The Philosophy of Fat

I have been dissatisfied with the name of this Blog for a while now, and I've decided to re-brand it.  I'm less comfortable with the phrase “Big is Beautiful” these day's, not because I don't see beauty in fat, but because I see beauty in all body types - including mine.  I also wanted to remove the euphamism from the name - I'm not 'big' or 'well built' or (for gods' sake) voluptuous - I am FAT and that's JUST FINE.

I also don't think the degree of whimsy in the name really reflects the actual content of my blog.  I've been thinking about how it's developing and the kind of thinking I'm wanting to undertake in the future and The Philosophy of Fat is spot on.  Philosophy is my field, and following a trail of critical thinking, with a well founded theory to develop is really the point of this blog.  This blog will therefore be largely academic in nature, with a dash of fashion theory to spice things up.

I hope to learn a great deal on the way.

The Smoking Fatty (or coming out as a Bad Fat)

I was reading this post on my blog feed, and was a bit pissed off to see this comment "If you really think that being fat is just as bad as smoking or being addicted to drugs, you are just as judgmental and, well, wrong as the people who run the above site.". I was pissed off to see smokers and drug addicts portrayed as 'BAD' (ie. somehow sub-human and not deserving of rights). Explain to me exactly how this is different from judging fat people as 'BAD' (ie. somehow subhuman and not deserving of rights)?

The argument that fat shouldn't be demonised because it is not a choice seems like a valid one at first glance, but really it translates to "being fat is only acceptable because it is not a choice". Even if fatness were a choice it would still not be acceptable to discriminate against those who have "chosen" to be fat.

Unlike obesity, there is strong scientific evidence to suggest that smoking is linked to disease. The fact that I smoke (as does more than 25% of the UK population according to Cancer Research), does not give anyone on the street the right to lecture me on The Importance Of Giving Up Smoking.

Of course, being a fat smoker makes me even more of a target. Smoking fatties are increasingly portrayed as being Everything That's Wrong With The World, if being fat wasn't enough of a flashing signpost of my shocking lack of respect for my health, I also have the audacity to smoke.

I'm not going to suggest that science has it all wrong about smoking, we've all had it drilled into us that If You Smoke You Will Die - I'm aware of the risks and for now, I choose to continue to smoke.

I could bullshit you at this point with a diatribe on how Smoking is Addictive and I smoke because I can't give up. I could list the myriad times I've attempted to quit smoking, and the amount of times I've failed. I could draw a parallel between my failed dieting attempts and my failed attempts at quitting smoking, tell you the tale of my friend who was able to quit heroin but not tobacco. I could point out that tobacco should, from a scientific viewpoint, be an illegal drug, but that this can't happen due to the money smokers pour into the economy in the form of taxes.

I'm not going to do that though, because at this point in time, smoking feels like a choice to me. I don't want to quit smoking, so I don't attempt it. This does not make me a bad person.

I can't help but remember that I'm going to die regardless of whether I smoke, drink, eat McDonalds, run 10 miles a day or get my 5 a day. It's my life and my choice and no-one else gets to choose for me.

I shouldn't have to remind myself that I'm deserving of respect regardless of my lifestyle choices. I shouldn't have to agonise over whether to reveal that I smoke on my own god-damn blog.

I don't give a damn if you think I'm a bad person because I'm fat or because I smoke or because I enjoy bacon sandwiches, or because I drink. I am me, and I will continue to be me whether you like it or not.

The Politics of New Hair ( and the Red and black slouchy outfit)

Red and black slouchy outfit, originally uploaded by BB Allen.

T-Shirt by Asos Curve
Skirt by Evie for Peacocks
Tights by Primark
Boots (slightly out of shot) by Dr Marten
Duffle Coat (on chair) by Simply Be

This is what I wore to work today. As you can see I've had a bit of a change in the hair department. This is in fact, relevant to this blog.

You see, for the last 6 years I've been growing my hair. I've had my hair every colour of the rainbow at some point, I've had it long, short, and inbetween. But over the last 6 years, I've not been cutting it, and I've not been changing the colour QUITE as often (ok quite often, but in more subtle ways than the greens and reds and blacks and purples of before).

I've been thinking about why I've not changed my hair before now. Partially it's because I wanted long hair, to grow it in and give it a chance and see how long I could get it. And wanting to have long hair is a good enough reason to have long hair.

There are a couple of factors to me, at least, keeping my hair long for so many years that are NOT good enough reason though. One was that I thought I 'looked fatter' with short hair. I am fat, looking fat is something that I can expect to be the case. And yet, I was there thinking "I'd love short hair, it would be easier to dry, wouldn't tangle and wouldn't be so god-damn hot all the time" and then countering that with "but I don't want to look EVEN FATTER", and I the latter argument as actually WINNING. So I think that finally accepting that I am FAT has freed me from that thinking, and allowed me to try something new and daring.

The same is happening with my clothes (hence the outfit posts), when I was Thin I was obsessed with clothes, I loved playing with them, mixing them up, and shopping for new fabulous pieces to add into the mix. As I got better (/fatter) I would buy bigger clothes, but they were mainly chosen for practicality, and cheapness. My weight was all over the place to the point where I'd yo-yo between as size 12 and a size 20 within a year and I'd buy nice clothes when I was thin and cheap, practical "Temporary Clothes" when I was fat. I spent approximately 1/4 of the last 8 years in "Temporary Clothes", crappy shapeless long-sleeved Matalan tops (on their own, with cheap shapeless jeans - not even as a base for something more funky). I longed to be able to find my style and struggled to do so, even when I was thin (/ill) - I didn't understand my body, and I have no great love for it. I didn't think my body deserved nice clothes, didn't trust myself to be a size long enough to make paying anything significant for them worth-it. Hell, I changed size so often I couldn't afford to dress nice.

Over the last few months, since discovering FA and embracing my fat body, my love of clothes, makeup and hair has simply bloomed. I've managed to build up a nice wardrobe of great clothes that fit, and stayed within budget by using existing clothes as bases for new pieces and in different ways. And also by prioritising myself more. I don't feel the need to spend my money on crap I don't need as much, because I'm pretty sane (and I think I have FA to thank for the continuance of that because dieting has caused many an Attack-of-the-Crazies).

And as fatshion blogs have filled in the hole for magazines (I still sometimes buy them, but only occasionally as I find their often warped images of women, frankly insulting - this is not the kind of advertising I respond to and the lies are maddening) - my thanks go particularly to the wonderful Fat Nurse :) It's great to see great clothes on women who's bodies actually resemble my own, and the feedback on sizing is invaluable too.

I don't intend to turn my blog into something fatshion only, I still have alot of things to say about what I THINK for that, but expect more photos and more outfits, because sharing works best both ways.

BB

Smart-casual funky grey outfit

Smart-casual funky grey outfit, originally uploaded by BB Allen.

Pencil skirt my M&S
Silver shrug by Simply Be
Star Fishnets by Primark
E-Fit slouch boots by New Look
Scarf and jewellery by who the hell knows!
Glasses by FCUK

1st fatshion post (eeks)

This photo is from a couple of weeks ago (before I had my hair cut as you'll see in the next one!), I wanted to put together a grey outfit that didn't look dull. It's difficult to see in this photo, but the shrug is metallic silver thread and the scarf has silver threads in too. I'm also wearing a set of 3 strings of beads ranging from black to shiny, shiny silver. The key to doing metallic in the day is in the accessories as it has to be smartened up or dressed down (or maybe both with this outfit ;) ) I got this stretchy pencil skirt in the M&S sale last summer and it's wonderfully versatile and can be worn as casual or smart depending on what it's paired with (I like to mix my clothes up so they HAVE to be versatile in some way!)

BB

The Crazy and The Fat

Marianne over at The Rotund's post on how her crazy interacts with her fat and her fat acceptance has inspired me to write about how these things interact, for me personally.
I specify that it's personal because each individual's mind is as complex and different as everyone's bodies (because, you know, your mind is part of your body, people). Also because my particular version of crazy does impact fairly dramatically on my treatment of my body and my acceptance of my fat.

Fat acceptance, to me, is part of the road to recovery from mental ill-health (by which I mean not that my crazy has magically disappeared, but that I am finally in a position where my crazy doesn't affect every single moment of my life). Only in accepting myself for the person I truly am (fat, prone to bouts of serious depression and periods of elation, subject to migraine and gum disease) am I able to treat myself in such a way that my crazy doesn't rule my life.

I have to be quite vigilant about my own needs, and do the right thing by myself to reduce the risks of a major depressive episode. This includes ensuring that I eat enough, sleep enough, don't drink too much, that I listen to my body and trust it to tell me what it needs.

The biggest risk to my health has, and probably will always be, a major attack of the crazies. I have to prioritise my mental health over physical risk factors - even if being fat was the fast-train to an early grave we're constantly told it is, the risks would pale to insignificance next to the very real risk of death from a bad attack of the crazies.

I don't pretend to have the true full picture as to the origin of my fatness, but I do believe that spending half my life on various anti-depressant medications has been a major contributing factor. These medications have saved my life many time over. I have no desire to be a skinny corpse, I have no desire to risk my mental health to fulfil your pointless cultural ideal. I've been your fucking cultural ideal, it nearly killed me.

For me, personally, dieting and body hatred is a very real danger to my health. My fatness is not.

Easter

In the Bad Old Days Easter, Xmas and birthdays were an excuse for "guilt-free" unlimited eating. Which, of course led to eating far more than I actually wanted/needed in preparation for the famine times ahead.

Things are a little bit different this year. I now know that if I don't eat all my easter-related chocolate this weekend, I'll still be allowed it next week or next month, and I'm happy at the thought of our Creme Egg gift pack (thanks Mum and Dad!) sitting at home waiting for me/him to enjoy when the mood takes us. In times past I wouldn't have been able to live with it's presence, it would gnaw at me until I'd eradicated it.

Easter is a time to celebrate the coming of spring, rebirth of nature all around us. We celebrate the end of the hard, barren winter months and the start of the fresh, abundant springtime. This year I'm focusing on the end of years of deprivation and misery and my new life of acceptance, happiness and fulfilment.
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Glee (Or Big Girls CAN Dance)

I've been pretty impressed by the TV show Glee, now showing on UK TV on E4.  Not only is it, fun, funny and full of song and dance routines (which I can't get enough of), it's clear that they've made a real effort to make the main cast as inclusive as possible (fat kids, disabled kids, pretty kids, geeky kids, popular kids - all, and more, are represented), and although the main cast are pitched as a group of mis-fits, it doesn't come across as piss-taking at the expense of the talented cast.

Of course, me being me, my favourite character in the series is Mercedes Jones, the token fat-girl (and token black-girl), played by the delightful Amber Riley - a character with so much self-confidence that she delcares in the very first episode "I'm Beyonce, I ain't no Kelly Rowland."  The character of Mercedes provides a strong, beautiful role-model for plus-size girls, and I just love the fact that there hasn't (thus-far at least) been any sort of effort to make apologies for her size - Mercedes often takes the main singing parts and boy can she sing!

Glee's Mercedes Jones aka Amber Riley

This week's episode was particularly good on the fat and fabulous front, due to the guest number from Jane Adams Correctional Facility's Glee club, who perform Destiny's Child's 'Bootylicious' - aside from the fact that the ep. focuses on how Adams' use of 'Hairography' is supposedly there to distract from poor performances (and let's face it, the maker's of Glee wouldn't show a dance routine where the dancer's weren't on form), the dancers in this routine take the showcasing of fat talent futher than the original cast - mixed in with the usual 'athletic' body type that people normally think of as a 'dancer's body' are a variety of body types, including, as one of the main singers/dancers Chatonja (sorry, but google failed to tell me the actress's name) - a young woman who can sing, dance and do the splits and is also far larger than anyone I've ever seen dancing in popular media in any way other than as an exercise of 'let's laugh at the fatty' - couple that with the costume choice actually affording us flashes of her stomach (*shock* - how is this even allowed on TV!) and the show found yet another way to leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling.

The Jane Adams Glee Club (Chatonja 1st step, centre)

Glee does delight in stereotypes, but so far delights in throwing them to the four winds.
I love it!

BBC Health News Fail

The BBC's health page today has two articles today 'relevent' to my blog..

Article 1.

Media is Fuelling Eating Disorders

The basic gist being that magazines should not be promoting an unhealthy (ie. emaciated) 'aspirational' body image, that there should be laws about using models who are blatently unwell and/or showing manipulated images showing an exaggerated, severely edited or just plain impossible body image with no indication that they have been altered.

In general, I'd have to say I agree with this, and think that the media has a responsibility not to encourage it's readers into desperate, damaging behaviours to fit into a tiny, perfect mould that not even the people in the photographs will fit into.  With photoshop, I think that images manipulated should have some kind of label, preferably a line of small-print detailing exactly what has been done to the original image.

Particularly in adverts.

I'm particularly impressed with them wanting to extend this warning system to articles promoting diets.

This bit, however, we could do without "...Dr Ian Campbell, a Nottingham GP and spokesman for the charity Weight Concern, said the way the media glamorised thinness made it harder for obese patients to lose weight."

The media's obession with thinness does not make it "more difficult for [us fat fat fatty fatties] to lose weight" (words in brackets my artistic licence) - it's disorting almost every woman's (and an increasingly high proportion of men's) body image and relationship with food.  It's increasingly difficult to find anyone without the millstone of disordered eating dragging their heads towards the ground, let's face it, Cosmo isn't exactly helping matters much.

"Article" 2 (quotations mine there, of course)

Obesity Rise on Death Certificates

In which the BBC confuse "obesity being blamed for more deaths" with "obesity to blame for more deaths", undoing in one, lazy-arsed attempt at serious journalism, all the respect for them the previous article had gleaned....

Proof if proof be needed to remind us all that we've got a hell of a long way to go before the media take notice of us, and that we still need to KEEP SHOUTING!

In response to Momgrind

http://momgrind.com/2010/02/09/fat-acceptance/ - in which one blogger over-reacts to the shocking spectacle of a fatty eating ice-cream...

Dear Vered,

Think about this:

You don’t know this girl. You have no idea what may have caused her to become fat. It could be any number of reasons from emotional problems, to physical problems, to side-effects of medication, to yo-yo dieting. You don’t know anything about her, and yet you assume because you’ve witnessed her eating ONE ice cream that she’s fat because she’s stuffing her face with junk food 24/7.

Seeing one fat person having the balls to eat a foodstuff other than salad or raw vegetables in public does not provide proof that fat acceptance is flawed. Fat acceptance can actually help people recover from life-long struggles with eating disorders and prejudice and to lead them to live happier, healthier lives.

And it’s exactly the response that you’ve had to seeing one fat person eat just one ice-cream that makes it so vital to us to have the fat acceptance movement, to have allies against the prejudice that we experience every day. The fat acceptance movement gives us the support we need to break from the starve-binge cycle we’re trapped in, to get out into the world and live our lives, to take up healthy pursuits involving exercise (even when people are falling over themselves to shout “run fatty run” when you’re trying to enjoy a morning jog). It’s what makes us realise that we don’t have to eat everything in the fridge because tomorrow is a ‘no food day’.

And it’s this kind of prejudice which makes people equate thin with healthy. Which encourages the thin and averaged size to believe that important messages about healthy balanced diets and exercise don’t apply to them because they don’t need to lose weight. When a thin person sits on their arse all day eating cake then that’s just fine by society’s standards but in reality poor diet (lack of variety, lack of nutrients) and lack of exercise will cause you health problems whatever your size, just as a good diet (lots of variety, listening to what your body wants, plenty of nutrients) and increased exercise (even a small amount of gentle exercise will improve your health) will keep you healthy no whether you’re 7 stone or 17.

Fat people are not the enemy. Ice cream is also not the enemy – you shouldn’t live on it, but you shouldn’t live on peas either. Making snap judgments on other people without even speaking to them is a problem, but it’s not just your problem, it’s society’s problem. And quite contrary to popular belief, it’s not going to make any of us lose weight. If telling people they’re fat (as if they haven’t noticed) made people magically thin, trust me you’d have not one fat person in western society.

Best January Ever

The month just past was the first January that I can EVER remember not being on a diet or 'healthy eating kick' (which is, of course, a euphemism for diet.)  My Mum, like most British women, sees January as a kind of penance for the naughtiness of the festive season, and therefore puts herself (and by extension my Dad, and me when I lived at home) on a diet skinless chicken and soup for the first month of each year.

This year, with me having finally jumped off the dieting bandwagon and headed for the hills, I was able to enjoy the post Christmas period with more appropriate food for the bitter winter weather, and as such have found a lessening in the traditional January blues, a vast reduction in chocolate cravings and far less impact on the wallet from the January sales (although that might come from my increasing resistance to advertising and my newfound refusal to buy clothes that just don't fit).

I also nearly fainted on discovery that I can now fit comfortably into a pair of trousers that I couldn't get done up before Christmas, handily disproving any nagging demons in the back of my head urging me to run after that bandwagon, while I'm still nimble enough to manage it, because don't I know that this way leads to ugliness, not being able to fit through standard sized doorways and DEATH.

I'm sensibly holing up until the snow goes away and the days warm up nice; and when that happens I'm actually looking forward to emerging from my burrow and engaging in some nice, healthy swimming and walking to shake the sleep and  aches out of my joints.  Roll on springtime!

What's the ideal?

My journey deeper into FA is leading me to re-examine not only my attitude to Fat but also to Thinness and my concept of 'ideal' size.

In an ideal world, if I could be any size, what size would I be? In the past I would have definitely gone for the 'skinny as hell' size option, without a second's thought. Now, I'm definitely not so sure on that. My ideal size now would be significantly larger than my ideal size of say, 5 years ago.

Now when I envisage myself at my ideal size, I see myself at a much healthier size. In fact, my ideal is based on health now, not fashion, or obsession. Ideally, I would still like to be smaller than I am now. But not by as much. My ideal dress size is now Uk size 14-16 (I'm currently size 20).

In getting better from a mental health point of view, I've come to see that, for me, being skinny does equal being sick. I will never diet again, because I know that dieting makes me sick.

It's no longer my ideal to be sick for the rest of my life.

At the same time, working on a healthy attitude towards food does involve finding a better balance and a better attitude towards it. I think it's going to take a while to undo the damage done by dieting. I have to allow myself to feel hunger. I have to then allow myself to trust my instincts as to what to eat (when I'm so used to being told what I can and cannot eat), I have to be able to eat for enjoyment.

I also need to learn that it's ok to say no to food. It's ok to leave food over, to stop eating when I'm full. I need to trust that not eating for a few hours, because I'm not hungry, is not going to make me relapse into starvation. I need to trust that there will always be more food if I want it, I don't need to feed myself up for some future disaster.
I don't need to be skinny to be happy, and my life's going to be no less worthwile or enjoyable if I stay this size forever. Or if I lose weight, or gain weight either.

I don't have to be afraid.

Everything is going to be ok, and if it's not then whatever the problem is, it's not going to be my dress size.
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Dieting and Eating Disorders

I first remember feeling ashamed of my body when I was in my early teens.  Although before that point, I was well aware i was fat, I'd never felt it as a real problem until secondry school.  At the age of 14, when my body was just maturing, and with my weight at10st7lb (a healthy weight even by BMI) I first decided to 'do something about my weight'.

This was also around the time that I started to experience problems with my mental health.  Initially, my main symptoms were my panic attacks, and my panic attacks came in the form of attacks of vomiting.  My desire to lose weight therefore corresponded to a time when I felt sick alot of the time, and when I added intentional weight loss to the inevitable symptoms of my illness I lost alot of weight, very quickly.

On the one hand, I was suddenly receiving compliments even from the popular kids, I felt I could wear anything I wanted, I was proud of my self-control, and my ability to reshape my body.  On the other hand, my physical and mental health was suffering - my starvation was fuelling my panic attacks which were fuelling my starvation.  I had developed what I recognised as anorexic behavior - I avoided food, grouped food into 'safe' and 'banned' categories, weighed myself daily, and obsessed over everything I did eat.  By the age of 16 I was 7st, drinking heavily, and self-harming.  A pattern that continued for many years.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I got my first mental illness diagnosis (agoraphobia) and my first course of medication (anafranil).  The reduction in, and eventual cessassion of, my panic attacks as well as (I believe) my increased reliance on drinking and SH as methods of control, led to the gradual reduction in food restriction.  By the time I left university at 21 I'd gained back all the weight I lost through starvation, and more.

A change in medication to Prozac put paid to the drinking (thankfully) as I couldn't drink more than one drink without feeling ill whilst I was taking it.  The break from it taught me the art of sensible drinking.

I was able to free myself from SH by philosophy - I came to view it as an acceptable action, something with no sense of moral wrong in and of itself.  I gave myself permission to hurt myself if I really needed too, on the proviso that I wait at least an hour after the urge caught me.  In an hour I'd reassess - should I wait another hour?  I found the urge, for the most part, passed.  And if it didn't that was ok too.

So I'd gained weight - in fact, I was now a UK size 16 - bigger than my previous highest weight.  Which I still thought was too high.  Sure, I'd gone about losing the weight in the wrong way, but I still felt losing weight at that point was right.  This time it'd be different.

A succession of failed diets over the next 8 years.  I blamed my history of disordered eating on their failure.  Every diet marked the return of the eating disordered behaviour.  Not able to be sick on demand anymore, I made myself sick.  My weight shot up and down so many times my stomach and thighs are layered with stretchmarks.  Every time I gain weight, I end up at a higher high weight.

I have lived the last 15 years with eating disordered behaviour.  I blamed my failure to lose weight on psychological weakness.  My mental health made me too fragile to diet, it was my thoughts that were at fault. 

I now realise that one reason that dieting sparked mental health problems was that I wasn't eating enough food.  The return of ED behaviours was due to them being written into the fabric of dieting:  When you diet your supposed to obess over every calorie, your supposed to categorise foods into 'safe' and 'forbidden' categories.  Dieting encourages you to punish yourself for being 'bad'. 

When I draw parallells between pro-anorexia message boards and dieting ones it's because I've been a member of both.  They're the same.  They encourage the self-same behaviours.  Their message is the same 'deny yourself and you will be beautiful'.

Dieting is the socially acceptable face of eating disorders.  It encourages you to think in ways that are inherantly unhealthy, to demonise foods that are 'fatty' vs. foods that are 'slimming' regardless of nutritional value. 

My relationship with food needs mending.  I need to remember that no food is 'bad' and that I can eat anything I wish.  Fruit and vegetables don't lose their vitamins and antioxidents by association the apples in an apple crumble are still apples, the vegetables on the top of a pizza are still vegetables.  A diet of Special K is neither healthy or balanced. I need to remember that it's ok to not eat if I'm not hungry; something I'm actually having more problems with, as I'm so used to avoiding hunger - because in the past I have only felt it when I've been starving. 

It's time for me to complete my healing.  I've learned to manage my mental health problems over the years by learning to take care of me and acknowledge my own needs.  My most recent major episode of depression came as a result of a diet - my meds made me gain weight, so I stopped taking them.  I'm much happier now, unmedicated again, but with a nice full box available if necessary - and I've got more in my life than I ever believed I'd ever be able to have.  

I'm learning that taking care of my body is the key to looking after my mind, 
and I'm finding the freedom to do so in learning to like my body. 

In defense of liking my body

In response...

Anonymous...

"your hourglass shape, "straight normal-size nose," "firm arse" etc. etc. are all just as much parts of the culturally imposed beauty ideal as thinness is."

I suppose so yes, but I'm I think thinness is beautiful as long as it's not from starvation...   Things belonging to the social ideal aren't automatically ugly.  And neither are things not-belonging.  I, personally, don't feel the need to reject every aspect of an ideal which is part of the culture I belong too - I do think our cultural ideal needs to expand with our cultural experience, and in line with reality.

"By listing them as reasons to like your body you're implying that the only reason to like your body is if it looks as close as possible to that beauty ideal. "

I fear I have been misunderstood, or perhaps not set the scene strongly enough.  I was referring to finding things I like specifically while looking in the mirror.  There are other things I like about my body, but that I can't necesserily see in the mirror - such as my physical strength, or my sense of touch. And you can be beautiful or sexy and not fit into the cultural ideal; and there's plenty of me that doesn't. An example of beauty i can see from where I'm sitting, my boyfriend is the most beautiful person I've ever known, in every way - he's quite short (which is sexy), and has a beard (handsome) - not exactly the ideal for the North East of England).

How do you think women whose boobs are saggy, or whose noses aren't "straight and normal sized" (which is also a very racialized concept) should learn to love their bodies

Look for things THEY like about THEIR bodies?
As to it being a racialised concept, I'm was talking about myself - and I'm a white middle class woman about in the UK, about to turn 30. So yes, I'm referring to my own racial and cultural standards here, because truthfully I don't have alot of experience outside of my these bounds. I don't claim to speak for anyone else here, it's a pretty self-involved project all told.

How do you think women whose bodies are less culturally acceptable than yours might feel when they read this post?  If there is nothing that is generally considered attractive about a woman's body, is her body not worthy of respect?
I would hope that they'd be able to find beauty somewhere in themselves. I would hope they realise that I'm talking about myself and not critisising them.

If you, Anonymous, honestly believe your own body is 'less culturally acceptable' to my body (which you've not seen) and want me to second-guess how you feel: I hope you love your 'culturally unacceptable' body, and if you don't then I hope that you can start opening yourself to seeing things you do love about yourself.

I suspect, however from your comment and the fact you don't want to reveal your identity, that you feel pretty bad. I'm sorry if you do, because I've spent more than 15 years feeling pretty bad too.  I suspect that you're so used to seeing insult and cultural pressure that you apply it to anything you read. I suspect you might not like yourself very much and if that's the case I'm sorry that you chose to interpret what I said about liking myself as a personal attack on you. But I don't know who you are, or any of these theoretical people who might be reading - it's not really my responsibility to second-guess anyone's feelings, they can think whatever they want.

If there is nothing that is generally considered attractive about a woman's body, is her body not worthy of respect?

And yes, everyone's body is worthy of respect.

The revelation to me, in saying that, is that for the one of the first times I've said it I've not silently added "except mine."

How to love your body?

I'm fairly new to FA, and becoming happy with my body is an ongoing project.  My last post was (from just a few days ago), explained the revelation of looking at my body in the mirror and not hating everything I see, I've written about the way I've treated my body in the past, and how I hope never to disrespect it like that in the past.  But I'm still calling my body "it".  My body isn't an "it", it's me.  When I'm hating what I see in the mirror, I'm not hating an external Body, I'm hating myself.  When I'm hurting my body, I'm hurting myself. 

Disrespecting my body is disrespecting myself.

So now I face the issue of dismantling the 'mind-body' split:  Something, incidentally, which I have never believed in intellectually - as a student I used to think (and I still do think) writers who believed that the mind was something separate [and implicitly better] than the body were deluding themselves into human superiority.  (I have a degree in Philisophy don't 'cha know).  I know that I get physical symptoms when something's wrong psychologically  (my panic attacks have always manifested themselves like stomach flu).  And yet it's taken me 10 more years from knowing and believing these things to even recognising that I unconsciously acted as if I believed in this delusion, let alone tackling the problem.

There are changes I'm going to have to make to break out of this now-conscious social training.  I've got to look after myself, in a much less perfunctory way.  I need to be remembering that in order to be healthy I have to nourish and care for my mind and my body.  I need to harmonise myself, retune my mind into my body.  To train myself to believe, consciously and unconsciously that mind and body are one.

In the mirror

Last night I had to get changed in a bathroom with a full length mirror. I've not seen myself in full length (almost) nudity for so long that I feel it deserves a blog entry.

Seeing myself all at once, made me pause (even though I was in a rush) - and brought up quite a lot of thoughts and feelings I wanted to share.

The first things I saw looking in the mirror were the parts of my body I don't like (which in the spirit of openness I will share)

1. My belly - which is a little large for my liking, I admit. Especially as it seems a little out of proportion with the rest of me
2. My stretchmarks, especially the livid red ones under my stomach and on my upper thighs which appeared with me putting weight on recently (immediately following yet another doomed diet, of course).

And that's it for the dislikes.

Now for the likes

1. My big boobs, which are in proportion with my body
2. My arse, which is nice and high and firm
3. My waist - which is, even without my clothes, really rather defined so I have a good hourglass thing going on.
4. My belly and boobs are both quite firm, I don't have anything that sags.
5. My skin, for the most part, is smooth, soft and silky - and looks healthy.
6. My hair and face - I have pretty eyes, a straight normal-size nose, high cheekbones - I do ok :)

In the past I have looked at myself and only seen the negative, and this has driven me to treat my body very badly. I'm surprised, after so many years of disrespecting my body I can now find so many things to like about it. Perhaps now it's time to reward myself by treating my body with the respect it deserves.
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Comment Moderation

Just to make it perfectly clear - all comments on my blog are moderated and any comments which I deam offensive, unhelful or that I just plain don't like will be deleted. 

Doesn't mean I won't open them up to public ridicule though.

So, Anonymous, if that is your real name, congratulations!  You have been awarded the auspicious prize for "first stupid comment on the blog" with this stunning example of general ignorance:

"Why, for the love of all things decent, won't you just stop eating"

I shall, on this occasion, indulge you with a reply...

1. Because I'd be hungry
2. Because I'd get sick
3. Because I don't want to
4. Because I'd die
and finally...
5.  Because I couldn't give a rat's arse about "all things decent."  "Decent" is just not rock n' roll.

The Moral Question

moral adj. 1 a concerned with goodness or badness of human character or behaviour, or with the distinction between right and wrong.  b concerned with accepted rules and standards of human behaviour
(The Concise Oxford Dictionary)

So I've been reading a lot as research for ths blog, and one thing that's jumped out to me is the overwhelming view of obesity as a moral issue.  This actually surprised me, because I've always thought of moral issues as being focused on the ethics of what people do rather than what they are.

Of course I could still be right.  It would appear that most people who would seek to judge us on a moral level for our Fatness would belive that being Fat is something we do to ourselves, rather than being something we are.  Whilst I'm sure that in this weird and wonderful world of ours there are certainly exceptions to this rule, most fat people didn't end up that way by thinking "I think I'll be fat, health be damned - pass the whipped cream and a pack of bacon, I want to get started straight away."  People, as a general rule, wind up fat, they don't choose to be that way.

And diets don't work.  They can actually make you fatter. 

And even those of us who do want to be fat aren't evil.  We're not even naughty.  We can do what the hell we like to themselves - its nobodys business but ours, thank you very much.

The view of fat as a moral issue needs to be destroyed, not just for the benefit of us fatties, but for the benefit of everyone.  Fat is, and should remain, a discriptive rather than a moral issue.  Noone has the right to judge my moral worth by my dress size.  It's viewing fat as a moral issue that is behind the levels of guilt which are wrapped up with eating in modern society.  We need food to survive - eating is not bad.  Furthermore we need to stop categorizing food into categories of "good" and "bad" - because this is eating disordered thinking (compare the numerous discussions of what constitutes a "safe food" on pro-anorexia websites with discussions of what foods are "good" or "bad" on just about any discussion between [mainly] women). 

In the words of Lily Allen "I want to be able to eat spaghetti bolognaise, and not feel bad about it for days and days and days" ('Everything's Just Wonderful')

I can manage that just fine, but I shouldn't have to to worry about doing it in public for fear accusing stares and ridicule And I shouldn't have stop myself from justifying my choice of food (like everyone else seems to) with a comment like 'I didn't have time for breakfast this morning' or 'it's my time of the month.'  But I will stop myself.  I won't be bullied into colluding with prejudice.  Because I don't have to justify myself to anyone , including myself.

Obese 'struggle to earn living'?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8337512.stm

Didn't take long to find inspiration in the news (quell surprise).

An article centred around how it's hard to find work if you're fat.
Which it is.  

I was interested to note that 'overweight and obese' is contrasted with 'normal and underweight'.  When they're going to blame us all being unemployed on health problems (because all fat people have them) it seems rather daft to put the two groups associated with health risk in two opposing categories.  I'd be more interested if it was divided into 'norman and overweight' vs. 'normal and underweight'.

Back to that argument then.  "One charity said there was no doubt obesity affected work, through prejudice and health problems" (doesn't mention which charity, suspiciously - is weight watchers a charity yet?).

The main prejudice that we face in regards to finding employment is the assumption that FAT = SICK, employers (like the writers of this article it would seem) subscribe to this notion that as being obese is a disease, they treat you like any other sick person - and put you straight on the reject pile.

Add to this the myths surrounding us Fatties.  That we do nothing but eat, we're gluttenous, we're lazy.  We'll spend all the time we're there shirking work and eating cake, for goodness sake! That's when we're not off to the doctors for our blood-pressure and heart disease and Deathfatz...

As a Mad Fattie I can recognise it as the same prejudice that compels me to lie on job applications about my medical history - noone will employ you if they think you'll end up 'on the sick'.

The entire second part of the article is dedicated to an informed discussion on how it's our fault for being fat, and how the Obesity Epidemic must be stopped (with no discussion as to how to do so).

Righteous anger is so easy to find.

Through Sick and Thin

I was browsing through the status updates on Facebook yesterday when I came across one from an ex-workmate which said "...is sick, think I'm dying - still at least I'll have lost a few pounds.". I'm sure she's exaggerating the 'dying' part but her status struck me as a perfect example of women's mania for being thin, regardless of health concerns.

A common criticism of the Fat Acceptance movement is that we are promoting an unhealthy (and potentially life-threatening) lifestyle choice in much the same way as Pro-Anorexia sites do. The main focus of most FA blogs is 'Thou shalt not hate yourself just because you are not thin' - Pro-Ana sites on the other hand have the central tenant 'If you hate yourself more, you can be even thinner.'. FA is about self-love, pro-ana about self-hate. Pro-ana is an exaggeration of the the status quo (diet sites and pro-ana sites have almost identical content). FA is a rejection of it.

Health is more than numbers on a scale. Part of the reason I'm fat is side-effects of medication I've taken for mental health problems. It may have made me fatter, but it saved my life - and to me that's far more healthy than welcoming illness to make you thin.


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A whole new blog

So I'm resurrecting an abandoned blog and putting it to an entirely new purpose - blogging about my body, my health and my life as an above-average sized woman in the UK. 

Launching myself into the Fatosphere has, in itself, proved more difficult than I would have imagined.  Firstly, this blog used to be registered under the moniker "another diet coke head" and it's creation marked yet another diet-attempt-cum-bulimic-episode in my life.  So I've had to rename it.  Paralysed with indecision as to what to call myself, trawling through thesaurus entries on the word "Fat" (beefy, big, blimp, bovine, brawny, broad, bulging, bulky, bull, burly, butterball, chunky, corpulent, distended, dumpy, elephantine, fleshy, gargantuan, gross, heavy, heavyset, hefty, husky, inflated, jelly-belly, lard, large, meaty, obese, oversize, paunchy, plump, plumpish, ponderous, porcine, portly, potbellied, pudgy, roly-poly, rotund, solid, stout, swollen, thickset, weighty, whalelike courtesy of thesaurus.com) - as "the rotund" is already taken and the majority of other's excercises in torture (if anyone ever dared call me "elephantine", believe me when I say that they'd not be conscious for long). I figured I'd go with my normal online moniker of BB (short for Babyblue from the Bob Dylan song) for 2 reasons - firstly "BB" usually stands for Big & Beautiful in the Fatosphere and secondly because this blog is supposed to be about NOT hiding so making myself recognisable to friends, family and the world seems appropriate for this blog.

The second problem was with finding a photograph of myself for the blog.  I went through every single photo on my hard drive and could find not one, single photo which shows off my sexy curves without the aid of corsetry (I love corsetry, but it kind of laughs in the face of "natural beauty" - kind of like Aunty Gok telling us to show off our curves by stepping into an all-over "miracle-suit").  I've had to settle for one that just shows off my tits and face for the time-being, but now have "get some photos taken where I'm not hiding my body" onto my list of Fat Acceptance things to do.

It's a pretty long list, but I think I'm getting there with the not-hating-my-body objective.  My search through the photos has made me re-examine some photos of myself that, on first view, I thought I looked ugly in.  I now look and see that I really don't.  The only photo I came across in the search where I did look ugly was taken when I was 17 and 7st (at 5'6" this makes my BMI 15.84 - and me look like a bit of a hideous freak).  I am not made to be a skinny girl - as evidenced by the fact that when I was that hideously underweight, I was still a clothes size 12 due to, well, bone.  There's nothing wrong with being skinny, there IS something wrong with starving yourself to get there (just as there would be something wrong with bingeing on junkfood to try to gain curves).

Today I make a promise to myself. 
I promise that I will never abuse my body to reach a false ideal of beauty ever again.