#fat activists

you're so right, we rarely see men doing this work publicly but it's extremely important for men too! a few cisgender men off of the top of my head are @thejaysalazar_ and @williamhornby. there's @bodypositivityforguys, which is an inactive blog but nice to scroll through! also, some trans/nb folks to follow: @decolonizing_fitness, @thefatdoctor, @dashaunlh, @jordallenhall, @blackqueerioh, @thefatsextherapist, @dr_chairbreaker.

Before you all start screaming at me, no I don't think it's okay for people to make fun of overweight/obese people. Yes I am aware of certain conditions and medication that can affect a person's weight (more on that later), but those are very very rare. The reason why people are so big is because they eat more calories than they burn. That's it. It's simple thermodynamics, you are not above science lmao.

You are not being discriminated against if you can't fit in an airplane/movie theater seat. Those buildings and seats were there centuries before the world started to get bigger and fast food places were everywhere and junk food was always within reach. Not being able to find cute clothes is such a huge First World Problem, and that's also not how sewing works. It entails so much more than, "well just make it bigger" like you're resizing a picture. Rollercoasters have height and weight requirements for a reason, you can't outdo physics. People not wanting to date you sucks and can be hurtful, but it is not discrimination.

No, you can't be ""fat"" and healthy at the same time. Fat is just a few pounds over the maximum normal BMI range. Dozens or hundreds of pounds over that is not fat, it's overweight/obese. The medical field do have a lot of outdated views and conceptions about certain groups (women, PoC, disabled, etc.) and to an extent this is no different for obese people. There are a lot of doctors who can be assholes and dismissive. And if you're a woman it's 100x worse. But not being able to do certain procedures, or asking their patients to lose weight when they have concerns about pains is not discrimination. They need to rule out that the symptoms you're having is caused by your weight and it'll be easier to see things inside the body if they aren't blocked by excessive adipose tissue. I think people hear "you need to lose weight" and assume that's the only treatment plan instead of the first step to make things less complicated.

FA/HAES activists are really young, in their early - late 20s. Of course they aren't going to see a lot of health problems. But they need to be PREVENTED before they get worse. You (hopefully) won't be seeing a lot of issues at the moment but bad eating habits will catch up with you as you get older and they will be harder to treat. We're already starting to see prolific FAs dying young (late 30s - early 40s) and way too early. T2D is devastating. An extremely high weight puts you at risks for multiple conditions and problems like HBP, coronary artery disease, cancer, pre-diabetes, etc. Being on tons of medication and constant doctor appointments aren't fun.

Another peculiar thing is how BPM-ers, or FatTok, or whatever, will do is say that dieting grooms people for esting disorders... and eating an exessive amount of calories isn't?! Eating unnatural garbage foods isn't? What's "body positive" about depriving your body of nutrients? What's "body positive" about not taking care of it and exercising as you're able? That's like saying "I'm an animal lover!!!" and then leaving your dog in a crate all day. Fat Tok just irritates me because they're smug in the same way as people who watch the History Channel and believe aliens built the pyramids.

My tinfoil is that the BPM is a capitalist-driven machine that WANTS people to become obese, and ultimately sick. The Diet Industry exists to sell shakes and gym memberships. Then you have the Fat Industry (Big Fat, if you will, because this is a dystopian capitalist hellscape after all) that thriiiives off selling food, extra material for extra large clothes which cost more, customized equipment which costs more, high risk (cha-ching!) surgeries, specialized healthcare? Mmmmoney money money.

It creates a class of artificially dependent citizens- just like the alcohol during prohibition, just like the CIA and crack cocaine, just like the current opioid crisis. We're gonna create a bunch of addicts- doesn't matter to what- and we're gonna make the cure expensive and shame anyone who doesn't try to get clean....but if they try to get clean, we'll self-righteously snicker at them the whole time.

It absolutely is.

Wait what? Did someone concerned with health just say it was okay to be fat?

Yes!

The definition of Okay is: satisfactory but not exceptionally or especially good.

It’s okay to be fat, just like it’s okay to be bad at math, it’s okay to have anxiety, it’s okay to have only a few friends, it’s okay to have a benign tumour, it’s okay to be sick, it’s okay to drop out of collage.

None of these are morally wrong, none of them make you a bad person but none of them are inherently POSITIVE. None of them will IMPROVE your quality of life. And none of them should just be accepted and given up on. All of the things have a common factor. Most of not all people who fall into those groups want to CHANGE they want to move FORWARD they want to IMPROVE.

It’s okay to be fat. But it’s not something to strive towards. It’s not something to let yourself fall into a pattern of complacency over. Because once you’re compliant you’ve given up on improvement. On bettering yourself and your life. And that’s a sad and unfulfilling place to be.

Leaving aside the fact that their ideas are ludicrously, hilariously wrong in every details, one of the key shticks that they run with is I tried all these diets, and none of them worked. That means dieting doesn’t work. Ever. You will regain all the weight you lost, and more! and so on.

First of all, the only common denominator here is you, which says less about diets than it does about your ability to do anything requiring even moderate effort and self-control. Diets didn’t fail you; you failed yourself.

And then, too, it just comes across like someone telling you that her fourth DUI was what really convinced her that sobriety was impossible.

First and foremost, the pioneer of organized fat activism:

• Bill Fabrey (he/him)

Bill Fabrey, a self-proclaimed fat admirer, founded NAAFA (the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) in 1969 after gaining an understanding of the day-to-day oppression and discrimination faced by his wife, Joyce. Fabrey founded the organization in hopes to raise awareness of weight stigma, criticize biased studies, and increase overall acceptance and accessibility to fat Americans. He is considered one of the pioneers of the fat liberation movement, and is heavily involved to this day.

• Judy Freespirit, Sara Fishman, Lynn McAfee, Ariana Manow, & Gudrun Fonfa (she/her for each)

(Members of The Fat Underground, 1979)

Fat, radical, feminist members of NAAFA! Their agenda was much more aggressive than NAAFA’s, and eventually they broke off and formed their own group called The Fat Underground, which acted as a catalyst in the creation and mobilization of the fat liberation movement. Based in LA in the 1970s, the Fat Underground did not fight to change discriminatory laws but rather discriminatory thoughts and practices in different aspects of society, which included those of doctors and other health professionals who perpetuated the unhealthy habits encouraged by diet culture. In 1973, Judy Freespirit and Alderbaran published the “Fat Liberation Manifesto” which establishes that fat people are entitled to what they were denied on a daily basis: “human respect and recognition.” The other objectives then outline the commercial exploitation of fat bodies by both corporations and scientific institutions. (x) I will go into more detail about the Fat Underground in my next post, “The History of Fat Activism!”

• Dr. Lindo Bacon (they/them), PhD

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Creator of the concept of HAES (Health At Every Size).

Dr. Bacon is best known for their paradigm-shifting research and advocacy upending the weight discourse. They have mined their deep academic proficiency, wide-ranging clinical expertise and own personal experience to write two best-selling books, Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, and the co-authored Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, or Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight. Both are credited with transforming the weight discourse and inspiring a hopeful new course for the fat liberation movement. Dr. Bacon holds their PhD in physiology, as well as graduate degrees in psychology and exercise metabolism. Dr. Bacon formerly taught at City College of San Francisco, in the Health Education, Psychology, Women’s Studies, and Biology Departments. A professor and researcher, for almost two decades Dr. Bacon has taught courses in social justice, health, weight and nutrition; they have also conducted federally funded studies on health and weight and published in top scientific journals. Their research has been supported by grants from the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health. A truly great pioneer in medical health research! 

https://lindobacon.com/ | HAES | IG

• Aubrey Gordon, a.k.a. Your Fat Friend (she/her)

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Aubrey Gordon writes about the social realities of life as a very fat person, previously publishing anonymously as Your Fat Friend. She is the author of What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Lit Hub, Vox, Gay Mag, and has been covered in outlets around the world. She also hosts the podcast Maintenance Phase, in which she and cohost Michael Hobbes debunk and decode wellness and weight loss trends. Her articles are incredibly heartfelt and enlightening. You can read all of them at www.yourfatfriend.com !!

@ yrfatfriend on IG & Twitter

• Sabrina Strings (she/her), PhD

Sabrina Strings is 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, which exposes fatphobia’s roots in anti-blackness. Strings contributed an opinion story to The New York Times titled “It’s Not Obesity. It’s Slavery.” With Lindo Bacon (creator of HAES), she coauthored “The Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity,” published in Scientific American. Strings has a BA in psychology and an MA and PHd in sociology. This book is #1 on my to-read list!!

https://www.sabrinastrings.com

• Hannah Fuhlendorf (she/her), MA LPCC NCC

Hannah is a highly educated and experienced counselor whose work focuses on self acceptance, eliminating the effects of internalized oppression, and practicing through a HAES lens. She is a fat liberationist who puts out educational videos daily. Hannah is also married to a healthcare professional, and the two of them are working toward making the medical field more accessible to fat people in their local community, and offering education on how to be fat allies. I really admire Hannah and the work that she does!

@ hannahtalksbodies on IG and TikTok

• Tracy Cox (she/her)

Tracy is an award-winning performer and artist, who co-created the web series “Angry Fat People” with Matthew Anchel, which takes a pop culture approach on serious issues faced by fat performers. She has been interviewed by the New York Times on fat politics and accessibility, and currently has a huge following on IG where she unpacks fat performance, fashion, and politics. You may know her as the creator of the ‘fat vanity’ trend on TikTok!

@ sparklejams on IG & TikTok

• Da’Shaun L. Harrison (they/them) 

Da’Shaun is a non-binary abolitionist, community organizer, and writer. They are currently a managing editor and columnist at Wear Your Voice Magazine. They travel throughout the United States and abroad to speak at conferences, colleges, and lead workshops focused on Blackness, queerness, gender, class, religion, (dis)abilities, fatness, and the intersection at which they all meet. Da’Shaun is the author of the book Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, which is expected to be published in July 2021. They have an incredibly enlightening social media presence as well!!

@ dashaunlh on IG and Twitter

• Lauren Buchness (she/her)

Lauren Buchness is one of my favorite artists. She’s a contemporary artist and fat activist based in Tucson, Arizona. By combining painting & performance, she aims to question Western standards of beauty and create conversations that alter preconceived notions about the fat body. Go check out her gorgeous work!!

@ ladybuchness on IG and TikTok

If you’re interested in learning about diet culture and intuitive eating, check out

Shana Minei Spence (she/her), MS RDN CDN

Shana is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who opposes food restriction and encourages intuitive eating! She spreads food positive daily messages on her platform. She used to work in fashion, but she left after being dissatisfied with the industry and went back to school to become involved in food policy and public health. She offers counseling on a HAES approach. I have much respect for Shana!

@ thenutritiontea on IG

And right here on tumblr (who was my personal introduction to fat lib) -

@ bigfatscience !!!

An anonymous fat liberationist. They share so many great resources, diving head-first into the scientific research of weight and health, they’ve found that the relation between the two is extremely complex. They tackle the biases of  research in a system that profits off of fatphobia, and they offer a fat positive perspective based on scientific studies. Their blog serves as an easily accessible resource for fat folx and fat activists who want to learn about fat positive science to support their own personal interests/activism. Thank you for your work, bigfatscience!! (if you have questions for them, you will have a greater chance of getting a response with anon off!) 

• Sonalee Rashatwar (she/they), LCSW MEd

Sonalee is an award-winning clinical social worker, sex therapist, and grassroots organizer. They’re a superfat queer bisexual non-binary therapist and co-owner of Radical Therapy Center. Sonalee is specialized in treating sexual trauma, internalized fatphobia, immigrant kid guilt, and South Asian family systems, while offering fat positive sexual healthcare. Go, Sonalee!!

@ thefatsextherapist on IG

• Fat Rose (org)

Fat Rose organizes fat people, building a more radical fat liberation movement in strong relationship with other social movements, such as anti-fascism, anti-ableism, and anti-racism. Check them out on Facebook!

fatrose.org

Honorable IG mentions: (Some anti diet culture specific blogs in here, as well)

@fatangryblackgirl  @msgigggles @thefatphobiaslayer @bodyimagewithbri @saucyewest @fatpositivetherapy @fatlippodcast @chairbreaker 

BOOKS

And here’s an amazing list of fat-positive book recommendations from HannahTalksBodies!

Science & Health:

Health at Every Size by Lindo Bacon PhD

Body Respect by Lindo Bacon PhD and Lucy Aphramor PhD, RD

Secrets from the Eating Lab by Traci Mann PhD

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison MPH, RD

Fat Liberation:

Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings PhD

Fat Activism by Dr. Charlotte Cooper

Fat Politics by J. Eric Oliver

The Fat Studies Reader by Esther Rothblum (Editor) and Sondra Solovay (Editor)

Fat Shame by Amy Erdman Farrell

Self Acceptance:

The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Things No One will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker

Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnson PhD

Happy Fat by Sofie Hagan

You have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to share this list of resources!

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