilya's relationship with movement has changed from toxic fitness culture to intuitive movement

How the "no pain, no gain" mindset pushed Ilya to his breaking point

Ways of engaging in movement when you have chronic pain

How he is making his services accessible to more people

Fitness trainers' scope of practice

Trauma-informed practice

Resources Mentioned
Some of the links below are affiliate links. Affiliates or not, we only recommend products and services that align with our values.

Submit your questions for a chance to have them answered on the podcast

My online course, Intuitive Eating Fundamentals

My book, Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating

Help spread the anti-diet message by subscribing to the podcast

Sabrina Strings's work, and her Food Psych® episode

Be Nourished (affiliate) on Instagram, and founders Dana Sturtevant and Hilary Kinavey's Food Psych episodes #76 and #90

Sonalee Rashatwar AKA @thefatsextherapist on Instagram

Karen Preene AKA @deadlifts_and_redlips on Instagram

Haley Jones AKA @the_queer_counselor on Instagram

Ilya's training manuals, The Pain Guide and LGBTQIA Affirming Spaces

Listener Question of the Week

How can folks with privileged identities advocate for fat positivity and anti-diet culture without perpetuating systems of oppression? How can a person speak about marginalized groups without speaking for them? Why is it important to take imperfect action rather than no action at all? What are concrete examples of actions that allies can take?

Resources Mentioned:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Food Psych #244: Fighting Racism, Misogyny, and Transphobia in Fitness Culture and the World at Large with Ilya Parker - Christy Harrison - Intuitive Eating Dietitian, Anti-Diet Author, & Health at Every Size Advocate - Food Psych Programs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Coach and educator Ilya Parker of Decolonizing Fitness joins us to discuss moving away from toxic fitness culture toward an intuitive relationship with movement, how diet culture has shape-shifted to hide its racist roots, the experience of being a Black trans person trying to get gender-affirming m