This question comes up a lot in a lot of different ways. For our purposes today “weight loss talk” includes any discussion of the desire, reasons, and/or process by which someone wants to manipulate their body to be smaller.
So, that brings us back to our questions: Do fat positive spaces have to allow weight loss talk?
Short answer: No.
Slightly longer answer: Hell no.
Long answer:
People are allowed to do whatever they want with their bodies – but that doesn’t make every choice people make appropriate for fat acceptance (or even the co-opted and watered down concept of “body positive”) spaces.
While no two oppressions are exactly comparable, as a woman who is both queer and fat, I liken this to someone who wants to have “reparative therapy” to try to become straight. They are allowed to do that, but they should not expect that discussion of their desire, reasons, or process of becoming not queer would be welcome in queer positive spaces. Similarly, it’s completely appropriate – and, in fact, absolutely necessary – that we have fat positive/body positive spaces that do not allow weight loss talk of any kind.
Social justice works in systems, and fatphobia is rooted in systems that include sizeism, healthism, and ableism. Health, ability, and body size are not obligations, barometers of worthiness, or entirely within our control. Insisting that they be prioritized and/or used to judge the goodness/worthiness of a body adds to oppression. The message that bodies are better if they are manipulated to be a different size adds to oppression. If we want to dismantle systems of sizeism, healthism, and ableism, then we need to vastly change the way we talk about size, health, and dis/ability and ending weight loss talk is a big part of that.
Ready for a world that affirms body of all sizes? Join us for the Fat Activism Conference:
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The Fat Activism Conference is all online, so you can listen by phone or on your computer wherever you are. Plus you get recordings and transcripts of each talk so you can listen and read live and/or on your own schedule. The conference is happening October 6-8, 2017!
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Book and Dance Class Sale! I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!
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