The War on Fat

The War on Fat My Body 

The other day I drove past a billboard offering medical weight management for kids. I can’t believe we’re still doing this shit. 

There was a moment not too long ago that I thought the world was changing. Remember Season 16 of Project Runway when the plus (normal) size model takes off her wrap and stomps the runway in nothing but a bathing suit, to roars of approval and a standing ovation from Nina Garcia? Even the fashion industry was acknowledging women as they actually are! 

I thought humanity was taking steps to evolve. Away from forcing women’s bodies to meet someone else’s standards. Away from shaming children. Towards not blaming weight for every damn thing. Towards giving people in bigger bodies permission to just exist.   

Then GLP-1s, social media, and political conservatism set us back 50 years. 

I went on my first diet before I was 10 and kept at it for 40 years, dedicating more effort, willpower, and stress to it than I ever should have. I put well over 10,000 hours into that goal of physical perfection. Or not even perfection, just acceptance. I just wanted to be acceptable by the fat-fearing standards of my culture. Yet here I am, with nothing but a medical designation of “obe$e” to show for all that effort. I could have been doing so many other things with that time and effort, including appreciating how strong and healthy I actually am.

So many research studies show that dieting doesn’t work. In fact, studies have shown that the more you diet and weight cycle, the more likely you are to be overweight and have health issues later on. If you can handle scientific journals, here is a good starting place for challenging what you’ve been brainwashed to believe about weight and health.

I’ve tried GLP-1s twice and had to stop both times because they made me anxious and depressed–more on that in another blog. A lot of people can’t afford these medications. Even when they can, there’s no guarantee that they will tolerate them. Furthermore, we don’t know the long term effects of these drugs. I have no problem with anyone taking GLP-1s for any reason they want or need to, but they are not a panacea. Especially when fat isn’t actually the core problem.

Weight and health can be very complicated issues. It is rarely as simple as calories in=calories out. Race, gender, and socio-economics are factors. Trauma and politics are factors. But culturally we still default to blaming the individual and fat-shaming instead of looking at the underlying power structures using this as a means to control bodies and maintain the status quo. Check out this article on a doctor who weight-shamed a woman instead of catching her colon cancer.  

Why, when there is evidence to the contrary, do we continue to believe fat bodies are the enemy? As ever, follow the money. Pharmaceuticals, diet gurus, manufacturers of every product for changing, altering, “improving” your body. Who are they targeting? You, probably, if you have a body.   

I work every day to make peace with myself and my body and I resent that this inner conflict exists at all. 10,000 people die every year of eating disorders. If diet culture and the war on fat bodies worked, would this still be the case? We need to recalibrate how we relate to food, weight, and bodies. In so many ways, our approach is severely lacking if not dead wrong. Starting with billboards about medical weight loss for kids. 

*I crossed out fat because I think it’s actually just about bodies–marginalized bodies and bodies in general. The body keeps the score, so the powers-that-be need to keep it out of the game in order to maintain the status quo. If all the trauma that black, brown, female, and trans bodies have endured consciously came to the surface and demanded recompense, the world would be a very different palace.