My problems with Fat Acceptance

I've been surfing through Fat Acceptance blogs, and as usual, I came away with such mixed feelings. I've been promoting self acceptance regardless of size since before I'd ever heard of NAAFA, and that was when I was a teenager. I've known for a long time that I was way more than my ample body, and that my worth shouldn't depend on such a superficial standard. I'm also a dieter, and I'm proud of what I've accomplished with relearning and rebuilding food and exercise habits.

That's the essential conflict for people seriously concerned with Fat Acceptance. Some would say that because I diet, I'm a self-loathing sellout trying to fit a stereotype and a shameless praise seeker because I'm a public dieter. My quickest and easiest response to that is, "Bullshit." However, like most quick and easy answers, it's neither completely true nor false, and I want to have the guts to admit it.

I'm never going to fit the currently desired mold for a woman. I'm built big and round. I always have been, and I always will be. The top target goal weight for a woman of my height in the Weight Watcher's program (that I would recommend to anyone who wants to lose weight) is less than I weighed when I graduated from high school, and I feel it's a bit unrealistic that I'd ever successfully maintain that weight 30 years down the road. Even if I did reach that weight, I'd still be a size that others call fat. In black and white thinking, that leads to two choices, give up on dieting or continue to diet only to still be marginalized.

Well, here's the deal. I won't be marginalized. I was told for years that a woman of my size could not work successfully in outside sales, yet that's how I supported my family for years. I've worked to be treated with respect by health care providers and let the disrespectful ones know why they lost my business. (If you don't see medicine as a profit based business as well as a healing profession, where the hell have you been?) I've made every effort to dress well, including complaining to stores that provided shoddy service or merchandise to larger people or no merchandise at all. I've called bigots on their fat prejudices both privately and publicly. Do not tell me that because I diet I can't be pro-fat acceptance. I don't expect every one to care about my diet results. I don't need the whole world's support or praise, but my journey through weight loss, and my relationship with food and body image is of interest to some people, and I love the support they've given me.

I know that I'll never have the "ideal" body, and that's not what I'm shooting for. I'm shooting for health and physical comfort. As I've gotten older, some of this fat has gotten harder to carry. Multiple knee and ankle injuries have both been eased by shedding some weight. I support Health At Every Size, but I also want Health At Every Age, and what my body could handle in my 20s and 30s is different than what I can do nearing 50. That brings up another bone of contention about the fat acceptance blogs I read.

Every blog author who identified their age range was significantly younger than I am. To be fair, many authors did not identify their age. While the standard of beauty is near an all time thinness, the degree of fat acceptance now is higher than it has ever been in my lifetime. Praising anorexics for self-starvation is now regarded as a sick thing to do. When I was a teen, those behaviors were encouraged and praised for their discipline. More than one well meaning person suggested to me that I should make myself sick every now and then when I was a kid. On top of that, I've gone through more years of putting up with crap about my size, and it has taken a toll.

I do have body image issues. I won't deny them. A vertical cut C-section (on which I was not given a choice but at the time didn't care) bisected my stomach muscles, and no amount of exercise will eliminate that weakness. Pregnancy, breastfeeding and aging have made permanent changes in my breasts. I'd love for my boobs and belly not to sag. Nothing will get rid of the scars left by a chronic illness that is not caused by weight. Aging and weight loss combined have had me rethink some positions on plastic surgery. I like being pretty, and I think I could look better. I also think I already look pretty damn good and don't really want to look like a kid again. I don't think that my appearance is always up for judgment, and I think that people who feel compelled to judge every woman's appearance have more issues than I do. I also have some food issues. I don't hoard and binge on candy bars or chips, but there are times I misuse food. I went on a structured diet in part to build healthier eating habits and get good in perspective. It's tricky territory. In reading the FA blogs, more than once I got the feeling that the authors held the attitude that if someone did admit to dealing with self and body acceptance issues, it meant that they were hopelessly unenlightened. Granted, that's a perception and not an accusation, but words can be slippery things.

Fat Acceptance is an issue that affects both the personal and political arenas. I want a level playing ground for everybody, and we're nowhere near that. Work has to be done in the public arena to halt the demonization and scapegoating of fat. On the personal side, what I do with my body is my business. You can like or hate my decision to diet, but either way, it's my choice.

fat acceptance, dieting