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Things You Don’t Owe Anybody
                   by Ragen Chastain, of Dances With Fat.

When it comes to a lot of areas of our lives we get to choose what we do and why, and who – if anyone – we do it for.  Sometimes people get confused and think that we owe them behaviors, states of being, or explanations.  Let’s just clear some of this up:

Pretty – Nobody owes anybody else attractive by any standard.  People who get upset that there are others walking around who are not aesthetically pleasing to them have an over-exaggerated sense of self importance.  Don’t like what you see?  Too lazy to expand your skills for perceiving beauty?  Then feel free to follow the advice of the band Chicago and look away, baby, look away.

Health – Nobody owes anybody else health or healthy habits by any definition. Each person gets to decide how to prioritize their health, and the path they choose to meet their goals.  That’s why people are allowed to be professional bullriders and X games athletes, and NFL Players. The suggestion that fat people have some obligation over and above what everyone else has (which is none) is thinly veiled bigotry and nothing more.  I think that public health should be focused on making as many options as possible available to as many people as possible rather than trying to make the individual’s choices and health the public’s business.

Sexiness – One of the more ridiculous types of hate mail that I receive are e-mails letting me know that the sender would never have sex with me.  These are always phrased in a way that suggests they are under the impression that I care.  I don’t understand why they would think that – that’s the kind of thing that they can really keep to themselves.  Regardless it’s not our job to comport ourselves in such a way that other people will want to have sex with us.

Food Rationale –  Food talk is a cultural phenomenon that I could very much live without.  I would be perfectly happy if I went the rest of my life without hearing “I want a muffin but I can’t because I’m being good” or “I’m going to have to do 3 hours on the treadmill to make up for eating these grapes” or whatever “Will Perform For Food” thing society wants from us.  Sometimes I try to imagine if we made all of our personal decisions out loud “Hmmm, I kind of have to pee, but not that badly so maybe I’ll finish this blog, or maybe I should go now and finish it with full concentration….” Who cares? Regardless, we don’t owe anybody an explanation of what we eat or don’t eat ever.

Apology/Explanation for Our Size –  I see lots of people, even those in the Body Positive movement who say things like “sure I have some extra pounds” or “I don’t go to the gym enough” or “If I’m honest, I could work harder at being healthy”  of course people are allowed to say whatever they want, but we can also explore the joy of not apologizing!

I’m sure there are plenty more but that’s a start, remember that not only do you not owe these things to anyone in any specific situation, you have every right to reject the entire premise and suggest that people drink a big steaming mug of None of Your Damn Business.

               
Perspective is a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.

Our Culture has an obsession with diets. Historically, diets were for health reasons, rather than for weight and appearance. Now diets are mainly concerned with weight reduction, significantly referred to as "slimming," the slim figure rather than the healthy body being the aim ... despite the many, many Pious claims to the contrary.

Diets are a major part of the food-fashion industry. I often say that every diet works for someone, but no diet works for everyone.  The truth is that no diet actually works very well for very long. If any one did, then there wouldn’t be so many and we wouldn’t be faced with a weekly announcement about a new, different, and infallible one.

Diets come in quick succession.  The business of how not to eat too much food has paradoxically turned into one of the biggest food industries. It has become the science of what to eat and not gain weight - more or less impossible with any reasonable calorific regime.

Studies have shown that diets more often than not lead to weight gain. Because the body does not know the difference between dieting and starving, once a severe dietary regime is concluded it will voraciously store food as fat as a protection against further unreasonable onslaughts. But it is with diets that fashion and fads play their largest part. Diets have replaced the weather as the basic item of polite conversation.

This is all part of Western society. The search for the perfect life embraces the search for the perfect food, which can easily tip over into fanaticism.  Only Organic whole foods, Only Non-processed foods,  Only “Real” Foods, only “Healthy” foods, No-carb, Low-carb, Paleo, Low-fat, Low-calories, Very-Low-Calories, Eat moderately, Eat on alternative days, Eat only at certain times of the day, Eat very little, mostly plants, Eat vegetables only, Eat proteins only,  Eat very small amounts of everything, Fast intermittently, Eat only a few bites, OR the "ultimate" temporary solution, go on a total water Fast ...meaning.. go without eating food entirely until your body has eaten up all of it’s own excess fat.

In the pursuit of perfection, to be on a diet illustrates that you are a worthy and serious person, not a slob. It is the Puritan Ethic applied to food.  Obesity has become for our present age what adultery was for our Victorian forebears. The real modern descent into sin and wickedness is a dieter who goes on a junk food binge. And hunting down offenders against food purity joins the list of popular witch hunts along with smokers, polluters, and people who use sexist pronouns.

The current Diet Culture includes Diets … i.e. ways of eating… that are labeled as “non-diets”.  Most of these are some variation of the “Intuitive Eating” concept which includes a philosophy that the Body knows what and how much food it needs, and if one pays close attention to whether one is hungry, or full, and eats accordingly, one’s Body will arrive and stay at it’s own natural weight.   The problem with this is that the Bodies of fat people (and previously fat people) want to be Fat. Being Fat IS the natural weight of fat (or formerly fat) bodies. 

Since our culture is extremely biased against Fatness, even to the extent that Society has now decided to wage a War against it, what are fat people who don’t want to stay on a Forever Diet to do?  The only reasonable alternative seems to be to adopt a Health-At-Every-Size Approach, and work towards Fat-Acceptance.  Currently this is not a very popular stance, and it probably won’t become so until our Society’s Marketing Concerns figure out how to make a great deal of money through the use of that philosophy.

So, where do I stand PERSONALLY?  An article I wrote 3 years ago about my own experience is still on point. See: “Slipping” in Maintenance.

We’ve all seen those advertisements from companies trying to make money by telling us that 'the holidays’ are coming, and we are somehow too fat for them. .. Like: 

"the holidays are just around the corner,
will you have a body you can be proud of?”

which is, of course, an attempt to make us feel insecure and then profit by playing on those insecurities.

I agree with Ragen Chastain, of danceswithfat, who says:
 

“..now I'm supposed to worry that I'll embarrass myself just by existing in a body that hasn't been manipulated to some size I can be "proud of" which, based on the picture that accompanied the message, would require me to lose about 150 pounds and grow 6 inches in the next two months.

If they were honest their ad copy would have read "The holidays are coming so it would be great if you would hate your body and make a desperate bid to change it that won't work but will make us a boatload of money so that our last quarter numbers look good."

Since I was a kid I've seen what now seem like unending permutations of the message "you're too fat" delivered to me by those who hope to profit from my believing it. "The holidays are coming and you're too fat. It's New Years and you're too fat.  Bikini season is coming and you're too fat."

Screw that.

We may not be able to stop the diet companies from trying to ruin the next three months ...(and the month after that with their New Year's Resolution, and the months after that with whatever they try to use to create a giant chasm between us and loving ourselves)... but we can decide that they aren't going to succeed. 

I recommend a secret little mantra that I've created that I say whenever I see diet industry ads.  My mantra is "HEY, THAT'S BULLSHIT!"  Works like a charm to remind me not to buy into any of this.

The holidays are coming and I'm just fine.  New Year's is coming and I'm just fine.  Bikini season is coming and I'm just fine.  This diet industry that spends so much time and money oppressing me with a product that doesn't do anything successfully except make them money, runs on our time, our money, and our energy.  We take the fuel away and the machine stops.  It happens as one person at a time changes the channel, throws out the postcard, or rolls their eyes and says "No more. I'm done with this."

Quoted from “Too Fat for the Holidays”, by Regan Chastain, at danceswithfat.