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Margaret Cho on the Power of Reclaiming Beauty

January 13, 2012 By 6 Comments
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by Contributor Marianne Schnall, originally posted on Feminist.com

Editor’s Note: We’ve pulled from the vault this 2009 interview with Margaret Cho where she candidly talks about weight, beauty, body image and show business.

Margaret Cho is currently starring in the new, critically acclaimed series Drop Dead Diva which premiered on July 12th on Lifetime. Drop Dead Diva tells the story of a shallow model-in-training who dies in a sudden accident only to find her soul resurfacing in the body of a brilliant, plus-size and recently deceased attorney. Actress Brooke Elliott stars as lawyer Jane Bingum, and Margaret plays her supportive friend and assistant, Terri.

The show is not only well written, funny and entertaining but also touches on body image issues which are close to Cho’s comedy and her heart. I checked in with the outspoken actress, on a break from filming in Peachtree City, Georgia, to talk about her new show, the politics of feeling beautiful, homophobia, the Internet, playing the banjo and her outlook on life.

Margaret Cho is on the Advisory Board of Feminist.com.

 

INTERVIEW WITH MARIANNE SCHNALL (7/13/09)

Marianne Schnall: I watched Drop Dead Diva this past weekend and loved it. For anybody who has not yet seen the show, how would you describe the concept behind the show and what appealed to you about doing the show?

Margaret Cho: Well, the show is about a shallow, thin, blonde, model girl who dies and gets sort of reinserted in the body of lawyer who is very brilliant, but pretty insecure – she doesn’t really think about her looks much, she doesn’t live the life of the body in the way that the model was used to getting by on her looks and that kind of thing. So it’s really a show about how society values certain kinds of beauty over another kind of beauty and what it’s like to live on the other side – whatever side of the beauty continuum you’re on – sort of all the different aspects of it.

So when I first read it, I was really impressed at the way that it dealt with these issues with such grace and humor. And I was the first person cast in the show. And when I did the pilot I just really thought that they did such a great job casting Brooke Elliott in the lead because she just really is perfect – she’s the only actress I could ever see playing that role. She plays both roles really – Jane and Deb, you know. And it’s funny how a show that’s so based in fantasy, sort of a fantastical premise, is closer to real life than so many of the shows out on TV [laughs]. It shows real women, real body types, real people. I think it’s a beautifully-written show, it’s very funny – that’s what appealed to me is the humor, and also the heart.

MS: I was thinking about your own personal history in television and the struggles that you’ve had in terms of body issues, when on your first show “All-American Girl” the network executives asked you to lose weight to play yourself - and you wound up dieting yourself into the hospital – there’s this sort of beautiful irony to coming back into a show that’s actually dealing with these issues head on – it feels like maybe there’s a little progress there, or some hope, to have a show like this, and that you’re on it.

MC: I love it, yeah, and I love that I get to be on it. And to me it’s a wonderful thing because the images of women are so limited in television, you know. And then if you see somebody who is different than the girls that are like super-thin – then it’s like we’re treated like a visual joke. It’s like weight, just like race, becomes part of the issue. It’s like you can’t just have a person that has a different body size than the norm what is considered hot and not have to have that be the story – it’s like a weird thing. Why can’t all different types of women be considered beautiful? Why can’t we can’t we all be considered possible love interests? It’s very – I don’t know. I think things are getting better – just with the sign of a show like this is that things are getting better. I think maybe a show like this makes things get better.

MS: That’s what I hope. Talking about beauty – your last tour and concert film which I saw on Showtime and loved is called Beautiful, and you’ve said it was your official “coming out” as beautiful. I also saw you on “The View” last week and you said, “We have the power as women to call ourselves beautiful.” Can you talk about that?

MC: Well, it’s more like – I always thought that people told you that you’re beautiful, that this was a title that was bestowed upon you – that it was other people’s responsibility to give you this title. And I’m sick of waiting, people! [laughs] Waiting around for people to tell me that I was! I’m tired of waiting. And I think that the world is pretty cruel to women, in what it considers beautiful and what it celebrates as beauty. And I think that it’s time to take into our own hands this power and to say, “You know what – I’m beautiful – I just am. And that’s my light – I’m just a beautiful woman.” And I am just going to start talking about how beautiful I am, and people will start talking about it after I start talking it. And I’ve noticed – and I’ve done this now for a couple of years – and it’s changed the way that I carry myself, it’s changed the way that people respond to me, and it’s changed the way that I feel , and I think this is an important experiment and an important thing for people to do. To start telling people that you’re beautiful, or just feel beautiful, just start acting like you are the most beautiful woman in the world. And it really improves everything! Because your sort of psyche responds to it – like this is truthful! I think self-deprecation is such a disease, and I want to cure everybody of it and so that’s my contribution.

MS: And I’ve heard you say, which I thought was interesting, that even being able to call yourself beautiful is almost like a political act – where it’s not just something you do for yourself, for feeling good and self-esteem – but it’s also that the more women feel beautiful, they are more inclined to use their voice.

MC: Right. And express their opinion and feel powerful. Like when you feel beauty – and beauty for women is definitely power. When you feel powerful, you are willing to stand up for your rights, you are willing to stand up for what you believe in, you’re more willing to stand up and be counted. I think it goes deeper than just something that’s about looks or something that’s about any kind of sexual power or whatever – it really has to do with pride. And pride and a sense of self, and a sense of worth.

Read More of this Interview: Feminist.com

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Michael Jackson: Another Victim of the Fame Game

Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”: Racist or Revolutionary?

Gabby Sidibe in Bazaar: Curvy in Couture

Body image gets animated: What The Simpsons and Family Guy say about beauty

Music’s New Bold and Bountiful

The Truth About Celebrity Weight Loss

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Dare to Resolve to Ditch Dieting

December 27, 2011 By 6 Comments
Official logo for the Ditching Dieting campaign.

Dieting is toxic to your health.

By Sharon Haywood

Aside from bikini season, late December and early January is the other time of year that we’re especially susceptible to feeling bad about our bodies. Special thanks to the media and the diet industry for ensuring we do by reminding us that we overindulged during the end-of-year festivities and we must resolve to lose (at least) that holiday weight come the new year. Weight Watchers in the UK is making certain you hear that message loud and clear. On January 1, 2012 almost all the major UK television networks will simultaneously air a three-minute Weight Watchers commercial aka music video worth over US$23 million. In it, Weight Watchers proudly parades 180 clients, mostly women, who have lost a total of 5908 pounds using its trademarked ProPoints program launched just a year ago.

What I’d like to see is how many of those slimmed-down success stories will have kept the weight off by New Year’s Day 2016. According to the studies, within four to five years most of them will have regained the weight, and at least 60 to 120 of them will weigh more than their pre-diet weight. Yes, I said diet. Regardless of what Weight Watchers (or SlimFast or Jenny Craig or any other system or product designed to lose weight) calls it, a diet is a diet. And diets don’t work. Sure, if you eat only protein and avoid carbs or measure your portions or adhere to a system of points that limits your caloric intake, yes, you will lose weight… initially. But research[1] clearly shows that any weight lost is sure to creep back within five years.

Researchers at California’s UCLA sought out specific evidence on the long-term results of dieting by analyzing every published diet study—31 in total[2]—that monitored participants’ weight from two to five years after their initial weight loss. The study’s lead author, Traci Mann, summarized their results:

“You can initially lose 5 to 10 percent of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back. We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more. Sustained weight loss was found only in a small minority of participants, while complete weight regain was found in the majority. Diets do not lead to sustained weight loss or health benefits for the majority of people.”

You may have already heard this information but you may have very well just resigned yourself to playing the losing and gaining game. It’s understandable considering how barraged we are with the message that fat will kill you. But the truth is fat can actually protect you against certain diseases including osteoporosis, chronic bronchitis, and some cancers.[3] Furthermore, the evidence strongly supports that continued yo-yo dieting or losing and gaining weight repetitively does real damage to your body, not to mention the mental and emotional self-abuse that dieting demands. The research is clear: weight cycling plays a large role in various ailments, ironically often attributed to obesity: high-blood pressure, congestive heart failure, diabetes, and even premature death.[4] Unfortunately, the studies that attract the most press are those that support weight loss as a means to health; such studies are substantially funded by the pharmaceutical[5] and weight loss industries. And these industries are certainly not lacking in profits; in only two more years, the worldwide weight-loss market is predicted to be worth a staggering US$586.3 billion.

It’s time to say “No” to big business making money off our bodies. Enough of believing the propaganda that fat is the enemy. Enough of trusting that the label ‘overweight’ or even ‘obese’ obtained from an unsound BMI chart translates to ill health. As the year comes to a close and you compile your list of New Year’s resolutions, dare to do something different. Dare to listen to your body. Dare to ditch dieting. And know that you don’t have to do it alone. Across the pond, the Endangered Bodies campaign, launched by the Endangered Species International March 2011 Summit, is in full swing. The Endangered Bodies (EB) team in the UK[6], led by Susie Orbach, launched its Ditching Dieting campaign last month at UK Feminista’s national conference where they invited attendees to “speak out against the misery caused by the diet industry.” And you can, too.

Anyone, anywhere can hold a SpeakOut in the name of Ditching Dieting. You can organize a few friends around your kitchen table or you might fill an auditorium. The point is to create a safe space where the suffering caused by dieting can be expressed and validated. A SpeakOut and the subsequent support group that can emerge from it offer similar peer support that diet clubs such as Weight Watchers provide; however, instead of focusing on working against your body’s natural impulses, a SpeakOut club facilitates strong bonds as you explore collaboratively with other members how to truly take care of yourself. In the words of the UK EB team:

“In general, the aim is to become really aware of where dieting puts you, and to start making important choices about how much you want to play along with a game that is making you miserable… It is about taking on the challenge to accept and understand how natural it is to eat happily, in response to your hunger, and without guilt.”

Learning how to eat intuitively is a process that takes time, especially if you’ve historically relied on external factors, such as a meal plan or a point system to guide you on when and how to eat. Diets teach us to ignore our internal cues, which only contributes to eating disorders and obesity. As Susie Orbach has asked many times,

“If dieting worked, why would we need to do it more than once?”

Let’s kick off the New Year off by Ditching Dieting and move toward eating “happily ever after.”

* * *

Whether you’re in the UK, the US, Canada, or Europe, consider hosting your own SpeakOut. For more information visit www.ditchingdieting.org and write to info@any-body.org to obtain a SpeakOut package.

Currently in the UK, a Body Image Inquiry is underway looking into the causes and consequences of body image anxiety. If you’re based in London, take the day off work on January 16, 2012 and join the UK EB team in speaking out against the diet industry at Parliament. Full event details here.

[1] Gina Kolata, Rethinking Thin, New York: Picador, 2007, 188.

[2] Contrast that with the fact that the obesity “crisis” was primarily borne out of four studies. See Paul Campos’ The Obesity Myth, New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2004, pages 13-20 for more details.

[3] Linda Bacon, Health at Every Size, Dallas: BenBella Books, Inc., 2008, 138-139.

[4] Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth, New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2004, 32-33.

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Feel Fat? Try Burlesque to Feel Beautiful

December 20, 2011 By 7 Comments
Photo by Powerful Goddess Photography

Photo by Powerful Goddess Photography

By Kitty Cavalier

Recently a friend told me she wants to love her body but she always feels fat. I dedicate this article to her.

No woman is immune from “feeling fat.” But notice we don’t say, “I have fat on my body all the time.” What we are describing is the FEELING of being fat. For every woman, the feeling of being fat represents something different. Try completing this sentence: “I feel fat, and that means I am _______.” Some examples would be: unattractive, too much, not enough, gross, unlovable, a mess… just to name a few.

Now, continue the sentence with: “if I am _____, that means__________, and that makes me feel__________.”

For example:

“If I am unattractive, that means I will never live my dream of having a partner who truly loves me, and that makes me sad.”

“If I am not enough, that means I will never get anything I want in this life no matter how hard I try, and that makes me mad!”

” If I am too much, that means I am different than everyone else, that no one will ever understand me, and that makes me feel sad and alone.”

What is fat? Fat is a tissue. An assemblage of molecules and acids. But for a woman who is feeling sad, lonely or angry in a world that takes drastic measures to prevent her from feeling the fullness of her truth, it is easy to trick ourselves into believing that if we did not feel fat, we wouldn’t have to encounter these intense feelings so often. That’s what it looks like on TV anyway. So we put all our attention on how we can reshape, reform and reinvent our sweet, precious bodies. But as many of us have discovered, you can still be lonely in a differently shaped body.

So, what is the antidote? Well, it sure as hell doesn’t begin an X or end with a drine. Have you ever met a girl who looks really pretty, but because she so clearly doesn’t love herself, she is really un-beautiful? Her beauty is there, but it leaves you with a feeling of emptiness? And then, have you also met a girl who is incredibly “imperfect,” yet completely enchanting because of how much she enjoys being exactly who she is? Her self-love is infectious, and you cannot help but fall under her spell. With this kind of woman, it’s not in what she has, it’s in what she believes. She refuses to buy into the idea that her scrumptious self could be anything less than lovable.

Burlesque is the living practice of being this kind of woman. There are some who think that burlesque is a step back for feminism, and that stripping is an objectification of women, period. To me, it is the exact opposite. When I went to my first burlesque show five years ago, what changed my life forever was seeing women who looked exactly like me, with real bodies, making the rules about what it means to be beautiful.

They were not trying to fit into someone else’s definition of sexiness, or waiting for something to change in order to feel the fullest expression of their beauty and power. And if you couldn’t groove to their beat, well, you could just move on over. The same bodies I would see being squeezed, cursed and quickly covered up in the gym locker room were being flaunted and adored. I saw teeny-weeny AA cup breasts, G size breasts that came down to the belly button, and each woman walked around in mere pasties and a g-string with an ease and confidence that was impenetrable. These were not mere objects of male desire. These were objects of pure feminine power. The kind that is gorgeously unapologetic, perfectly imperfect, simultaneously embodying the beauty that dwells in the darkness and the light.

Today, act as if you are a woman who has the world in the palm of her hand. A woman whose beauty is eternal, and leaves a legacy in her wake. Act as if you are a woman who turns every head as she walks into a room. A woman that is flown across the world because her beauty is legend, and someone is prepared to pay millions of dollars for the inspiration that comes from watching her take one sip of coffee. When you live your life from this spot, you evaporate the chains that tie us down to the belief that we will only experience our fullest power when we don’t feel fat. That is bullshit. You are this woman. Feel your power now.

Kitty Cavalier is known for bringing mischief to the masses at The School of Charm and Cheek in NYC, of which she is the founder. After a lifetime of hating her body, she took a wild risk by performing a burlesque striptease in front of 100 people, and has never been the same. Since then she has been on a mission to help women adore and appreciate their feminine form through burlesque dancing and other sensual arts. For more information, visit her website, join her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

Cross-posted with permission.

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Remembering Ruby

November 15, 2011 By 3 Comments
ruby body shop

By Sharon Haywood

Fifty-something-old Barbie[1] might be middle-aged but she sure doesn’t show it. When she was in her 30s, her manufacturer Mattel sent her for plastic surgery, not to maintain her youthful appearance, but rather in response to market demands to morph her into a more realistic-looking doll. In 1992, Barbie’s waistline slightly expanded. Then in 1998, Mattel altered one version of the doll—Really Rad Barbie—giving her a decreased cup size and slimmer hips. Currently, her estimated measurements—38-18-34—contrast greatly with the American woman’s average of 41-34-43[2]. Barbie’s curves fall several inches short of what typical women possess today.

Considering that the average woman in the U.S. is a size 12/14, a doll that wears a double-digit dress size would be a much more accurate reflection of American women. The late Anita Roddick (1942-2007), the founder of The Body Shop, thought the same. In 1997, the socially-conscious international cosmetics franchise and Host Universal created Ruby: a chubby-cheeked, chestnut-haired, computer-generated figurine. Ruby was the brainchild of The Body Shop’s self-esteem campaign, “Love Your Body.” Her size 16 image was accompanied by the caption, “There are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and only 8 who do.” She sent the message that you should love what you’ve got, not loathe it.

If you’re familiar with Ruby, you know that she’s not easy to locate. So, where’s this confident and curvaceous character been hiding? You can find her here, alongside other rejected and banned ads.[3] We can thank Mattel for Ruby’s label of “Banned.” The U.S. toy manufacturer thwarted the innovative campaign in its early days by serving The Body Shop with a cease-and-desist order; all posters had to be removed from American shops. Why? In Roddick’s own words:

“Ruby was making Barbie look bad, presumably by mocking the plastic twig-like bestseller … Mattel thought that Ruby was insulting to Barbie.”

Outside of Roddick’s explanation on her website, no other information regarding Mattel’s specific legal grounds can be found online. We can surmise that Ruby’s rolls and less-than-perky breasts were the offending culprits.

This year Ruby would have turned 14. But imagine if she had grown from being a self-esteem campaigner into a three-dimensional doll in direct competition with Barbie. Do you think that when she would have reached her 30s, she would have gone under the knife, too? Would the folks at The Body Shop have decided she needed a tummy tuck, a breast lift, and some lipo to give her a competitive edge? The Body Shop’s global communications head told the New York Times that Ruby represented “a reality check” in contrast to the “stereotypical notions of unattainable ideals.” Odds would tell us that the Rubenesque beauty wouldn’t have any part of her body nipped or tucked; in fact, like many women approaching middle-age, she might even have gained a couple of pounds. Regrettably, we’ll never know for sure.

Although Ruby’s existence was short-lived, her presence generated controversy. She caused Mattel to sit up and take notice. Along similar lines, consider that Barbie underwent cosmetic surgery to appease consumers’ demands. Although Mattel was conservative in its alterations of Barbie’s figure, the company did respond to the public. Furthermore, with sales of the blonde figurine consistently dropping,[4] the toy manufacturer has even more incentive to cater to the customer. If more and more women let corporate giants like Mattel know what they really want, who’s to say that Barbie’s waistline (and the rest of her) can’t fill out as she eases into her fifties? Something to ponder in memory of both Ruby and the visionary Roddick.

Originally published at Any-Body on June 21, 2009. Cross-posted with permission.

[1] When Any-Body originally published this post in 2009, Barbie had just turned 50 years old.

[2] I cited body measurements for White women ages 36 to 45 to reflect Ruby’s race. For the same age group, the average measurements for Black women are 43-37-46; 42.5-36-44 for Hispanic women; and 41-35-43 for Asian women.

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

September 27, 2011 By 4 Comments
Marilyn Wann

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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Why Being Fat Is–and Isn’t–All That

Size and Sardine Packed Southwest Airlines

Jennifer Jonassen: A Sizeless Star

NYTimes Writer Barely Apologizes for her Discriminatory Remarks Against Fat People

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Fashion’s Night Out: When Will We Have a Fat-shionable Fall?

September 2, 2011 By 2 Comments
F-No, we won't go! Or will we?

F-No, we won't go! Or will we?

By Ophira Edut

Summer’s about over. The red carpets are rolling out (hello, MTV Video Music Awards), which means sucking, tucking and plucking season has begun again. The new fall shows, with a fresh crop of homogenous stars, will be premiering. (Oh, how I’m counting the minutes until Glee’s third season.) New York City, where I live, is gearing up for Fashion Week and the stampede that is Fashion’s Night Out. While I enjoy style and creativity, I admit that my first wry thought was: Fat Girls’ Night In, is more like it. Or maybe Fat-Shun’s Night Out. Hide your kids, hide your wife!

Extreme? Yeah. But I’m issuing a back-to-school rallying cry: will any celebrities step out this fall and represent for the F-word? Not the expletive that got bleeped out of so many VMA acceptance speeches. I mean F-A-T.

Look, I’m not asking for 300 pounds, but that would be awesome. A girl can dream. Gabby Sidibe is available for hire, you producers out there. And I’m not talking about casting for The Biggest Loser, Celebrity Fit Club, or any other fat-bashing show designed to “correct” (read: shame and vilify) people whose size ticks into the double digits. I don’t want to see cameras panning through a weeping fat woman’s apartment as she talks about her out-of-control emotional eating, then is “saved” by some heartless celebrity trainer.

Unless, of course, we level the playing field. Here’s an idea: let’s bring a camera crew into the home of skinny stars secretly wolfing down carbs or binge drinking, smoking, and exercising for hours a day. (Training for a role, my ass. And half my Hebrew School class got nose jobs because of deviated septums, too.) Watch the poor things weep as they forage for cigarette butts in the bushes, or do their third week of a kettle-ball workout and pretend to love it. Perhaps a psychiatrist from the fat acceptance movement can come save this person from the life-threatening dangers of addiction and yo-yo dieting (which can lead to heart attack), or the psychological perils of body dysmorphia. And please, keep those damn calipers away from me, o’ commission-earning trainer stalking the gym floor. The whole BMI measuring system is so out of wack that even Brad Pitt would be considered overweight by its standards. (Seriously? Has anyone else seen Fight Club?)

Nowadays, if I dare say this kind of stuff, I’m accused of a) being a clueless hothead, and b) ignoring the “big O”: obesity. Which may be real, but it’s been co-opted and corrupted by so many money-making industries, that a lot of the hype is pure bull-shizzle.

There. I said it. Slap on my scarlet F (for fat acceptance), please! I hear that red is big on the Fall 2011 runways, speaking of fashion…

Fighting obesity has given us something to do with our money instead of oh, saving it or investing in a sinking stock or housing market. We have an enemy! It has a name! Of course, soda machines don’t belong in schools (duh) and kids could use more exercise. Sure, we should all ride bikes, take hikes and eat fresh produce. But do we all have equal access to these things? Hell no. So let’s shame the poor a little more and blame them for not being able to find a decent piece of fruit for miles, find affordable health care or power-walk safely through crime-riddled neighborhoods. Thumbs up for urban farming and all the eco-friendly efforts that bring health and sustainability to under-served communities. Healthy living without the shaming and judgment, I’m all for.

Then, there’s the simple, unacknowledged truth: food is fun. At my stepdaughter’s upstate New York elementary school, sweets are banned from the cafeteria, even on cupcake-friendly holidays like Valentine’s Day. So now we’re teaching kids that sugar is bad, something to fear and avoid. THAT should keep the candy stores in business on allowance day.

* * *
I’m keeping a scrapbook of celebrities who dare to embrace their non-conforming bods. Much like the stars in Hollywood, it’s perilously thin.

There’s Tyra Banks from a few years ago, who went out in a bikini after putting on some weight. Jennifer Love Hewitt, who always wears bikinis, even when her weight fluctuates and the bloggers publicly stone her with cruel posts. This week, Disney Channel star Demi Lovato scores the F for going “curvy” to the VMAS (whatevs, she’s still tiny) and Tweeting “I’ve gained weight. Get over it. That’s what happens when you get out of treatment for an EATING DISORDER.”

The Kardashians get an honorable mention, though I keep taking them out of the book. Fat that’s distributed to body parts sexualized by mass culture (the Hottentot Venus ass, namely) doesn’t count. There’s no risk involved, otherwise Kim wouldn’t flaunt hers in every bandage dress she can find. Oh, and 50 points off for the QuickTrim sponsorship. Mixed messages are the enemy of healthy body image.

People are visual. Thanks to reality TV, we’re officially desensitized to the surgical fat-sucking and anti-aging procedures that so many millions undergo. So, how about we apply the same treatment to love handles, belly rolls, cellulite, sags and all the body “issues” we’ve declared war upon? Let’s see that being normalized. Because, frankly, that’s what NORMAL looks like. We’ve largely forgotten. With CGI, Photoshop and all the latest digital retouching wonders, our minds are being trained to erase normalcy, SPAM filtering it out into a big global junk file.

Self-acceptance is not defeat. I’ve been saying it for years, and I stand by it. That doesn’t mean you don’t make changes for your health, happiness and well-being. But please, make them from a place of self-love, not shame. And truly question: if you didn’t feel shamed by the culture, would you really make these changes? Look deep. We all want the goodies of acceptance, and social anxiety is not easy to navigate. But the long-term effects of body hatred are worse.

[Author's note: if you're a fashion-loving girl who doesn't fit a size 2, The Curvy Fashionista has listed a handful of Fashion's Night Out events for the plus-size crowd here. But ugh, Lane Bryant is debuting a new line of "slimming jeans" featuring their "exclusive T3 Tighter Tummy Technology." Soooo, invite us to your store so we can spend to look skinnier? Enough already! But the Cupcakes, Curves and Cleavage Event at Viva La Femme in Chicago sounds rad. More, please!]

I do smell the opportunity for a revolution here, though. Fashion’s Night Out COULD be respun as Fat’s Night Out. (Fat being used loosely, to encompass anyone that doesn’t fit the ever-narrowing standard, that is.) If anyone wants to do some impromptu fashion activism, by all means, do! (I’m imagining a picket line chanting “F-no, we won’t go!” But picket lines aren’t all that fashionable anymore.) Whatever your creative version of resistance looks like, go to town. Fashion IS supposedly all about art and free expression, or so they say. So hit the streets with your own Fat-shion’s Night Out parade. Tell them we sent you.

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Scale Back: It’s International No Diet Day!

May 6, 2011 By 15 Comments
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SupporterUS

By Sharon Haywood

“I worked out today so I can treat myself to a piece of cake.”

“When I lose these last ten pounds, I’ll go to the beach.”

“Next week I’ll eat more. I’ve got to fit into that dress this weekend.”

“I can’t eat that! It’ll go straight to my hips.”

Sound familiar? Have you put any thought into the actual quantity of time that you spend thinking about your body and/or food? Pay attention. You might surprise yourself at how much brain space is devoted to calculating calories, self-loathing, and deprivation. Have you ever imagined the relief you would feel if you could abandon the quest to obtain the ideal body? If you haven’t, it’s time to liberate yourself from the no-win game of dieting. May 6th is the perfect day to start.

Since 1992, May 6th has been designated International No Diet Day (INDD). This body-loving campaign is associated with combating eating disorders and honoring the people who have suffered because of one. For this day, we can thank Mary Evans Young, a UK feminist, the founder of the British anti-diet movement, Diet Breakers, and author of the best-selling book, Diet Breaking: Having It All Without Having To Diet (Hodder & Stoughton, 1995).  She started INDD after recovering from anorexia, although the day isn’t just about eating disorders. This movement draws attention to the fact that a great many of us suffer from disordered thinking regarding food and our bodies, not just those afflicted with anorexia and bulimia.

INDD is more about not depriving yourself for a 24-hour period. It beckons you to make peace with your body and your relationship with food. And not only for your mental health. Various studies show that yo-yo dieting has been found to be damaging to one’s physical health in conditions such as congestive heart failure, hypertension, and clogged arteries.[1] What’s more is that investigators have evidence that illustrate a significant correlation between thinness and shorter lives.[2]

As you savor in the freedom and pleasure of eating exactly what you please this May 6th, contemplate that every single day could be diet-free. Easier said than done. Chances are, if you diet you’ve been counting calories for a long time. Abandoning the habit isn’t going to happen overnight. It’s a process – one that leads to greater self-acceptance. Start small. If you need some help, choose one of the following actions to start creating a new diet-free reality:

  • If you regularly weigh yourself, cut down how often you do with the goal of getting rid of your scale completely. Celebrate by throwing a scale-smashing party.
  • Stop asking, “Do I look fat in this?” Make the commitment to stop questioning your friends, your lover, and especially yourself for a full week. Then, at the end of that week, commit for another week and then another, until you have deprogrammed that question out of your awareness.
  • Listen to your body. If it asks for a brownie, don’t give it a carrot. You’ll just end up eating a bag of veggies before succumbing to your true craving. If you deprive yourself, you’ll probably eat not just one brownie, but rather, a plateful. Your body knows what it needs. Learn to respect its innate wisdom.
  • Eliminate one diet food from your grocery list. Anything labeled fat-free and light falls into this category. Choose another low-calorie item to phase out of your food choices until your fridge is filled with exactly what your body wants, not products that you think will get you thinner.
  • Do at least one thing that you’ve been postponing until you have lost weight: Buy that new outfit, sign up for dance class, or ask your crush out on a date.

Although May 6th helps raise awareness regarding eating disorders, use it to take a look at your own body and your relationship with it. Take the INDD pledge and spread the word. The more of us that reject the pressure to diet, the less it will be touted as the norm. And that will translate to a happier – and healthier – society.

[1] Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth (New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2004, 33.

[2] Crespo et al., “The Relationship of Physical Activity and Body Weight with All-Cause Mortality: Results from the Puerto Rico Heart Health Program,” AEP 12, (2002): 543-52.

Related Content:

Girls and Dieting: Then and Now

How Diets Decrease Your Self-Esteem and Not Your Size!

Three Steps to Transform the National Weight Debate

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Body of Lies: Debunking the BMI

May 4, 2011 By 13 Comments
antique scale

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 19th 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?

Related content:

If You’re Fat, Your Paycheck Might Not Be

 

 

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“Shut Up, Skinny Bitches!” Tells Readers To Love Their Bodies—Or Else

March 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
shut-up-skinny-bitches

 

By Valerie Kusler

“In America, we no longer fear God, or the communists, but we fear fat,” stated David Kritchevsky, a former professor with Philadelphia’s Wistar Institute and long-time advocate of health and nutrition issues. This is just one of many poignant quotations that Dr. Maria Rago and her friend and co-author Greg Archer borrow for their new book, Shut Up, Skinny Bitches! (The Common Sense Guide To Following Your Hunger and Your Heart), first published by NorLightsPress in January 2011. The book – though guilty of sometimes oversimplifying complex body image issues or adopting a forceful tone with its readers – offers important messages about overcoming fear of food, body hatred, and how serving the community can help you “see your body as an instrument, not an ornament.”

Rago, who runs an eating disorder treatment program in Naperville, IL, first got the idea for the book when one of her patients came into her office angrily clutching the bestseller, Skinny Bitch, by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin.  Rago was in disbelief at exactly how far Skinny Bitch had taken the message that happiness requires thinness, at any cost – including shaming and demoralizing readers into feeling that their worth is absolutely dependent on their size.

Although Shut Up is not intended to be a direct response to Skinny Bitch, discovering the book lit a fire in Rago, who enlisted her childhood friend and writer, Greg Archer, to team up and write a manifesto on how to find real happiness by making peace with food and your body. The book drills in the idea that dieting doesn’t work, supporting it with plenty of salient research studies. It also deems society’s obsession with unattainable thinness the “Skinny Bitch Mindset,” or “SBM” – which it notes is a “real form of bullying.”

Well-intentioned as they are, the first couple of chapters may be difficult for some readers to get through. Throughout the book, Rago and Archer seem to trivialize exactly how complex body image and food issues can be, and that even the most educated, self-aware individuals can struggle immensely with these issues, which can be as mentally destructive and difficult to overcome as full-blown eating disorders. Of course, Rago must be acutely aware of this given her profession, but the tone of Shut Up – which aims for “cool” and informal with a side of tough love – sometimes comes across as harsh, punitive, and patronizing in its oversimplification. While the issue is most obvious at the beginning of the book, some cringe-worthy examples of this tone are sprinkled throughout:

“You can either force-feed the SBM – a mindset that only lets you feel good about yourself when you starve and are skinny – or you can open the refrigerator door of life and enjoy the smorgasbord. Do the latter more often, and surprise! You won’t be a bitch.”

“Let’s face it, skinny bitches sit in their popularity castles and try to rule the world by sticking their bony derrieres out there for all mankind to see.”

“Myth: I could always be more beautiful if I was thinner.

Reality: Shut up and go eat something. Every person is beautiful in every size. Yeah, it’s true. We will always be beautiful if we’re loving and grateful in our lives.”

“Yes, the best alternative to dieting is happiness. The best thing you can do is get happy. Now is good. You can start by not bitching. Think about it; how much progress can you make in moving any part of your life forward when you’re constantly harping on yourself and others?”

Nowhere in the book do the authors explain that this punitive tenor, and repeatedly telling the reader to “shut up,” is intended to be tongue in cheek – which is starkly contrasted with statements telling readers how beautiful, awesome, and worthy they are. Additionally, Shut Up does not acknowledge individuals who are naturally thin and may feel hurt by others assuming that they are “bitches,” who surely must constantly diet and hate their bodies. Given how many times the book tells “skinny bitches” to “shut up,” this message begs to be included.

In an interview with the Santa Cruz Sentinel about Shut Up, Archer clarifies, “What we’re doing is we’re saying shut up to a mindset, a belief, a form of bullying, which insists on and pressures us to look a certain way, be a certain way, don’t eat this or that, be something other than what we are … We’re taking a stand for anyone who’s ever been teased or bullied or pressured to look or feel a certain way, especially thin, in order to be happy.” It’s certainly hard to argue with that explanation, but it is one that should be included in the introduction of the book, not just in the minds of the authors.

Beyond these misgivings, the book has a lot to offer for readers who are looking for validation that they don’t need to buy in to the hysteria of the Hollywood ideal. Rago and Archer offer concrete steps to take for re-learning how to listen to your body’s hunger, how to integrate exercise into your life in a healthy way, and the all-too-real dangers of eating disorders when dieting gets out of control. They also don’t neglect to include guys in the equation, devoting a whole chapter to the body image and food challenges men face, especially the stringent physique expectations placed on gay and bisexual men.

Perhaps the most unique and intriguing topic in the book is that of giving back to the community as a method for healing and redirecting your life focus from the thinness obsession to what really matters. As the clinical director of the Eating Disorders Program at Linden Oaks at Edward hospital, Rago created a treatment intervention program called “Real Meals,” in which the patients must shop, prepare, and serve a meal to a group of homeless individuals, and then eat the meal with them. This program was the subject of a 2008 article in O, the Oprah Magazine and penned by Archer himself. The concept behind Real Meals is to show the patients what true hunger looks like, and thus, the real value of food as something that we all need to survive. One participant shared in the O Magazine article,

“Here I was taking food for granted and denying myself, and there was this group of homeless people who needed food and couldn’t get it. Once we were in the actual process of making the meals, it was suddenly like I didn’t have an eating disorder. It became natural just to eat and talk with the others.”

If you can get past the book’s occasionally overpowering informal tone, it offers a serious dose of passion and action steps that can help you reevaluate your approach to food and your body. Just be prepared for a little tough love.

For more information about Rago & Archer’s book, visit their site at  www.ShutUpSkinnyBitches.info

Or connect with them on Twitter at @suskinnybitches

 

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The Truth About Celebrity Weight Loss

March 22, 2011 By 8 Comments
jennifer-hudson-before-after-photos1

By Claire Mysko

In Hollywood, female stars who shed pounds get glamorous photo shoots and breathless “How She Did It!” cover stories. But not all slimmed-down celebrities are falling over themselves to shout their new stats from the rooftops and share their diet and exercise tips with the world. Their reluctance to do so points to the reality that weight loss is not the unequivocal triumph the diet industry would have us believe it is.

Sure, smaller numbers on the scale get validated and celebrated in our thin-obsessed culture. But all the fanfare can be overwhelming. Suddenly, it’s The Weight Loss that takes center stage. The red carpet pictures are everywhere. The new form-fitting outfits become big news. Never mind that the person wearing them has a lot more to offer the world than a thinner body.

Three stars recently opened up about the complexities of losing weight under the spotlight.

Jennifer Hudson

As a spokesperson for Weight Watchers, Hudson is being paid to talk a big game about her smaller size. Yet she didn’t seem entirely comfortable in this role judging by her Oprah appearance last week. She (and her WW leader) tried to avoid the question of exactly how many pounds she had lost, but relented* after Oprah rejected the idea that a fixation on pounds might not be healthiest approach, insisting that she claim her number as a “victory.” Because we’re all waging war with our bodies, naturally.

“You have never looked better in your life, I think…Do you feel like this is the best you’ve ever been in your life?” Oprah asked giddily [emphasis mine]. Whoa, see how that happened? The weight loss quickly got conflated with who Hudson is on some existential level? Let’s keep in mind that this is a woman who experienced a family tragedy just two years ago, when her mother, brother and nephew were murdered. She’s also a new mother. To say that she’s faced some life-altering emotional upheaval in recent years would be quite the understatement. But back to The Weight Loss! Hudson sheepishly answered that yes, she believes this is the best she’s ever been, although it’s not easy getting used to the body changes. She admitted that sometimes she doesn’t recognize herself and feels conflicted about the attention she’s getting.

“I’m like, ‘Don’t look at me—listen to me. I want you to hear me sing because that’s all that ever really mattered to me,’” she said.

*My episode cut to the breaking news of Mubarak’s speech at the precise moment that Hudson was about to cave and reveal how much weight she’s lost, so I missed the big moment. Nothing like a history-making revolution to put the diet talk in perspective.

Raven Symone

The expectation that any star who loses weight must be just bursting with more confidence than ever before also ignores the fact that said star might have been feeling just fine about herself all along, thank you very much. Raven Symone has been on top of her game since she was a wee little one stealing laughs on The Cosby Show. She went on to star in her own mega-hit show, That’s So Raven!

Symone has built a hugely successful career on her talent, so she’s not thrilled that everyone’s focus has now shifted to her size. The gushing praise of her new look stings like a backhanded compliment. She has never lacked confidence in her appearance. However, it’s clear to her now that others obviously had issues with her weight.

“I thought I looked fabulous before and nobody else did,” she told People magazine. “So, whatever… Actually, now I wear bigger clothes because I don’t like the way people stare at me,” she says. “I liked it before. Now, you’re just looking at me for the wrong reasons. Before, you were actually looking at me for a real reason.”

Crystal Renn

Model Crystal Renn has a different kind of problem. Her recent weight loss has actually sparked some pretty harsh criticism. Renn made a name for herself as the leading plus-size models in America (she used the term “plus-size” to describe herself in the bio included in her book, Hungry: A Model’s Story of Appetite, Ambition, and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves), but it’s pretty hard to find her curves these days.

She first signed with a modeling agency at the age of sixteen and developed anorexia and exercise bulimia with the words of a modeling scout echoing in her head: You could be a supermodel. But you’ll have to lose a little weight. Her disordered eating went on for years, she writes in Hungry: 

“Until one day I realized that if I wanted to live, I could no longer starve. I had to get off the crazy-making treadmill. I had to nourish my body and feed my soul. So I ate and ate. And I returned to my natural size 12—the size of the average American and the size I was when I really made it big.”

Now that she’s considerably slimmer than a size 12, Renn is rejecting categorization altogether. In an interview posted on the Ford Models website, she details her frustration with people’s need to have her conform to the image they want her to be.

“I feel pressure from, more than anyplace…the public, and the media. I think by placing a title on my head, which is “plus size,” and then the picture that these people have created in their mind about what plus size actually is, I basically fail you. I couldn’t possibly live up to that.”

Of course Renn is not likely to admit to feeling any industry pressure in a video produced and distributed by the modeling agency that cuts her checks, but the fact remains that speculating about the motivations for her weight loss won’t get us very far. At the end of the day, Renn is the only one who can shed light on that question. And as she correctly points out, it’s impossible to get the full picture of her physical and emotional health just by sizing her up.

Body changes of any kind can bring up complicated feelings. When what we see in the mirror looks different than it did before (even if those changes move us closer to some “ideal”), accepting a new reflection requires some work–the kind of work that can take a minute. And that just does not compute with the glossy media formula: thinness = instant happiness, no strings attached.

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Claire Mysko is the author of You’re Amazing! A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self and the co-author of Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat? The Essential Guide to Loving Your Body Before and After Baby.

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