In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Fat acceptance, circa 1957

Caperton

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.

76 thoughts on Fat acceptance, circa 1957

  1. Here’s the Real Deal, yes she can look just as good, but I just came from the doctor, and while not considered excessively overweight the weight I have gained has had and impact on my health, and I used to be one who supported Fat acceptance, now I feel differently. I think there is a healthy body weight, and physical activity does contribute to weight loss.

  3. I really don’t see a massive amount of difference between the slender girls and the chubby girls. More the face than anything–I have super-round cheeks myself and I’m rather on the lanky side.

    I mean, when I think “plus sized” or “chubby” I picture women/girls a lot larger than that.

    And interestingly enough. I picture slender women as much thinner–the thin girl in the music-themed ad struck me as meh, not especially thin. Interesting.

  4. “And those dresses are really cute. ”
    Yeah there cute, but the dress and ad tell the big fatty to lose the pounds. Really, I don’t think that girl on that ad looks looks chubby, but what do I know.

    I like chubby and I love big women. Its sad that girls are told to be skinny in their early years when they really should be thinking about other things, such as school or whatever.

  7. Tori:
    Where is the fat acceptance?I don’t get it.

    It’s 1950s-style: We know you’re cute and deserve to have cute clothes like your thinner friends have. So here you go, fatty.

  8. Miku: Parentswaytooconcernedabouthowsexytheirdaughtersappeartootherpeople.Yuck.

    I do have kind of a gripe with how people judge parents who don’t want their kids to be fat. Obviously, it’s abhorrent to starve your kids and deprive them of good things like candy and the occasional junk food for the sake of–well, let’s just say “not becoming fat.” But there’s a health issue here. Sure, some people of size are healthy, but I honestly believe that’s just lucky genetics. And even then, those that call themselves plus size and healthy aren’t even really fat. They might be a little overweight, but perhaps you can say not unhealthily so. I don’t want my child to be fat, mostly because I’m genetically disposed to getting diabetes and heart problems (I already had genstational type 2 diabetes). which may well be passed on to him, also because his father’s side of the family has diabetes too.

    Secondly, whether we like it or not, there is a difficulty of fat acceptance. I’d like to give my child one less challenge to deal with, especially if it’s something that can be taught by healthy eating habits and activities. I don’t think parents in general want to keep their kids trim for purposes of making them look sexy. That’s just wrong–that’s just the ads talking. I honestly don’t know if I can reconcile this type of thinking to absolute fat acceptance. I’d like to teach my kid that people come in all shapes and sizes, but I’d like to teach my kid that health is very important, and that may mean–at least with my genes, staying below a certain weight. I feel like something’s gotta give.

  9. Is it just me or did everyone in the 1950s have really creepy facial expressions all the time? With the raised eyebrows and the porcelain stone face like they’re constantly surprised?

  10. Nahida: Is it just me or did everyone in the 1950s have really creepy facial expressions all the time? With the raised eyebrows and the porcelain stone face like they’re constantly surprised?

    I have a theory that some nefarious Stepford organization drugged the water in the ’50’s, and that the stuff in the ’60’s and ’70’s just couldn’t compare.

  12. Anna, I just want to point out that if health is the goal here, then I would have fallen short as a kid, a teen, and as a 20-something, yet no one would have figured that out or would have cared because I was underweight. Yet I had no endurance, strength, and my body fat percentage was actually kinda high.

    My gripe with these arguments is twofold–people equate thin with healthy, and people overlook the actual discrimination that fat people face.

    When you focus on size as an indicator for health, people will try to get thin, not healthy. And often, the way they will try to get thin tends to be more dangerous than being fat. (And yes, you can lecture them about diet and exercise and taking it slowly, but when they face the aforementioned cruelty, dismissal, and discrimination that fat people are subjected to, the whole “oh, but you should go slow and steady” might not cut it.)

  13. Anna-

    I was a fat kid. Not just a little chubby and I didn’t just grow out of it. The message I got from my parents is that it was never good enough. That desserts were terrible and I was bad if I ate them. That I was a bad kid if I wasn’t seconds of any food that wasn’t steamed vegetables. I was first put on a diet when I was twelve.

    I have a super unhealthy attitude towards food now. Because of being raised with a diet mentality, it’s so hard for me to not approach food rebelliously (I will eat 10 Oreos because I can, GODDAMMIT!) I lost and gained ~150 lbs between age 14 and 22. I hated exercise for a long time, because exercise meant running. Not fun soccer or tennis running, I loved tennis and martial arts, but running around a track where I was the slowest and getting C’s in gym class. I love my parents very much, but it was always clear that I wasn’t quite good enough, because I was fat. It became worse when my brother leaned out with his last growth spurt because it was clear that that’s what they wanted to happen for me, and it just didn’t.

    Yes, health is important. As a 25 year old, I’ve made the decision to exercise regularly and eat healthfully for a variety of reasons. But it would have been so much easier to make that decision if my parents hadn’t made me feel like my body was shameful and like the only reason to eat healthfully and to exercise is to lose weight. If you’re concerned about health, a Health at Every Size approach has been shown to be effective. If my parents had taught me that my body was OK, but that these food were delicious and good for me and these movements were fun and good for me, I think it would have made my life easier, happier, and healthier.

  15. Anna: I’d like to give my child one less challenge to deal with, especially if it’s something that can be taught by healthy eating habits and activities.

    Gah, I can’t stop.

    You know how you can give your child one less challenge? Don’t make them think that their parent hates them because they’re fat. Don’t make them think that nobody understands where they’re coming from. Don’t make them feel like a failure when the diet doesn’t work. Don’t make them think that the one person who’s supposed to love them unconditionally doesn’t love them. Don’t side with the bullies.

  16. Shoshie: You know how you can give your child one less challenge? Don’t make them think that their parent hates them because they’re fat. Don’t make them think that nobody understands where they’re coming from. Don’t make them feel like a failure when the diet doesn’t work. Don’t make them think that the one person who’s supposed to love them unconditionally doesn’t love them. Don’t side with the bullies.

    Shoshie, have I told you that I love you today?

  17. “pounds and personality” (understanding her problems, talent development, shyness, the “game” of dieting, etc.,)

    I love the idea of “talent development” especially the “talent” to get any discussion of weight back to a (feminist?) starting premise that women are human beings with intelligence that you can actually have a rational discussion with.

    I’d quite like to read that leaflet, it couldn’t be anymore tedious than weight bores au courant.

  19. My aunt, who is 22 years older than my mom so more like grandma age to me, told me about growing up buying from this line (and was mortified.) It made me feel better when, as a 10 year old or so, I had to go into the girls “plus” area. She also told me about “pleasantly plump” lines too.

  20. Weight is not a good indicator of healthy eating, or of exercise. Even adiposity (fat content) is a fairly poor indicator of either. Anyone remember the US wrestler who ended Aleksandr Karelin’s winning streak, Rulon Gardner? He basically outworked one of the world’s most fit athletes. Rulon Gardner was and is a fat guy.

    As a parent, I’m responsible for how my kids eat and how they exercise, and I focus on healthy patterns for both, not on weight. Leaner bodies are more probable as a side effect of healthy eating and getting regular, varied exercise; but neither certain nor necessary.

    End of story.

  21. Urban Sapphic: Here’s the Real Deal, yes she can look just as good, but I just came from the doctor, and while not considered excessively overweight the weight I have gained has had and impact on my health, and I used to be one who supported Fat acceptance, now I feel differently. I think there is a healthy body weight, and physical activity does contribute to weight loss.

    Um…fat acceptance doesn’t mean that everyone has to be fat.

  22. Also, Anna, parents should want their kids to be healthy, not necessarily thin. The ironic thing is that if I hadn’t been pressured to diet at an early age, I would be much thinner now (because of all the yo yo dieting), and would have a much more positive outlook on food and my body. If my parents had not witheld food from me for my whole childhood I would not have developed disordered eating habits. I also realize now that they led me to believe that I was so much bigger than I actually was, and I have a distorted body image thanks to that.

    My brother who was skinny from the start and will always be skinny does not have the same kind of closet-eating disordered eating practices that me and my other larger brother do. And it’s purely because my parents felt that they didn’t “need to worry” about my skinny brother becoming fat, so they didn’t withold food from him or lecture him about eating too much.

  24. God.. I hate the fact that my kids even know how much they weigh. Both are healthy, fairly active average-sized kids but are coming into the age where I fear them picking up messed-up messages about their weight and appearance. It doesn’t help that I’m on a weight-maintenance plan myself, which I try not to talk about too much around them.

    Even with the emphasis on healthy eating and exercise and such, and trying not to withhold anything, but emphasizing moderation (I find “Mommy can’t afford to buy cookies all the time so two is enough.” works rather well. Financial insecurity is better than body image insecurity right?) I still worry that mixed messages are slipping in there. Oddly I see it more in my younger child who mentions how skinny she is all the time, but I worry that my older daughter who is entering puberty is going to see normal pubescent weight gain as something shameful.

    Gah.. tl/dr. I oughta blog that shit, sorry.

    But yeah, I agree with those above that said focusing on healthy is better for your kids then setting them on a path to constantly worrying about their weight.

  25. “It’s OK to be fat” doesn’t necessary mean “you can be fat and healthy, so don’t worry about it.” An individual might not be healthy at all at a high weight, but that’s a problem for that person (and their friends and family, maybe) only. It’s OK to be a person in society who is unhealthy… people are not their disease. Lots of people are unhealthy, in fact, and we don’t judge them or bully them. There are even public service announcements sometimes showing people with diseases explaining that they are still people. And some kinds of unhealthy even get sympathy and kindness and fundraisers. When I think about the term “fat acceptance,” I think of it in terms of not projecting onto people who are fat all kinds of negative personality characteristics and then punishing them for it (with criticism, discrimination, ridicule, that kind of thing).

  26. Urban Sapphic: Here’s the Real Deal, yes she can look just as good, but I just came from the doctor, and while not considered excessively overweight the weight I have gained has had and impact on my health, and I used to be one who supported Fat acceptance, now I feel differently. I think there is a healthy body weight, and physical activity does contribute to weight loss.

    I used to support feminism, but then this comment made me realize some women are jerks. I think it’s great to use my individual experience and decide that should determine other people’s choices and worldviews, too.

    Hey, also, there was this time my doctor’s PA tried to shame me into losing weight. Turns out, I couldn’t because my chronic illness had made me gain the 10 pounds and nothing but appropriate medication was going to help! that made me realize, everyone has a thyroid condition.

    Or hey, this one time, my friend was shamed his entire childhood to lose weight but it turned out he had an endocrine condition that caused all the symptoms his parents shamed him for. But what I”m having a hard time with is, if going to one’s doctor and determining what is right for you should drive the choices of an entire movement, how do we reconcile his experience with mine?

    I guess it’s a good thing he and I found doctors who weren’t basing determinations about our health on what is good for you, or by applying what the BMI has to say about tracking height and weight over an entire population over time to our individual bodies.

  27. Urban Sapphic: I just came from the doctor, and while not considered excessively overweight the weight I have gained has had and impact on my health

    Yes, because all doctors are totally non-biased when it comes to fat.

    Look, I don’t think that weight never contributes to health or vice versa. Fat can be a symptom and fat can be a cause. So can height. So can sex. Etc. I’m not against doctors studying the way that disease and fat interact. But controlled, evidence-based medicine, not panic, not blame, not disgust. And you who are not doctors? Stop spouting off statistics like it’s stuff that you’ve actually studied. Blah blah blah, 90% of people could be thin if they tried, blah blah blah, I pulled this number from my ass, blah blah blah, fat people can’t be healthy unless they’re freaks of genetics. Stop talking like you have some sort of authority about my body. You don’t.

    Gah, sorry, I’m in angry fatty mode today.

  29. Shoshie: Stop spouting off statistics like it’s stuff that you’ve actually studied. Blah blah blah, 90% of people could be thin if they tried, blah blah blah, I pulled this number from my ass, blah blah blah, fat people can’t be healthy unless they’re freaks of genetics. Stop talking like you have some sort of authority about my body. You don’t.

    You are awesome!!

  30. Caperton: “Some women are jerks” is why you’re no longer a feminist?

    I think she was mocking UrbanSapphic’s “I used to support HEAS but then my doctor said I was a health risk” tack.

  31. Andie: I think she was mocking UrbanSapphic’s “I used to support HEAS but then my doctor said I was a health risk” tack.

    Ohhh.

    As you were.

  32. I actually kind of liked the text that went with the ad–it seems to be based on the idea that heavier girls should still be able to wear pretty, stylish, flattering clothes, not just the equivalent of muu-muus or whatever would completely hide her shape and make her as invisible as possible. I would love to read the pamphlet, which does not appear to talk about weight loss, but about the issues that face heavier girls: “tactless comments,” describing dieting as a “game,” etc. Sure, the “chubby” language is a bit much, but the ad does suggest that the “chubby” girl can be just as pretty and popular and happy as her skinny friends. Frankly, I’m impressed at how positive it reads, especially given the fact that it was written in the 1950s.

  33. @Anna
    What everyone else said. Skinny != healthy, and shaming your own child for being what they consider ‘fat’ causes severe emotional damage. My family is far from healthy, though naturally thin, but when my cousin looked like she was gaining a few pounds, her parents couldn’t drop it. They’d bring it up constantly to strangers, to other relatives, right in front of her face. She was 6 for fuck’s sake. To this day she says things implying that she’s fat, but she is about the same size as the rest of her family, and probably 10-times more healthy.

  34. There’s absolutely nothing OKAY about being fat. America is suffering from an obesity problem and the lot of you fringe nut jobs are telling them it’s perfectly okay to be accepting of an illness that is more than likely, on average, a symptom of more serious problems and a byproduct of an unhealthy lifestyle. Fuck no.

    Being healthy, eating a lean diet, exercising will almost always result in an acceptable and reasonable size/weight for one’s body type. So miss me with all that nonsense.

    Furthermore, your physical size does very much correlate with your beauty. A fat chubster will never be perceived as attractive as a slender and toned woman who regularly works out and takes care of herself. You can keep telling the fatty otherwise, but more votes will always go to the latter woman with regards to attractiveness. You can blame it on social conditioning or whatever crap excuse you have on your list of talking points in order to make yourself feel better about your physical deficiencies and shortcomings.

    Fuck that.

  35. Miku:
    @Anna
    Whateveryoneelsesaid.Skinny!=healthy,andshamingyourownchildforbeingwhattheyconsider‘fat’causessevereemotionaldamage.Myfamilyisfarfromhealthy,thoughnaturallythin,butwhenmycousinlookedlikeshewasgainingafewpounds,herparentscouldn’tdropit.They’dbringitupconstantlytostrangers,tootherrelatives,rightinfrontofherface.Shewas6forfuck’ssake.Tothisdayshesaysthingsimplyingthatshe’sfat,butsheisaboutthesamesizeastherestofherfamily,andprobably10-timesmorehealthy.

    Bloody hell, no one who has any modicum of awareness automatically correlates being thin with being heatlhy, but are thinner people not healthier ***on average*** when compared against fat people?? If you say no, you’re a liar.

  36. An interesting thing about language, too. Which words carry fat stigma can change drastically according to time, gender, culture, age, and even one’s own perceptions of one’s body. I did a small study for a sociolinguistics class in college, to see how positively or negatively people perceived descriptors like “fat”, “chubby”, “husky”, “plump”, “zaftig”, “curvy” and a bunch of others. It’s possible that chubby didn’t have the same connotation in the 50’s as it does now (though I have no idea because I’m a young ‘un). Even though “plus-sized” is considered a fairly neutral euphemism these days, I could imagine it being offensive in a different time.

  37. The girls in the ads look like normal, healthy, unusually pretty ten-year-olds to me. They don’t look overweight at all. I think I was about that size and have grown into a size-6 20-year-old; I’ve never been on a diet or weight-loss regime of any kind.

  38. “the lot of you fringe nut jobs ”

    Well that just encourages me to try to engage with you on an intellectual level! You obviously are basing your opinion on solid research and not at all on media hysteria or your personal attractions …

    “your physical size does very much correlate with your beauty. ”

    There it is; the subjective value judgment! Look, if you don’t want to have sex with fat people, fine. Nobody is requiring you to. But your aesthetic and sexual preferences are not a basis for claims about health, and you should probably just stick to the subject you know, which is that you find fat people unattractive. Since nobody here cares about that, you can just stick to that subject around people who care what you think.

    When someone shows me the diet that produces a five-year, statistically significant weight loss in the majority of trial participants, we can talk about how fat people can become thin. Until then, most fat people are going to remain fat people and we should be talking about how they can be heathy and productive in the real world, not about some fantasyland where fat people cease to exist.

  39. Chidi, we’ve been trying to shame fat people into being skinny for the better part of a century…how is that working out for you? Acquire some critical thinking skills, then talk.

    Also, try not to viel your disgust for fat bodies with crap about “health”, since you clearly don’t give an ounce of fuck about people’s health. Because if you did care, you would know that yo-yo dieting (which is what fat people end up doing thanks to rhetoric like yours, because diets don’t work…EVER) is way way worse for you than being overweight.

    Blah blah heard it all before.

  40. Miku:
    @Anna
    Whateveryoneelsesaid.Skinny!=healthy,andshamingyourownchildforbeingwhattheyconsider‘fat’causessevereemotionaldamage.Myfamilyisfarfromhealthy,thoughnaturallythin,butwhenmycousinlookedlikeshewasgainingafewpounds,herparentscouldn’tdropit.They’dbringitupconstantlytostrangers,tootherrelatives,rightinfrontofherface.Shewas6forfuck’ssake.Tothisdayshesaysthingsimplyingthatshe’sfat,butsheisaboutthesamesizeastherestofherfamily,andprobably10-timesmorehealthy.

    I have no intention of shaming my child and I was careful not to use “thin”, precisely because I of all people know that thin is *not* healthy, because I grew up thin and I was sick all the time–hospitalized sick–like couldn’t walk sick. Half my childhood was spent sick because–I believe, I was underweight. But I should’ve been clear about knowing how thin doesn’t equal health.

    And then there’s that other thing–where parents are automatically these evil, anorexia-inducing, self-esteem killing, heartless machines if there’s some kind concern for weight.

    I obviously can’t predict how my child will perceive whatever it is I do to raise him, but the hope is that I don’t get the lines of communication too crossed (it will be, inevitably–just the nature of things). I mean, what kind of parent wants that? That they would crush their child’s self-esteem and make their children feel like they’re not loved? I mean, really.

    I hope my child will be healthy. I hope he won’t be too thin. I hope he won’t be overweight. Both can make someone sickly. I just won’t sit back and let my child think it’s a-o.k. to be one or the other. It’s not loving a kid less. It’s watching out for them. Until they reach a certain age, they’ll depend on me for everything. And then they’ll depend on me for wisdom. I’m not going to “be a pal”. I’m going to be a parent first. Hopefully, the doesn’t mean drawing the line between a healthy body and a healthy body image. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’d do if that line has to be drawn, but I’ll get to it when I get to it.

  41. Chidi, if you’re going to try and troll, be original. And if you insist on making yourself look like an asshole, put on some plaid and polka dots and sing for us.

  42. Anna: I hope my child will be healthy. I hope he won’t be too thin. I hope he won’t be overweight. Both can make someone sickly.

    And your kid could just be sickly, and it could have nothing to do with his weight at all.

  44. @ Anna
    Hah! My mother said the same damn things to me…she was so skinny she was sickly and she ONLY wanted me to be healthy. But the funny thing was, once I developed a eating disorder and was dangerously underweight, I didn’t have her on my back to GAIN weight…

    It is more than probable that I am projecting, and you could be nothing like my mother, but for the sake of your kid, make sure you’re sending him the message you *think* you’re sending, and really really really make sure it’s the message you *should* be sending.

  45. Sera:
    @Anna
    Hah! My mother said the same damn things to me… she was so skinny she was sickly and she ONLY wanted me to be healthy. But the funny thing was, once I developed a eating disorder and was dangerously underweight, I didn’t have her on my back to GAIN weight…

    It is more than probable that I am projecting, and you could be nothing like my mother, but for the sake of your kid, make sure you’re sending him the message you *think* you’re sending, and really really really make sure it’s the message you *should* be sending.

    My mother was like that, but only when I got to be a teenager (and not as sickly anymore. But maybe that was the worse time for her to be that way). She got into my head sometimes, but I didn’t let her get to me completely. I don’t think I had an an eating disorder as a child, just that I wasn’t interested in food growing up (more interested in playing) and perhaps my mother didn’t feel that was a problem, hence my weight eventually affecting my health.

    Incidentally, my mother developed an eating disorder later in life. She’s better now, but I wouldn’t call her being a healthy weight.

    It’s worth pointing out, though, that the biggest issue between parent and child when it comes to body image seems to be communication. Parent wants to watch out for kid’s health, kid thinks they’re not good enough. Something definitely got lost there. That’s important to consider. Communication–talking and listening.

    It’s a complicated issue. You end up second guessing your ideas.

  46. I was using the sarcasms, it’s true. I do consider myself a feminist, and always have. A few jerks on a FA thread are definitely not sufficient to make me abandon my belief system.

  47. I think my favorite line of the “you can be skinny if you tried” retoric is “All you have to do is eat right and exercise.” They make it sound like one weekend, one month of healthy eating and daily exercise and BAM there you are! Skinny minnie, easy as pie.

    When, no it’s no where -near- that easy. Everyone -has- to eat. People who are unhealthy and overweight because they eat to damn much LIKE ME, often have very unhealthy relationships with food for various reasons. Anyone else with a dependency can typically avoid their temptations. Alcholics stay out of bars and away from other drinkers. Drug addicts avoid their dealers and the friends they had. There is no way to avoid food. And the less healthy a food is for you, the more airtime it gets on TV. Seriously, how many McD commercials have you seen in comparison to commercials for apples? Ever try to go into a store and stay away from unhealthy food, you can’t even check out without a candy bar in the lane.

    But all you have to do is not eat it! To which I reply and all you have to do is STFU!

  48. I have to chime in with the others, Anna, suggesting that you need to be careful.

    My mother never gave me crap as a kid about my weight. (She does now, but that’s a different issue.) However, she *did* constantly nag me to do things to fit in better with my peers, because I was bullied pretty brutally, and she thought that if I would just follow some simple advice, it would be better for me because she could see that the bullying was causing me emotional and physical harm.

    Brush your hair, it’s a mess. Wear makeup, you’re such a pretty girl, it’s a shame not to make the most of it! Don’t chew with your mouth open. Hold your fork right. Don’t wear those clothes, they’re junky/they don’t match/they don’t look good on you. That hairdo looks awful on you, you should get a haircut! You’re not going to get ahead in the world if you don’t learn how to dress. Be a cheerleader!

    To this day, eating around strangers gives me anxiety issues, and I became convinced very early on that the beauty game was obviously so hard and complicated, with all the different rules my mother kept trying to explain to me every time I turned around about why I wasn’t doing it right, that there was no point to my ever trying to play. Fortunately for me, the rest of society moved in a direction that allowed a woman to wear pants and t-shirts and no makeup *all the time*, and still hold down a professional job.

    I’m pretty sure my mother really did have my best interests at heart, and really couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t grasp stuff that came to her intuitively, and thought that she just needed to explain how social rules worked for me to get them, because I was smart and that trick worked for math rules, so why not social ones? I strongly suspect I was probably borderline Asperger’s, though, so the constant nagging just fed into a vision of myself of someone who was totally incompetent at beauty and managing social situations AND THEREFORE SHOULDN’T TRY, because if I tried and failed, that would be humiliating and I’d get nagged about it, but if I just didn’t try, I could declare to everyone superciliously that I had no need of things like friends and then people would think I was being weird on purpose and that would be much better than if they knew I was doing it by accident. And I could get my mom off the topic of “social rules say to do X”, an area I was really weak in, and onto “the moral necessity of breaking the social rules to prove your lack of conformity”, an arena I could hold my own in.

    Nagging your kid about eating more because they’re too thin won’t lead them to eat more, because nagging never improved anyone’s appetite, but it may make them anxious and upset about food. Nagging your kid about eating less because they’re overweight might lead them to yo-yo diet, an incredibly unhealthy activity. You can monitor your kids and if they’re actually being medically unsafe, try to guide them, but you just have to be really careful with it, because kids can very easily take “you should do X” from a parent as “you’re incompetent and I wish you were a different kid.”

  49. I’m always struck by the way the overarching rhetoric around being fat mirrors the rhetoric around being poor. Like going from poverty to affluence, lots of people think it’s easy to bootstrap your way to success. It ain’t.

  50. It’s tough teaching fat acceptance with all the other influences in my kids’ lives. They aren’t fat, but my oldest was worried about her stomach being too big when she was five. My father-in-law insists on weighing my kids daily when my kids visit them, which my daughter much resents. We don’t even own a scale, so she knows how little interest I have in knowing her weight. I have no idea if this will help in the long run, but it seems to be doing well enough now.

    I try to keep each kid in a sport to their preferences, which isn’t always easy, but it’s a nice way to encourage activity.

  51. Adaquinn: Anyone else with a dependency can typically avoid their temptations. Alcholics stay out of bars and away from other drinkers. Drug addicts avoid their dealers and the friends they had. There is no way to avoid food.

    Heh.. years ago when I started I wrote something along those lines, comparing my desire to lose weight with my desire to quit smoking

    A comparison in deprivation the post was written back in 2005, I didn’t know much about HEAS at the time.

  52. Alara Rogers: Don’t wear those clothes, they’re junky/they don’t match/they don’t look good on you. That hairdo looks awful on you, you should get a haircut! You’re not going to get ahead in the world if you don’t learn how to dress.

    Wow I hear this.. (although with the makeup thing it was ‘don’t wear so much make up.. you look like you have racoon eyes!’)

    I’ve been trying to teach my kids that it’s not worth their time to try and make bullies like them by trying to be something they are not. To use a way overused phrase.. Haters gon’ hate.

  53. Okay, I think everyone who’s responded to Anna so far is projecting like whoa. Obviously she wants to bring up an issue for discussion among people here (many of whom are fat advocates/HAES advocates) and I personally think that she’s been doing so in a fairly delicate and nuanced way — both of those lead me to believe she’s not about to wander over to her child and start yelling “do a pushup you fatty!” so I doubt we all need to start yelling “no, don’t do it!” at her. :p

  54. because kids can very easily take “you should do X” from a parent as “you’re incompetent and I wish you were a different kid.”

    Therefore parents should never direct their kids in any way, blah blah blah. For what it’s worth, my parents gave me much more of a complex about having a good work ethic than they did about food and exercise, yet I doubt most people here would say you should never tell a kid to do their homework or get a job. :p

  55. Stephanie: My father-in-law insists on weighing my kids daily when my kids visit them, which my daughter much resents.

    Just out of curiosity, and I completely understand if it’s not my business to know, but what would happen if your kids just point-blank refused to step on the scale?

    Bagelsan: For what it’s worth, my parents gave me much more of a complex about having a good work ethic than they did about food and exercise, yet I doubt most people here would say you should never tell a kid to do their homework or get a job.

    Actually, Bagelsan, I find the elevation of the work ethic to a virtue, the idea that doing work is good in and of itself, no matter what the work or whether or not you want to do it, to be pretty obnoxious. I have a friend who understands any time in which she is not doing productive work to be “wasted.” I wouldn’t want to give my kid a complex like that. I’d tell me kid to do their homework not because doing work is a good thing, but because doing homework can help you to learn things, and because it’ll make your life at school the next day a lot easier.

  56. Bagelsan: Therefore parents should never direct their kids in any way, blah blah blah.

    Nah. I think the implication is that therefore parents should think very carefully about how to direct their kids in a supportive way.

  57. She looks like a 16 yr old stuffed into a ten-year-old’s dress. And.. what is that foot doing? The whole composition looks bizarre to me. For the record: fat kid, might’ve worn that dress at six, would’ve worn it under long and sustained protest at ten, and wouldn’t have touched it with a ten-foot pole at sixteen.
    By ten, I was convinced I wasn’t a girl because I was fatty-fatty fat, liked books and was pretty anti-social. “Girls’ might like books, but they liked dolls, cooking, cleaning and chatting with friends- and they were all slim and co-ordinated. Since I only liked dolls a little and wasn’t slim or co-ordinated, obviously I wasn’t a girl and shouldn’t cross-dress. Eh, what can I say, it made sense when I was ten.

  58. Nah. I think the implication is that therefore parents should think very carefully about how to direct their kids in a supportive way.

    Isn’t that was Anna was talking about doing re. weight and diet? Everyone who responded to her seemed to think that was the worst. Idea. EVER. :p

  59. I’d tell me kid to do their homework not because doing work is a good thing, but because doing homework can help you to learn things, and because it’ll make your life at school the next day a lot easier.

    I think that’s similar to the argument some people are making about diet and weight, though; even leaving health completely aside, not being a fat kid (if possible) makes one’s life easier just like being hardworking (if possible) makes your life easier. Either work for the sake of work or skinniness for the sake of skinniness can be a terrible idea (and don’t get me started on the things some religious parents tell their kids!) but I think that people take discussions of weight waaay more personally than some other messages that kids receive. People are talking about how scared they are that their children might even learn what their weight is in a way I’ve never seen people afraid of their kid knowing what their reading level or grade is. :p

  60. Well, but if my kid was having the same kind of homework-doing trouble that most people have losing weight, I don’t think the answer there would be “you need to work harder” any more than the answer to the latter is “you need to have more self-control,” and I actually think saying the one to a kid who, say, had ADHD would be just as destructive as saying the other to a kid who was just preset to be chunkier than average or had some kind of disability preventing him/her from getting as much activity as he/she would like.

    Bagelsan: People are talking about how scared they are that their children might even learn what their weight is in a way I’ve never seen people afraid of their kid knowing what their reading level or grade is.

    Well, sadly, especially for girls, I suspect one’s appearance and one’s body type are more important to one’s sense of self-worth, particularly in the teenage years, than is one’s reading level, unless you’ve already made serious efforts toward raising your kids with a counter-cultural set of values (provided your kid’s reading level isn’t drastically different from that of their peers). And eating disorders are very well understood, at this point, to cause ill-health and even death in a way that lifelong complexes about one’s work ethic–while I dislike them and find them noxious–are not.

  61. Bagelsan,

    The crux is focusing on weight/ calorie manipulation is intrinsically pathology inducing. We are told healthy living prevents/cures fatness, therefore the focus should be on that-which also can cause imbalance just not as acutely as calories in/out. None of this is admitted, the split good v bad, doesn’t work. It’s “good”=slim “bad”=fat, with calorie monitoring/restriction=”bad” to achieve “good” or cure “bad”.

    The reason it seems like Anna is being got at, is that FA doesn’t want to go there either because a) it’s mostly on board with the mainstream, despite what everyone says and b) because its wary of being accused of being “extreme” which it believes shuts down receptivity from others. We are constantly getting reminds to be really good and not to do or say anything that will look bad.

    So the real dilemma for those wishing their children not to be fat is how much they are prepared to risk in preventing or curing their child’s fatness, that’s what was described as “shaming”. As is sometimes the case, the inner shame is projected out on to those perceived as hostile. The shame comes from knowing that you are prepared to deal, or are using pathology on your own children or even yourself regardless of the motive.

    Chidi @34,

    Even if what you say is accepted on its face, adding what is definitely harmful, stigma, pressure, bullying, isn’t erased by your estimation of fatness. IOW, you need to make a clear argument for how decreasing health will increase it.

    Adaquinn,

    This is a sign not only that fatness whatever we choose to identify as its provocateur, cannot be forced into the same boxes as those other things, it also shows what a crock of shit the abstinence industry is. It has long traded on the very fact that those other things can be stopped and ignored the fact that more people could be helped if there was a way to balance these disorders, rather than to stem them after the fact.

    That’s one of the discomforting things about the honesty of fatness, it exposes so many forms of BS.

  62. If you look at a graph of survival vs BMI, you will see that the nadir is about 22.5, which is quite thin. Even 25, the border between desireable and overweight, is quite thin.

  63. VG: If you look at a graph of survival vs BMI, you will see that the nadir is about 22.5, which is quite thin. Even 25, the border between desireable and overweight, is quite thin.

    Source?

    Screw it, even if you can provide a source, I would like another one that shows how you can make a fat person a thin person over the long term, short of disease, starvation, or extreme exercise.

    That’s really the issue for me. Does emphasizing fat loss for children actually result in long term fat loss? I don’t think it does. Does emphasizing fat loss for children make for healthier children than emphasizing movement and nutritious food? If it does not, then I don’t think it’s possible to defend emphasizing fat loss for children, given what we know about eating disorders and the repercussions of dieting, especially at a young age.

    The same is not true, Bagelsan, for pushing children to do homework. I agree with EG– I don’t think it’s great to emphasize homework in itself. And I don’t think it’s good to punish a kid who’s doing poorly but working really hard and doing all the right things.

    Actually, that’s sort of how I feel about FA. Don’t punish a kid who’s doing all the right things just because the kid is fat. I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it must be to see a kid struggling with school. I can kind of imagine how heartbreaking it must be to see a kid struggling with being fat in a fatphobic society, because I saw my parents deal with it. But I don’t think the answer is to take it out on the kid, and I think that’s exactly what putting them on a diet is.

    Note, when I say putting them on a diet, I mean, specifically, calorie and food restriction. I don’t mean that you should let your kids eat twinkies all day. I don’t mean that you should let your kids sit in front of the TV all day every day. I don’t mean that you shouldn’t try to get your kids to eat veggies and consider when they are full. In my definition, putting a kid on a diet = emphasizing fat loss. And also targeting fat kids in a family for these behaviors (nutrition and exercise) and not thin kids.

  64. Shoshie, I think that means that when they (whoever “they” are) chart survival, people with a BMI of 22.5 are at the bottom of the chart and that mortality rates tend to improve as BMI increases. They call it the “obesity paradox.”

  65. Oh my god, my mother used to wear Chubbette when she was little. She was pudgy as a child, and it caused her a lot of pain, I think, though I’m not sure she would put it that way. There are a lot of family stories that have to do with her chubbiness, but she doesn’t always seem to recognize how incredibly awful they are in some ways. Like one time, in class, they weighed all the children and the teacher called the number to someone else to write down. When my mother had been weighed and sat down, a boy next to her kept repeating the number aloud: “A hundred and fifteen! A hundred and FIFTEEN!” This was ever after referred to by my grandfather as the Great Calling-Out (because the number had been called out by the teacher). Generally this is regarded as a funny family story, as is my grandfathers’ calling her Little Partridge instead of Little Bird after she got chubby. But it’s still not okay. So I think the “cuteness” of calling something Chubbette is probably just windowdressing – kids did suffer for being chubby in the 50s.

  66. So I was another fat kid whose grandmother made my clothes, although a nasty little girl, daughter of my mother’s friend, told everyone that I wore Chubbette and that her mother took me shopping for (??), which I never did and she never did, but certainly could have. Someone several hours ago made a comment that all exercise should not be about weight loss, and boy, did that hit home. Of course my mother is skinny and always has been, and of course she’s of the “you just need to watch yourself and exercise self-control.” Really? No kidding! To this day, and I’m in my 50’s, with teenaged kids, I hate my body. It’s pretty strong now, and not too fat, but I continue to hate it, hate exercise and see every morsel of food as something to be inhaled and gotten rid of as quickly as possible. Food=fat, even celery. Celery=less fat, but not by much. And did I mention the diet pills I took at age 10? Yes, a real doctor gave them to me…I can go on and on. Thanks for letting me vent.

  67. Shoshie:

    Oh my god, my mother used to wear Chubbette when she was little. She was pudgy as a child, and it caused her a lot of pain, I think, though I’m not sure she would put it that way. There are a lot of family stories that have to do with her chubbiness, but she doesn’t always seem to recognize how incredibly awful they are in some ways. Like one time, in class, they weighed all the children and the teacher called the number to someone else to write down. When my mother had been weighed and sat down, a boy next to her kept repeating the number aloud: “A hundred and fifteen! A hundred and FIFTEEN!” This was ever after referred to by my grandfather as the Great Calling-Out (because the number had been called out by the teacher). Generally this is regarded as a funny family story, as is my g

    Well, as our levels of fat are pretty much in constant flux I don’t think that asking for a diet that permanently changes one from being fat to skinny is ever possible.

    Scientifically, its pretty easy to see how we lose weight – a deficit of calories in compared to our expenses. Thats why our fat is in flux – some days we lose, some days we gain. We all know how we can get that. We all know our required amount of calories to fulfill our needs is context specific. Given that, I honestly believe it is impossible to have a diet that leaves us carefree as to whether our fat levels build or lower -thats a mental thing you have to attain yourself.

    I watch my calories tightly – as a guy I know that looking the way I want to look (the socially constructed blah blah muscle man blah, I know, I’m sinning by chasing a fake ideal but whatever I enjoy it) I have to because getting the levels of fat I want whilst still feeling energetic enough to lift weights four times a week is exceedingly difficult. But I choose to do that and I know full well it’s a constructed image, and that it’s not a universal ideal of beauty. I also don’t find fat people immoral or ugly, or lesser, or weak willed, or whatever society labels them.

    I believe we all can be thin – but why would we all want to? Not everyone wants my diet – I eat lean chicken, tuna and steamed broccoli, as well as oats and whey religiously. I don’t eat any sugar, I barely drink (I prefer low calorie weed as my choice of social drug), I obviously flagellate myself at the thought of eating cake, ice cream or coca cola. For me, following this is going to be easier than for many. For some, my diet brings nothing but pain and a profound lack of joy to mind. It takes effort and resources that are unrealistic for many people; working parents and the poor.

    My post has been rather rambling but what I guess I am saying is that there is ample evidence out there to show anyone who WANTS TO how to loose weight, for the extreme majority of the population who don’t suffer from thyroid conditions, metabolic disorders (which are actually exceptionally rare according to my physician) or endocrine disorders, or whatever other physical impediments. But even IF there is the know-how why should we exercise it? Why? Being thin is not objectively healthier nor more beautiful. I would rather we all took up squats, deadlifts and swimming and looked however the fuck we wanted to; those exercises make us objectively stronger and fitter but strength and fitness are not measured by how “beautiful” we look.

  68. rkel,

    Scientifically, its pretty easy to see how we lose weight – a deficit of calories in compared to our expenses.

    This is incomplete. Our bodies don’t passively accept these calorie deficits, defense mechanisms are automatically set in motion seeking to undermine and reverse these deficits.

    Metabolic function is also altered by that same process, which is what the feelings of struggle are. Its also shown by the way many on permanent long term fitness regimes can gain a lot of weight if they stop for some reason.

    IOW, the under side of the “loss” everyone’s so fixated on, is the body is set on “gain”. Your mind also can’t seem to catch that some bodies simply do not comply because those defenses are more powerful and efficient in some more than in others.

    If your body responded like mine, ramping up your appetite signals, leaving your hunger open ended so it never completed or closed, you’d be faced withe same choice as me, either eat hugely or stop trying to restrict and let things settle where they settle.

    As for anyone can be slim, I don’t doubt that as I’ve said times without number, but get this, not the way that is proposed, calorie restriction, have you got that? It is not the route, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some other more effective one/s, no one (in the developed world/West) has (re) discovered that yet.

    But all this really isn’t the point is it? The point is, some people wish to fictionalize reality, fine, the real problem is they want their fiction to be reality and wish to enforce that on the unwilling who simply know too much to be able to pretend. I don’t care if you want to create a version of how weight works which mis uses fatness as part of that, but you really are going to have to accept your own suspension of disbelief and stop pretending things are what they are not.

    As long as you leave the rest of us alone, don’t harass, charge, stigmatize bully or in anyway interfere with our lives, I say, go for it.

  69. Wow, did someone actually go down the “calories in/calories out” road? In the year 2011? On a feminist blog? Where lots of people have made it their mission to study weight loss and nutrition for YEARS?

    Just wow.

  70. wriggles:

    But all this really isn’t the point is it? The point is, some people wish

    Wriggles, I am well aware that metabolism slows down as calorie intake is restricted. I’ve been through a decent number of cutting cycles, I know how weight loss becomes increasingly difficult. I also did not mean to suggest that the cravings are not present for me, or for the absolute extreme majority of humans without near superhuman willpower.

    I didn’t mean to suggest that it was easy to discipline a body into behaving a way that might not come naturally to it. I was trying to make the point that to achieve the the low bodyfat body you have to eat a fairly unsatisfactory diet.

    And yes, I know how many people like to project their realities as universal when it comes to this subject. Thats why I said that me eating my diet is not realistic for many others because it might entail a joyless life. I’m not acting under some suspension of disbelief, but thanks for lashing out and projecting nicely.

  71. rkel,

    Rather than trying again to correct your inability to understand what I’m saying, it’s seems this will lead to more hurt fee fees which doesn’t lend itself to nuanced discussion.

    Let’s just accept that people like you, just don’t get it , truth be told from your position you are unlikely to be able to, that’s why if you genuinely wish to at least grasp other perspectives you’ll actually need to get beyond being defensive and pay a bit more attention to what’s being said to you.

  72. I believe we all can be thin…

    There’s a difference between “we all can be thin” and “we all can be thin and healthy.” I’ve gotten to where I had 1 foot in the normal BMI range. But in order to do it, I had to restrict calories to the point where I was depriving my body and brain of sufficient nutrients to function properly. During that time, I also exercised compulsively (e.g, irrespective of chronic or acute illness or injury, in a way that brought me little to no joy, with a fixation on how it would alter my appearance) because I believed it would help me lose weight.

    Doing that, I was thinner then than I am now. But I MUCH LESS healthy, both physically and mentally.

  73. rkel: I would rather we all took up squats, deadlifts and swimming and looked however the fuck we wanted to; those exercises make us objectively stronger and fitter but strength and fitness are not measured by how “beautiful” we look.

    I would like to put in a vote for preferring to avoid squats, deadlifts, and swimming no matter how much stronger or fitter they could make me, because exercise is…well…an exercise in absolute misery for me.

  74. What Tori said: sure we can all be thin…but for some of us this means being malnourished. So, basically, fuck it.

    And re what EG said, I think it is important to remember that exercise just isn’t possible for some people. But–and this is speaking as a fat woman–I do think that for people who can exercise, it’s important to recognise that it can feel good to do. The problem is the “no pain, no gain”/”exercise should be punishing” mentality, which is so wrong it makes me want to smack people. Exercise should never be painful or make you out of breath or otherwise uncomfortable. Plus, who said physical activity can’t be purely fun?

    And having said all that, I also think it’s massively important to not make doing/not doing exercise a moral question. I think changing the way physical activity is viewed (as necessarily grueling, competitive, only for the “best”) need to be changed, but shitting on anyone who just doesn’t want to do it won’t accomplish anything.

  75. Pingback: A Little on Dieting « Wise Grrrl

  76. After some neurological brain sh*t, turns out I actually DO have Real ADHD, hyperactive OCD subtype, sonething multiple psychiatrist have toldme in which I have ignored from age 9 to now age 24. One doctor told me within meeting me for ten minutes that I have ADHD, trns out she is one of the states top doctors. Whatever
    As any fellow speedfreak, I have given it at some low chaotic tumble-moments through those years and have been on various forms of medication to discourage myself from eating at five fast food places in twenty minutes. The highest weight I have been is 150 at the height of 5’11, which is, as men around here like to say “healthy”.
    Now that I am regularly on speed without any hissyfits about it, I have advanced into owning my own company, playing only One sport rather than five, and well, Good Shit.

    The odd thing about this is, as everyone knows, speed makes hunger go away. I dropped weight from 144 lb regular, size 6-8 clothing, to a 124 lb small, size 4-6 clothing.
    Since winter, I had stopped really looking at my body much. I just went about my day being my normal insane self. I work in artistic field now, so Im around many fashion people. In the past few days, I keep getting all these compliments “Youre looking great!” and the like. One lady hadnt seen me since I was 144 lbs, a fashion designer, and said “I am so proud of you. You grew up. You were such a shy, you know, and now your just so, you lost all that baby fat!” (fyi, my face has been as cut as Cate Blanchetts at every weight level due to my lack of proper hydration from playing 8 hours of !!SPORTS!! And sometimes faintin and being taken away in an ambulance for the constant dehydration.)

    I went home that night thinking “Thats wierd…I was a size 8…wasnt fat at all when she last saw me…I wonder how I look??” I toom my clothes off for a shower and looked in the mirror. I saw every rib, front and back. And we arent talking about like the model saying “Oh yes, it just happens occasionally, its glamorous!” I am talking about I SAW EVERY BONE. I looked at my back and saw A SKELETON, not my back. I Freaked, went and bought caramel popcorn and macaroni and cheese and a huge turkey and ate it All. Then I just sat there and thought.
    What. The. Fuck.
    WHY was everyone praising me when my body was probably extremely close to giving out in some way/shape/form?! What is WRONG with people?! I do not understand with this push to be something as disgusting as what I saw last night. It makes me want to just like, invent a mercenary in the shape of a human burrito, who fires shots of IQ at these “fashion” people who can only make clothes for skeletons rather than the human being, blood vessels, organs, and all, and just Fuck-Stop being close minded losers who never care to sneeze the snot out of their nostrils so it doesnt keep advancing up their nose to penetrate and coat their entire brains. Please. Its such a tired position. And it is not creative one bit to stick with the Same Mannequin over and over. Its just not. Do you see artists painting only ONE type of person. NO. Be Artists. Not Slaves of Mannequins.

Comments are currently closed.