Is it really so radical to say that Fat Acceptance spaces need to be free of diet discussions? Actually, I don’t think it is. And I say this even though I believe that there has to be a starting point on the FA journey for everyone (as I have repeatedly stated before). I just don’t think weight loss stories are an appropriate starting point.
I’ve put together this diagram and the points below to help clarify my thoughts - but it’s really a work in progress and is intended as a starting point for discussion. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is have at it, discuss, dispute, whatever. Dive right in. The water’s fine.
1. Self Acceptance =/= Body Acceptance
Self Acceptance and Body Acceptance, while often related, are actually separate concepts.
Accepting one’s self and having a core sense of self-worth does not necessarily equate to loving your body in its current state. Nor does a lack of self esteem necessarily equate to lack of body acceptance (although I would hazard a guess that if your self esteem is low, you are going to be more inclined to dislike your body). A sense of self worth can be built on who you are; your place in your community, family, work; what you like doing and do well; your hobbies and accomplishments. While appearance may be a factor in self worth, in most people I believe it would be only one of the components of their sense of self.
To put it another way, Self Acceptance relates to the inner whereas Body Acceptance relates to the outer
2. Fat Acceptance vs Size Acceptance - Allies with a difference
Philosophically, Size Acceptance and Fat Acceptance are very similar. SA and FA both advocate an end to size & weight related discrimination. Many FA and SA activists follow the principles of HAES (Health At Every Size). Many have learned to love their body at its set point, regardless of whether that is fat or thin or in between.
The point of difference to my mind is that Fat Acceptance explicitly states that FAT is - and must be - part of that discussion; there can be no upper weight or size limit to our quest for rights and acceptance. There can be no point at which we nudge each other, compare bodies and say, “Well, I’m fat, but she is something else again. That really can’t be healthy, can it?”
3. Dieting and Body Acceptance are mutually exclusive
If you are dieting, then you believe your body as it currently stands is unacceptable. Full stop (or period, for the Yanks). It really doesn’t matter whether you are trying to lose weight for cosmetic or ‘health reasons’ - dieting, by definition, is a rejection of the current state of your body and an attempt to change that. The ultimate goal is a smaller or ‘healthier’ you, and regardless of whether you call your diet a ‘lifestyle change’ or ‘eating sensibly’, that is not body acceptance.
4. Therefore Fat Acceptance and Dieting are mutually exclusive
If you believe your own body is so unacceptable that you must starve and shrink it, then by extension, you also must believe that bodies of people who are as large or larger than you are unacceptable. Do I really need to state why that is outside the philosophy of Fat Acceptance?
5. Diet all you like, just don’t talk about it in Fat Acceptance spaces
Some dieters appear to believe that the refusal of Fat Acceptance advocates to diet (or to discuss how to diet or the ‘benefits of weightloss’) somehow impinges on the right of the dieter to bodily autonomy. For my own part, I really don’t care if you diet. But - much as I refuse to listen to Jehovah’s Witnesses who knock on my door - I refuse to take part in endless discussions about calories and what ‘worked’ for you. I will not participate in the celebration of the loss of part of your body. I have made a conscious choice not to diet, despite there being endless cultural pressure to do. Fat Acceptance spaces are one place where that cultural pressure is eased (not removed, eased) for a while. I do not require your validation for my choice, nor do I require you to stop dieting. I just ask that you SHUT UP ABOUT IT already. Thank you.
I don’t think it’s radical either. And I don’t think that saying one isn’t strictly “fat acceptance” but is actually “size acceptance” makes it OK or gives a pass to have all kinds of fat-hating going on - fat IS a size. (Ok it’s many sizes, but it’s still size.)
I don’t care if people diet either, very much - though I do get concerned about it, because I believe it is disordered and unhealthy. So when it’s someone I care about I try to pass on as much as I can to them about helping accept themselves as they are, not beating themselves up because they’re not losing weight, for heaven’s sake don’t let them cut out your stomach, that kind of thing. When it’s someone I don’t know well, so long as I have a book or something to look at if they’re going to rhapsodize about their diets, then OK; I ignore it. In the media I make fun of it because some of the diet advice is so crazy. (I did a whole blog entry on one magazine spread about diet tips of the stars heh.) And apparently when it shows up in the fatosphere I get blindsided and question it, or disagree with it. When blatant fat-hatred and unacceptance show up there I guess I get pissed off. I don’t know; that’s sort of a new one, though.
Sigh.
I will not participate in the celebration of the loss of part of your body.
Yup. And especially not in an FA/HAES space.
That’s the long and the short of what this is about for me.
Hmm, interesting set here. I don’t actually disagree with any of your points, but, as always, there is the part about individual choice and needs.
Any hatred is unacceptable. I don’t believe that “wanting to change your body” is necessarily antithetical to FA though. I want my body to be stronger, simply because it would be nice to be able to lift heavier thing than I can right now. I don’t hate that it is not; I accept that it is not naturally stronger and I accept that I’ve not put on the strain necessary to make it stronger. That does not mean that I never will find need to do so,a nd that does not mean I am dissatisfied with how my body appears. Should I soon choose to engage in activities to strengthen myself, my only thoughts will be “does this make me more able to lift that heavier box” not “I know it makes me heavier, but is it sculpting anything?” or “will anyone notice just by looking at me?” So, first, I think your definition of “diet” needs to change. Perhaps “I am working to change my appearance” would be more appropriate.
Second, while I personally fall in the intersection of “I want to end fat discrimination at my current size,” “I have a sense of self worth,” and “I love my body exactly as it is now,” I don’t think wanting to change your body because its size physically handicaps you is a wrong thing, nor do I think that it is completely antithetical to wanting to end fat discrimination at your current size. Just because your fat handicaps you doesn’t mean that you are willing to accept discrimination. That would be the same as suggesting that a deaf person must necessarily accept discrimination if they decide against a cochlear implant even though it might work. If a person as large, or larger, than you is not physically handicapped by their fat then there is no reason to believe that they think your body is unacceptable.
I guess my conclusion is that a Venn diagram is not going to be able to convey appropriate complexity, but I’m sure you already knew that. ;)
Hmm. In my head, and in my organization’s actual practice, size acceptance and fat acceptance equal more or less the same thing, within the Health at Every Size framework. So, we accept that people come in all sizes and encourage people to dance and train and enjoy themselves in dance at whatever size they’re at, fat or thin. Fat acceptance is a term I use if I hear, when listening to people, that they are thinking about size acceptance up to a certain point. That is, if I find that people are using size acceptance differently than I use it (yes, fat is a size, or range of sizes, too!), I clarify by pulling out the Big Fat Stops and saying it.
I like how you use diagrams to clarify your thinking. Very useful and thought-provoking.
Wait, I am still confused about what you mean by size acceptance. I understand the part about Fat Acceptance, but what defines Size Acceptance as something separate and why that label?
For me, it’s simple. Personally, there are diet threads at just about every forum I browse and post on - even forums that are not food/fat/body related. People are talking about diets and weight loss everywhere these days. It’s nice to come to a place that is free of that, if only to get a breather. Diet and weight loss seems to have taken over the country.
I would definitely say that I’m number one.
I don’t have a problem with other people dieting–but I wish that there was a BALANCE in the media. For every woman we see dieting, rarely do we see a woman whose proud of her body, whose dating and just enjoying life as a large woman. I’m tired of fat women being portrayed as the emotional victim. Why can’t we ever see that? Fascism.
I believe the diet industry pays millions of dollars to bury any information and suppress any information that’s fat-positive, even if it’s shown to be true. All in the name of
making money. It’s sad but true.
As someone who is relatively new to fat and body acceptance, I tend to swing in ever-narrowing cycles between “I’m ok the way I am,” and “I have GOT to lose some weight.” Having said that, I really hope that the FA blogs never become a space where diet talk is welcome. I come here to be challenged, to hear different points of view than are available in popular culture, to be a little uncomfortable . . . in short, to be forced to THINK. I know that when I’m on the dieting side of things, I post fewer comments, but it’s not because I personally feel unwelcome. It’s because I’m grappling with my own thoughts and feelings around the viewpoints expressed, and that is something I’m grateful to experience. I frankly think we should all experience that from time to time.
And also, you know . . . “your blog: your rules.” Whether or not I like those rules is not really relevant (although in this case I do). ;)
Here’s the bloody hell of it. Most of the diet people do not get the thing that Debra Sapp-Yarwood got — that if you succeed at a diet, if you lose a large amount of weight and keep it off, there’s more than a little bit of dumb luck involved, help from your gene pool, socioeconomic status, medication and previous dieting history, etc. You are an outlier, not a role model.
If more of them understood that, I wouldn’t be sitting around hoping they’d grow 100-pound benign-but-inoperable tumors. I’m not half as jealous that they lost weight (Jeanette Fulda, for example, does not weigh much less than I do) as I am infuriated by their smugness about it.
I understand the desire to lose weight, because the pressure out there to do so is relentless, and the more health problems and physical pain you have, the more relentless the pressure. BUT…that does not mean we should be in the business of making the vast majority of fat people who will never be able to lose much weight and keep it off no matter how hard or long they try feel like walking human garbage over it.
As long as the meme persists that fat people are fat because they’re lazy and not trying hard enough and therefore deserve all the hate society has to rain down on them, the vicious cycle will continue — people will continue to diet themselves sicker and fatter, and the few people who manage to succeed at it will be seen not as the flukes they are but as bludgeons to beat the rest of us about the head with.
IF YOU DIET AND MAKE A BIG HAIRY DEAL ABOUT YOUR WEIGHT LOSS AND HOW MUCH BETTER THAT MAKES YOU, THEN THAT PUTS PRESSURE ON ALL OF US TO DIET, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT INTEND IT THAT WAY.
Power to you. As someone struggling with an eating disorder, I know firsthand how harmful hating your body can be, no matter what the reason. I don’t think there’s any reason why a person should make themselves unhappy simply because of their size. I think living a healthy life is important, but if you decide “I’m gonna eat healthier foods” or “I’m gonna exercise” simply to change your body’s appearance, you are sliding down a decidedly unpleasant path. Even if it doesn’t turn into anything medically significant, body hatred has to go. Really– what good does it do to hate the only body we’ve got instead of nourishing and strengthening it?
I’m number two, to an extent. I agree with your Venn Diagram also to an extent. lol
It’s a matter of personal choice. This isn’t a place where I’m likely to be welcome to diet talk, but depending on the situation, I may or may not object to someone dieting/getting WLS if that’s there prerogative. Can I object? Yes, but I can’t be hateful towards them in doing so (A), and I’m not in control of them anyway.
I believe The Rotund (Or Lindsay from babble? I forgot which one damn it lol) said something to the tune of (Verbatim at their blog, relating to this) “This is not a place that is welcome to diet/wls talk. We’re anti dieting/wls. We respect your right to choose, but we will NOT be your cheerleaders.” (Emphasis on the ending)
And I’m not trying to establish any upper/lower weight limits for Acceptance. We all deserve that right, and even the wise anti-fat people know the hate doesn’t encourage people to lose/gain weight. It’s stupid logic (Or a lack thereof). The concept of size and acceptance aren’t things that I try to cross in my mind. Health is a separate issue from morality, and health itself is too complex for me to believe in some mold that is “Perfect.”
I want an end to any size discrimination.
The diagram is great, but IMHO your definition of the difference between FA and SA doesn’t quite hit the point. I may be wrong, but I think that many people who diet although they believe in SA would say that any size is okay, no matter if it’s your natural shape or not. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from the recent discussions. Does that make sense?
Thank for the comments all. :) Some thought provoking stuff there.
I’d just like to clarify something I didn’t put in my original post, which is that I do agree that SA and FA both encompass the full range of sizes - fat, thin and in between. There is no minimum weight requirement for FA either, at least as far as I am concerned. I still believe that the difference between FA and SA (which I may need to more explicitly call out) is acceptance of one’s body as it is (FA) or desire to change one’s body (SA).
bookwyrm, you’re right, I knew the diagram couldn’t capture the complexity, but it has helped my thought processes. And I deliberately didn’t restrict the ‘Dieting’ section to appearance, because even if the stated intention for weight loss is “I’m only losing weight for my health”, the end result will be a smaller you and not necessarily a healthier you.
I don’t think it’s ‘wrong’ either, but I don’t think it falls into Fat Acceptance. Size Acceptance, sure. Based on your feedback, I can see that my wording of the definition of FA needs to be modified slightly, as the point I was getting at is that FA means accepting your body and other’s bodies as they are right now fat, thin or ‘handicapped’(ie. the intersection with body acceptance) and thus with the body acceptance, there is no desire to change. That is of course an ideal world. In reality, a individuals’s body acceptance may fluctuate over the spectrum from day to day (or even moment to moment. I’m thinking of Kate Harding’s recent annecdote about leaving yoga class feeling strong and able, and being brought down by a misogynist windbag calling her fat).
Meowser, you’ve nailed it on the head, as always.
Jon, I’m not really sure where you’ve picked up the idea that I want to limit peoples personal choice with regards to dieting? Please re-read #5 above. I am not going to “hate on” a person for dieting, but neither am I going to cheer them on.
Incredibly awesome post.
Full to the brim of awesomeness.
In my mind, the only difference between SA and FA is that SA is more inclusive. It encompasses height discrimination, for example. But, dieting is just as incompatible with SA as with FA.
I don’t get the difference between size acceptance and fat acceptance, I can’t help thinking that the latter exists because the former cannot tolerate any association with fatness, but what to feel better about themselves. I thought that everyone would lap up FA and think that’s me, no matter what their weight-HI JON!!!- especially if they’d been called fat to try and bring them down. Imagine my surprise at how it’s panning out- shit!
Anyhow, I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with wanting to weight less it’s just that it carries a heavy unseen cost, bringing those costs to the surface and disscussing them is not an attack on dieters. Nor is the refusal to see oneself in the same light they do an attack either, their hatred of their own fatness and their dieting, however much joy they feel it has brought to them, is what’s really ‘attacking’ them, making them so sensitive. They think by us not objecting to what they say about fatness, will take the pain away.
Sorry
‘I can’t help thinking that the latter exists because the former cannot tolerate any association with fatness’
this should be, those amongst size acceptance cannot tolerate any association with fatness.
You know in the old days men likes fat women more.
And your graffics rocks! Can you make me an avatar? Something like yours except can you put a gir instead of a women? Thank you so much!
I’d only disagree with your characterization of “Size Acceptance”, though I understand why you’re making it. Essentially, this is a case where fat acceptance opponents have had a habit of appropriating the term “Size Acceptance” and defining it in the way you have. The problem is that they didn’t come up with Size Acceptance. Fat Acceptance activists did and their purpose was unmistakably different from those who co-opt the term to describe an opposition to fat acceptance. SA always was intended as an extension of FA, not a limitation of it. It was coined to empahsize that the philosophical underpinnings of FA were not meant to be exclusively applied to fat people, but could well apply to all people. Its not “Accept the size you’d like to be” but much like FA, it’s “accept the size you are”. I think there needs to be resistance to this effort to redefine FA vocabulary, though, so as far as I’m concerned the people who’ve tried to appropriate SA in exactly the way you describe need to figure out their own term and not take one that means something else already. Essentially, the way Size Acceptance was originally intended, FA would be a circle entirely contained within SA. In that context, FA is essentially just an explicit focus on the rights and acceptance issues fat people face, but never to the exclusion of the wider issue of size acceptance. I know that a lot of FA critics do use SA to describe their views, but they’ve stolen that word from SA and I, for one, am not willing to let go of it.
My definitions for size acceptance, fat acceptance, and dieting are different from yours:
Size acceptance = People come in a wide variety of sizes. Knowing a person’s size does not mean you know their health status. It’s not OK for society to pressure people to gain or lose weight or to become taller or shorter. It’s not OK for society or individuals to discriminate against people who are outside an “approved” size range, or to pressure people to change their size. On a personal level, size acceptance means you don’t try to deliberately try to change your size.
Fat acceptance = Discrimination against fat people should be ended. It’s not OK for society, or individuals, to pressure people to lose weight. There are currently no safe, effective ways to permanently lose large amounts of weight. Knowing that a person is fat does not mean you know their health status. On a personal level, fat acceptance means you don’t try to deliberately try to lose weight.
Dieting = Restricting calories or food groups in order to make one’s body smaller.
In order to support a general social movement toward size acceptance, it is important to work on accepting your own size and not trying to change it. Some people want to support size acceptance but can’t stop their own size-changing behaviors. As a first step, those people should refrain from talking about size-changing behaviors *as if they are good, positive things*. This is especially important in size-acceptance contexts.
I was with you until here:
If you believe your own body is so unacceptable that you must starve and shrink it, then by extension, you also must believe that bodies of people who are as large or larger than you are unacceptable. I don’t think the second half of your assertion is a logical “must.” I think “may” would be a better word choice.
“Dieting and Body Acceptance are mutually exclusive” you say, but your description of dieting is “I am working to change my body”
No. I *am* working to change my body - to be able to lift heavy weights, and to dance for longer times, and to be more flexible. I am also trying to eat well, with plenty of fruit and veg, and somewhat less sugar and fat.(Not deprivation, merely moderation.) Many people would call this way of life “diet and exercise”. Though some might call it HAES…
This is not in any way a sign that I don’t love my body. I want good things for people I love, and I want good things for my body.
I decided to post raw thoughts without reading the comments, but now I see other people have raised the same point.
One thing that often seems unclear to me on fat blogs is the distinction between HAES, eating disorder recovery, and weight-loss focussed dieting. There are good and bad reasons to be watching your food intake - after a lifetime of dieting or otherwise culturally disordered eating, healthy intuitive eating may not come at all intuitively to many.
I think you need another circle between “self acceptance” and dieting. Perhaps, “cultural interference,” further defined as “I am listening to an outside force that encourages me to reduce my body weight.”
For what it is worth, I use the term “size acceptance” more than “fat acceptance” out of respect for two friends on the other end of the bell curve. One has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and is horribly limited by what she can eat/keep down. The other has struggled with anorexia, but is currently managing quite well. Both these people detest being called “disordered” as much as fat people detest being called “diseased.” Both want to be viewed as valuable people, worthy of society’s due respect. I think the image of FA being a circle encompassed by the larger SA circle makes sense to me.