If I could make one change in the way society views fat, it would be the common attitude that a fat person shouldn't be seen in public (at least not doing anything that might make them less fat).

It still drives me crazy to hear people laughing or criticizing me or someone else for "wearing that," or "doing that," in public. God forbid, a fat person wear a swimming suit and swim, never mind that it is the only exercise the person may be able to do without pain. Nor should we wear comfortable clothing and shoes that that allow us to move and walk comfortably, or wear any color or style that draws any attention to us whatsoever (a bright color! My God, girl do you want to be sent straight to fat ****!)

Ok, I'm being sarcastic, for any of you that haven't already guessed. It's just very difficult to lose weight or make any change for that matter without a strong social network. Having to swim upstream of social convention and social "rules," is extremely difficult, and it's just a shame that what could be a useful tool for us, instead is one more hurdle we have to face.

Hmmm. You know, I think am guilty of that in a way. I was at a water park this summer - in my tank and skirt swimsuit - and commented to my husband about two or three women larger than me I saw in bikinis "Just because you can physically fit in it, doesn't mean you should wear it." I'm rather ashamed of myself right now. I should have been applauding the fact that those women were secure enough to be seen in skimpy suits instead of playing fashion police.

Maybe I do need an attitude check after all.

I'm not sure if it was because I was a single parent for a long time or what, but I've always felt comfortable in my body, in a bathing suit. I've never NOT gone to the beach or the pool because I didn't want to show my body in a suit. I think it's important for some people with less "perfect" bodies to be not afraid to show their bodies. People need to see that not all boobs perk, that some overweight women have undulant curves as well as cellulite, and this is how real bodies look and work. The more exposure society has to that, the more they will realize how skewed the media's representation is.

Ditto on the attitude check. I can't believe how catty I can be about another plus size sister being brave enough to do/wear things I'm not brave enough to...<hangs head in shame>

I think this is why I finally was able to make a change, a real change. For a long time I was determined that I was fine, no matter what I weighed. I was active, I was healthy, I had good blood numbers, and I "didn't care" about all the girly things like clothes in the latest fashion, shoes, purses, makeup, whatever. I was perfectly happy bouncing along as my overweight self. At least, this is what I told myself.

Then, two years ago, I was in my most beloved friends' wedding. Finding a dress for it was enough of an emotionally painful thing, but then the pictures were a shock. I looked NOTHING like I thought I looked. The day after we got the pictures back my DH and I had to fly to England for his sister's wedding. I was still reeling from the pictures of the other wedding, but now I had to contend with being not only an American (strike one), but an overweight American (strike two, three, four, twelve, forty three...you get the picture). Try as they might my inlaws couldn't shield me from the looks, comments, stares, and reactions of everyone else. There was nothing to do about the fact that the pews in the centuries-old church weren't wide enough for me to sit on. Nothing to do about the fact that I was afraid the folding chairs would be too flimsy to sit on, so I stood or "perched" (half squatted) for the reception. Nothing to do about the fact that doorways in old buildings were narrow, and I had to step through sideways.

On the flight home I thought long and hard. I realized that while I quite liked myself as a person (I'm kind, intelligent, resourceful, helpful...lots of good things), the body carrying that person around had to change. There were just no two ways around it. My body had to change. Period.

I spent about a year figuring out what my body responded to and what it didn't. Spent this last year being injured, and addressing the emotional issues I had been hiding with food. Now I'm ready to lose again, but I'm ready to lose again not because I hate myself, but because I like myself too much to make myself live in this body. I have too many things I want to do with my life. Yes, I'm doing some of those things now, but I will enjoy them more when I'm doing them out of joy rather than defiance.

Anyway. Just my thoughts. "Fat acceptance" is great, as long as it doesn't mean you can't change. Accept it, yes, but keep growing and changing anyway.

I agree for the most part. I certainly agree that everyone should be supported and celebrated for trying to improve themselves. I'm just really concerned about the way we talk about bodies in our culture, by which I mean American culture mostly but I also mean weightloss culture, too. Our bodies aren't separable from our "selves" (I like me just not my body!) and the steady negative language and cues that fly around create a negative reality. For everyone. Fat and thin alike. We've learned this a thousand times with racially pejorative language, language demeaning to women, right? So too with the language of the body (which contains within it all the old agendas of good ol sexism and paternalism and which can be used most cruelly against men, who afterall sacrifice their masculinity and are talked about like gross women if they get too big.)

I can feel rotten about my body. For me the awfulness revolves around being single, otherwise I feel pretty fine. I also have never ever considered not going to the beach or pool or not wearing tank tops and capris and showing my body. If anyone has a problem with it, I've honestly never noticed. I do love my body, though I struggle with it. I do love my fat, though I would like to get rid of it. What of weightloss culture is steeped in beauty myths and body regulations I am wary of, though I have internalized it as much as the next person. What of weightloss culture is about renewed health and vigor, I support utterly. It can just be damn hard to tell the difference sometimes.

I am not sure I understood the last post wordlikeabell..."Our bodies aren't separable from our selves". I think that you are saying you DON'T believe that, right?

If so I agree. I am NOT my body. I am not my very nice hands and nails or my gray hair or my brown eyes that need bifocals. I am not my skin, bones, organs OR my fat! I'm far, far more than that and I don't see why you can't love yourself as a whole and not love one small aspect of yourself. How my body looks isn't me - it's incidental. If I dye my hair green and get a tattoo - I'm still me. I love my son - doesn't mean I wouldn't like him be less moody. I love my dog - doesn't mean I wouldn't like him to be shedless. I love myself - doesn't mean I wouldn't like my body to be thinner. But if I never make it thinner, it doesn't diminish my love of the whole and if I do make it thinner is doesn't change who I am.

(Incidently - I've also always owned a bathing suit and worn it. (Granted, it wasn't a bikini. ) I've honestly never noticed stares or bad comments about my appearance, except a couple of times when I was quite young - kids truely are cruel in their innocence.)

I do believe the media is HORRIBLE. Everything from runway models in size 0 to the story about the 1200 lb man is skewed to say that you should be tiny and bony or you aren't good enough. The ONLY heavy actor or actress I can think of right now who is cast as an "attractive" character is Queen Latifa - who, btw, I think is beautiful - but who I don't think would get such roles if she were caucasian because for some reason that escapes me it's more acceptable to be an African American woman and heavy. And she's NOT that heavy. Heavy people in movies or TV shows are usually comic relief, not leading roles. Everything points to an idea of perfection that doesn't exist.

Did everyone see the Faith Hill photo touch-up stuff a while back? (I really hope they let this link stay - It's a blog and doesn't sell anything I can tell which is why I'm using it instead of the original website that posted these.
http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2007/archives/360 It's INSANE - Faith Hill is a lovely woman - but that's not enough - the media has to make her look like their idea of "perfect".

Here is another blog with a bunch of retouching links. It is really unbelievable how much retouching they do.

http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/20...ur_reality.php

As for fat people in TV, the only positive example I can think of off the top of my head is Hurley on Lost. I love how real they made his character and that they do talk about his size, but it never feels demeaning. In fact, when Charlie does tell him he is too fat to come somewhere (even though Chalrie is just doing this to save his life) you want to smack Charlie because it feels so out of character.

Living in Australia I hadn't ever heard of this movement before.

I have ALWAYS been overweight but have also, until the past year or so, been fit and fat and could match it with many thin people and often could outdo in stamina the thin people. I have however never wanted to remain the fat size, I never aspired to be thin just smaller than I have been.

From what I have read about the movement I think the only positive thing is that it teaches people to love themselves regardless of their weight, so many people allow their weight to affect their moods etc. I have been fortunate in that I have always loved myself as I have been BUT I have constantly since childhood been teased and taunted because of my weight. I also know that there have been jobs I have not got simply because of my weight and the discrimination that that brings out in people.

I do agree that most people should aim to be less fat but being thin is not necessarily the way that everyone is meant to be. Many years ago I lost 91 pounds BUT I was still at a size that was considered to be FAT AND OVERWEIGHT, I was 175 pounds. I tried for ages to try to go below that and got upset that I never managed to no matter what I did. Finally I had to come to the realisation that that was where my body was happy and wanted to be. Over the past 18 years I have slowly gained that plus more back and now am trying desperately to lose it again.

One thing I did find extremely upsetting is when my mother died 2 1/2 years ago from Endometrial Cancer on her death certificate under cause of death the first thing listed was OBESITY, then came the Endometrial Cancer. My sister and I got upset about this and questioned the doctor. He told us that they considered that most cancers occur in obese people so they list that as the main cause of death, but in doing that even if you are only 20 pounds overweight you can be considered obese. We thought this was totally wrong.

Jennylee

I think it is true that we are not seperate from our bodies, at least not entirely. We're not disembodied heads. How we look, what we can do, how we see our physical selves, they're not completely separate. Or at least they shouldn't be - if they are you can't help but feel you're not one person, but two (or more).

And while I wish society were more accepting of fat people publicly moving their bodies and wearing clothing for comfort not fashion, I have to admit I have been, and am part of that society. My first reaction to someone wearing something that reveals fat rolls IS "why are they wearing that!"
For myself, I can't imagine myself ever feeling the need for a bikini. On the other hand, because I've got severe joint pain that makes struggling into a one piece suit difficult, I've been searching high and low for two piece swimsuits that aren't so revealing I might as well be naked, or so butt ugly, a trash bag would be more flattering. I just ordered one through a catalog and realized while it looked great on the (skinny) model in the catalog, in real life it was made of some weird scratchy, scouring-pad-rough, bullet-proof polyester material. Ugh! Ugly and uncomfortable, fabulous!

I can really understand people saying, "The heck with it, I'm wearing what I want, when I want, and everyone that doesn't like it can go jump!" I certainly don't have that kind of confidence (or sympathy for those who do), but I certainly understand and envy the sentiment.

I'm sorry I didn't explain myself clearly. What I meant when I referred to "this body" was that I don't see my physical form as a reflection of my worth, or my value as a person. Having a different body won't change who I am at my core. It might change a few aspects of how I live my life and those aspects may involve how I use/live in my body. That's the reality of a changing physical form.

If you're an amputee, the way you use your body will necessarily change. I have a badly fractured elbow, and I can only bend my arm to about 90 degrees. This affects how I use my body. Similarly, when I dance the faster steps and the more rapid turns are difficult due to simple inertia and rotational forces. I'm not hating or blaming my body, but that is the reality. If I were lighter, rotational forces would be less. Similarly, when I fell last summer and tore up the ligaments in my back I would have landed softer if I hadn't weighed as much. F = MA and all that means a heavier body lands with greater force. It's simple physics.

When I decided to change was when I really realized that the size and shape of my body were stopping me from doing things I wanted to do. It wasn't disgust or distaste; I'm a physical therapy assistant and I absolutely revere the magic of the body. Bodies are cool. My body is heavily scarred from a bad car accident and subsequent surgeries, yet those scars do not limit the way I live my life. The size of my body does. Therefore, I'm changing it. However, changing the size and shape of my body will not change the fact that I value myself as an intelligent, resourcefulkindpatientfriendlyetc person.

I'm very sorry if my words were interpreted negatively. They were meant to be simply factual/realistic.

Alright, so I just realized I've talked a lot about myself and not really directly about the topic at hand. What can I say, I've been studying all day.

Fat acceptance: my policy is do what you want with your life, basically. I am made uncomfortable by my FA friends who insist that I should have accepted being ~300 pounds and not wanted to explore living my life in other ways. Loving myself, great. Accepting the reality of my size, great. But the reality of my size was that it was getting in the way of how I wanted to live my life. My FA friends are happy with the way they live their lives, so more power to them. I was not satisfied. It didn't mean I loved myself any less, I just wanted something different. They still think I'm judgmental (even though I have NEVER spoken against them) and a traitor to their choices, but I remain firm in my insistence that I'm making my own choices. IMHO that's where the FA movement gets it wrong: they come off as heavily defensive and defiant, because they, too, are trying to tell others what choices they should make with their lives.

Just wanted to pop-in and list some of my favorite FA blogs:

Big Fat Deal
The Rotund
Kate Harding's Shapely Prose

Those are my top 3 and they all have great links to others.

How about her Hairspray co-star Nikki Blonsky? She's big and beautiful, which is easier to see once they get her out of that bouffant at the end of Hairspray.

Hey, I'm new to this posting form of communication. I sure didn't take your words negatively. I am really struggling with these questions myself and deeply appreciate having this space to talk about and even better hear from others different ideas that really push me. I too want to lose weight, and I also want to be a part of a movement to change the way our culture talks about and limits and demeans our bodies. Sometimes I have a hard time reconciling these two notions in myself because I catch myself thinking really negative things about my body and my weight. Things I've internalized. I just want to be more vigilant with myself about letting this process of change not only be about losing weight but also letting go of the old baggage--a body must be perfect to be beautiful, a person's worth is directly proportional to their lack of body fat...These aren't things I consciously think to be true, but I know they float around in my subconscious. I also know that my efforts to be thin are part of what made me fat in the first place. I also know I will probably never be actually thin and neither will a lot of the women I know. I also know that whatever amount of fat she carries around most of the women I know beat up on themselves for it. Almost everybody is obsessed with fat. I just want to be free, not just of the weight, of a whole lot more.