OK. I have to ask...

...how come every fat person that has 'magically' become thin and who is reported about in the news always had a terrible diet before they decided to 'grow up' and eat healthily and go to the gym?

In The Scotsman today there is an article about a woman who went from a size 26 (UK dress size) to a size 8 in three years. What gets me is she apparently started at a size smaller than I am now and at the time she her diet included "snacking on countless biscuits and eating two desserts a night" and she "found it hard to walk short distances and was embarrassed to travel on public transport." In order to lose weight she just (just!?) changed her diet and hired a personal trainer. Oh! to be able to afford a personal trainer. If I could just do that all would be alright with my world.

Fuck off.

The point of this is not to slag off a woman who has done an incredibly hard thing, and capitulated to society's requirement for women to be a size 8 and I wish her the best in keeping it off and with being happy, but instead to ask... how come every fat person in the media has to have a bad diet? How come every fat person in the media has to have had no exercise and to have been unable to walk? How come every fat person who the media talk about has to have been miserable? I am a fat person. I eat plenty of fruit and veg. I rarely eat dessert (mainly because I don't care to have them all the time and when I'm out I can feel the disapproval... depending on who I'm with). I do eat biscuits, but not countless ones. Sometimes, instead of biscuits, I eat dried fruit sticks- healthy and delicious. I go to and participate in dance classes on a regular basis. I am a quite snazzy dancer. I walk everywhere (although I do use public transport if I'm going somewhere in a rush). And, yes, I am frequently miserable but that is less to do with my weight and more to do with my family, my lack of money, my confusion over my life path, my self-doubt and low self esteem, and my isolation at working from home.

So how come the media and the press insist that it is just being fat that makes people (women... how often do you hear about some brave and marvellous man who lost half his body weight in three years?) miserable?

Wait! I know the answer to this! It's because we deserve to be miserable for daring to not be conventionally attractive be female be fat. Because fat is bad. And fat people= bad/lazy/stupid people. I declare this Bull Shit and I repeat: Fuck off!

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Fat Acceptance

I am fat. It's one of the things that has been a constant source of misery and pain to me. When I started school the bullying for being fat started. By the time I got old enough to like boys I already knew that I was too fat to ever get a decent guy who would love me and want to be with me because I was me. Basically, before I had even hit puberty I knew that I was unattractive. By the time I hit my late teens I knew that I was destined to be alone forever. Having been single these last 7 years (basically my entire 20s) I'm starting to think that my theory has been proven, but at the same time I know that I'm being a bit extremist in this because, get this, I haven't tried. Largely because, after the few relationships I had post-Asshole also made me miserable, I realised that I am happier single. I am happier not giving a crap about having to have a man to validate my existence. Because, men can't validate the existence of women. Our existence is our validation.

I've been wandering about the feminist blogosphere for a while and I quite like it here. It is what prompted me to make myself a blog. I wanted a set handle; I wanted a place where I could talk about things that came up. Considering that I wrote this post last weekend and then never got round to posting it shows how well I've been doing so far but, you know, it's all a learning curve right. However, while I was wandering the blogosphere I did, on occasions, come accross fat acceptance blogs. And, everytime I did, my gut reaction was to reject them. 95% of diets don't work? We should be happy the way we are? Diets are bad? Even diets that we call something else are bad? Other people don't like us- that's their problem for being asshats? Fat isn't unhealthy, that's just bs mainstream propaganda to undermine us? These sentiments bothered me, they felt defensive, they made me feel defensive, and I dispute their underpinnings. Also, I consider myself to be so much more fat than the women in these blogs who, from the pictures, are what I would call "normal". I realise that this is problematic of me because I am trying to undermine their self-belief that they are fat but, to my mind, our culture is geared up to make normal women feel fat. Hell it is geared up to make way too fucking thin women feel fat. So I understand why they feel fat, but having women who look so vastly slimmer than I do tell me that I just have to accept myself and stop dieting and then all will be fucking fine in my world sounds like just one more group of people attacking me for being the way I am.

There's also another aspect of that mindset, those principles, that bother me. I don't ovulate. I want to be a mother. In order to ovulate again, according to the many many books, websites, articles, etc. that I have read the one thing that would help is losing weight. So, since I do have a specific health issue whose key treatment plan is become a healthier weight, does this mean that I can't participate in the fat acceptance blogosphere? Same with my insulin resistance. According to all I've read losing weight will help my body deal with that. So does the fact that I would like to lose weight to help my weight make it unacceptable for me to participate in those blogs? Does it mean that I have no place in a community that claims acceptance of fat and fatness? Does the fact that I am on medication to try and make myself more able to lose weight negate this problem in that medication = non-diet related treatment= not a diet and therefore not WrongBadEvil?

I don't know. I do wonder whether I just haven't seen enough of the fat acceptance space to really judge. But given that reading those blogs actually undermines me- because if 95% of diets fail that means I have a 95% chance of never being of a weight where I can then deal with my PCOS to have babies- and then, really, what is the point in even trying to be healthy when I am never going to be the one thing I have always been certain that I've wanted to be? And if diets that call themselves something else (i.e. healthy eating or lifestyle changes) are bad then all food is bad because, you know what, what you eat on a day to day basis is your fucking diet. Deal with it. And certain foods, i.e. the foods that clog arteries and kill you, are bad when you eat them all the time. Moderation hons. And balance. Then again surely trying to eat a balanced diet also make you anti the fat acceptance movement? Because, surely, every doctor out there can't be evil bastards trying to make everyone miserable. And those governmental 5 a day recommendations- that is just them trying to make us keep Britain's farms going by buying unnecessary 'healthy' foods?

I am in this space at the moment where I want to become a healthier and happier person. Part of this is by getting myself into a headspace where I don't spend every day berating myself for not eating properly or for forgetting to take that pill or for having that "I don't think I can leave the house today" feeling. It's about recognising what I feel. It's about working on what makes me feel better. It's about trying to accept myself for who I am. It's about exploring what I think. It's about trying to resolve the issues that mean I expect people to hate me without even speaking to me. It's about trying to stop blaming myself for what happened with Asshole. It's about trying to work out how to live with who I am while trying to make healthier the things I do have control over- without it taking over my life and making me miserable. But what I don't know is whether or not reading fat acceptance blogs will help or hinder my progress. I guess I just need to wait and see.

Perhaps I've just been looking at the wrong fat acceptance blogs? Anyone got any recommendations?
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Glamour Body Image Survey

Via The 'F' Word (US)
Glamour magazine are doing a survey regarding body image.

I went and filled it out in the hope of, as Rachel says over on The 'F' Word, "if Glamor knew just how much women hate and loathe their bodies, perhaps they’d offer more body-positive kinds of articles". I found it a bit triggering as reminding me of all the reasons I feel shitty about myself does make me want to run off and eat something. But, still, if it ends up showing them how miserable body image issues make people it can only be a good thing... right?

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