Getty images via The Independent.
A Weekly Link Round Up of Body Politics & Body Justice News
- Surprise! There is no formula for determining health. Yep, we’re all unique individuals. In addition to learning that FAT DOES NOT EQUAL DEATH, we are learning that many people told they had a “healthy BMI” are in fact metabolically unhealthy. “The public is used to hearing ‘obesity,’ and they mistakenly see it as a death sentence,” [Psychologist A. Janet] Tomiyama said. “But obesity is just a number based on BMI, and we think BMI is just a really crude and terrible indicator of someone’s health.”
- Hundreds of former ISIS sex slaves have formed an all-female battalion to launch a massive assault on their abusers. The Yazidi women’s brigade calls themselves, Force of the Sun Ladies. “They are just some of the 2,000 Yazidi women who were captured and forced into sexual slavery when Isis raided Mount Sinjar in 2014 – but the UN estimates Isis still holds an estimated 3,500 people captive in Iraq, the majority being Yazidi women and girls.”
- Hari Ziyad shares their sexual orientation journey as a non-binary person on Everyday Feminism. “My queerness was more than sex. My sex was more than gender. I’m still trying to name what that “more” is. Somewhere along this journey, I learned to be okay with still trying.”
- There has been a lot of talk about Beyonce’s video, Formation, her Super Bowl appearance, and a lot of talk about Blackness. Black people aren’t monolithic and we each feel different ways about different things, including Beyonce and her video, if thinking about it at all. Analytical culture pieces and declarations of racist reaction about Beyonce are popping up daily! But one of the most important messages yet, may have come from Kate Forristall. A message directed to white people by a white person. “[If] you check the “caucasian” box on a job application, your place is in the bleachers for this dance,” wrote Forristall. “It’s time for us to stop singing along — to Formation, to Kendrick Lamar’s Alright, to any song that has the N-word or celebrates blackness in a way we will never understand.”
- Upworthy reports that retailer, Target will be introducing Caroline’s Cart to most of its stores in March of 2016. Carolines Cart is a shopping cart designed by Drew Ann Long after she realized her daughter Caroline, who has special needs, would soon outgrow the kids’ seat in a traditional shopping cart. The “cart gives parents and caregivers of individuals who are unable to walk on their own the ability to shop without having to push both a cart and a wheelchair simultaneously.”
- In the midst of Black History Month, Valentine’s Day, Mardi Gras and Presidents’ Day all occurring in February, most people might forget about National Eating Disorders Awareness Week which begins Feb. 22. The National Eating Disorder Association is working on getting the message out that there are “many different ways eating disorders present regardless of body size, race, gender or age.” This feature on ABC News is just one example of cultural assumptions becoming barriers to seeking treatment.
- Broadly updates us on the struggle for abortion rights and access in Northern Ireland. “A proposal to legalize abortion in cases of a sex crime or where the fetus cannot survive outside the womb (also known as fatal fetal abnormality) was rejected by 59 votes to 40 in the Northern Ireland Assembly.”
- Lotus Dao was on a trip to Vietnam with his family when he found it hard to literally, find the words to tell his mother he was in the process of transitioning to male. “Asian Health Services (AHS) in Oakland published [an LGBT] glossary in Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese and Burmese for its interpreters and non-English speakers to use… The glossary also includes words to describe emotions and social problems: It lists translations for terms like prejudice, social exclusion, trauma and suicidal tendency.” The glossary is meant to bridge the cultural communication gap between health providers and monolingual community members. Not to mention among family members – that’s pretty amazing.