Ragen Chastain 5’4, 284 pounds. Photo by Richard Sabel.
I’m going to talk about fitness and movement, and some cool things that are happening with the Fit Fatties Forum, so I want to preface this by saying that movement/fitness/whatever you call it is an option – it’s not a moral decision, it’s not a social or personal obligation. Choosing to be physically active, or to not be physically active, doesn’t make someone better or worse than anyone else. People choose lots of levels of physical activity, or lack thereof, for lots of reasons and all of those choices are completely valid. It’s not for anyone to judge anyone else’s choices when it comes to movement/fitness/exercise etc.
While I am adamantly against suggesting, in any way, that fat people have any sort of obligation to participate in fitness, I think it’s important that fat people who are interested in fitness have the opportunity to speak about it, because we face everything from being ignored to being shamed and stigmatized, to being completely shut out just because we want to participate in movement while living in a big body.
This can be such a difficult and complex issue. For example, I typically use the word “movement” because “exercise” is just too triggering for too many people. In fact many fat people tell me that they resent the very idea of movement or fitness because it gets shoved down our throats as something that we “should” or “have to” or “need to” do to be a “good fatty,” or because movement was used when they were kids and even as adults by authority figures as a punishment for being fat (because that’s the way to develop a lifelong love of learning? Wankers.) Gyms, diet companies, and the media can’t stop telling us that we aren’t “doing movement right” unless it makes us thinner. Meanwhile fat athletes are told that, like so many rainbow pooping unicorns, we don’t exist, or that our accomplishments mean nothing if we aren’t thin.
And while it’s totally cool if people know their options and opt out of movement for whatever reason, I get e-mails almost daily from people saying that they wanted to dance, or hula hoop, or take walks or whatever, but didn’t think it was an option for fat people at all until they heard about or saw other fat people doing it. Meanwhile if you are fat and involved in movement and want support for anything from training programs to injury prevention it’s almost impossible without also getting weight loss talk and advice which can do everything from massively annoying you to making you want to quit altogether.
It’s one of the main reasons that I co-founded the Fit Fatties Forum. I wanted a place where all kinds of people, of all abilities and movement types can talk, and get support without weight loss or diet talk. Last year my forum co-founder, and super awesome fatty Jeanette DePatie (aka The Fat Chick), had an idea that we launched today: Fit Fatties Across America! The idea is that forum members who opt to participate can send in their time or distance each week for whatever movement they are involved in, and then we’ll pool it and see how long it takes us, as a group, to travel across the US with fun graphics on the page to track our progress.
I’m excited about it for a bunch of reasons – it’s an opportunity for Health at Every Size activism, it’s free, people of all sizes and abilities and movement types can get involved whether they are taking a 2 minute walk or running marathons, it creates a bunch of role models for people who may want to try out movement but think it’s not for them because of the constant drumbeat that fat people people don’t have a place in the fitness world, and did I mention we get to do fun graphics around it.
If this interests you, I hope that you will consider becoming involved (if you aren’t a member you’ll be prompted to join at the link – it’s free and doesn’t commit you to anything) Fit Fatties Across America launches officially on January 1.
Also launching on January 1 are, by member request, training and support groups. There are groups lead by fat certified fitness professionals for people of all sizes, abilities, and goals. There is a group for those with a goal of 150 minutes of activity a week, a group for those planning to participate in a fitness event this year, one for those who want to enjoy movement without tracking or structure, and then there’s Team Zombie. People can join as many groups as they would like. There is a small fee to be involved but it’s pretty cheap and it will be awesome. You can find out more info here. (if you aren’t a member you’ll be prompted to join at the link – it’s free and doesn’t commit you to anything)
If these don’t appeal to you, of course that’s totally cool, just know that whatever choices you are making around movement they are completely valid, and if you find that you are interested in movement from a weight-neutral perspective then you can find support on the Fit Fatties Forum for free anytime.
Last thing about the forum, – More of Me to Love, an awesome company that sells fatty-focused products from the useful to the whimsical, and who you may remember because they were the $5,000 sponsor of the Georgia Billboard Project, has come on as the title sponsor to the forum. We’ll be adding other sponsors as well throughout the year. This is awesome because we’ve been paying for the forum and development costs ourselves so far and this allows us to keep it free to all the members, to spend more of our time working on the forum, and to keep expanding to do more things. If you’re interested in being a sponsor, you can e-mail me. If you’re interested in supporting the people who are supporting the forum, you can check out More of Me to Love.
Finally, I do sometimes get questions and push back about things that I charge money for so I wanted to address it up front. I blogged about that here if you are interested.
Now, speaking of wankers who are ruining fitness for kids, we’re over 1,500 signatures and going strong on our petition to keep kids off The Biggest Loser! Please consider signing the petition to keep kids off The Biggest Loser and re-posting it.
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