who gets to be considered a fat activist

[firecat]

I distrust most conversations about who gets to be in [whatever] camp and who doesn't, and what's the "real" way of doing something and what isn't. Mostly I think they cause more harm than good. So I feel uncomfortable with the comments I'm going to make, but I'm going to make them anyway.

http://www.ficklefingeroffat.com/ is a new blog by a person who was a famous spokesperson for fat acceptance. The person is now blogging about her attempts to lose weight. This has caused some controversy at shapelyprose and among some other fat-acceptance bloggers.

There are various takes on the subject, and I'm not going to list them all here. I'm going to discuss just one of them that came up in a friend's locked post. It was said that size-acceptance is about "live and let live," and suggested that it was hypocritical for size-acceptance advocates to criticize "a personal decision."

My comment was:

Thing is, it's not just "a personal decision" when it's undertaken in a public blog by a famous spokesperson for fat-acceptance.

The person has every right to do what they are doing, but writing a blog about their deliberate weight loss attempts discredits them as a spokesperson for fat-acceptance, in my mind.

therotund put it better here (emphasis mine):

A lot of the comments I have seen, both here and at Shapely Prose, seem to want to define Fat Activism as doing whatever the hell you want to do with your body. But that isn’t Fat Activism. That is body autonomy, which is a component of Fat Activism.

and

Does this mean [people who are dieting] cannot work toward changing social perceptions of fat people? No. But if you are a fat person who is publicly dieting, that is going to inform your message and reinforce the idea that fat people can and should lose weight by just trying hard enough. Does this mean you cannot appreciate and love other fat people? No. But it does send a message of “fat is okay for you but not for me” which kind of undermines the message of acceptance.

Comments

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Y'know, that way of putting it makes sense in my head. I have another friend who is a fat woman, and who is going to the gym regularly because she wants to improve her flexibility and stamina. And that doesn't make me twitch in the same way that "because she wants to lose weight" would do.

I also know four women who have had gastric bypass surgery and one who's going to, and I just want to scream every time one of them says something like, "I was so sick and in so much pain, and I almost died from the infection, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat because it was the only way I could lose weight."

And there were several years when I didn't eat sugar at all, even fresh fruit, because any kind of sugar reacted really badly with my antidepressant and made me terribly sick and caused lots of pain. And hearing my doctor say things like, "You've lost weight! Good for you!" was really unhelpful.

And I want to start exercising regularly again, but I'm pretty convinced that it has to be yoga, because in 40 years yoga is the only form of exercise I've found that doesn't fuck with my head and make me crazy in bad and ugly ways. Well, okay, that and mall-walking, but even there I have to be careful (mentally and emotionally, I mean).

I'm rambling here, aren't I. Weight and size and fat and diet and nutrition and exercise and body image are so goddamn fraught.

[redbird]

It took a while for me to really convince the staff at my gym that I wasn't there to lose weight, it was strength, flexibility, and stamina--and I've since added balance as a goal. Still, they're better at believing it than my dentist is, because they comprehend the idea of wanting to be stronger.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

ugh. i did tai chi for a while, until my knee decided that that was enough of that. and i've done warm water pool therapy, and while i like it all right, i do it with my mother and while i adore my mother, there's only a certain amount of time i can spend with her per, uh, ever. ;) so i stop and restart that whenever i am over my mom-limit.