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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

auntysocial.livejournal.com

There would be one way to try to lose weight and still call yourself a fat activist. Do it in a spirit of inquiry rather than faith. Don't say, I'm going to lose weight and then I will feel better. Say, I'm going to see whether this weight loss thing works. I'm going to find out what it takes to do it and whether I can maintain a lower weight and still be able to do and think about other things rather than become obsessed. I'm going to find out whether this really improves my health, or whether I'm just happy to bask in all the societal approval. Maybe it will improve my health in one way, but make it worse in another way. Maybe the societal approval is more important than my health, after all. Maybe the fat stigma I carried was more dangerous to my health than the fat itself.

Maybe this would be impossible. Maybe you can't lose a significant amount of weight unless you're convinced that you are going to feel better for it. Could a skeptical dieter stick with it long enough to lose much weight? I'd love to see a skeptics diet club, where instead of congratulating the participants on weight loss, you asked them how they really felt about it.

From:

firecat

Back in the mid-80s I lost weight in a spirit of inquiry (executive summary: I could do more kinds of exercise and buy less expensive clothes, but I wasn't happier or any more well-liked), but I wasn't a fat activist or playing one on TV at the time.

From:

auntysocial.livejournal.com

I never dieted without believing it was going to help me in some way. I maintained a much lower weight for a considerable period of time. I never stopped thinking I ought to lose at least ten more pounds. I went around saying I felt better at a lower weight, but actually I always felt hungry and a little bit worried about what I should be eating.

From:

firecat

I never stopped thinking I ought to lose at least ten more pounds....I always felt hungry and a little bit worried about what I should be eating.

Ditto. Although I thought (when I weighed 160) that I still needed to lose 50 pounds. When my mom said no, I looked fine, I was flabbergasted (since the last time I had weighed around 160, in my teens, she had told me I looked six months pregnant).

From:

pir-anha.livejournal.com

datapoint: i did this a couple years ago with a low-carb diet just to see, so it's possible to do in a spirit of inquiry and while being skeptical.

it did "work" -- of course it didn't all work for the reasons advertised, and it didn't stick, but i lost 50+ lbs without much effort (that was a first; i had low-fat dieted once before many years ago and it had been onerous, and i said "never again"). i didn't become obsessed, i became more conscious of what i was putting into my mouth and what it was made up of (contrary to what they said about "don't count", i kept a food log because i wanted to track my intake to see whether their claims had validity).

it was interesting. i did blood tests before and after. it didn't improve my health much per se, but i felt better (more energetic, less "weighed down"), and because i felt more energetic, i was more physically active, which in the long run would undoubtedly improve my health. my cholesterol levels improved despite all the anti-atkins fear-mongering about oh noes, all that fat you're eating! i learned that i am addicted to carbs, and that the amount of them i consume isn't good for me; it contributes to me feeling sluggish and not wanting to move much, which is a vicious cycle.

i avoided societal approval as much as possible. never could bear to hang out in any of the atkins dieting forums, *shudder*. i didn't want the approval of people who were obsessed with not wanting to be fat; i was perfectly happy being fat.

then i stopped because i had a major depressive episode and it got too difficult to stay away from the carbs which are my soul food. i put almost all the weight back on. i expected that, and it wasn't a big deal; i am fortunate in that my birth family comes from sturdy peasant stock and i never got anti-fat sermons while growing up, and am relatively immune to society's fucked-up messages about it.

i really liked how i felt minus that weight and with more energy though, ergo i was a little happier than i am now. just that this isn't the right way for me to get there. i did learn a fair amount about better food choices i can make and any day now (ha!) i'm going to make more of an effort to do that -- the reason i didn't put _all_ the weight back on is that i stuck with some of the better food choices and the idea of more and smaller portions.

and apropos nothing i like your LJ handle. :)

From:

auntysocial.livejournal.com

So, in the long run, Atkins didn't work, because of your depression....

One of the things I'm thinking of when I say societal approval is how things go at the doctor's office. One of the most difficult things about being fat is going to the doctor and getting a good dose of fat-is-unhealthy propoganda.

From:

pir-anha.livejournal.com

yeah, that depressive episode threw a wrench in it finally, though for a time the diet helped somewhat with the general chronic depression i have (feeling much more energetic was very cool; there are times when i want to do the whole ketosis phase again just to feel that way).

i strongly suspect that it wouldn't have worked in the long run either though, because of the extremely low carb level even on their maintenance plan. eating that few carbs is just not "natural" for me (maybe it could become so, but i don't know how many years i'd have to practice to make that a habit). i do know two people who have kept it up for >5 years now, so it's possible for some.

yeah, doctor's visits can be difficult. mine, whom i visit as rarely as possible, always gives me that spiel, and i look sternly at him and say "not this again, you know it only has the effect that i don't want to see you real soon again", and then he laughs -- he's as accepting as he can be of me doing what i want. it's not the kind of r'ship i _want_ with my doctor, but eh; i deal, i have a thick skin. he's retiring and i might put some effort into picking a new one. then again, i might just pick his replacement cause their office is so close. i am a bad, bad health care consumer.

From:

mjlayman.livejournal.com

I belong to a Medicare HMO and none of my doctors comment on my weight. It's the urgent care doctors who don't know me who go on about it and then I have to start history (which takes an hour for the short version) and they usually give up and say "whatever."