Sizeism | Adios Barbie

FAT SEX, The Book

December 16, 2011 By Sharon 6 Comments

If you’re like me, you grew up with a very limited view of what sexiness is, of what sexiness looks like. I always found it perplexing that what was considered sexy was so narrowly defined. As a young girl, the women that surrounded me did not look like the so-called ideal and yet they were all partnered up. Obviously, they were having sex too! Yet everything I learned from television and fashion magazines told me this could not be so. More than 30 years later I am still searching for positive images of sexy fat women in the mainstream, which has happily led me to FAT SEX.

Author Rebecca Jane Weinstein’s book FAT SEX affirms what I have known intuitively all along — women of all sizes and shapes are sexy, passionate, desirable creatures with romantic and sexual lives. A seasoned lawyer and social worker, Weinstein recently took some time to talk with me about her inspirations for her revolutionary book, FAT SEX.

Jennifer Jonassen (JJ): Tell us about FAT SEX. Where did the inspiration come from?

Rebecca Jane Weinstein (RJW): FAT SEX is a book in which large-size women and men tell their true stories of social and self-acceptance in romantic and sexual relationships. Though they sometime face bigotry and experience shame, they are often heroic and live remarkably fulfilling lives. The stories are compelling and told with sensitivity and humor, connecting people on profoundly important aspects of their lives.

If there are two subjects that are universally fascinating and rife with controversy, they are sex and fat. Though our culture is obsessed with both, the notion of the two comingling is sometimes seen as offensive, obscene, or grotesque. There is an undertone in our society that fat people are not sexual beings, or shouldn’t be. This is, of course, far from the truth: fat people have normal and peculiar sex lives, just like everyone else. FAT SEX is a compilation of true stories, cultural references, and narrative commentary.

The inspiration for FAT SEX has come from several places. I have been fat, off and on, since I was four and my parents got a divorce. A pediatrician put me on my first diet in first grade and my teacher told the entire class I was not allowed to eat birthday cake. In Girl Scout Camp my bunk-mates would chant “here comes the tub” when I would walk by. I did many things to not be fat. Many of them dangerous, and none of them stuck. Though there were periods of not-so-fat, like after two summers of fat camp and later a lot of uppers — in the end I got progressively fatter. In law school one supposedly kind and caring professor told me I would never get a job because of my body. Every aspect of my life, since before I can remember, was punctuated with what was apparently the most important aspect of my being: My fat body. Especially love.

If my own life experience wasn’t enough, when I started working on http://www.peopleofsize.com/ I saw the pain and that I was not alone. And it was not actually about body size, it was about shame. Fat people can’t hide their bodies in the closet, but their shame is tucked neatly away. Fat people are mere mortals, and they need a voice. I am just one person trying to give that voice to those whose shame keeps them from speaking. It is me, my computer, and the wonderful people who tell me their stories, which I try to tell with compassion, empathy, honesty, and enough humor so we all don’t jump off a bridge.

JJ: How many stories are featured in the book?

RJW: There are about twenty stories in the book, but they interweave and represent so many more stories and people. They represent all fat people in some way or another. And not just fat people, other people who have body issues and food issues, or just live in this society and are conflicted about all the mixed messages that drive us insane.

Each chapter will delve into a different topic related to romance, relationships, and sexual practices. Subjects will include heterosexuals, gay men and lesbian women, those who have gained and lost a great deal of weight, the sexual “underground” such as cybersex and pornography, also alternative perspectives such as “fat admirers” and “chubby chasers.” Experiences, thoughts, and feeling about being a fat person in a sexual culture, sexual situations, and intimate relationships will be explored, explained, and validated. Through shared understanding people find the best in themselves and others.

JJ: Why is this book so important?

RJW: Research shows that weight discrimination is currently more prevalent than race and gender discrimination (Yale). According to the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination people who are larger than average encounter discriminatory attitudes and are denied equal opportunity in many areas of their lives, including prospective employers refusing to hire large size people; physicians and other health-care professionals advising fat patients to lose weight no matter what their medical condition; large people being systematically denied health insurance and life insurance; and landlords, housing agencies, and real estate agents denying larger people apartments.

But for my purposes, this book is about the human element: The day-to-day crap that large people go through; the insecurities they feel simply because of the size of their bodies; the personal rejection and loneliness; and the misguided notion that no one will love a fat person. The fact is, fat people can be and are loved. They can and do have great romances and sex. We are so brainwashed to believe we are undesirable that it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. These stories tell not just fat people, but the world at large, that fat people humans, and extraordinary humans at that. That is very, very important.

Author of FAT SEX and founder of PeopleofSize.com, Rebecca Jane Weinstein

JJ: Tell us a little bit about your site PeopleOfSize.com.

RJW: PeopleOfSize.com is an online community that provides information, support, and interaction for “people of size” of all ages. We are not a diet site, though health and fitness are part of what we address. We focus on all aspects of life, from medical [issues] to fashion, relationships to daily living, entertainment to emotional well-being.

We provide comprehensive information and access from many perspectives and offer a forum for discussion and social interaction. All subjects include a social networking function. People of size can communicate about their favorite plus/large size fashions, size-friendly vacation spots, health questions and concerns, job, family, and relationships, political and social issues, and everything in between.

The PeopleOfSize.com e-community is a welcoming place for all people of size, recognizing everyone should have the opportunity to live life to the fullest, learn and grow, be healthy and happy. We are a community with no judgment, just opportunity. Of course, PeopleOfSize.com is totally free. We also have a very active community on Facebook.

JJ: What would you tell a young person who is struggling with body image?

RJW: I would tell a young person not to do what I did. Don’t confuse your body size with your self-worth. Don’t let people mislead you into thinking you will be alone and unloved because of your size or shape. That’s easier said than done, but it’s the best advice I’ve got.

Then do seek out size acceptance groups. Look into Health At Every Size. Understand there is a big difference between health and weight, no matter what else you hear. Stand up for yourself. Be a proud person, not because of your weight or despite it, because of your inner-strength. There are a million slogans I could yammer, pep talks I could give, platitudes and clichés I could proclaim. The truth is young people are saturated with negative body image messages constantly. Know you are not alone. You are not alone! There are young people and old people and people in between that struggle too, and we need to support each other because things do change. We change. Our attitudes about ourselves and the world change all the time. I have changed a lot and I am still changing, and I am pretty old, though these days I feel like I am living some of the youth I missed.

JJ: What has the funding process been like and how have editors responded to the material?

RJW: I attempted to sell this book the traditional way. First I sought out an agent, which I understand can be a grueling process, but I found a great agent in about 24 hours. I thought I had it made. We were both anticipating a bidding war from publishers. My agent has been in the business a long time so that wasn’t just my fantasy. But it didn’t work out that way. I have been turned down by every major publisher in the country. We believe, from what we have been told that the material is too cutting edge, and right now mainstream publishing is all about celebrities and dieting. I am not a celebrity and this book is certainly not about dieting. The publishers and their editors are afraid there is no market — that not enough people will by the book. For them, of course, it’s about the bottom line.

This is a bit ironic, because the public interest in this book (and not just from fat people) seems to be great. My agent and I decided the best strategy would be to self-publish on Amazon and hope to get picked up from there. It’s a reasonable strategy but there is no advance or publishing and distribution support, so I am on my own. I started a Kickstarter.com campaign for FAT SEX. I am trying to raise $5,000 by January 14th. The money is trickling in slowly as this is a difficult economy and time of year. However, the number of “likes” for my projects is relatively astronomical. I have more Facebook “likes” on my Kickstarter.com page than most of the tech projects that have raised hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars. I still have 28 days to raise money, so we will see. I don’t think there is any question there is a market for the book. When more people “like” your page than the one for the iPad mini keyboard, it says something. Still, raising that money would really help.

Learn more about FAT SEX at its official website, its Kickstarter campaign, or read a chapter from Rebecca’s book in the online literary magazine Writing Raw.

Related Adios Barbie content:

Seeing Beauty in All: Over 40 Nudes

Filed Under: Sexuality, Size & Weight Tagged With: body image, Book, fat, FAT SEX, HAES, Kickstarter, PeopleofSize.com, Rebecca Jane Weinstein, Sexual Stereotypes, Size & Weight, size discrimination, sizeism

PETA and Porn: Exploit Women, Not Animals

November 29, 2011 By Sharon 15 Comments

PETA ad featuring Pamela Anderson that was banned by the city of Montreal in 2010 for being sexist.

By Ashley-Michelle Papon

Just in time for the chill of the holidays, the marketing wizards at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have come up with a new way to keep converts to animal welfarism warm. Within the next month, PETA will capitalize on their previously raunchy skin campaigns with a companion porn site. The porn site, PETA.XXX, will showcase plenty of celebrities willing to bare all, but according to Lindsay Rajt, PETA’s associate director of campaigns, the site will also feature displays of what PETA considers animal abuse. “We’re hoping to reach a whole new audience of people, some of whom will be shocked by graphic images that maybe they didn’t anticipate seeing when they went to the PETA triple-X site,” Rajt said.

From billboards preying on insecurities about swimsuit season as a method of somehow saving whales to advertisements suggesting your real concern during airport body scans should be how hot your vegetarian body looks, the idea that PETA could still manage to shock anyone is worthy of a laugh. Or two. Though the artwork from ad to ad differs, the message is overwhelmingly the same: learn to respect the welfare of animals, while disrespecting that of people.

In other words, a porn site featuring juxtapositions of animal abuse images isn’t a new low; it’s exactly the type of half-baked tasteless trafficking that we should be expecting from PETA. As a countless number of galleries–including this one by Time magazine–highlight, PETA’s co-founder Ingrid Newkirk long ago made the conscientious choice that the best way to sell her message would be through exploiting women, and she does it because it works, sticking to her philosophy that PETA is obligated to serve as “press sluts” to bring attention to their cause.

And stick to it, she does. Newkirk is, after all, the same woman who famously wrote to Yasser Arafat, urging him to keep animals out of conflicts with Israel after a donkey died during a suicide bombing. No such request for the then-prime minister to condemn “honor killings” such as bride burning and female infanticide, which accounted for a full two-thirds of all killings within Palestine territories at the time, reflecting PETA’s less charitable view of women’s expendability in general.

Not to mention PETA’s emphasis that a woman’s value is strictly in how her body looks. Fat-phobia has been PETA’s old trusty in the arsenal long before the “Save the Whales” campaign. Ideally, PETA shouldn’t care what a body looks like, provided that the body is simply sustained by a vegetarian diet and vegan living. In actuality, they know that if there is anything our patriarchal society reviles more than women in general, it’s women of size, and preying on those cultural prejudices has been a source of great media attention, which normalizes the violence visited on those same bodies.

Of course, this cavalier dismissal of violence against humans (specifically, women) is the real problem with PETA’s approach to activism. In 2002, PETA filmed a would-be Super Bowl commercial, which depicted a group of hooligans beating a woman to death with a baseball bat to the caption of, “What if you were killed for your coat?” Though the commercial was banned from airing, just last year PETA turned up the heat (and the fake blood) to launch their “Meat is Murder” basics, placing humans in life-sized deli counter meat packages and cellophane. The gag might have been somewhat educational, if the models hadn’t looked as though they’d just come out of Jeffrey Dahmer’s freezer.

That joke might seem to be in bad taste (no pun intended) until you consider that the serial killer’s cannibalism has been the fodder of more than one advertisement and celebrity-targeted criticism. No, seriously. But Dahmer’s crimes aren’t the only ones that PETA finds acceptable to dovetail into their agenda. In 2008, PETA created an ad identical to their 1991 Dahmer special in response to the Manitoba Greyhound bus beheading, asking people to imagine the terror of victim Tim McLean and use it as motivation to “leave violence off of their dinner plates.”

However, the argument here isn’t that the decision to launch a porn website is continuing PETA’s legacy of playing up violence to make a point. Although feminists often disagree as to how empowering or violent pornography inherently is, what makes this particular venture par for the course is PETA’s decision to include images of animal torture. It’s a veritable buffet of -isms for the organization, with the unintended consequence of eroticizing the torture of animals.

Part of what makes PETA’s performance so frustrating is that they should know better. Their website contains a lengthy explanation about the correlation between people who abuse animals and violent behavior towards other human beings, suggesting that on some level, somebody in that organization should understand the intersectionality of subjugation for women and the animal kingdom.

More to the point, promoting misogyny—often, violent—with the end result of animal liberation makes about as much sense as using racism to end class politics. You’ll capture some headlines, but you’ll probably alienate more people than you galvanize, especially since people likely to be more sympathetic to animal causes tend to also be against the idea of exploiting women.

It goes without saying that there are plenty of reasons to care about the treatment of animals in this country and elsewhere. Any enlightened, progressive individual has to acknowledge that our experience is largely shaped by what we consume, and that includes consuming the animal community. But responsibility goes both ways, especially when we’re talking about oppression of marginalized classes like animals. For real change to happen, PETA has got to stop objectifying women to nothing more than literal pieces of meat.

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Read other Adios Barbie content related to the eroticized violence of women:

A Monster Success! (reports on our successful petition against the official release of Kanye West’s misogynistic “Monster” video)

Deconstructing Kanye’s “Monster”

Filed Under: Representation and Identity, Women Tagged With: Advertisements, exploitation of women, fat discrimination, fat phobia, Ingrid Newkirk, Lindsay Rajt, misogyny, Objectification of Women, PETA, PETA.XXX, porn site, sizeism, women in advertising

Weight Stigma: Breaking it Down with Advocate and Activist Marilyn Wann

September 27, 2011 By Sharon 4 Comments

by Jennifer Jonassen

One of my biggest heroes in the struggle against fat hatred is unquestionably Marilyn Wann. Her first book, FAT?SO!, was positively revolutionary to me. I initially found myself drawn to the title as I painfully remembered that “fatso” was about the worst thing you could be called on the playground at lunch, and I was, many times throughout my childhood. Reading her book was the first time I considered the possibility that I was equal to everyone else, that I was worthy and entitled to respect. For many years I have considered Marilyn Wann the Gloria Steinem of the weight equality movement.

In person, Marilyn Wann is warm and incredibly understanding. In addition to being an indefatigable warrior and champion of human rights she is also one of the funniest people I know. I was recently blessed to have an opportunity to speak with her about some of the issues we face today including bullying, First Lady Michelle Obama’s controversial “Let’s Move” campaign, and U.S. healthcare. Ms. Wann’s story begins one important day where she faced a “double whammy” of discrimination and rejection. The catalyst events of that day led her to write FAT?SO! and to become the knowledgeable and inspiring leader she is today.

MW: I had what I called my Really Bad Day and I don’t think I’m the only person who has ever had a day like this. In 1993, I was having dinner with this guy and in the middle of dinner he said that he just realized that he was embarrassed to introduce me to some of his friends because I was fat. It really hurt my feelings. I was angry at him and outraged at being excluded. Then, I came home from that experience and opened a letter from Blue Cross California telling me that I would not be allowed to buy health insurance, not at any price, because of my weight. According to them I am morbidly obese. That was a double whammy.

JJ: What was your first step?

MW: I’m inspired by Audre Lorde, a feminist African American lesbian poet. She said that your silence does not protect you. So, because of that really bad day, I decided to come out as publicly as possible as a proud fat person. I started a zine called Fat!So? and then after five or six issues of the zine I got to put together a book proposal and write a Fat!So? book.

JJ: And Fat!So? is still in print today?

MW: Yes, it has been in print for 11 years and people are really enjoying it. I think it’s proof that people of all different sizes have these moments of being excluded for who we are. We all feel like we’re the only person who is alone and everyone else has some magic secret, when in fact we are all having that experience. So we have this solidarity in this alienation.

JJ: Do you think discrimination has gotten worse or better?

MW: I think it’s possible that levels of weight-based prejudice and discrimination have gotten worse. We are just now starting to get basic data on weight discrimination. I do know that for children it is getting worse. Children face more hatred from their peers and the anti-obesity campaigns against fat children are terrifying. The government-sponsored campaigns are also promoting fat hate. But I do also think that our resistance is better. The grassroots community of people—of all sizes—are saying that this is a stupid kind of prejudice that gets in everybody’s way and wastes our lives. I think we are finding more strength and more fabulousness!

JJ: Do you have any thoughts on why this form of prejudice is getting worse?

MW: I do think that weight prejudice got really heated maybe a hundred or more years ago out of a combination of a lot of different industries jumping into the public [realm]. Advertising, medicine, insurance, the government, and all kinds of major forces in our society, like the media, all jumped into public awareness for different but self-interested reasons. Weight discrimination is really driven by health beliefs. Health beliefs around weight are not neutral or beneficial: they really are very dangerous and they justify discrimination.

JJ: What can we do to fight against this discrimination?

MW: I don’t think it’s necessarily an incremental battle where you have to fight every step of the way against overwhelming odds. I think it’s a battle where we can use leverage, where things can shift on one idea or one zesty comeback or one powerful confrontation. So I have the hope that although we are incredibly outnumbered we actually have a really powerful position.

JJ: Why do you think the anti-obesity campaigns are not including information about HAES (Health At Every Size), NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance), or input from you or other scholars? It seems to me that these campaigns ultimately end up becoming more damaging although that probably isn’t their intention.

MW: Well, I think they may have good intentions but if they were behaving like scientists they would certainly notice the data doesn’t support their approach. The approach of telling everyone to just eat better and exercise more and they’ll be thin has been tried a million billion times by a million billion people, and it doesn’t produce the results that everyone is hoping for. People lose weight and feel better about themselves for a little while and then gain it back and continue feeling bad about themselves. So whatever good intentions there may be, [their intentions] are also shaped by fear of social ostracism.

JJ: Let’s talk about the Let’s Move Campaign, which is First Lady Michelle Obama’s major project.

MW: The Let’s Move campaign has this goal of “solving the childhood obesity epidemic within one generation.” That’s a terrible goal. There are ways that they qualify it but basically what they are saying is we don’t like fat children in our society, we don’t want there to be any fat children. Now there have always been fat children and there will always be fat children, so by having that goal they’re not changing the reality that fat children exist. They are just adding shame and blame onto fat children.

JJ: I know from experience that it is incredibly difficult and painful when your weight is targeted at a young age in school.

MW: I think that there’s this notion that weight loss goals are good and I don’t think that they are good. I think they are very discriminatory. Because they know that when people lose weight the majority gain it right back. And the majority of people are still going to [have] the natural body shapes that they were born to have. And so it’s kind of a utopian uniformity goal: the world won’t be good until we’re all the same body shape. I find that very creepy. Why do we even want that?

JJ: Can you explain the difference in approach that HAES takes?

MW: Well, I think Health At Every Size offers the possibility for reclaiming the joy and benefit from proper nutrition and good eating and the joy of moving and being physically active. We can reclaim behaviors that have been attached to weight loss goals and they can really be good for us. I think that when you have the Health At Every Size approach it celebrates weight diversity and health. We can revolutionize the way we think about health, weight, food, eating, and fitness if we stop torturing ourselves and each other.

JJ: There must be a correlation to bullying and these campaigns I imagine…

MW: It’s hard to gauge yet without studies [but] childhood for fat children can be hellish. We [NAAFA] recently [learned of] a tragic story. This teenage girl who was of average weight moved to a new town and she was picked on for her body and size and her nose. She was so harassed for her weight that she wouldn’t even eat on the school grounds. She had one new friend and she and this friend committed double suicide.

And this has happened before. These tragedies are horrifying and there are other children who will think of killing themselves. Their lives are permanently hindered. Their feeling of worth in the world is permanently damaged from being bullied and teased. We know that’s going on. There is kind of an attitude that bullying or teasing is somehow a necessary or required part of growing up. And I think that it’s just adults being fearful and cowards because this is not necessary. This is something anyone can stand up to. There is even a wonderful book by an eight-year old girl in Chicago about how she didn’t choose to be fat and she shouldn’t be teased for it. I think it’s up to all of us as human beings to stand up against hurtfulness. I go out and I give talks in schools.

JJ: You visit schools a lot. What is that like?

MW: I go in as a really fat person saying, “Hi, I’m a really fat person and here’s my story. Here is what it has been like for me and I don’t agree with being mistreated and I don’t want any of you to be mistreated for who you are. You don’t have to be fat or thin or whatever—you just have to know that all of you are fine as you are and you don’t have to take that.”

JJ: What kind of response do you get?

MW: I think its really powerful for children of all sizes and ages to meet a happy fat person and to meet a fat person who is not willing to blame everything bad in their world on their weight. It’s important to meet someone who is trying to challenge weight-based prejudice and stereotypes. It’s really powerful for kids just to see you. When I meet with children I don’t use Power Point, I don’t show videos. I want them to see a person like me because they’ve probably never seen a person like me. It’s just a little bit of contrast to the fat hate which they see everywhere. So it’s really powerful just to be with them. Kids have a great sense of fairness. They get really angry at unfairness in the world and I think that’s a great quality.

JJ: Is it hard standing up against these discriminatory beliefs?

MW: Sometimes when you stand up to this stuff more of it comes toward you. But it’s not like this hatefulness wasn’t already there. I think of it as information. If I speak out publicly about being a proud fat person and people make hateful comments, I look at it like these are people I did not want to be friends with anyway. And it’s good to know that they can be on the outside of my healthy boundaries and not be let in. And their hatefulness is proof that I need to say what I’m saying.

JJ: A lot of people feel that their hatefulness is justified since the issue is tied up with healthcare.

MW: I think we need to call people on that. For example, if somebody isn’t wearing a seatbelt and they get into an accident, well maybe that person doesn’t get a paramedic and we just leave them on the side of the road to die. That is the logic behind that thinking. There’s a lot of fear mongering from the public health establishment about these so-called alleged costs of healthcare for fat people. But all that is based upon the assumption that your weight can somehow predict how healthy you are and how long you are going to live.

JJ: Do you think if fat people were allowed to purchase healthcare [in the U.S.] that it would decrease tax dollars going to healthcare?

MW: There are a lot of fat people who simply aren’t allowed to buy health insurance, like me. And so we’re not costing anyone anything. For most of my adult life, I have had to pay my healthcare out of pocket. I was not a burden on anyone. And it’s really quite painful to know that people would rather have you die than have access to healthcare. You know, in many cases if a fat person goes to visit a doctor they are going to get a lecture rather than proper medical care treatment. That means that fat people are not getting the same quality of care or the same amount of healthcare than other people … and so we may get sicker because of that and that is very sad.

I find it interesting that we have skepticism about all different kinds of other topics. We’re willing to be skeptical when the government tells us we have to go to war, we’re willing to be skeptical of the advertising industry when they say “this is the best product”; we have some awareness that the information might be motivated by self interest and we question it. And it’s super interesting to me that people are really afraid or unwilling to be skeptical or to question the [relationship between] health and weight. I think that is because there is so much social pressure that if you don’t go along, you are going to be mocked and ostracized. And nobody wants to be mocked and ostracized so we’re refusing to even consider questioning the beliefs.

JJ: You find fun ways to get the message out. Can you tell us a little about the “flesh mob”?

MW: Recently I organized a bunch of people to interrupt an obesity conference on International No Diet Day. A place where people were convinced that if you are fat that means that you have to have all kinds of health problems. This particular conference was held to convince healthcare providers to buy weight loss products to sell. Basically a way to make money off of an oppression. And promote fat oppression. So I organized people to interrupt that conference with a dance party, which I called a “flesh mob.”

We had about 15-20 people show up at 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon … and my friend came up with a song that was similar to the kid’s song: “Heads Shoulders Knees & Toes” but instead of the children’s version, we made it syncopated and added a funky dance. The words were: “Chins Bellies Hips & Ass.”

JJ: Love that!

MW: We went into this conference room and we started playing the music and dancing and we stopped everything that was happening. The guy who was talking is a big promoter of fat hate. He was the guy responsible for lowering the BMI definitions of “overweight” and “obese” back in 1998. He takes a lot of money from diet drug companies. He takes a lot of money from Weight Watchers and other diet companies. He basically goes around the world promoting huge, ineffective, dangerous money-making fat-hate systems. And because he’s considered a medical expert he gets treated with respect. And I don’t think that anyone has interrupted him and shaken their fat ass at him and said, “You can’t have this one. This body is not susceptible to your judgment.” And to have about 20 of us doing that was really fun! When the security person came in we danced out of the room the same way we danced in. I would really like to see our community come up with more of these fun, irreverent activities that directly interrupt fat hate. Fat hate deserves to be interrupted. It deserves to be questioned.

For more about Marilyn Wann and her activism, visit her website Fatso.com (“for people who don’t apologize for their size”).

Editor’s Note: Ms. Wann will be publishing a 2012 FAT!SO? dayplanner, which will raise funds to create a community center called the Weight Diversity Action Lounge or WDAL. For more information checkout www.voluptuart.com.

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Filed Under: Activism, Size & Weight Tagged With: body image, bullying, fat, Fatso, Marilyn Wann, Self-Esteem, Size & Weight, size discrimination, size prejudice, sizeism, Stereotypes, weight

Body of Lies: Debunking the BMI

May 4, 2011 By Sharon 13 Comments

By Ashley-Michelle Papon

It’s that time of year again: swimming pools are opening, students are jogging, and if you’re a mom, you’re probably getting fat. According to a new study released in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, young mothers are more likely to make poor dietary decisions, less likely to exercise, and have a higher Body Mass Index, most commonly known as the BMI.

The United States has a firm history of economically punishing teenage mothers by denying them access to better resources including healthier food. Still, the most troubling pretext of the article has little to do with the gender disparity or economics skewed to keep the poor poor, but the implication that the BMI of young mothers is an indication of just how unhealthy they are.

Though the BMI has long been touted by medical and athletic communities as the greatest tool of measurement to determine someone’s health, stricter academic scrutiny and authentic scientific study is finding that the BMI as a gauge of health is flawed. Contrary to what you have probably heard several times over, the BMI is not an accurate indicator of how “overweight” you are. And it’s certainly not a viable indicator of your health.

In July of 2009, Keith Devlin of the National Public Radio shared with the world 10 reasons why the BMI is bogus. Urging listeners and readers to take the BMI—and their next meal—with a grain of salt, he patiently explained that, at its core, the BMI was a nonsensical, physiologically inaccurate formula created by mathematician Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet in the early 19^th century. Quetelet’s method to create a measurement was calculated by dividing one’s weight in kilograms by the square of their height in meters.

Although it may seem scientifically sound at first blush, the methodology creates no distinction between the weight of muscle versus the weight of fat, despite the fact that fat takes up roughly four times the space of muscle. In other words, there can be quite a difference in your weight and size based on your body type. By failing to evaluate the two body features separately, the BMI delivers faulty results that make being classified as overweight a virtual certainty. And though BMI has some level of success with whole groups of people, its use to determine how healthy one adult can be is questionable at best.

But the biggest weakness with BMI would have to be how it attempts to lock people into rigidly defined categories for underweight, ideal, overweight, and obese. The scale, ranging from 1 to 100, becomes overweight at 25 and obese at 30; it is transfixed in such a way to suggest that when individuals reach 25 or above, they’ve crossed into the territory of being unhealthy. This conclusion begs the question of what unhealthy actually looks like. By relying solely on the BMI for the numeric answer to this question, the aesthetics often don’t bear out to compliment the BMI’s ranking.

And although people think they can eye it the way they can parallel parking, a true visual assessment of one’s physique isn’t something that can be winged. In one of her earliest criticisms of the BMI, blogger Kate Harding launched a photo project showcasing woman with their height, weight, BMI, and a commentary about the accuracy of the BMI’s rating. One volunteer, Laurie, 5’0 and 130 pounds, carries a BMI of 25.4 percent. According to the BMI, Laurie is “overweight,” despite being a size 4. For emphasis, Harding showcases several curvier women, warning viewers not to get too attached because the BMI’s validation that they’re unhealthy suggests they will drop dead of heart attacks and diabetes soon.

Harding’s point was drastic, but the photographs of everyday women unable to meet these unrealistic body standards hammer home the damage done by the promotion of outdated rubrics employed to shame our bodies. What was pioneered in the interest of helping advance medicine has become a modern tool of extremely organized bio-power. The cultural and social obsession with weight management for women has always gone hand-in-hand with the desire to render them less powerful. In a very real sense, the physical reduction of their size is a stripping down of their agency. Since Kevin Smith gave up directing movies and became a factivist following his ejection from a Southwest flight for being “too fat,” this schism has widened to keep persons of size from inheriting power, often out of concern for their health.

Except that that brings us back, full circle, to why the BMI is completely bogus. The BMI is billed in a way that if someone has a BMI that places them in the “overweight” range, they are immediately considered unhealthy. Yet new research is finding that heavier people actually have more protection against a number of illnesses and chronic conditions, from kidney failure to infectious diseases and lung issues.

Despite this, it’s not going to stop the diet industry from using the BMI to keep pushing their products. Social attitudes notwithstanding, sources like the International Obesity Task Force and the American Obesity Association are treated as completely legitimate entities when they use the BMI to explain how we, as a society, are doomed because of our size. Despite authoring the majority of the World Health Organization’s obesity reports, both organizations are primarily funded by pharmaceutical and weight loss companies. Is it any wonder that these folks (and others associated with them) have been aggressively campaigning to have obesity classified as a disease? As Paul McAleer over at BigFatFacts concludes, “The ‘obesity epidemic’ is worth billions to the pharmaceutical, diet, weight loss, media, and government agencies fueling it.”

This should leave every person asking themselves: do I want to keep banking my health on a tool designed to tell me my body is flawed so that the companies employing that tool can continue creating a billion-dollar industry?

Filed Under: Science, Health and Research Tagged With: BMI, body image, Body Mass Index, diet, fat, size, Size & Weight, size discrimination, sizeism, weight

If You’re Fat, Your Paycheck Might Not Be

April 20, 2011 By Sharon 4 Comments

By Ashley-Michelle Papon

When it comes to cultural and social inequalities between men and women, the wage gap is one of the most widely accepted yet paradoxically ignored aspects of the gendered disparity. For over 30 years, equal pay has been the law of the land, though numerous independent studies have established that working women who clock 40 hours still make, on average, 77 cents to their male counterpart’s dollar. Furthermore, earlier this year, The Washington Post reported on some surprising findings that a person’s body size has more to do with the size of their paycheck than previously believed.

“The study found that thin women are paid significantly more than their average-size counterparts, while heavier women make less,” Amelia Rayno writes on Jan. 29. “Skinnier-than-average men, on the other hand, cash smaller paychecks than their average-weight peers.” Rayno goes on to quote Teresa Rothausen-Vange, a management professor at the University of St. Thomas, who explains that skinny men are considered “less-than-manly” while thin women make for a more attractive corporate image.

However, uncovering that the workforce is enabling and perpetuating unrealistic physical standards of attractiveness is old hat. What makes The Post’s report so shocking is contained several paragraphs down where Rayno reveals staggering results: Men on the smaller side earn $8,000 less than their more beefy male peers, a paltry amount in comparison to the women’s results. According to the study, thinner women earned more than $16,000 a year than their heavier co-workers.

Attempting to deconstruct all of the social mores that fuel the pay schism would require a blog post the length of Atlas Shrugged, but let’s examine a few of the more thought-provoking issues here. To begin with, it’s worth noting that the pay disparity between the two different male body types is still considerably less than the wage gap between men and women, particularly for women of color. This suggests that although the corporate world is hostile to people of size, men, particularly white men, have a leg up on the female competition.

That certainly seems to be supported by a study completed by Michigan State University researchers in April of 2009, which examined a control group of 1,000 bosses from companies in the United States. The study, published in the British Journal Equal Opportunity International, went on to conclude that being “overweight” didn’t appear to hurt men’s chances for professional advancement unless they were considered “obese,” while women were hindered by being considered “overweight” and “obese.”

Although the study validates what factivists have been saying regarding discrimination in the work place, it also exposes a flaw in the methodology of such information-gathering. The Michigan State University researchers carried out their study by asking medical professionals to rate the executives as overweight or obese based on the Body Mass Index, commonly referred to as the BMI, a formula that has been debunked in recent years for being grossly inaccurate. The results are made even more suspect due to the fact that the medical professionals only had photographs of the executives to go on, challenging the veracity of how objective the study actually was.

This isn’t to dispute that there is an obvious phobia towards persons of size because the instances of fat discrimination appear to be on the rise, but rather to illustrate how wily the problem is. Much like the Supreme Court’s standard on pornography, nobody can define what being healthy looks like as a universal precedent, but plenty of people think they have been granted the magical power to recognize it on sight. There is no standardized rubric with which to visually judge whether someone is “overweight,” but that doesn’t seem to deter some people from trying.

Although these findings affirm that employers are likely to rely on their own prejudices of weight to determine an employee’s worth, they also signal a strong need for political change to challenge the dominant, aesthetic narrative. Until such reform happens, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the pay gap may snowball into a pay canyon.

Jennifer Jonassen: A Sizeless Star

Lagerfeld Sets Aside Fat Phobia for Renn

Carrie Fisher Joins the Ongoing Star War Against Fat

Why Being Fat Is–and Isn’t–All That

Size and Sardine Packed Southwest Airlines

Weight Stigma: Breaking it Down with Advocate and Activist Marilyn Wann

Filed Under: Media Bias, Race, Ethnicity and Culture Tagged With: Ethnicity and Culture, fat, Fat Prejudice, gendered disparity, men, prejudice, Race, Ethnicity and Culture, Size & Weight, size discrimination, sizeism, wage disparity, wage gap, Women

Discrimination and EDNOS: One Woman’s Story

February 9, 2011 By Sharon 29 Comments

By Kath at Fat Heffalump

My name is Kath and I suffer from an eating disorder.

Officially, I have what is known as an Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Diagnosed (EDNOS). This means that I do not have Anorexia or Bulimia, but another set of behaviors that do not have a name. An unspecified eating disorder if you please.

I am mostly in recovery at this point in my life, but I still have issues with food, and behaviors and thoughts regarding my body.

I have an eating disorder and I am fat. Very fat. I am what in medical terms is known as “morbidly obese.” I personally prefer the term Super Fat. It means I get to wear underpants on the outside.

I wasn’t fat until I was about 11 or 12, and then it happened very quickly with puberty. However, my parents had told me that I was fat for as long as I could remember.

On learning that I am fat, most people assume that my eating disorder is binge eating or overeating because I must have been gorging myself to get this way.

Until a few years ago, every single doctor or medical professional I went to diagnosed me with overeating, often without ever asking me what I eat, or if they did and I told them, they didn’t believe me. They said I must be cheating, or lying, or not counting some things that I ate. I simply had to be an overeater to have “let myself get that fat.”

However, my disordered behavior was all about starvation. Restriction. Purging. Punishing. I started when I was about 13 or 14. Some bullies (girls) forced me to stick my fingers down my throat and make myself vomit because, “That’s what fat ugly bitches like you should do.” A year or so before this incident I had actually been shown what to do by another slightly older girl. I worked with her at an after-school job, and she thought she was being kind to the fat kid. She did it and it kept her slim, so she showed me how to stick my fingers down my throat and how to disguise that I was doing it. But it really wasn’t until the bullies forced me and humiliated me that I attempted to actually do it regularly myself.

I got very good at it. Nobody knew. I could vomit almost soundlessly. I could find reasons to disappear to the far corners of our yard to vomit behind trees. I started stealing laxatives from the medicine cabinet. I would take lots of Sudafed (a sinus decongestant that used to contain pseudoephedrine) because it made me manic and I could go through bursts of exercise. I learnt to “chew and spit” when I was eating in company. Sometimes I would stop for a while, particularly if I had spent time away from home and school where the pressure was always on.

However, I stayed fat. In fact, I got fatter.

The behavior continued after I left school. I became an obsessive vegetarian for several years as another way to exert control over my eating. I moved out of home at an early age and the independence afforded me a whole new range of opportunities for restriction, purging, and exercise binges. I lost some considerable weight at 18, only to have it come back with a vengeance some later, despite continuing my eating disorder. In hindsight, the weight loss was an indicator of severe illness.

I struggled with depression and anxiety all this time. I went to doctor after doctor, with both physical and emotional issues, but was repeatedly put on diets, usually without the doctor doing nothing more than looking at me and deciding I was too fat. If they did ask me to keep food/exercise diaries I would usually lie on them and say I was eating more and exercising less than I usually did. Even then, they didn’t believe me. If I told the truth they didn’t believe me either.

Remember, I was fat. I *must* have been overeating.

For 20 years, I kept presenting doctors with the same physical issues: An irregular menstrual cycle that manifested itself as constant bleeding, amenorrhea (absence of menstrual cycle), or dysmenorrhea (pain during menstrual cycle). In my early 30s, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS); I discovered I had been showing symptoms and characteristics of it since I was 12. I was told yet again that the way to “cure” PCOS is to lose weight.

By the time I was 33, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. I had been put on Duramine, an amphetamine-based appetite suppressant, which made me cycle between mania and depression, and stopped me from sleeping or consuming anything, including water for days at a time. I was exercising between six and eight hours per day. I had lost over 50lbs (about 25kg) and dropped five dress sizes. I was desperately unhappy and my physical health was failing. I was not coping at work and it was suggested that I should see the counseling service through the employee assistance program. I saw a few different psychologists—they all focused on my weight. Eventually, out of desperation I begged one of them to help me, told him of my suicidal thoughts and explained my obsession with diet and exercising. His response was to suggest that I add another half hour to the six to eight hours I told him I was already doing, “To get you over the plateau.”

That night, I attempted suicide, only to be halted by a dear friend contacting me because he was worried.

On the recommendation of another friend, I went back to a doctor I had liked (even though she had previously suggested weight loss), and told her how I was feeling. Thankfully, she listened and recognized I needed further help. She helped me get the medical support I needed, both physically and mentally. She referred me to a psychologist whom I clicked with almost immediately. Through cognitive behavioral therapy, I began to work on my self-esteem and self-worth. In 2008, I decided I was not going to diet anymore. Soon after I found the Fat Acceptance movement, and discovered that I could be healthy, and that I know my own body if I only take the time to listen to it.

My GP, psychologist, and I work together on my physical and mental health. They both accept that I know my own body better than anyone else, and trust that I will tell them if I feel something is not right. I trust them to guide me through any medical issues that arise with the best professional advice. I have an agreement with them that they will not focus on my weight, but instead on my health, and I have introduced them to a Health at Every Size method.

It is important to me to talk about having an eating disorder as a fat person. Where thin or normal weight patients often get sympathy and understanding, and even simple recognition of their disorders, fat patients are ignored, considered lying or “cheating” somehow. So often disordered behavior is sanctioned in fat people simply because there is a belief that fat people must have got that way through inactivity and gluttony.

How many people have to suffer, or even die, because of the belief that no matter what the cost, thinner is always healthier?

Expressing Disorder: Art Therapies for Eating Disorder Treatment

Celebrating Eating Disorder Recovery: Inaugural NEDA Walk in Texas

Study: Black Girls 50% More Likely to be Bulimic than Whites

Multicultural Women & Body Image

You Don’t Have to Have an Eating Disorder to be Image Obsessed

Filed Under: Self-Esteem, Size & Weight Tagged With: anorexia, bulimia, bullying, discrimination, eating disorder, EDNOS, fat, Health at Every Size, size, sizeism, Stereotypes, weight, Women

Size and Sardine Packed Southwest Airlines

February 17, 2010 By pia 2 Comments

By Pia Guerrero, Co-Founder/Editor

I hate traveling on Southwest Airlines. In addition to the inescapable thought that the plane is dirty, I can’t help feeling like a piece of meat jammed into a cage with a bunch of others waiting for our imminent doom. I can’t recline comfortably without worrying I’m slamming the person behind me in the face. And when I lean over to grab my Sprite from the attendant, I wonder if I have put on enough deodorant ‘cuz my armpit is smack dab in the face of the passenger next to me.

I am just about 5 feet tall. On any given day I weigh between 103 and 108 pounds. Needless to say, I am small. That’s why I’m glad the recent buzz around director Kevin Smith being kicked off Southwest highlights the prejudicial industry standards around size. If I can’t fit comfortably into one of their seats, how do these airway robbers expects others to?

In her piece Kevin Smith: The face of flying while fat, Kate Harding brings light to the shame so many people (who aren’t a size 2) feel when they board an airplane.

Jennifer Jonassen: A Sizeless Star

January 17, 2010 By Sharon 12 Comments

Photo credit: www.amycrilly.com

By Sharon Haywood

“It’s important for me to portray being fat as beautiful,” said Jennifer Jonassen, a 40-year-old up-and-coming plus-sized actress, dancer, and writer intent on breaking sizeism barriers in Hollywood. Originally from Brooklyn, New York she worked in various off-Broadway shows from the age of 18 to well into her thirties. With the exception of one stage role, she exclusively played mothers. It was only when she moved to Los Angeles and broke into film that she was cast in a wider variety of roles. She stated, “I finally was able to be portrayed as beautiful.”

It hasn’t been easy. Via her regular column at PLUS Model Magazine she shares her frustrations at the excess of demeaning roles for fat actors in Hollywood. Although she admits that she could work more, she will not compromise herself. In 2007, Jonassen was hired to play the lead in a film shot in San Francisco. Upfront and transparent, she clearly stated her conditions: “I do not want to be a fat joke and I won’t do any scenes depicting binge eating in a comical way.” Somehow the production company didn’t hear her. The script demanded she break a scale by stepping on it, as well as provide comic relief by overeating. Without ever shooting a scene, Jonassen chose to fly back to LA. The experience, though difficult, crystallized her path. She explained,

“I realized then, having that experience, that it’s more important to portray being fat as something different than what it’s been. I have since turned down roles by HBO and Fox. There were projects where I could have been easily cast but they were always demeaning, always ugly.”

Her award-winning monologue in Girlie Show (2000), created by Lori Lamb and Susan Greenhill, was far from ugly. Her monologue, Manifesto 275, not only described her weight at the time, but more importantly, how she makes no apologies for it. Recent projects include a recreation of a Twilight Zone episode, directed by Jim Pasternak in which she portrays a classic 1930s Hollywood leading lady, and an upcoming guest segment on the web-based series, Squatters. One current undertaking she is particularly proud of is the documentary Fat, due for release later this year: “It was an amazing experience. The director Julian Dahl and the producer Linnea Dahl are very supportive. It’s going to be a powerful, powerful film. It shows very different, idiosyncratic stories of different perspectives of what it’s like to be fat or feel fat. Fat is so stigmatized in our society that it’s time to reclaim it.”

Her role in Fat not only includes a nude scene, but also documents the first time she performed with her dance troupe R.A.I.D. (Random Acts of Irreverent Dance) – in a full-body gold spandex suit. (To get an idea of the troupe’s caliber, some of the dancers have worked with Madonna and Rihanna.) In September 2008, Jonassen began her dance career at “38 years old and three hundred and forty some-odd pounds.” She explained how the creator and choreographer of R.A.I.D., Ramie Becker, aims “to have everyone incorporated into dance. She wants different shapes and sizes, and ages and levels of dance because she sees there is a real stigma in the dance world. She wants to expand that world so that everyone is included.” Jonassen recounted how coming to the decision to wear the spandex suit challenged her. “I really deliberated for weeks. Will people think it’s offensive? Or will it be, she’s fat and it’s funny?” Ultimately, she is grateful for the inner transformation it triggered. In fact, she asserts that everyone should slide into a gold spandex body suit at least once. In her opinion, “you can’t hate yourself in it.” Today, Jonassen celebrates her body.

In her debut article for PLUS Model Magazine, she wrote,

“I am a plus-size actress who is trying to change the way larger women are thought of and portrayed on film and onstage, as well as the world that they live in.”

Determined to realize her goal, she’s decided to create her own opportunities. In conjunction with Becker, she is developing “a one-woman burlesque show a la Mae West” to be performed in LA later this year. She also envisions creating a series of one-woman shows that could incorporate other themes – trapeze or maybe even rock climbing – all in the name of bashing stereotypes. And she’s not stopping there. She is also co-authoring a script that features her ideal role: “A leading lady with no mention of weight.” Based on her accomplishments, courage, and unwavering resolve, Jonassen’s vision for both herself and Hollywood is well within reach.

Discover more about Jennifer Jonassen at her website, her Facebook page or at PLUS Model magazine.

Lagerfeld Sets Aside Fat Phobia for Renn

Carrie Fisher Joins the Ongoing Star War Against Fat

Why Being Fat Is–and Isn’t–All That

Size and Sardine Packed Southwest Airlines

NYTimes Writer Barely Apologizes for her Discriminatory Remarks Against Fat People

Weight Stigma: Breaking it Down with Advocate and Activist Marilyn Wann

Filed Under: Body Bandits, Size & Weight Tagged With: fat, hollywood, Jennifer Jonassen, PLUS Model Magazine, R.A.I.D, size, sizeism

NYTimes Writer Barely Apologizes for her Discriminatory Remarks Against Fat People

August 17, 2009 By pia 4 Comments

You know size discrimination is alive and well when the editors at The New York Times allow a writer to pen hateful remarks aimed at plus sized people and stores that carry larger sizes, like JCPenny.

Image of JCP Plus Size Mannequin from righteousbuzz.blogspot.com

Posted on Stylelist.com by Lesley Kennedy

Style scribe Cintra Wilson didn’t tiptoe around her severe aversion to JCPenney in today’s Critical Shopper column in The New York Times.

“Why would this dowdy Middle American entity waddle into Midtown in its big old shorts and flip-flops…” she wrote, going on to rip on the company’s “knockoffs,” copious amounts of polyester and even the font used in the company’s logo.

But what really caused public outrage was the writer’s commentary on how the clothes are all geared toward fat people….

“To this end, it has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen,” she continues. “They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on. It’s like a headless wax museum devoted entirely to the cast of ‘Roseanne.’”