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Category: Fat

I am an athlete.

If you have read any of my writing before, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I am fat. I’m not as fat as I was when I started writing for Feministe, but I’m fatter than I was this time last year (yay, pre-menopause! That was a fun birthday present). So, still fat.

I am also an athlete.

It’s taken me quite some time to be able to say that without qualification. Without minimizing my accomplishments. Without making exceptions or excuses for why I’m not an athlete.

Because I’m fat. So I can’t be an athlete, because athletes are thin and cut, right? When the strongest woman in America can’t get sponsorships because she doesn’t look like Lolo Jones, and the second-strongest woman in America makes defensive jokes about her body (and when every article about her mentions her weight more prominently than how much weight she can lift — which may be more than her professional-football-player brother can — and idiots make jokes about her size), is it any wonder a fat, middle-aged woman might have a hard time claiming the name?

I am currently training for the NYC Marathon in November. I’m slow. I don’t expect to finish in much less than five and a half hours. But I can run (or, rather, run/walk) 12 miles. I did that last week. Next week, I’ll do 14. I’d be doing more, but I had to take a couple weeks off for a fractured pinky toe.

I’ve had two conversations in the past year or so where I was brought up short and forced to confront my non-acceptance of the title “athlete.” The first was a little over a year ago, when I was being prepped for surgery. I’d been training for a half marathon at the time, and had gotten dehydrated on my 11-mile run (hello, new dry climate!). That pushed a latent bile-stone condition into being symptomatic, and I had to have emergency surgery. As I was lying on the table, the anesthesiologist was taking my vitals. Suddenly, she asked me, “Are you an athlete? Your heart rate is very low!” I was a bit startled and demurred. But, dammit, the whole reason I was there was that I was able to get myself dehydrated on an 11-mile run. A non-athlete doesn’t do that unless they’re being chased by tigers.

Then, a few weeks ago, I met with a Chi Running* coach who’s an ultramarathoner. It’s hard not to feel lazy next to someone who can and will run 50 to 100 miles at a stretch. I made some comment about not being very fit, and she said sternly, “You’re fit. You just did 9 miles.”

After that, I decided I’m going to think of myself as an athlete. I’m going to claim my athleticism. I’m fat, and I’m over 40, and I’m female, and I’m slow, but god dammit, I am a fucking athlete.

Also, I don’t think I’d be rolling this stuff onto my ass crack if I weren’t an athlete.

This stuff is the bomb.
For all your friction-reduction needs.

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* Seriously the best thing ever.

Why “I prefer small boobs” isn’t helping

“I like small boobs.” “I actually prefer untrimmed pubic hair.” “Ew, skinny girls! Eat a sandwich, amirite?” They’re inevitable contributions to any thread discussing women’s bodies, always offered by men as a word of comfort to insecure women or as valuable male insight into the male gaze.

Thanks for thinking of us, guys, but trust me: We get insight into the male gaze every day. The real impact of the male gaze is about way more than beer commercials, Playboy pictorials, and who does and doesn’t have to pay her own bar tab.

Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta shames fat kids to save them

It was surveys of two towns in Georgia that convinced Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta that the nation’s relentless campaign against childhood obesity wasn’t hitting hard enough: Georgia has the second highest rate of childhood obesity in the U.S., and parents in the towns surveyed seemed unaware of their kids’ obesity. So to promote their Strong4Life campaign, Children’s decided that a painfully blunt approach was necessary, and damn the consequences–even if those consequences involved putting sad, overweight children on billboards and TV ads to shame their parents into action.

Because the poor really do have it too easy these days

In a conservative intolerance one-two punch, Rick Santorum gives it to the poor and the obese in a single tweetable comment. The comment came at an Iowa town hall where he explained his plans to cut the federal food stamp program, should (God forbid) he be elected president.

“If hunger is a problem in America, then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who say we have a hunger problem?” Santorum asked.

I am so totally fucking serious, y’all. He said that. Where people could hear. The government obviously needs to cut food-stamp funding, because the fatties haven’t yet starved down to a Santorum-approved weight. Seriously.

It’s a spectacular show of ignorance from a man who obviously understands neither poverty nor nutrition, and it’s an example of the classic conservative thinking that unless you’re sitting in a cold, dark one-room apartment and scrounging in dumpsters for food, you’re not actually poor. It’s also an example of classic thinking–not exclusive to the conservative end of the spectrum–that obese people are obese simply because of an overabundance of food.

A man who’s likely never wanted for a meal in his life, Santorum lacks both the frame of reference and the basic empathy to understand the concepts he nonetheless continues to speak about. He isn’t inclined to understand that even if obesity were caused by excessive eating–which it isn’t–and if it really were a “crisis” in and of itself–which it isn’t–it wouldn’t be solved by giving people less money to eat with.

Affordable health care would help people stay healthy. Urban areas where people feel safe leaving their houses, public transportation, and well-maintained sidewalks would help people stay healthy. Making healthy food readily available in low-income areas, rather than continuing to subsidize corn and other nutritionally bankrupt crops, would help people stay healthy. Castigating people for their weight as if it’s a inerrant indicator of physical health doesn’t help people stay healthy. And literally expecting people to go hungry, because obviously obesity arises from untold riches and abundant food, is not just ineffective but full-on beastly cruel.

Poor people are poor because they’re lazy and unworthy. Fat people are fat because they’re lazy pigs. Starve them and deprive them of any form of physical comfort, and they’ll learn the errors of their ways and bootstrap themselves into health and wealth. Once we’re a nation of Oliver Twists, our economy will flourish and peace will reign across the land.

Fat acceptance, circa 1957

Hell yeah, she can look just as pretty as her less generously proportioned friends.

1957 ad for Chubbette clothing with the headline, "Your chubby lass can be the belle of her class"
Chubbette - clothes for the chunky lass in your life

She can also be as happy as a hit with a rollicking beat, and she can have a tummy and still look yummy. And those dresses are really cute. But, um, Chubbette? What, was “Fatshionista” already taken?

And yes, they are “fashions to make girls 6 to 16 look slimmer,” rather than “fashions to make girls feel cute,” but it could be worse. She could be Tracy Harper, bless her flower-clutching heart.

Meet American Apparel’s New Plus-Sized Models

UPDATE: Duh, read Nancy’s blog. She’s mocking American Apparel and the whole contest. So now I can 100% say: Nice work! I am behind it, ranch dressing cumshots and all.
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Nancy Upton crouching in a blue checkered bra with a cherry pie between her legs.

American Apparel is having a plus-sized model contest. The current front-runner is named Nancy, she is a size 12, and she is pretty hot. Good on American Apparel, sort of, for not just using skinny hipsters to model their clothes — fat girls are hipsters too! But it’s American Apparel, so of course a lot of the big-girl photos have that same Terry Richardson / borderline-kiddie-porn-in-grandparents’-basement aesthetic that I waver between hating because it’s gross and hating because it’s so played out. (It’s worth noting, of course, that these photos are self-submitted and not actually taken by American Apparel).

But here’s the thing with Nancy’s photos: They aren’t that same “Oops you caught me being sexy in a lace ankle-length body suit all by myself! I’m so surprised!” thing (alternately: “Oh hello, here is my butt, I hope you like it because I am going to injure my lower back standing like this all of the time“). Nancy’s not just pushing out her good bits; she’s eating or otherwise hanging out with food in all of the photos. And like, really eating — chocolate sauce dripping down her face, laying in a bathtub of ranch dressing, etc. Which on one hand is kind of subversive and awesome — fat chicks are not really supposed to even be visible, let alone take serious pleasure in eating food. It’s cute when a teeny-tiny actress tucks into a giant burger, but it’s not so acceptable for someone whose body might be featured, headless, on the nightly news to illustrate the American Obesity Crisis. And it’s awesome that her website tagline is “I can’t stop eating” — there’s so much pressure to be a Good Fatty who exercises and eats healthily and doesn’t over-eat like all of the Bad Fatties that it’s refreshing to see a fat girl being like, “Yup, I like food, ok.” So first reaction is, “Fat girl eating in a sexy ad? Yes please!”

Oh but then.

Read More…Read More…

An appetite for moral panics

Anthony Bourdain has had freakouts over Rachel Ray, Sandra Lee, Alice Waters, Guy Fieri, and now Paula Deen. The most recent pissiness–the carping on Deen–was because (he said) she is beholden to corporate interests and she features foods (southern foods, by the way) on her show that are “fucking bad for you” (both true, by the way).

Now, I don’t give a shit about Bourdain per se, he’s known for talking smack about everyone (especially Food Network stars–dude, seriously, find another hobby) and I mean really, Deen’s grown and can take care of herself. But this does point to a particular strain of upper-class righteousness. Frank Bruni pointed out the hypocrisy of food personalities (I hesitate to call any of them chefs) who sniff in disdain at the likes of Deen using butter or cream but salivate over duck confit or pork rinds in the latest hot chef’s dish.

However, unlike Bruni, I call bullshit on all these jokers.

First, it’s nothing more that a bunch of wealthy, well-known White people getting into more dramz while the actual people they claim to champion (oh, please) are still coping with the grocery gap, working longer hours for less pay, or chronic unemployment. Organic, farm fresh food is not easily obtainable for many people, and getting the time (or the money–butter is really expensive) to make Paula Deen’s dishes is no cakewalk either. This is nothing more than two sets of elites with different audiences and PR strategies duking it out.

Second, people on both sides are engaging in the moral deathfat panic, and it’s not helping anyone. Foodies, the frugal, lefties and right-wingers all seem to agree that being fat is horrible and a shameful thing, indicative of self-indulgence and a lack of discipline, and then all sides engage in shaming people who point out that it’s not just a matter of making the correct and moral choices. They also seem to miss the point that if the only marker of health you use is thinness, people will do some really hazardous stuff to get thin, and they will be assumed to be healthy. Look–I was very underweight up until about 12 years ago when I finally hit a normal weight. I can guarantee you that when I was underweight, I snarfed down junk food and fried crap, eschewed vegetables, drank entirely too much caffiene (still do, actually) and never worked out. But no one gave me crap because hey! I was thin, therefore I was healthy.

Third, people on “both” sides of this argument suddenly discover the magic of the bootstrap and self-discipline-to the point where you wonder how they’re on different sides. They sure aren’t on my side, or the side of my neighbors, no matter what they may claim. You could eat better if you just tried! You’re choosing to not eat beans and rice (forget being underhoused or not being able to afford a freezer to store all those extra helpings of chili and lentil stew you could make). You’re making bad choices–just don’t listen to that elitist liberal on the Travel Channel/that elitist conservative on the Food Network! Parents today whine and make excuses instead of making fresh, healthy meals for their children. And I call BS on that garbage as well. I am single, I don’t have children, and after my commute home (which is long, by the way), I am often too tired to cook. Or I am so hungry that my hands are shaking and so I go for whatever I can make in under five minutes. I’m not sure how lecturing and shaming people about how You’re Doing it Wrong is actually going to get us anywhere, and I’ve seen that on all sides of this.

If I find this cumbersome at times (and I love to cook, and am often gratified when I can take the time to do so properly, and have been grateful to be able to do more of that this summer), how do you think other people find it? The working poor and the destitute? Overworked parents? People on food stamps? People with no easy access to grocery stores, let alone farmers markets (which are often really expensive)? People who don’t have sunny yars or balconies, who don’t have a plot in a community garden (unlike me) who don’t have the transportation to get to a grocery store?

So you know, this concern over elitism and health and corporate interests rings hollow when it comes from these folks. Access and money (yeah, I said it, call me a socialist, I don’t care) would go a long way to solve the problem of the food crisis. But you can’t solve the food crisis or the health crisis (no, I’m not going to call it the obesity crisis, FFS) without solving the poverty crisis and the unemployment crisis and the overwork crisis and the lack of access crisis. It isn’t always about making good choices when the choices you’ve got in front of you are crappy either way. And it isn’t about talking smack about a Food Network personality or a Travel Channel personality.

You have to get to them young, before they start developing self-esteem on their own.

Weight Watchers. Atkins. Zone. How are you supposed to track points or calculate net carbs when you’re still mastering your addzuptas? Ask that irredeemable lardass Maggie!

Available October 16, Maggie Goes on a Diet is (judging the book by its cover) the story of an overweight girl who gazes into a mirror, dreaming of being thin so she can fit into this dress she wants to wear. And something about soccer, apparently. But probably not while wearing that dress, which seems like it could be kind of restrictive.

This book is about a 14-year-old girl who goes on a diet and is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self image

Break it down, now:

This book is about a 14-year-old girl who goes on a diet

Because puberty is the perfect time to start calorie-restricting.

and is transformed

Through the magical, transformative powers of dieting.

from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl

Yay! Because she was abnormal before! But now she gets to be normal! Cake for everyone! Except, of course, Maggie.

who becomes the school soccer star.

Awesome diet, that. Is there one that could have made me a world-class equestrian when I was 14? ‘Cause there could have been money in that, maybe.

Reading level: Ages 4-8

Remember, parents: It’s never too early to start ruining your child’s self-image.

Maggie wants to play soccer. That’s awesome. It’s one of the most exhausting activities one can engage in, even above raining down sulfur. But if you asked any of the members of this year’s World Cup women’s team for their secrets to soccer success, I can’t image you’d find too many who’d say, “Well, it started when I was 14 and had this pink dress that totally wasn’t going to fit.” Or when they were six years old and already internalizing negative body images from the world around them.

We can’t just have Maggie Wants to Be a Soccer Star, So She and Her Parents Start Making Sustainable Lifestyle Changes by Eating Lean Proteins, Brightly-Colored Veggies, Complex Carbs, and the Occasional Treat and Working Out Responsibly to Build Muscle and Cardiovascular Endurance? I mean, yeah, it’s wordy as hell, but it seems like an ever-so-slightly healthier message than, “Maggie’s a fat tub of goo. If she goes on a diet, she can fit into that pink dress. Oh, and soccer. Or whatever.”

(h/t Huffington Post)