Fat Acceptance Movement?
A news report and several articles over the last little while got me thinking about this new fad, the “Fat Acceptance Movement“.
First, like most girls growing up these days, I never really accepted the way my body looked, even when I was younger and thin. I dieted obsessively and often unhealthily throughout high school (the “one plate of spinach with olive oil and vinegar per day” diet….) and got down to a very unhealthy weight. Then, once I graduated started college (and quit taking dance class three times a week and started eating lots of fast food) I went too far in the other direction, getting up to nearly 250 pounds.
I think it was when my mom bought me that pair of size 24W pants that I said enough was enough and started watching what I ate.
However, a few months ago I woke up one morning and had what can only be described as an epiphany. I looked in my mirror and I liked what I saw. I was happy with myself.
So reading about and seeing the news reports on this movement made me think of that moment, and how satisfying it was that, for the first time in my life, I was able to accept myself as I was.
That’s not to say I gave up on eating healthy and exercising, but I’m not “dieting” anymore. Honestly, I like healthy food, always have. I’m a huge fruit addict. Most of the unhealthy junk food I would eat would be on some sort of emotional binge-eating cycle where I’d get the worst possible thing I could get and eat the whole box/bag/etc. in one sitting.
I’m still exercising, too…because I’ve got arthritis and being able to actually move around without pain feels good….and the exercise helps that and because I’ve found it’s actually fun. I’m not exercising anymore because I want to be thin.
The not dieting is a good thing, I think…the constant dieting cycle is horrible for you anyway. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people will look at these articles and stories and go “Oh, it’s okay to be unhealthy now! Fat Powah!”
… No, I don’t think that’s what this is about, exactly. It’s good and healthy to accept yourself as you are, but you also need to take your health into consideration. Not the way you look, but the way you feel. That’s why I’m still exercising though I’ve embraced the way I look….because the exercise makes me feel better.
So I’m a bit of two minds of what I think about this “Fat Acceptance” thing. It’ll be too easy for people to use it as a license to kill themselves.
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It’s one thing to accept who you are, regardless of your shape weight and another to allow yourself to be unhealthy because criticism is bad and you won’t take it.
My mother use to lecture me constantly about my weight. I, on the other hand, try to avoid saying anything about it to my six year old because weight management shouldn’t be what occupy a child’s life. (And I don’t think she’ll have a problem anyway, she’s a tooth pick and likely will grow up to be slim and healthy.)
It’s a sad fact that more and more people are overweight and don’t care that they are. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but it is something to worry over because being overweight affects health in a major way.
I hadn’t really heard of ‘fat acceptance’ until a friend of mine online started a blog (livingxxl.blogspot.com) about it. I happily followed it and supported her, until I made the decision to try to lose weight. Then I realized the blog entries were far from the ‘acceptance’ they preached, and more of a pity party about being overweight when they didn’t want to be.
When I commented about how this seemed to be the case, I was reprimanded, the comments deleted, and the friend completely ditched me.
So I’ve a bit of bitterness when it comes to ‘fat acceptance’. But what it comes down to is if you, personally, are happy with your body. If you are, that’s awesome. As long as you’re not lying to yourself, that’s all that really matters.
Yep, like I’ve said, for me it’s more about health now than how I look. Eating healthy was never a big issue for me, because I love “healthy” food.
I’m a fruit and veggie nut…if anything, I don’t eat nearly enough meat/protein.
Exercising just to exercise (rather than “dance class”, etc.) was hard to get into, but once I started and realized how much better I felt, I wasn’t about to stop.
So yeah, it’s one thing to accept what you look like and stop comparing yourself with impossible ideals (I wouldn’t even look good at a size 0!). It’s another thing entirely to keep up an unhealthy lifestyle just because you’re too lazy/disinclined to change it.
I’m glad you’ve found peace with your body, with an activity level that suits you, and with food. There are lots of great writers in the fatosphere talking about weight, health, fashion (fatshion!), and societal pressure.
I think the ‘for your health’ concern is one of the most damaging, since there is no strong causation between fatness and poor health (correlation is, of course, different), certainly not compared to, for instance, thin people and poor health.
There’s a great article on fatness and health by Kate Harding which makes a lot of good points with supporting studies and articles: But Don’t You Realize Fat is Unhealthy?.
This is a very difficult subject. We as a society have certainly set up unhealthy thinness as the beauty ideal.
But at the other end of the spectrum, should we attempt to force society to accept extreme obesity with its share of health ills as just the norm for some people?
Although there are many with physical problems that make it difficult or impossible to lose weight, there are just as many or more who just prefer not to make the lifestyle changes that bring about a healthy body weight. I’m not talking about yo-yo dieting or attempts to make ourselves pencil thin. I’m talking about true lifestyle changes in eating and exercising that allow our bodies to be healthy and free of aches and pains.
There are health consequences associated with excess weight just as there are health consequences associated with being underweight.
I think we are indulging in some serious denial here if we are seriously overweight due to our lifestyle choices yet so fervently wish to deflect our responsibility for ourselves onto society by declaring that society is solely in the wrong and unjustly engaging in fat discrimination practices.
Does any one of us truly feel that we are at our best when we are too heavy to see our feet to tie our shoes or too heavy to pick up a child or grandchild or too heavy to walk a short distance without losing our ability to breathe in and out at a normal rate?
Does any one of us enjoy wearing clothes that require elastic waistbands or extra fabric to feel the least bit comfortable? Does any one of us enjoy shopping for clothes and being unable to find anything at all that we can fit into?
I don’t think any one of us has sufficient powers of self delusion to convince ourselves that we are perfectly happy being obese or that we would not jump on some magic pill in a New York minute if one were to come along that would truly melt our pounds away with no effort on our part.
Ahh…but then, before I started exercising (like I’ve said, it took no real change in how I ate, because I already ate pretty healthily), I felt horrible all the time, and I hurt, and I ached. When I was *really* big, I was bordering on diabetic, had no energy, was constantly headachey and caught every little bug that went around, so I was constantly sick with *something.* So yes, I’d think I was unhealthy then, so “for my health” is a very real concern for me.
Since I’ve been exercising, I do feel much healthier. I would, however, agree that it has less to do with my size than that I’m actually exercising – my size is holding steady at 14/16 now (down from that 24), and exercising more seems to have little effect on that. I’m very rarely ever in any pain anymore, other than seasonal allergies, I rarely get sick, and I have energy to actually go out and do things. That’s what matters to me.
And that’s what works for you and that’s awesome! I feel better when I exercise, too, especially when I’m involved in an active hobby. I don’t think anyone is really arguing that, if people are able to, when they participate in some form of exercise, they feel better. The argument is more as to whether or not activity/exercise affects fatness, and therefore whether fatness affects health.
It’s natural for us to want to generalize from our own experience to everyone’s experience, but there are so many factors involved, it’s really difficult to do that.
(I really have to go pack now, but thanks for replying and discussing!)