Greetings from Dartmouth College – I’m excited to be back here (although to a SoCal by way of Texas girl it’s cold beyond all reason.) As I’m doing final preparations for my talks I thought I would reiterate something on here that sometimes causes confusion – especially to people new to the concepts of Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size.
In many of my talks, especially those to healthcare providers, healthcare students etc. I discuss the evidence about health and weight. Including that there is no evidence that would lead us to believe that weight loss is likely to succeed. None. When people who try to lose weight gain it back, nobody should be surprised, it’s exactly what the evidence says will happen.
Regardless of how moving out of the stigmatized class of fat people might make someone’s life better, or even if you believe that it would make them healthier, weight loss does not meet the criteria of evidence based medicine and every time someone attempts weight loss the absolute most likely outcome is that they will end up as heavy or heavier than they were when they started, and with even less social approval since they “failed” at weight loss, and at risk for health problems from weight cycling if they continue to attempt intentional weight loss. The science does not support intentional weight loss interventions as a way to lose weight or as a way to become healthier. There are options to pursue health outside of weight loss that have a basis in evidence. In my experience a thorough discussion of this information has helped a lot of people open their minds to Size Acceptance and Health at Every Size, I think that there is value in discussion based on science and evidence.
That said, I also think it’s important to include these facts: Even if weight loss was very easy for every person, it’s not ok to stigmatize, shame, humiliate or oppress fat people. The rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable, they are not dependent on size, health, dis/ability, or looking the way someone else thinks we should look or doing what someone else thinks that we should do. The cure for social stigma and bullying is not for the stigmatized and bullied to change themselves; the cure for social stigma and bullying is for those who are doing the stigmatizing and bullying to stop. People have the right to exist in fat bodies without making any attempt to lose weight and without public food and body policing, concern trolling, shaming, or weight bullying, whether or not long-term weight loss is possible. Fat people have every right to demand respectful treatment that is not, in any way, contingent on our body size, or attempts to change that size, whether or not our body size is changeable.
Like the blog? Here’s more of my stuff:
The Book: Fat: The Owner’s Manual The E-Book is Name Your Own Price! Click here for details
The Dance Class DVDs: Buy the Dance Class DVDs Click here for the details
Become a Member, Support My Projects, and Get Special Deals from Size Positive Businesses
I do size acceptance activism full time. I created a membership program so that people who read the blog and feel they get value out of it and want to support the work I do can become members for ten bucks a month To make that even cooler, I’ve now added a component called “DancesWithFat Deals” which are special deals to my members from size positive merchants. Once you are a member I send out an e-mail once a month with the various deals and how to redeem them – your contact info always stays completely private.
