World by M

Please read this:  http://www.ravishly.com/apa-release-guidelines-fat-shaming-kids-profit

https://www.themarysue.com/wonder-woman-wants-us-to-think-thin/

Why is this even something we have to discuss?  There is this enormous opening for any number of talented designers to make money and have their clothing walking about on people thrilled to have choices.... and yet, here we are, still talking about the fact that size doesn't matter when it comes to women wanting fashionable choices about what they put on their body. 

So, there’s this photo going around facebook... started with a self proclaimed physical fitness “goddess” ..... shared over 9,000 times.  And it’s a blatant lie. It shows a photo of a heart with an outer layer of fat, and the caption reads “The heart of an obese person” and all the comments are about how disgusting this is and about how it made people sick to see this, that ‘people could let this happen to their bodies’

This is not what this photo is of.

(and of course while the photo is tagged public, she had comments shut off to people not on her friend’s list so no one can correct her)

This photo is actually a picture of a perfectly healthy heart about to be transplanted into someone.  All healthy hearts have this layer of epicardial fat. It's protective, and vital.  This photo is actually from a slide show about heart transplants at Cedars Sinai. It's photo number nine. And be found in it’s proper context here:

http://health.usnews.com/…/ph…/heart-surgery-at-cedars-sinai 

I understand that many folks think that using the phrase "I feel fat"  or talking about having a "fat day" is OK because they are having a moment or a day or a week where they feel too big for their own body, for their own skin and that phrase is the most expedient way they have to express that feeling.  They will defend the use of it by saying that while it's literal translation may be inaccurate, they are trying to express a feeling that happens some where between moving along through life with all their bits and pieces feeling like they fit together and this place where something they can't put their finger on feels wrong - where they don't like their body or the way they feel in it and they are feeling gross about it.

But even with that explanation, it’s still not OK - because that's not the meaning of the word fat, either connotative or literal, and there are a significant number of people walking around the world who are literally fat.  When you take a word that simply defines another person's physical being and use it to mean a negative feeling you have about your own body, you're insulting the people who actually are that word, in this case who are actually fat.  Say you feel gross.  Say you feel like your skin doesn’t fit.  Say “I feel urgh today” -- Please stop using the phrase “I feel fat”.   I do feel fat, I look fat, I have fat - and that’s true on days I feel great about my body and on days when I’m struggling.  It, in fact, has nothing to do with how I feel about my body.  It just is.  Like I have hazel eyes or I have dark hair. 

If you work in retail - especially if you work in women’s clothing.  Please read this and then come back and read the rest of my post: 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10208367106073455&set=a.2168793537588.133310.1179185147&type=3&theater

For some of us, the huge number of diet program commercials on TV this time of year make just trying to relax in front of a funny show a minefield of psychological and emotional pitfalls coupled with spikes of anger and hostility.  Please, don’t add to that stress by trying to have a conversation with us about your diet plan, or about how you “feel so fat”.

Interesting project - some of the Photoshopped bodies are a bit alarming, but the variety makes for an interesting read.

--Trigger Warning: ED and diet talk--

This is a hard post to write.  I’ve dealt with the subject more generically here in the past.... but I’m having another ‘flare up’ of struggling and so I’m going to try and discuss it in a more personal fashion. I tend towards organization, planning and scheduling as part of my every day life - and there was a period in my life where I very, VERY rigidly applied those things to food and exercise.  The foods I put into my mouth were counted, measured, tracked, right down to ‘allowing’ myself to have 3 croutons on my usual Friday lunch salad.  The number of minutes I exercised and which machines at what pace/weight I used were scheduled, planned and adhered to with a complete lack of concern for my own bodies actual well being.  When I failed to gain the slim, fit body that these routines were designed to bring me - I sought medical attention.  When tests showed nothing medically wrong, my GP sent me to specialists.  When more tests showed nothing medically wrong, some of those specialist told me I was lying to them about the food I was consuming and/or the exercise I was doing.  And so I redoubled my efforts, and even went so far as adding a fasting day to each week.  And still, at 5′3″ I wore a US size 18.  I had almost no social life (a mandatory 3 hours, 7 days a week in the gym sort of gets in the way) and I was so incredibly unhappy. All my thoughts were consumed with the subjects of food and exercise.

In all honestly, I don’t really know what changed, but when medical professionals still had no answers for me, I started doing a LOT of reading on the subject... not reading the pop-science articles, but digging out actual scientific abstracts for newer studies on the subject and learning to understand them directly.  And with what I learned there, coupled with my own experiences, I began eating in a way that included more and more healthy choices, which sometimes included small amounts of foods that were emotionally satisfying with out being nutritionally dense, because my mental health became part of the equation.  And I found a form of exercise that I enjoy (dancing!) so that participating in it is not a chore to be scheduled and pushed through, but a part of my life that I look forward to.

and yes, all of that meant that I gained weight from where I was at the peak of my obsession with being thin.  Which I then had to work really hard to accept lovingly as just ‘part of who I am’.... because when I balance and measure all the parts of my life, I’m happy.  Very happy.  I’ve realized lately that a huge number of the people I associate with - friends, coworkers, family, acquaintances - are either on weight loss diets or have had weight loss surgery, and want to talk about both their process and their successes.  I don’t blame them for wanting to talk about it, I ‘get’ why they would want to, but even just witnessing those conversations with out participating is so incredibly difficult for me some days.  Stumbling across a friend’s facebook mention of being down 3 sizes, can feel like a punch in the gut to me, and sometimes even initiates the overwhelming impulse to skip eating for the rest of the day, or plants the seeds of negative self-talk.  It’s at this point that I have to VERY consciously run through a list of the very valid, very scientific reasons why those things would be a very bad idea, so that I can push the impulse out of my head.  Intellectually, I know how to handle this, I know that I need to be kind to myself, to do something to change my focus in that moment, and to be sure to acknowledge that that moment was a hard thing and to give myself credit for choosing a happy, healthy life....