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

[firecat]

Your logic seems to be that if you are a Fat Activist, you are no longer allowed to practice body autonomy for fear of losing your activist credentials.

You aren't "allowed"? Oh please. No one is coming to any blogger's house with handcuffs. I also see plenty of people in this larger discussion who think weight loss blogging is completely in line with being a fat activist, so it's apparent that a "fat activist weight loss blogger" will continue to have plenty of fans.

But as far as I am concerned, a fat activist who blogs about weight loss has lost credibility, at least for the important component of fat activism that says "weight is is the wrong thing to focus on."

There is a difference between "I'd like to lose some weight to lower my risk of diabetes" and "I'd like to lose all my fat so that I will be beautiful and people will love me and I'll have a good life."

Sure, but in these senses there is no difference: (1) It matters not at all whether a person would "like" to lose weight. In this society, almost everyone would at some point "like" to lose weight. It matters what you *do*. (2) If you study the research, you learn that your risk of diabetes depends a lot more on genetics and exercise habits than on whether you try to lose weight. (I even know people who got diabetes after they lost weight, because losing weight can be stressful on the body, and stress increases your risk of developing diabetes, if you are genetically prone to it.) If you observe life, you understand that being thin doesn't guarantee being beautiful, loved, and having a good life.