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Selling Fat Acceptance to Fat People

As I have moved from accepting to at times selling fat acceptance one thing I have realized to my own utter astonishment is that “normal” BMI people are actually more open to discussing and listening to anti-diet and fat acceptance dialogue.

The fat people I run into in my life tend to be the most closed minded to what I am saying. They nod politely, then continue their diet talk or body shaming soliloquies as if they are utterly incapable of even hearing, much less considering, and the radical ideology I am offering up to them. Now, why would a fat person refuse to hear or consider an ideology that accepts who they are in their reality now?

A fat person considering to diet or currently dieting often ignores their own life long proof that dieting has failed them. They have bought into the cultural belief that this time they will lose the weight for good. This time, they will be good and not cheat, not slip and certainly not eat like before. To consider the idea that they are “trapped” in their fat body forever and ever is so terrifying to them, so abhorrent that they cannot even consider a life living in their body… even though they have and are currently living in that fat body and most likely will do so for the rest of their lives.

A fat person who is dieting and losing weight also receives a lot of attention from family, friends and society at large. For many of them, this may be the only time they have ever received positive attention about their bodies or their looks. Fat people who are losing weight from dieting (or any other method including illness) allow themselves to be patronized, their heads patted by their thinner friends and dieting cohorts at the ongoing cost of their own self dignity and respect in the bodies they have now. Asking a fat person to consider fat acceptance is asking them to deny standard social approval and accolades and while fat acceptance and body image would improve their self worth and respect; they are often unwilling to give up what morsels of positive tidbits thrown their way by others. It’s all so terribly Pavlovian.

Lastly, the fat person has this shining, golden dream called the Fantasy of Being Thin. Constantly striving, reaching and crashing upon the shore of hostile territory the fat person nevertheless believes despite clear evidence in their own lives that this is not their island. They live on equally wonderful, luscious fruitful Fat Island but believing the grass is greener they starve themselves over and over again to reach that far shore. For the fat person, being told that they must give up trying to reach Thin created a sense of loss with the fat person living in the dominant cultural paradigm. They will get thin or die trying… they will get thin or hate themselves, loathe themselves every moment of every waking day until they do.

And so when someone like me, a fat advocate happens upon the scene… I am not welcomed with open arms; I am their worst nightmare. They Fatty Who Let Themselves Go. The Fatty Telling Them To Just Accept Their Body.

When I meet fat people who are still hooked into the dominant attitude towards their fat, still hating, still loathing still chasing after the mirage that never quite materializes. Embracing fat acceptance has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I feel so much better about myself and my relationship with my body is the best it has ever been. The only thing I had to do was let go… it’s all rather Zen, really. Just Be… Being, here now and allowing is to flow. I wish I could give this gift, this glimmer of relief to everyone so I will keep selling it and hope a few seeds germinate.

If those billboards existed when I was a kid…

The whole Georgia Obese kid billboard sign outrage and the lash back by Body Diversity and Size Acceptance activists have triggered so many feelings inside of me who experienced life as a kid who was fat and terribly bullied.

It has taken me years to figure out why I suffer with so much body anxiety. My body specific anxiety was unlike anything I had heard on TV or elsewhere, I was not anorexic, was still fat but was often crippled by body anxiety so bad it was to the point where I was having suicidal thoughts… My anxiety is a lot like obsessive compulsive or agoraphobia behaviors but directed towards how I look and how my body looks. With a lot of self-inquiry and research I found that I fit the bill for BDD, body dysmorphic disorder… with a twist…because, well, I am fat but I realized that when I was a size 10 or size 16… I saw the same woman, the same body. My anxiety ruled everything about my looks and my life. I still have great difficulty in looking at pictures of myself, especially ones not “pre-approved” by me, among other expressions of this warped and sick conception of self.

For  many people like me it all begins with school yard teasing, comments made by “well-meaning” family and friends, as well as by teachers and other so-called professionals who looked the other way while I was being verbally abused, assaulted and stalked by other kinds both in class and on the playground or during PE time. Not once can I think of a time where an adult stepped in when I was being abused verbally , and sometimes not even when I was assaulted physically, I cannot remember a time when kind words about me given as a counter-active to the daily assaults on my self-esteem and integrity by any adult besides my Mother.

I was told by adults to lose weight, that “your feet are splaying out”, concerned looks when I drank a can of soda. Not one of those adults gave me, a poor child, money to join a sport group, summer camp admission, or dance class lesson money. Not one of those adults offered to ride a bike with me or go hiking.  Maybe if I was encouraged into sports or dance or movement I would have found redeeming qualities in my body even while fat. I spent most of my time riding my bike and walking along the bay, alone because I was shunned by classmates and peers.  I was constantly shamed and hated for being something I could not understand why I was… or what to do about it. All I knew is that I grew up assaulted abused, neglected, rejected and constantly humiliated. Is it any wonder that today I have significant and severe psychological trauma as a result? How could it ever not?

Seeing these billboards in Georgia allows me to imagine what kind of additional hell I would have went through had these been existed in my childhood. I can imagine every time my Mom would drive by one (and I would know where each one was, perfectly triangulated routes of shame I would have desperately tried to avoid) or my classmates biked by I would know they were thinking of me, discussing me, laughing at the picture, “hahaha there’s Jenna the whale!!”. I can only imagine to additional teasing, bias and stigma would have been loaded onto an already overfull plate of loathing. There were many times in my formative years that I contemplated suicide just so I would not have to face another day at school… I wonder if billboards on the way to school and its resulting behavior from others would have pushed me over the edge. To this day I battle suicidal thoughts when looking at my body… typical for a sufferer of BDD anxiety disorder.

The response to the ads by body acceptance activists has been swift and loud. I have read some of the rebuttal posters and I feel the little fat girl I was is crying inside. Crying in relief, sobbing in finally feeling like someone in this grand world… would have loved and accepted her just as she was. I wish if only once in her whole fat childhood… she was told she was worth something because she is intrinsically a beautiful soul housed in a strong and beautiful body. The rebuttal of these advocates fighting for the sanity of fat children is in a way is mending my little girl heart. Thank you advocates, thank you for fighting for the dignity of our children, whatever size they may be.

Because of the trauma and subsequent disorder I contracted as a result, I am very sensitive to the dignity of fat children. If I see an awesome fat kid, and especially, a fat girl I make sure to tell them (they probably freak out a little, so unused to positive attention) that I think their dress is lovely, or how I wish I had their hair, or I’m so impressed by their talents. I wish I could hug them all and show them how intrinsically lovely they are, how special, how sensitive and wonderful they are. The issue here is not about bodies really… it’s about dignity and love.