![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Everyone who has ever read a post of mine on the topic Fat Acceptance should probably go and read this fantastic article. It says a lot of things that I have tried to say about the psychological effects of coercion, but much more succinctly.
A summary:
Being as fit and healthy as is possible for us to be is a natural impulse. On a personal level, I love cycling, and I enjoy eating well.
But every time I see a magazine cover or Facebook ad or hear a conversation or whatever reminding me that food-choice and exercise are all about the OMGHOLYGRAIL of weight loss, then my commitment to eating and exercising for their own benefits is eroded.
I think there's another facet to this, as well, which doesn't get touched on in this article - that any time I eat in public, or do anything that could be perceived as exercise (I cycle to work) or not-exercise (I get the bus to work), I feel myself being judged as trying or failing at my OMGONLYPOSSIBLELIFEGOAL of weight loss. Exmaples:
If I cycle, or eat a salad? "Good fatty, as least she's trying" or "Poor sad fatty, she's trying, but she'll never be happy".
If I get the bus, or eat chips? "No wonder she's such a fatty".
Sometimes, if I'm out in public, and hungry, I will let myself get lightheaded and dizzy and grouchy from low blood-sugar rather than deal with the judgement of the person from whom I'd buy food, or the people who'd see me eating it, or that I'd believe myself on some level. I'll walk up to a chip van, and think, "No - if I eat this I'm walking into the gluttonous-fatty stereotype". I'll walk into a salad bar, and think, "I can't bear for her to think I'm on a diet when I think the very concept is deeply damaging". Of course, the low-blood-sugar is making me panicky to start with, and even if I do manage to buy food (perhaps from a judgement-free vending machine, so it's almost certain to be junk) I might not eat until I've found somewhere private.
The above doesn't happen to me very often any more - maybe once every month or two? - but I thought it was worth putting out here, so that those of you who secretly think that the only barrier to my being a "healthy weight" was laziness or gluttony could get a bit of lived experience shoved their way. I may be able to self-CBT myself out of those thoughts most of the time, but sometimes I will actively damage myself rather than fulfil basic homeostatic functions because of the bullshit I've internalised over the last 24 years.
Of course, the other point which should go without saying (but so rarely does) is that it doesn't even matter if I am a lazy, gluttonous fatty. I get apathetic and lethargic sometimes, and I do love good vegan cooking, so maybe I do fall somewhere on the "lazy and gluttunous" scale after all. And you know what? That doesn't alter the basic human respect to which I am entitled.
I just wish it hadn't taken me over twenty years of internalising bullshit before I realised that.
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY: I am a fat woman. I am very comfortable for you, the commenter, to refer to me as a fat woman, whatever body type you may have. I find words drawn from the BMI scale to be pathologising and triggering, so please only use them if you are actually making a point about BMI categories.
A summary:
Being as fit and healthy as is possible for us to be is a natural impulse. On a personal level, I love cycling, and I enjoy eating well.
But every time I see a magazine cover or Facebook ad or hear a conversation or whatever reminding me that food-choice and exercise are all about the OMGHOLYGRAIL of weight loss, then my commitment to eating and exercising for their own benefits is eroded.
I think there's another facet to this, as well, which doesn't get touched on in this article - that any time I eat in public, or do anything that could be perceived as exercise (I cycle to work) or not-exercise (I get the bus to work), I feel myself being judged as trying or failing at my OMGONLYPOSSIBLELIFEGOAL of weight loss. Exmaples:
If I cycle, or eat a salad? "Good fatty, as least she's trying" or "Poor sad fatty, she's trying, but she'll never be happy".
If I get the bus, or eat chips? "No wonder she's such a fatty".
Sometimes, if I'm out in public, and hungry, I will let myself get lightheaded and dizzy and grouchy from low blood-sugar rather than deal with the judgement of the person from whom I'd buy food, or the people who'd see me eating it, or that I'd believe myself on some level. I'll walk up to a chip van, and think, "No - if I eat this I'm walking into the gluttonous-fatty stereotype". I'll walk into a salad bar, and think, "I can't bear for her to think I'm on a diet when I think the very concept is deeply damaging". Of course, the low-blood-sugar is making me panicky to start with, and even if I do manage to buy food (perhaps from a judgement-free vending machine, so it's almost certain to be junk) I might not eat until I've found somewhere private.
The above doesn't happen to me very often any more - maybe once every month or two? - but I thought it was worth putting out here, so that those of you who secretly think that the only barrier to my being a "healthy weight" was laziness or gluttony could get a bit of lived experience shoved their way. I may be able to self-CBT myself out of those thoughts most of the time, but sometimes I will actively damage myself rather than fulfil basic homeostatic functions because of the bullshit I've internalised over the last 24 years.
Of course, the other point which should go without saying (but so rarely does) is that it doesn't even matter if I am a lazy, gluttonous fatty. I get apathetic and lethargic sometimes, and I do love good vegan cooking, so maybe I do fall somewhere on the "lazy and gluttunous" scale after all. And you know what? That doesn't alter the basic human respect to which I am entitled.
I just wish it hadn't taken me over twenty years of internalising bullshit before I realised that.
A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY: I am a fat woman. I am very comfortable for you, the commenter, to refer to me as a fat woman, whatever body type you may have. I find words drawn from the BMI scale to be pathologising and triggering, so please only use them if you are actually making a point about BMI categories.