Answers to the questions raised in the last post
Wow. I was not expecting my last post to get half the reaction it did. I was actually thinking it would get little to no reaction at all. I guess that means this thing is actually on. *taps microphone*
As i mentioned (perhaps only in the comments), i planned on doing a follow up post with answers to some of the questions - ones that i asked, ones that you asked, and even some of the questions raised in other blogs. I will probably also go into some further-reaching thoughts and opinions on the matter. Do keep in mind that the latter bits are opinions, and as such, you are not required to agree with them. Also: i reserve the right to change my mind on those opinions, should i see convincing reasons to do so.
- Question: Why did you post about the good/bad fattie thing?
You know that ginormous list of FA blogs i’ve got over here? I’m subscribed to all of them and then some. I do try to read all of them (i just suck at commenting and following up on comments); in the past few weeks, i’ve seen it mentioned in bits and pieces here and there. I’m not 100% certain as to why it’s come up in these random pieces here and there, but i do have a theory.
We’re coming up on warmer weather, and that means that stores that carry clothing are starting to put out their summer clothes, their swimsuits and other revealing pieces. Diet marketing is going up as it usually does this time of year, telling us that we need to lose weight before we can stop hiding behind our sweaters.
With all that mess going on, even if we don’t consciously notice it, these messages do get processed on some level - even if it’s just a remembrance of times back when we may have fallen prey to them. These triggers make us that much more inclined to see ourselves in a harsher light; it’s not impossible that when we feel those internal judgments, we may think that we are also being judged externally as well, perhaps even worse than what we’ve already inflicted upon ourselves. When that happens, we might start reacting defensively - proclaiming as loudly as we can that we’re Healthy Fat People; or alternately, we might crumple under the pressure (entirely understandable) and start verbalizing those negative judgments we’ve cast upon ourselves. This latter bit can be seen as another form of defense: maybe if i say it first, they won’t feel the need to say it.
- Question: Okay, so that’s the backstory, but why did you post it as a series of questions?
Simple: i wanted to see what sort of reaction it would get. As i mentioned, i didn’t think it would get this much attention. I wanted to see what sort of thoughts people had on the subject before i posted my own thoughts on the matter. A bit deceptive, perhaps. But it’s proven to be a rather interesting exercise. Some folks have had some very strong opinions on the matter - some i agree with, some i don’t. That’s okay: i’m hardly the final authority in FA - just another voice in the crowd. We can disagree and still be on the same team, right?
- Question: So, which was the “good fattie”, which was the “bad fattie”?
That was kind of a trick question. They were both pictures of me at different points in my life - there were a few of you who correctly guessed it, and you don’t know how hard it was to not shout “don’t spoil it!” Heh. I was about the same size in both pictures, roughly 200 pounds and a size 18/20 (if i recall correctly).
Mind you, i wasn’t lying in the descriptions. Each of the statements i made were true for the person i was at that time in my life. I was living very different lifestyles at those two points, and my weight wasn’t impacted all that much.
The (originally hidden by pixelations) point there implies that fat is not a choice.
Another point here is that you can’t look at a person and Know For A Fact whether or not they lead a healthy lifestyle. For that matter, leading a healthy lifestyle does not necessarily mean that they are healthy.
And you know what? Even if you could judge that sort of thing on sight alone, it doesn’t change the fact that fat people deserve to be treated like human beings.
Truth be told, the good/bad fattie paradigm is one that should not exist - certainly not within the FA community. To think along those lines is to believe at least a little that fat is a moral issue, when in reality it isn’t.
On the FA side of things, there should be no such thing as good/bad fat. On the anti-fat side of things, there are no good fat people. Some people try to soften the blow by saying “well, i guess it’s possible to be fat and healthy, but most fat people aren’t healthy.” Meaning, there is a dichotomy, and most fat people fall into the bad/unhealthy side of it. The whole “health” thing is a smokescreen for an aesthetic reaction - which is part of the reason we need to loosen the grip that health has on this whole thing.
Think about it this way: if it were just a health issue, then why do children tease each other about fat? Does any kid ever use the taunt, ” you’ve got a higher risk of di-ah-beeeeeeeeeee-teeeez”?
- Question: Have you actually seen anyone in the FA community saying that the good fat people are the only ones deserving of respect?
I never said that, but i recognize that as being somewhat aside from the point. Is it ever stated? No. But it’s implied every time someone says “well, not all fat people eat junk food…” Because this implies that the dichotomy of good/bad fat people does actually exist.
Now, if you were to ask me if i thought this was being consciously implied by anyone in the FA community…? Well, that’s complicated. I know that there are a fair number of people in FA who can never be healthy, be it because they have PCOS or fibromyalgia or any number of other illnesses - visible or otherwise. While these illnesses may well have nothing whatsoever to do with fat, we’ve been told numerous times that they are related to our fat. So long as fat is an excuse to deny people medical assistance, the persistence of the good/bad fat dichotomy continues to have a very real human cost.
I can’t presume to speak for anyone else on this, but i know that some conversations about HAES can sting. More than a little. I haven’t let it keep me silent (as you may have noticed, heh), but i’m sure there’s at least one or two other people who’ve felt ostracized and not said anything about it. Whether it’s because the person discussing it has an imperfect concept of HAES, or because i just don’t grok the whole thing, that doesn’t make it sting any less when it happens.
Yes, HAES is all well and good, and i have no small bit of envy for people for whom it is possible to be healthy. I will never be truly healthy at any size - and as such, HAES can never be a part of my own personal discussions regarding FA. The goal of eliminating sizism as an impediment to effective medical care is a good one, however: taken at face value (and when we are talking about promoting a concept in public consciousness, we are always talking about taking it at face value), HAES does promote the suspension of sizist judgments based on the attainability of health while fat. A person for whom this health is not attainable does not fall under the protections promoted by this shift in public consciousness. Even if more sophisticated understandings of the principle do not exclude people with untreatable or incurable health conditions, the “dumbed down” version (lacking these sophistications) will still allow fat people with health problems to be identified as an example of the false correlation between fat and health.
One of the things i frequently hear is “well, you can try to be as healthy as possible within your own parameters, right?” I know that HAES is supposed to be about “being as healthy as you can”, but Health Is Not A Choice. If it were, no one would ever choose to get cancer. Yes, you can spend your entire life making sure you have a balanced diet, eat lots of fruit and veg, get regular exercise… but that can’t prevent you from developing a terminal illness, a non-terminal invisible illness, or even getting hit by a bus. No one group has a corner on the health market any more than any one group has a corner on the death market.
- Question: But HAES is important for fat acceptance, right?
Depends who you ask. If you ask me? I’m gonna say no. See above. If you ask someone else, they may say yes. I can’t speak for them, so i won’t.
I will say that (IMHO, YMMV) using HAES as any sort of defense or justification of FA does, to some degree, play into the anti-fat argument that health has anything to do with fat. The easiest way to lose a debate is to let the other side dictate the fighting grounds. The easiest way to do that? Accept their dichotomies. To have health be any part of FA at all is to accept their terms, to say that the assumptions backing their points are valid enough to go unchallenged.
It’s analogous to accepting the challenge to a duel and letting the opponent pick the weapons. Historically, it is the challenged (not the challenger) who picks the weapons, as the challenger is the party that initiated the violence. The only exceptions to this are societies where there are standardized weapons for the purpose of dueling (and nothing is standardized in debate).
- Question: what is your own opinion on your post yesterday?
Part of my point was that it’s all irrelevant. Fat people deserve to be treated like human beings. As long as the FA community continues to respond in the terms proposed by the opposition, however we may disagree with those terms, then this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
I think the reactions my post provoked indicate that these are stereotypes that do need to be addressed - people do still get offended and defensive on the matter. However, it was not my intention to make anyone ask themselves if they were a good/bad fat person, and i recognize that this did happen at least once. For that, i sincerely apologize.
Ultimately? My point really is that this good/bad fat dichotomy needs to fucking die already.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
I do unapologetically promote HAES and will continue to promote a healthy diet, in addition to a healthy relationship with food. I find the approach to be best for people who are struggling with an eating disorder, which is primarily why I support it for both myself and others in similar situations. If people read my support of HAES as a criticism or judgment of them for not following the approach, I suggest that perhaps it is they who ought to reexamine their own connotations surrounding diet and exercise. On the converse side, I also think those in the FA movement need to move beyond simply breaking the stereotypes, and spend more time on the issues of equal rights.
A critical element of HAES I see missing from many of such talks on health is the mental health component of it. Health is not only physical; it’s mental, perhaps the more important of the two. So, even if you eat “unhealthy” foods, you can still be considered healthy under the umbrella of HAES if you have a good relationship with the foods you do eat.
And overall, I think good health is a relative term to each individual.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Rachel, i’m not saying “don’t promote HAES”. I think it is especially useful for people dealing with eating disorders.
But i don’t think it’s a useful argument or justification for FA.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I’ll never be healthy, no matter what my size is. I have severe chronic asthma and PCOS, neither of which were caused by my fat but sure make it hard as hell to maintain a weight.
Please note I said maintain - I would be happy at whatever weight I stablized at if it would just stop moving!
When I go out in public and end up sweating and breathing heavy just walking in to a store from the car I feel like everyone is staring at me and judging me as a bad fatty - I’m obviously not healthy and I’m out of shape, so of course that’s why I’m fat.
When I see people talking about HAES it makes me cringe sometimes, because it would literally take an act of $deity-of-choice to make me healthy. And, honestly, it makes me feel judged and like I’m not allowed in the ‘HAES/FA gang’ because of course it’s just as easy as eating right and exercising as you can.
Except when it’s not, any more than healthy eating and exercise means I can lose weight.
So I feel like a failure from both the POV of the fat haters *and* the HAES proponents.
I didn’t comment on yesterday’s post because it’s something I’m somewhat afraid to talk about, but the good fattie/bad fattie is something I pick up on in a lot of FA blogs I read.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I have been dealt a pretty good hand in the health department and my diet is as healthy as it’s going to be until such point as I decide to devote my life to cooking, but sometimes HAES stings because it echoes all the messages I get about how I am a terrible human being because I don’t spend my spare time doing something I hate every day–exercising for the sake of exercise. I could go into my defensive rant of “oh I like DDR I walk places someday I’ll get a dog” but instead, how about if I just weigh the drawbacks of doing something that I really, really hate and find immensely depressing (endorphins? um, if you say so), every day, so that I don’t have time to do things I actually enjoy, against the benefits of getting “enough” exercise. The word itself makes me gag. (I blame my elementary school P.E. teachers.) So when people say “Exercise not to lose weight but because it makes you feel good!” I wonder what planet they’re from, because it has no relation to my experience. Exercise makes me feel like a worthless blob of loserdom. So I’m a bad fattie.
I still think it’s worth saying you can be fat and in perfect health, because people believe that all fatties are unhealthy and they need to be educated that fat people experience the same range of health as thin people. But care should be taken to avoid stigmatizing the less healthy fatties in the process. It’s probably too much to expect everyone to phrase it perfectly every time.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
but sometimes HAES stings because it echoes all the messages I get about how I am a terrible human being because I don’t spend my spare time doing something I hate every day–exercising for the sake of exercise.
I think there also exists some gross misconceptions of what exactly HAES is. Exercising every day at something you hate doing isn’t HAES. HAES promotes physical activity for the sheer pleasure of the activity, not because it contributes to one’s health (although it does have numerous health benefits).
I think many fat people also conflate HAES with dieting, despite the disavowal of the approach of weight and weight loss, owing perhaps to our familiarity with dieting. HAES teaches one to eat intuitively, and so if your body craves pizza and french fries and you eat accordingly, that’s HAES. If your body also craves veggies, and you listen to it and feed it veggies, that too is HAES.
HAES is multi-dimensional, individualistic, and includes physical health, but also spiritual, mental, social, emotional, intellectual and occupational health. It promotes intuitive eating in a manner satiating the needs of the individual, and promotes individually appropriate physical exercise while accepting and respecting the diversity of body shapes.
Frankly, I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t promote HAES. The approach isn’t mandating that everyone conform to some preconceived vision of good health; rather, it’s relative to the individual, so that even if they have a disability or disorder, they can become as healthy as possible for them. This isn’t something that FA should just promote; it ought be promoted by ANY health professional or organization. And as FA activists, I feel this is a responsible, constructive and beneficial approach to promote to people interested in FA. HAES shouldn’t be the primary leg upon which the FA movement stands, but it should be complementary to it.
And dispelling stereotypes of the fat person as gluttonous and slothful is to fat acceptance what safe sex is to the gay rights movement. To promote gay rights and make advances, gay rights activists have had to fight the stereotype of the oversexed, sexually irresponsible, promiscuous and pedophiliac gay man (to use this stereotype in particular). Gay rights benefits all gay people, regardless if they do engage in unsafe sexual behaviors, but it also recognizes that to change opinions and attitudes towards gay people, it also needs to counter and refute these stereotypes.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
I think the issue is with the term “health”. Who defines what is healthy? Why even use the word “health”? Being “healthy” carries with it the implication that an individual is of a certain standard of being. I don’t believe there is *anyone* (fat thin orange or purple) who is 100% healthy. If a person chooses not to do any exercise and to eat take out or donuts all day every day, then that is their choice and they still deserve to be treated respectfully and without bias. We may not agree with their choices but there is no moral imperative here.
For those within the FA who support HAES as an intrinsic part of FA, what is your response to a person who chooses not to intentionally exercise and chooses to eat whatever, whenever, however - regardless? What if a person doesn’t care if they are healthy or not?
March 17th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
HAES promotes physical activity for the sheer pleasure of the activity, not because it contributes to one’s health (although it does have numerous health benefits).
I think you can probably see how I would assume it had to do with health because the H in HAES stands for “health.” Anyway, I derive no pleasure from physical activity. So I guess I can’t join the HAES club so long as any remotely positive attitude toward exercise is a requirement. (Maybe I just haven’t found the right form of exercise? But trying new exercises would also qualify as something I hate.) So I know exercise won’t make me thin, and I know it doesn’t feel good, so the only possible motivation left is health, which is what I tend to substitute when I reject “because it feels good” for being completely false (for me). Otherwise I’m left with “HAES supports physical activity for no reason whatsoever.” I like random spontaneity but I’m also too lazy/otherwise occupied to do things for no reason whatsoever on a regular basis.
MsThing has a good point though, that no one is 100% healthy. There’s not a line that divides healthy and unhealthy people. There’s a spectrum of health and a spectrum of levels of health-promoting behavior. So people can always refuse to believe in healthy fat people, because hey, that fat health nut once had a cavity at the age of 7! And will someday die of something or other (accident? maybe if they weren’t fat they could have dodged)! Not 100% healthy!
While I do have experience with initially hating a food that tasted too healthy but later coming to love it, I generally just don’t stray outside the range of behavioral healthiness that doesn’t make me go “yuck.” Sometimes whole grains are in the yuck area and then I eat the white bread of Satan. Sometimes white rice is yuck, so I have brown rice. Exercise for the sake of exercise is always deep in the “yuck” area. Physical activities that I like quickly move to the “yuck” area if I try to do them x times a week, and in fact knowing that I will then feel obligated to do them again on Wednesday makes me less likely to do them now. So I don’t see myself having a place in HAES.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:13 am
MsThing has a good point though, that no one is 100% healthy. There’s not a line that divides healthy and unhealthy people. There’s a spectrum of health and a spectrum of levels of health-promoting behavior. So people can always refuse to believe in healthy fat people, because hey, that fat health nut once had a cavity at the age of 7! And will someday die of something or other (accident? maybe if they weren’t fat they could have dodged)! Not 100% healthy!
Yes. Exactly. So the point is to stop looking at health as a binary 100% vs. 0% and start giving ourselves credit for the healthy behaviors we do have, whether those behaviors help with our spiritual, mental, social, emotional, intellectual, or occupational health, as Rachel points out.
You seem to be presenting health as something that imperfect behaviors subtract from. I think the idea is to think of health not as some monolithic thing that requires certain sacrifices otherwise it crumbles, but as an accumulation of our positive actions. No one is perfect, and no one needs to be perfect. People can be healthy without exercising, healthy without eating only brown rice, healthy without liking to spend lots of time outside. If you have other behaviors that work for you, great. For me, “health” means simply that — you’re doing stuff that makes you happy and functional in the world. It might be the same stuff that I do to achieve that, it may be totally different stuff. There’s no one right way to be healthy.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I still get the impression that the imperfect, okay behavior would be to exercise only two days a week instead of three or five. My vision of HAES has two parts: eat intuitively (which I do pretty well, under the restrictions of what is available and what I can be bothered to prepare) and partake in physical activity because it feels good (which incites huge flames of rebellion in my mind). So I have a 0% compliance rate in column 2. So if I say I support HAES, it rings hypocritical.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:07 am
I have found this all very illuminating and interesting. But I’m still a noob and haven’t been through this stuff a zillion times before heh.
To a great degree I also hate exercise. For one thing, I find it boring - it’s always so much more meaningful to me to read something or knit something or make something, than to exercise for exercise’ sake. I probably would enjoy taking walks, but how are you supposed to do that when the more you walk the worse your ankle gets (and it’s pretty bad) and then even your knees and back start to go? Painful exercise isn’t fun at all. Yoga feels good and I might be able to listen to books on tape while doing it or something, but when I tried the beginners’ yoga I discovered some weird baseball-sized protrusion that comes out of my abdomen whenever I use my abs (maybe one of those hernias; I don’t feel comfortable continuing until I can figure that out), plus I can’t find a way to get on the floor without hurting my knees and stuff. I love to swim, but my version of swimming is just getting in and floating straddling a couple strong noodles or a tube folded in half. Hardly exercise lol. I need like some kind of yoga that you can do sitting in a chair or something. And some motivation to do it. I do the walking I *have* to do, like at the train stations, getting to the cabs, etc. for work purposes. But my ankle kills me. Sometimes, I wish - in fact, for the last decade, since I was really sick, I just wished I could just…run. Just run for like one full-out run until I was tired - not because of my COPD and not because of my ankle, but just to break free for a minute and run like a child does. (Except I was pretty malnourished as a child, and I couldn’t run then except very briefly - the “stitch” in the side was completely debilitating, AND by the age of 9 or 10 the pain in my knees was pretty unbearable. I don’t have that particular pain anymore - actually not since I got fat.) But it makes me cry thinking about running because I think I might never do it again. Even though I never liked it, I feel like that release would just…set me free somehow.
And this is too sad to keep writing so on with the conversation.
March 18th, 2008 at 1:17 am
So I have a 0% compliance rate in column 2.
Why are you rating your compliance? What if it were 100% — who would tell you that? How would you know? Would you get a certificate? A gold star? A special icon by your name when you posted?
I’m not trying to be nasty, I’m just trying to point out that assuming that you have to live up to other people’s expectations, and that doing so will get you some sort of reward (or, on the flip side, rebelling completely against those perceived expectations) seems like the antithesis of fat acceptance. And I think that’s where HAES comes in — it’s a way of training yourself to stop judging yourself against other people and start doing what’s right for your own physical and mental health. HAES creates a set of coping mechanisms for learning to accept yourself.
Does that make any sense?
March 18th, 2008 at 1:20 am
HAES rocks compared to the alternative where everyone who has a BMI above [whatever] is automatically considered unhealthy. HAES says that you can’t look at a person and know if they’re healthy or unhealthy; and furthermore that a person of any size can benefit from and deserves health care that isn’t focused on their size.
But the problem is that in this culture, health has come to stand in for “morally pure.” And the concept of HAES suffers when it collides with this belief system. Because we’re all brainwashed to think of health as something everyone can achieve entirely through behavior.
In fact, neither health nor size are determined by behavior. Sometimes behavior makes a difference to a person’s health or size. Environment also plays a part. But ultimately genetic contributions are the most important (especially the genetic contribution that says “human lifespan pretty much maxes out at 100 years”).
March 18th, 2008 at 1:30 am
For those within the FA who support HAES as an intrinsic part of FA, what is your response to a person who chooses not to intentionally exercise and chooses to eat whatever, whenever, however - regardless? What if a person doesn’t care if they are healthy or not?
I believe the point of HAES is to treat your mind and body well. Moving for the joy of movement is something that makes sense to a lot of people, and thus it is a convenient way of expressing a clear example of non-food-related self-care. If physical movement is not a joy to a particular person (really? Not even stretching? Not even sex?), then other forms of body care would need to be substituted in their personal explanation of HAES as they conceive of it. Getting appropriate levels of rest is HAES. Getting a massage that makes you feel better is HAES. Sitting in an electric wheelchair in some location that smells good to you with air that feels good to breathe is HAES. Take care of yourself and your mind. If that means being “lazy,” then so be it.
If purposeful physical movement is not part of your own version of HAES, then that’s fine — but there’s no need to get bent out of shape when someone else’s version of HAES is different from yours. If you feel their voice is overly dominant, add your own to the discussion. Broaden minds.
If a person is eating naturally, even if that consists of “bad” “unhealthy” foods, they are practicing HAES. As someone who has had a profoundly disordered relationship with food for many years, however, I must specify that unnatural free eating is not HAES. The distinctions seem clear and intuitive to me in experience, but I’m not up to writing a complete explanation at this late hour.
Basically, you can eat because it allows your body to feel good (yes, even if “good” is produced by eating 3/4 of a chocolate cake in one afternoon), or you can eat for other purposes. Eating for other people’s views of “health” is one such other purpose. Eating because one is incapable of stopping, even to the point of extreme discomfort, is another. Eating for other purposes — the unstoppable binge* being an example of free but unnatural eating — is generally bad. Binge eating certainly made me miserable, as did attempts to follow externally-imposed diets, even those not intended to produce weight loss. This is why unnatural modes of eating are not generally considered to be HAES, while intuitive eating is.
Intuitive eating DOES NOT HAVE TO BE HEALTHY by anyone else’s standards but one’s own sense of what feels right.
Finally, HAES is the most viable replacement for modern, toxic ideas of what constitutes “health.” As part of the FA movement’s goals are to make a place for people of all body types within the public sphere, the narrow definition of health must go. HAES fills the vacuum left behind. As such, I don’t think the FA movement can throw HAES aside, but HAES has no real bearing on the central social justice component that lies at the movement’s core.
*(I mean a real binge, not an “I have been reprogrammed by WW to think of four cookies as a binge” binge — these can literally hurt.)
March 18th, 2008 at 3:24 am
Does that make any sense?
It makes sense alongside of “Fat people can be healthy” but it doesn’t make sense alongside “HAES encourages physical activity.” I can approve of HAES in the way I approve of people who go to third-world countries to vaccinate babies, but I can’t have anything to do with HAES because that would be like saying “I support recycling” while dumping all my glass and paper and cans in the garbage.
(If I had a gold star for exercise I could say I practice HAES, that’s what I would get.)
March 18th, 2008 at 4:38 am
I’d like to say, as a bad fat person, that if we so choose we should have the right to be unhealthy. If I drive my body into the ground, it’s nobody’s business but mine. HAES is wonderful for the people who want to practice it, intuitive eating is fine, but so is sitting on your ass eating baby flavored donuts. So is smoking, so is drinking, so is skydiving and skateboarding and bull riding. Its my body, and I’ll break it if I feel like it.
I’m tired of the response to prejudice being “nuh-uh, we are too healthy!” and not “why the fuck do you think that’s your business?” I don’t owe it to anyone to be healthy, nobody does.
March 18th, 2008 at 4:43 am
Heathen, I agree with on the proviso that you aren’t driving while drinking, blowing smoke in my face etc etc. Those things aside, I *totally* get you!!!
March 18th, 2008 at 6:18 am
Toni: when you said “the good fattie/bad fattie is something I pick up on in a lot of FA blogs I read“…
Thing is: you’re not the first person i’ve seen say that sort of thing. If no one’s saying it, and no one’s intending to imply it, then why are people still getting that message?
If something is repeatedly misinterpreted by multiple people, there are several possible reasons why. It could be a simple culture/language barrier. Could be that the messages are occasionally misinterpreted because of the faulty societal tools used to interpret the message. Or maybe the person talking about it has an imperfect means of expressing what they’re saying. I think in either case, no blame should be placed.
Rather, if it’s even possible to determine where the miscommunication lies (and it’s probably a mixture of both), then something needs to be done to address that.
I’m reminded of a phrase an old friend of mine told me: “If one person calls you an ass, you can ignore it. If two people call you an ass, you can ignore it. If three people call you an ass? Consider buying a saddle.”
I’ve found this is not universally true, but there are situations where it at least bears some proverbial price-checking on that saddle.
March 18th, 2008 at 6:30 am
There’s a lot more to respond to, and i plan on responding to it. But right now i need to go back to bed because i’m having a fibro flare-up like whoa. So please do not take my current lack of response to mean anything other than Away From Keyboard.
Feel free to continue talking amongst yourselves - there are some interesting things being said by a fair number of folks - and i promise i’ll get to responding to assorted bits when my hands are more likely to comply.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:57 am
You know, I really feel both sides of this issue on a very personal level. On the one hand, I work in health care, and my professional position is to promote HAES. But personally? I’m one of those people who absolutely loathes exercise, especially exercise for exercise’s sake, and I will tell you straight up to go eff yourself if you try to tell me what to do — even in a positive, encouraging manner.
As it is, I mostly recommend that people do the HAES thing (eat well and exercise for fun) as a response to their desire to lose weight. It’s a reasonable alternative to someone who wants to undertake a weight loss diet or something, especially if they give reasons of ‘health’ for it.
But for everyone else? I’m fast getting to the point of: no one needs to be told about, or even ‘positively encouraged,’ what to do with their bodies. No one is under any obligation to exercise, or eat well. I do think most people would likely feel better for doing those things, but it’s frankly none of my stinking business. And a lot of people (myself especially) respond in a really rebellious and reactive way to any of this positive pressure.
That said, I don’t really think that HAES is what people assume. From my standpoint, and as GiniLiz said elsewhere so eloquently, it’s about addressing health concerns in a non-sizist way. Even though its most common incarnation is in the form of “eat well and exercise for fun,” my real concern is in fat people getting ANY of their health concerns addressed directly, and not through the proxy of weight/weight loss. This often includes eating well and exercise, but that is not the entirety of it. It means going to a doctor who will put a brace on your sprained ankle, not lecture you to lose weight; who will do a throat swab for an infection rather than prescribe you weight loss pills and tell you not to come back until you’re 50 pounds lighter.
Frankly, no one is under any obligation to do anything for their own health. That is private shit, existing solely between and individual and their body. HAES only comes into it as a size-friendly alternative, when health concerns DO arise. And even then, you’re perfectly at liberty to take the parts of it that apply to you, and leave the rest behind.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:49 am
HAES encourages physical activity; it doesn’t mandate it.
And I think what it boils down to is this: I can promote HAES on my blog and you can either accept that this is the position that I take and advocate while it may not be your personal belief, or you can stop reading my blog. Encouraging HAES and promoting it is not the same thing as mandating everyone also do it. While you have the right not to follow HAES, you do not have the right to tell others that they shouldn’t promote it as part of their FA platform.
And Lindsay, I do think language is problematic here. Fat people have been bombarded with a “fat is unhealthy!” ethos for so long, that the word “health” has come to be tainted by such rhetoric. Perhaps what we need to examine are our own personal connotations of the word health and how it applies to our own lives.
March 18th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I think fat acceptance has two broad aspects. One is trying to convince society to accept fat people. The other is trying to convince fat people to accept themselves. HAES may or may not be useful in the first goal, but it definately is useful in the second. Because there are people out there who are genuinely trying to lose weight for their health. And I think it’s important to let those people know: “Fat acceptance doesn’t mean giving up on your health and resigning yourself to dying of a heart attack at the age of 50. If you want it to, fat acceptance can involve healthy eating and excercise - it’s called HAES and studies have shown it to be a more effective approach to health than weight loss.”
March 18th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Just woke up, wanted to address this first.
Rachel said: “While you have the right not to follow HAES, you do not have the right to tell others that they shouldn’t promote it as part of their FA platform.”
You’re right and wrong.
You’re absolutely right in that i can’t tell anyone what to do or not do and expect people to follow my say so. My apologies if anything was taken that way.
But you’re wrong in that i am allowed to voice my opinion that i think it’s a really bad idea. And you’re totally allowed to disagree with that opinion.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Perhaps, I should rephrase: You do not have the right to demand and expect that others not promote it as part of their FA platform.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Rachel, i’ve already said i apologized if it was misconstrued in that fashion. I was sincere the first time i said it.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:14 am
No worries - My internal politically-correct-check seems to be malfunctioning these days
March 18th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Rachael - I totally agree that if someone has a problem with what you say and how you say it on your blog it’s their problem, and it’s up to them to either discuss it with your respectfully or bugger off. I’m a firm believer in taking responsibility for actions taken in reaction to something that’s bothering me or you (generic you). And, FWIW, I do read your blog.
I guess when I get bothered sometimes, it’s more related to how the word ‘health’ is interpreted, as others have pointed out. I’ve had a hard time over the years dealing with my health issues, dealing with doctors who have blown me off because I’m fat (worst of it is in my blog), never feeling like I’ve been healthy. The sad thing is it took chronic conditions for me to realize that I had been healthy, even though I was fat.
Communication is a tricky thing - we all interpret through our own filters, and I think my filter has been interpreting HAES as the same ‘eat well and exercise’ that I’ve never been able to do, just without the pressure for weight loss. I don’t have an eating disorder, but I do have a messed-up relationship with food.
Reading how others point out that they’re healthy and fat triggers a ‘conformity’ response in me that ends with me feeling like I’ve failed yet again, kind of an outcast from the outcasts.
But that’s all predicated on my past experiences, which means in the end dealing with how some posts make me feel is my problem and, while I might mention how something is making me feel, it’s not the other person’s responsibility to fix it.
So, in other words, yes, I feel there are times when people who are promoting HAES leave out people like me who aren’t healthy by most standards, but dealing with that isn’t their problem to fix.
Just having the comments to read through on this post have helped me in getting that I control the criteria, and the only standards I have to live up to are my own.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:46 am
And Rachel, I totally apologize for screwing up the spelling of your name.
*d’oh*
March 18th, 2008 at 11:51 am
MsThing: Health on a grander scale is culturally defined, and is often represented as an extension of an aesthetic. In cultures where there is a large schism between rich and poor (with fewer tiers of middle grounds than one sees in the American or Modern European cultures), fat is a sign of wealth.
Every culture out there will redefine health (and by extension, what is considered attractive) to make it conform to what is least attainable by the “unwashed masses”.
“what is your response to a person who chooses not to intentionally exercise and chooses to eat whatever, whenever, however - regardless?”
I choose to not exercise because it’s painful and i don’t get any sort of enjoyment out of it. I eat intuitively because i’ve learned that when my body says it needs/wants to eat as many carrots as i possibly can, it’s because my body needs something in those carrots. Same goes for chocolate. There’s something in chocolate my body occasionally decides it needs.
Very recently i went through a phase of craving OJ to the point i was drinking enough of it to make my stomach hurt. That was somewhat problematic (being expensive and painful), so i had to figure out why it wanted so much OJ. Turns out my body wanted that flavour of potassium, and i needed a LOT of potassium.
“What if a person doesn’t care if they are healthy or not?”
Everyone has their own priorities. How i feel about your priorities (or how you feel about mine) is an opinion. Nothing more. It is not a mandate that requires obedience.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I think we, as bloggers, should all exercise sensitivity in what we write, but what I have a real issue with is the expectation suggested here and elsewhere that I, or any other blogger, should tailor my writings and beliefs so as to be so impotent that they won’t offend the sensitivities of anyone. It’s like asking someone, like me, who is anti-dieting, to tone down their stance on dieting, for fear of offending the dieters.
Blogs are like partners; you pick and choose until you find the one best suited to your own belief systems.
March 18th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I agree that HAES or health more generally can’t be used as a justification for fat acceptance, because thin people don’t need to be healthy to be accepted. Thin people are accepted whether healthy or not, regardless of what they eat and how much they work out, and it should be the same for fat people. Thank you for these two posts.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
As far as I’m concerned, Rachel, bluerowan, and peggynature have pretty much nailed it. I believe that HAES is an important philosophy within the size acceptance movement, however, it doesn’t define SA, and it’s a philosophy, not a state of being. It’s as much about emotional health as it is about physical health. It doesn’t have any set rules. I think of myself as someone who practices HAES, and yet my health isn’t perfect and I’d probably feel better if I changed some of my habits. That’s fine, because it’s not about trying to meet some kind of standard of perfection.
It’s just about trying to find a comfortable and joyful way to live.
March 18th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
[...] 18, 2008 by zmama75 I’m pretty amazed that the fatosphere is all a tizzy talking about HAES. This is exactly the conversation I need to be soaking my feet in. I see myself in many [...]
March 19th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Shower epiphany: Maybe I’d be more comfortable with HAES phrased as “eat intuitively and partake in physical activity to the extent that it gives you pleasure.” Then I thought, what about people who have to do more physical activity than gives them pleasure because their daily life demands more than their body can do without pain? I don’t want to tell them they’re being unhealthy. So I thought I’d add “within the confines of practicality.” Then I thought, what about someone who really loves the gym and spends an impractical amount of time there, say to the detriment of other areas of his/her life? That’s not within the confines of practicality but I don’t want to exclude this hypothetical person from my little phrasing here. And actually, I don’t want to exclude someone who is immobilized by pain either. Let’s drop “confines of practicality” and replace it with “within limits of what you find reasonable” or something like that.
But anyway, I think “to the extent that it gives you pleasure” should work for most people and it doesn’t exclude me because I hate physical activity beyond what my life calls for.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:44 am
“eat intuitively and partake in physical activity to the extent that it gives you pleasure.” Then I thought, what about people who have to do more physical activity than gives them pleasure because their daily life demands more than their body can do without pain? I don’t want to tell them they’re being unhealthy
You know, some days my hip hurts all the time. And, that doesn’t stop me from taking pleasure in some activities that make it hurt, like dancing or taking long walks. I don’t want to sound all S&M, but pleasure and pain are not mutually exclusive. So, you definition works for me.
March 19th, 2008 at 10:45 am
“your definition”
March 20th, 2008 at 4:29 am
Where, exactly, has that been said?
March 20th, 2008 at 5:17 am
What I have a real issue with is the expectation suggested here and elsewhere that I, or any other blogger, should tailor my writings and beliefs so as to be so impotent that they won’t offend the sensitivities of anyone.
I’ve not seen anyone advocating this. Ironically, misconstruing comment on an issue or topic as an implied prohibition on it {and thus evoking the “MY voice” argument} is a more direct attempt to silence another than what’s going on here.
Say whatever you like. Saying it, liking it, being able to make useful life changes on it don’t mean it is not a very poor position to take in a debate. True, valid, and defensible under fire are three things often related but never synonymous.
From where I sit, I see grotesque misrepresentations of scientific data paraded as support of the “fat as health crisis” position, see that in all its invective and pomp it’s spilling the beans on the aesthetic judgements that are really fueling this, and think that they’re throwing the game to the first person willing to walk on the field and pick up the ball. It’s like they’re hanging out in the locker room during kickoff.
Imagine my surprise when the opposition picks up the ball and walks into Meme Roth’s locker room to continue the game there. The “play” caster is sputtering and the “color commenter” is asking why they didn’t just walk the ball to the endzone.