Q&A With PastaQueen
Jennette Fulda, better known as PastaQueen, may have lost a couple hundred or so pounds, but she’s been a commenter on and visitor to Big Fat Deal for a long time. On a blog tour for her memoir, Half of Me, she offered to stop by and answer the toughest questions I could come up with about weight loss and fat acceptance. Feel free to discuss the book, her responses, or my questions in the comments here—I know it will be a respectful and interesting discussion. Thanks again to Jennette for answering these questions so extensively, and giving us so much food for thought.
You say: “Whenever I tried hanging around fat-acceptance sites, I felt as if they were trying to make me feel bad for wanting to be thin, which was just as bad as anyone who tried to make me feel bad for being fat… if there were simply a self-acceptance movement, maybe I could have joined that.” What do you see as being the differences between “self acceptance” and “fat acceptance”? What would your self acceptance movement look like?
Before I make any comments about the fat acceptance movement, I’d like to acknowledge that there are many different ideas and forces at work within it, just like any philosophical or political movement. Asking someone what they think of fat acceptance is like asking them what they think about feminism or democracy or Bob Dylan. Maybe you liked his acoustic stuff, but didn’t care for the electric album. The current battle going on in the American Democratic party is proof that even when people are on the same side, they can disagree vehemently on certain issues. I was very careful in my book to only mention my personal experiences with the FA movement. I’m not trying to summarize it as a whole or write any treatises or manifestos. My book is a memoir, so it covers my memories and my personal experiences, nothing else.
That being said, I have visited fat acceptance sites where people tried to make me feel bad about my desire to lose weight. I never told anyone else to lose weight. I never tried to make anyone else feel bad for being fat. I just had to admit that I didn’t like being fat and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that. If I didn’t like being a brunette, no one would give me shit about dying my hair blonde. At the same time however, I believe that fat people should not be discriminated against or made to feel bad because of their weight and that fat people deserve equal rights. I just think it’s okay if you prefer not to be one of those fat people. Not everyone agreed with me, which is why some of the sites I personally visited were less like fat acceptance sites and more like “accept you if you’re fat” sites, or at least “accept you if you’re fat and you like it” sites. Acceptance that comes with terms attached isn’t truly acceptance.
So, the difference I see between fat acceptance and self acceptance is that self acceptance means you are cool with whatever you are – fat, thin, a fat person who wants to be thin or even a thin person who wants to be fat. Many people in the fat acceptance movement embody this philosophy brilliantly, others not so much.
In your memoir, you also talk about fat girls who “let their thunder thighs steal their thunder.” What would you say to those girls?
First off, I promise that you are not nearly as fat as you think you are. I look back at photos from high school when I felt like a human blob and now I think “You were so thin!” Second, your size only matters as much as you let it. If you’re really self-conscious and feel bad about yourself, it will show in your body language no matter how big or small you are. If you walk into a room confidently, it will radiate out of you. There are many plus-sized role models who demonstrate these qualities, like Queen Latifah or Beth Ditto, and hopefully there will be many more in the future.
You talk about weight loss blogs and fat acceptance blogs not being mutually exclusive–and yet I’m sure many bloggers would disagree with you. Some fat acceptance blogs are not welcoming of people trying to lose weight at all, and some weight loss blogs claim that fat acceptance is the same as turning one’s back on weight loss. Do you think either of these concerns is valid? I think ultimately both of those types of blogs are about the same thing – the right to do with your body as you chose. For some people that means losing weight and for others it’s declaring that they don’t feel a need to drop any pounds. Just as fat acceptance members don’t want people to give them crap about being fat, people who are losing weight don’t want people to give them crap about eating salads.
Sometimes people take their pride so far in one direction that they create shame in the other direction. For instance, I’ve read threads on message boards where overweight women justifiably complain about how women are mocked on tabloid covers for being fat. Then those same women will make jokes about Kate Bosworth for being a “bag of sticks” and say she should “eat a cheeseburger.” How is this any different than saying a fat girl is a “tub of lard” who should “get on a treadmill?” In both cases you’re ridiculing women for their bodies. Some women are naturally fat and others are naturally thin, and neither group deserves to be humiliated or degraded because of that.
If the lines of communication were more open and welcoming between these groups, I think we could make a lot more positive progress in the world than we do by hating on each other. There aren’t that many people who’ve lived life as a morbidly obese person and as a thin person. This gives me a unique perspective on issues and it would be sad if I was shut out from sharing it with one group or the other simply because of my current size. Sometimes I’ve gotten nasty comments on my blog from people on the extreme edges of the fat acceptance movement. It’s ironic that in a movement that is about not judging people for their size, they’ve stopped by to judge me because of my size.
You talk about accepting yourself, and in that process, accepting that you weren’t happy being fat. Do you think it’s possible to accept yourself as a fat person without accepting your fatness? Do you think the fact that you thought of it this way is what enabled you to lose the weight? In other words, do you think if you’d been a more self-confident fat girl, you might never have been motivated to become thin?
No matter how self-confident I might have been, there were things about being morbidly obese that just sucked. It had nothing to do with what fashion editors in New York put on the covers of magazines. I was so fat that I injured my knee walking up the stairs. I had to have my gallbladder removed at age 23. I became exhausted just tossing a ball around with my cat. My weight was seriously inhibiting me from living the life I wanted to lead. Because of that, I believe I would have been motivated to lose weight no matter what.
So, I obviously knew I was fat and accepted that I was currently a fat person. However, I also believed that I could lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle – and I did. I didn’t accept that being fat was an inescapable part of my life, and for me that turned out to be true.
You lost a great deal of weight without surgery, and have kept it off. Do you think it’s possible or desirable for every fat person to do what you did?
I think every man and woman faces different challenges when it comes to weight loss. Some people are naturally thinner than others and don’t have to work as hard to be slender. Some battle eating disorders which can make it dangerous for them to try losing weight because they do so in ways that are harmful to their health. Some people just don’t have access to fresh fruits and vegetables and lean meats that are part of a healthy diet. These are aspects of our lives that we don’t control. However, we can all exert some control over our environment by choosing to exercise and to make the best eating choices available to us. So, I think weight loss is definitely possible, though it may be harder for some people than others, and potentially dangerous if they go about it in the wrong way.
As far as desirable goes, I think it’s desirable to eat healthy and maintain an active lifestyle. Many times that leads to weight loss, but you can still be somewhat overweight and healthy. According to my BMI, I’m still technically overweight, but all my medical tests say I’m in excellent health. Ultimately, everyone has a right to do with their body as they chose, so they get to lead whatever lifestyle they want to, be it fat or thin, fit or unfit, or any mixture of those adjectives. Leading the life you want to lead is the most desirable thing of all.
You also say you don’t feel like a fat person on the inside anymore. Do you think you were disconnected from your body when you were very heavy? Or do you think the gradual process of weight loss helped you to adjust? Or is there another reason?
I feel defined by my actions. Last weekend I ran a half marathon, which is not something a morbidly obese person can do. (They might be able to walk it, but I don’t know of any 400-pound people who can run the whole thing.) I can carry my groceries up the stairs without panting. I can fit into my car without my belly brushing the wheel. All of these things make up my daily life and make me feel like a thin person.
The slow process of losing weight over 3 years certainly helped me adjust to the changes. I used to check myself out in the mirror ALL THE TIME when I was losing weight, a lot more than I do now. I think it was my mind’s way of recalibrating my self-image every day.
Also, when I was morbidly obese, I didn’t quite have a sense of how fat I was. When I watched a video of myself or saw photos, I was shocked by how large I appeared. It was like hearing my voice on an answering machine and not quite believing it was me. So yeah, I was disconnected from my body back then. I find that all the exercise that I do these days keeps me in touch with what my body is capable of and more in tune with it in general.
There’s been talk in the fatosphere recently about people’s healthy eating habits, exercise regimes, or weight loss being threatening and triggering, or reinforcing the idea of low-self esteem, of something being “wrong” with you if you aren’t thin. People reading this might see the discussion of your weight loss memoir in a size acceptance blog a hostile act. Admittedly, this is an extreme point of view, but what would you say to counteract it?
As I said earlier, my book is about my personal experiences. No one has to live the life I led or make the choices I made. The decision as to whether you should try to lose weight, or if you even need to, is up to every individual. What I’d like for people to understand after reading my book is that you can lose weight without it being an act of self-hate or self-loathing. And you can learn a lot about yourself through the process.
I think you hinted at the answer in your question when you said “size acceptance” and not “fat acceptance” or “thin acceptance.” I think we all want to be accepted no matter what our size – fat, thin or shifting in between. Just as people who are fat don’t want to be attacked for not being thin, people who used to be fat don’t want to be attacked for having become thin. If we’re going to accept people’s bodies, we’ve got to accept them no matter what size they are, have been, or will be in the future. You’re not really being accepting if you say it’s only okay if someone stays fat or stays thin and anyone who changes their dress size is evil. If size truly is irrelevant to our personal identity, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re fat, thin, shrinking or expanding.
Many times our reactions are more about our own issues than anything else. If you automatically assume that everyone who talks about exercise and eating right is judging you for not being thin, it probably speaks more to your own feelings about your weight than anything someone on the Stairmaster is really thinking about you. I don’t think I’m superior to anyone else because I run 3 times a week and I find it odd that some people assume I do feel that way.
What would you say to Big Fat Deal readers who are focused on body acceptance and not trying to lose weight. Why would they want to read your book?
While my book is a weight-loss memoir, ultimately it’s about transformation and the possibilities life holds for all of us. I’ve always liked the parts of body acceptance that emphasize possibilities and I dislike the parts that focus on limitations. On the surface, my book is about losing a lot of weight, but the deeper message is that you can shape your life into whatever you want it to be. You can lose a ton of weight, find a better job, get out of a bad relationship, start a salt-water taffy stand – whatever you want to do, you can do it!
I also hope they would read it and understand that you can love your body and be making changes to it at the same time. Self-acceptance isn’t the same thing as self-satisfaction. Self-acceptance means you’ve faced the truth of who you are, flaws and all. Self-satisfaction means you’re happy with it. I think it’s okay to admit that there are things you don’t like about yourself and to strive to make changes in a positive way. It’s okay to admit that you don’t like being fat. It doesn’t have to mean that you hate yourself. It just means there’s something you want to change in your life. As long as you go about it in a healthy, sane manner, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Beth Ditto, Books, Exercise, Meta, Question, Weight Loss, WLS
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Mary,
I didn’t address your live and let live comment at all. And I guess I would agree with you in general, except some people are writing blogs and publishing books about their weight loss and then wondering why they don’t feel accepted in the FA community. I think that’s sortof a different conversation, don’t you?
I mean, sure, I want people to be happy. But if their happiness means continuing to convey the message that people like me would be happier if we would just stop eating so much, well, it’s a problem.
Well, I will say respectfully that you can continue to think I am wrong too, but that does not necessarily make that so. You’re making a lot of assumptions in your posts. And just because many heavy people engage in HAES doesn’t mean all do. So, you know, sometimes it’s NOT perfectly normal biological process to gain weight. Sometimes it involves eating too much for the wrong reasons. And then sometimes getting a handle on that and losing weight (healthfully) can be a good thing. And I know everyone loves to throw around the 98% failure rate, but many people lose weight and do keep it off, particularly if they had gained it through unhealthy (such as bingeing) means and then were able to change those habits.
Not everything or everyone fits into a cubbyhole, easily explained with generalizations. I honestly would think that people in the FA movement would be particularly sensitive to that.
And I reiterate that if you are heavy and perfectly happy and lead a full and satisfying life, then more power to you. I mean it. But allow for the fact that not everyone does, and sometimes losing some weight and feeling better about yourself is very much just a personal thing, not a society thing, not a statement thing, not a big ol’ anything other than a person finding what works for them.
I don’t accept any of that shame, Cindy. You can have it if you like :)
Shinobi, I agree there are a couple different conversations going on, and apparently this is too difficult a distinction to be made for some reason. It’s not unreasonable for fat acceptance to question and challenge a good many things; I didn’t know it was a problem to challenge weight loss advocacy.
I don’t think PQ wondered why she was not accepted in the FA movement. She was asked what she thought about the movement, and she said what she did and didn’t agree with. She didn’t bring it up on her own, she was asked about it.
And: “But if their happiness means continuing to convey the message that people like me would be happier if we would just stop eating so much, well, it’s a problem.”
I honestly don’t think that PQ writing a book about what she did to make herself happier conveys a message that people like you would be happier if you’d stop eating so much. That’s like saying that someone who writes a book about what a great life altering experience it was to quit their job and join the Peace Corps is saying that for you to be happy you have t stop working in coporate America and go live in a hut somewhere. It’s simply THAT person’s experience, explaining why that choice worked for THAT person.
I’m sure Mo realized posting this interview here on the site was sure to generate harsh responses. I applaud both her and especially Jennette for putting themselves out there and subject to criticism in order to further debate on the issue.
Last year I featured an interview with my good friend Lisa who recently had WLS. Most FA circles I’ve seen and run in are strongly anti-WLS. I posted my interview with Lisa because I felt there to be something lacking from the rhetoric: A human face. It’s easy to be critical of WLS in theory, harder yet to look someone in the face who has made that decision for themselves for their own personal reasons and tell them they are wrong. It’s the same reason why someone on the street won’t tell me I am fat, but won’t hesitate to tell me online that they think fat people should die.
Regardless if you believe in and accept Jennette’s personal decisions for herself, I think we need to appreciate her right to hold those opinions, even those we disagree with. I also think it perfectly aligned with the theme of this blog and FA to post comments that inspire debate and put a face to those on the other side of the fence. After all, if fat people want to be seen and treated like humans, ought not that courtesy be reciprocal?
Rachel, not for nothing, but is dieting some rare occurrence that we don’t all know like tons of people who are on diets and in various stages of losing weight? It’s pretty difficult to meet people (women especially) who *aren’t* on diets. Most fat people have been on tons of diets themselves. I don’t think dieting lacks a human face. As to WLS it’s getting pretty common now; I have certainly known a couple people very well who’ve had it (they didn’t ask my opinion or permission first; but it’s their choice indeed) and I meet more all the time. Diet books, diet blogs – are these strange or rare commodities? About the only thing that *is* rare and is very hard to find (especially when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for in advance – I stumbled on FA by accident online, believe me) is actual fat acceptance, and real people who are actually fat and who don’t make apologies for it and who advocate for human rights and dignity for ‘those people.’ I know you’ve been involved in the movement for some time now, so maybe it’s a little different for someone who thinks “My god, I can get this *anywhere* and I just CAME from there – where did this come from?” Diet books for FA people, I don’t get it. Mind you, I’m quite aware (in part thanks to you and what you’ve done but also in part thanks to Discovery Health Channel) that there are people who push themselves high up past their normal body weights through various means, and who begin to eat more normally (or go all the way like Jared and start dieting) who then lose the weight – we’ve all seen celebrities do it for certain roles, and tell how horrible they felt when they were fat. Clearly, some people aren’t feeling good when they’re 320 pounds or 240 or whatever. I don’t think anyone has questioned someone’s right to diet or lose weight – though they’ve questioned whether certain language about it has a place in FA, or whether it makes sense to write diet books and then wonder why FA isn’t cheering you on for it.
It reminds me of a comment goodwithcheese made (and I’m paraphrasing here) about when someone says to her “Hey I lost X pounds” and expects her to do cartwheels. I don’t remember if her response was “So?” or “Oh.”
But really, diets, diet books, hahafatpants pictures, diet diaries are everywhere, are ubiquitous, and dieters are also everywhere in everyone’s life. Fat advocates aren’t. Sigh. I know I’m probably not saying this right.
Openly disagreeing with points someone makes does not equal disrespecting their right to be a human being.
Oh, and do ugly comments about hysteria, jealousy and such really add to fat advocacy in some way? Is it fair, accurate, or cool in some way to say people who object to something or challenge it are just being shamefully oversensitive and overreacting to certain fat-hating views? (The interview was fairly tame in that regard, though not innocuous, but the comments haven’t been.)
Since my comment from yesterday wasn’t approved for whatever reason, I will try again.
“No dieters” =/= “no diet talk.” The only fat acceptance blogger, to my knowledge, who ever made it “no dieters” was Paul of Big Fat Blog, but he’s had his blog for over 8 years now and chances are pretty good he found that taking a hard-line stance was the only way to keep out the “I did it so can you” crowd. I do know that there are people on BFB who have lost weight; one even wrote an article about it recently. But here’s the difference: they don’t brag about their weight loss or give blow-by-blows of their diet on BFB. And if you don’t do that, frankly, nobody’s going to know the difference.
As for the “she needs to eat a cheeseburger” talk: Yeah, there was some of that in the early days of BFB and maybe the Gab Cafe at Fatso.com, too. But I don’t allow any talk like that at Fat Fu, and most of the current Fatospherians don’t either.
Meowser, I really have to say you have an amazing way of nailing things on the head. That is all.
Mary,
Gaining weight IS a perfectly normal biological process. What you are talking about are eating behaviors that are not normal or healthy. If someone is engaging in binge eating and gaining weight as a result, then finding away to manage their disorder is perfectly reasonable.
This has nothing to do with the body and its state, and everything to do with healthy behaviors. The body simply engages in chemical processes based on an individuals body chemistry. Perfectly natural and normal.
The problem with believing in weight loss is that if your goal is thinness and not health it is much easier to fail. Some bodies like to retain fat more than others based on their body chemistry, and to continue to try to lose weight instead of focusing on health can be devastating. Again, the goal should be health, not weight loss.
And you’re right everyone does like to throw around the 95% failure rate of diets. Because 95% of people who lose weight gain it back. Are you asserting that statistic is incorrect? If you think it is wrong, but to even mention that statistic and then say “but a lot of people so lose weight” well… yeah. What that statistic actually says is that a lot of people FAIL at losing weight.
It is a lot harder to fail at doing active things you enjoy, and eating healthy foods you like. That sounds less emotionally uncomfortable to me.
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Nice to go read you turned a whole post into what I see as a very intentional misreading of pretty much everything I was saying. Plus I didn’t think we were “arguing,” but, whatever. Trying to convey one’s feelings to someone who refuses to listen or hear because their agenda is screaming too loudly in their heads is futile, I guess. Good bye.
Mary,
I assure you my misreading was not intentional. Also, as I said in my post I wasn’t really responding to you as much as your comments inspired a post. I’m sorry if you feel attacked that was not my intention.
SophG, I wanted to try to answer some of your questions. I also want to thank you for apologising for your use of the words “hysterical and shrieky” to characterise posts that were nothing of the sort. It’s hard to have a debate when that kind of dismissive language is being flung around, you know?
How can you believe in HAES if you don’t accept someone’s right to change their size, if that is what they want to do and if they are able to do it?
The point of HAES is that it is Health At Every Size, i.e. that you do not have to change your size to achieve health. PQ clearly DOES NOT believe in this concept, much as she may give lip service to it, because she says herself she does not believe she could have been healthy at her previous size. She feels she had to lose weight to be healthy and happy in herself. That’s absolutely up to her; equally, it absolutely is not compatible with the HAES philosophy — the whole point of which is that health and wellbeing do not have to be correlated with size or weight.
She also says it is possible to be “somewhat overweight and healthy”. No, it is possible to be any weight and healthy, if we are measuring health by blood pressure, cholesterol, aerobic fitness and all the other measures we use when we’re talking about those of “normal” weight. So PQ clearly doesn’t believe that HAES is possible for others either, once they are more than “somewhat” overweight. Do you see why it’s frustrating, then, to see her co-opting the language of HAES when discussing her weight-loss? Of course I accept someone’s “right” to change their size, or do whatever the hell they want with their own body. I simply disagree with the idea that the behaviours involved in doing so are “healthy” (physically or mentally), and I therefore disagree that they are compatible with HAES.
Does it even matter why people lose weight, and if so, why? If PQ had simply changed her eating and exercise habits without having weight loss as a goal, and had happened to lose weight as a result would people be so scathing? I mean to say, if someone’s weight changes as a result of events over which they have no control is that better than if someone loses weight because they want to? And is it more worthy of acceptance?
I can only speak for myself: I have not been in any way “scathing” of the fact that PQ lost weight. I am instead “scathing” of the fact that her weight loss is being lauded as a worthwhile achievement on a blog about fat acceptance, which only serves to reinforce the message we see EVERYWHERE IN THIS SOCIETY that weight loss for its own sake is good and something we should all be striving for. Is it too much to ask that the fatosphere remain the one corner of the internet where this harmful message is kept at arm’s length?
If someone adopts healthier food and exercise choices and happens to lose some weight as a side effect, of course no one in the FA community (or anywhere else) is going to frown on them for that. (You might have noticed that we’re pretty big on body autonomy.) But that’s not what’s happened here, at all, and that’s the problem.
Advocating weight loss for weight loss’ sake is advocating something that 95-98% of people simply cannot achieve, though many people will spend their lives harming themselves through restricted and disordered eating and overexercise in the attempt. The message “I lost weight, and so can you!” is not just one woman telling us about her experiences; it is another addition to the harmful propoganda that keeps men and women in this culture hating themselves their whole lives. It is a message that actively hurts people, and that’s why so many of us were dismayed to see it here.
There is some amazing miscommunication happening here. When I read the above article, several thoughts came to mind.
1. Is it really so surprising that any movement called “fat acceptance” doesn’t want to hear about how miserable someone was fat and how happy they are with their reduced body? Not welcoming her to discuss her diet =/= saying she shouldn’t make her own choices. Neither does objecting to some of her claims of fact which commenters happen to disagree with.
2. In the Amazon blurb for the book, Fulda is represented as saying things that negatively affect the FA movement’s reputation. Deserved or not, she did. I didn’t read there anything negative about, for instance, the weight loss industry. Not having read the book, I don’t know if these words reflect her own, but they seem consistent with what I read here. She isn’t a fat acceptance advocate that I can tell from the things she says.
3. I see nothing wrong with people responding to her criticism of their group defensively. Why am I finding links that insult the people commenting here with anything other than “Yay for Fulda’s Freedom of Choice!” I found the other Christine’s comments to be almost laughably disproportionate. Clearly, this is a person who has never heard of fandom wars or been in geekdom. This is a Sunday Tea level of discourse.
4. Why shouldn’t she diet, if she really wants to? But why expect nobody to find it annoying? I love sushi, but I don’t go to vegetarian blogs to talk about it and then get cranky they slighted me.
I know it’s been mentioned a number of times that “95% of people who lose weight gain it back.”
As someone who is currently in the process of losing a few extra pounds, I always wonder about that statement. Because I’m one of the few girls my age (college students) that has made the effort to make sure I’m losing weight in the process of getting fitter, healthier, and more comfortable with who I am. I’ve talked to a doctor and a nutritionist, and spent some time with a trainer at my gym testing my fitness levels and body fat and all that good stuff. But I’ve made sure I’m doing this the right way. I’m not dieting, I’m just listening to my body and realizing that sometimes, it’s not actually necessary for me to eat the whole pint of ice cream :) I’ve dealt with anorexia about 4 years ago, so maybe I’m almost overly cautious about making sure I’m healthy now.
But yes, maybe 95% of people fail at losing weight. But how many of those 95% actually knew what the proper approach was? How many resorted to crash or fad diets, extreme exercise, etc. In my age group, I would say about 80% of them.
I guess reading a lot of these comments made me a bit sad, because PQ is getting attacked for saying what she’s strictly labeled as her personal experience. She’s not preaching to the whole world of FA or anything like that. She’s not saying she’s better than people who are fat now. So she doesn’t know any morbidly obese marathon runners… so what? Don’t attack her for that, simply inform her that you do know of some, or that you are one yourself.
I think a lot of people here are so quick to judge and defend themselves, even if they’re not being attacked. It doesn’t always need to be something so terribly personal – these are one woman’s thoughts, who just happens to be someone who successfully got herself into a fit, healthy lifestyle.
She’s not saying you can’t already be there, just because you’re not leading the same lifestyle as her.
Christy, it’s difficult to say for sure. But many, many people on F.A. blogs have personally had the experience of doing everything doctors and nutritionists tell them to and still gaining the weight back or not losing it at all until they started undertaking those unhealthy measures. You may very well be different – you may have a lower set point or be someone who has a naturally easy time losing weight (and given some of the genetic info out there about anorexia, this may not be a good thing so yeah, it’s good to be careful).
But my question is this: if it’s about eating more than you need to (e.g., an entire pint of ice cream when you don’t really want that much), why is the focus here weight loss? Why isn’t it on recognizing how much ice cream you really want at a given time? If you recognize that, and you don’t lose weight, is that still a failure?
As to it being her personal experience, I’d say that’s only true to an extent. And a pretty limited extent. Dieting and weight loss is privileged in our culture to the extreme, and putting forward your memoir of dieting and weight loss in self-congratulatory way, taking pictures of yourself in your “fat” pants (so funny! You used to be so fat! hah!), tracking what you eat, talking about the transformative effect of losing weight in a way that links the transformation explicitly to the weight loss (the book is certainly being marketed as a weight loss memoir) are all things that imply something beyond the personal. And they are all things that endorse weight loss, particularly in a culture that already does so.
And this is triply so where the author makes statements like that people can’t run half marathons while morbidly obese (not true, it seems), or that you can be “somewhat overweight” and still be healthy, implying that you can’t be more than that. These are not things limited to her own personal experience.
Christy, you’re absolutely right. People quote that “95%” statistic all the time, but I recently wrote a little review of the published scientific literature on the subject for my blog, and different studies had vastly different findings. The highest one I saw was that 98% regained weight, but there were also papers finding that only 60% regained weight. I’m not sure how the 95% statistic got to be arbitrarily plucked out of that.
I wasn’t being rude, ok maybe I didn’t ellaborate my point perfectly.
You list all your reasons why it’s perfectly normal to gain weight but you have never gone in depth regarding this.
Ok, fair enough, someone who is 400 lbs might not be exaclty dying. That doesn’t mean they will not feel like dying when running up the stairs. Yes, literally – physically impossible to not run completly out of breath.
And, society and the world has created features to accomodate normal size people. During the prehistroric time there was no such thing as obesity. Obesity is a contemporary thing, coincidently linked with the more accesible and cheaper, unhealthier food around there.
Most people don’t just wake up fat one day. It doesn’t happen like that. Studies have also proven that we massively underestimate our eating and overestimate exercise. Portion sizes, especially in America, are like 2-3 times more than it was over 50 years ago.
While I do believe that there are people who are fat no matter what they do (i.e: thyrod) most people are fat because of bad eating habits. The twin studies proves nothing. A couple of hundred of twins to prove a point? You gotta be kidding me.
Not all people who lose weight put it all back on and I can assure you that those who do are people who slip back into old eating habits. Or people that ate a couple of hundred of calories a day to lose weight quickly who could not mantain this weight loss. Most diets are just unhealthy. Doctors recommend cutting down calorie consumption by about 500 calories and exercising for 30 mins a day. This, most of the time, provides results.
Diabetes is another perfect example of this. High sugar levels often are lowered down by losing weight, just like insulin. So, this proves you wrong when saying losing weight does not mean better health.
I am with Mary on this. All this vitriol and outrage exactly proves PQ’s point. If the FA movement is so concerned with how people view “fat” people, then please be informed that everyone NOT in your movement who sees this sees you as: “angry fat people.”
This may or may not be the case, but it is the perceived notion. Why? Because of your behavior. You can’t just gracefully accept that PQ lost weight and is now happier. You have to go on and on about what a bad example she’s setting? How so? How is HER life reflective of your own?
You show your deep seated insecurities when you feel that somehow ONE person losing weight and being happy about it affects your life or all other “fat people” in any way. This is like assuming one person who chooses not to have children and is happy is giving a bad “anti-family example” to all women. Are women really in your perception this weak and easily led that we all have to be herded around and told what we SHOULD feel and think on a matter?
The bottom line is society is what it is. Whether or not society glamourizes beauty and thinness doesn’t really matter. If someone wants to be thinner, freaking let them. Get over it. Maybe they can lose the weight, maybe they can’t. But why people have to get so freaked out about someone else’s personal choices, I’ll never know.
And fatgirlonabike cannot be held up as an example of a “fit/fat” person who can’t lose weight until she shares what she’s eating. Diet plays a huge role in size and fitness. Any serious athlete will tell you, you can’t out train poor nutrition. If she’s eating crap she can exercise til the cows come home and it won’t matter. So it’s dishonest to hold her up as this great example of someone who is “fit” but can’t lose weight when one half ot the equation she claims is not up for debate or discussion.
As hard as this might be to understand. Not everybody wants the same things in life. And has it EVER occurred to you that a person who feels they should “remain fat to love themselves” because the “FA movement told them to” is just as bad as someone who wants to be thin because “hollywood told them to?”
Either way they are following the desires of some other arbitrarily set group instead of their own. The desire and wish should be for every woman to find her own passions in life and to follow them. Not, that she follow only those passions in life that have been personally deemed PC and acceptable by the FA movement.
I guess I should have realized that “kept it off” was being used in the same way it’s usually used in the diet industry and magazines – i.e. to mean someone has reached their goal, or is close to it, and may have reached their goal within the past year or so. The 95-98% of people who “fail” at diets don’t fail to lose weight initially; what I have read everywhere says that it’s regained by 95-98% within three years of reaching the goal weight. So I guess it all remains to be seen. I don’t know why the author felt it necessary to slam the FA movement, but I reckon it will still be here when and if Ms. Funda needs it again. Unless I get ill or we hit some type of famine (and who knows these days, with food shortages and all), I’ll likely still be fat at that time – whether those who are in the process of slimming now will still be thin, we’ll have to see.
But how many of those 95% actually knew what the proper approach was?
Watch out, here’s my theory:
There IS NO proper approach for them. Those for whom your approach actually works are the remaining 5%. The others, namely those who gain everything back and then some, cannot lose weight by “realizing that they don’t really need to eat the whole X of Y” because eating more than they needed was not what made them fat in the first place.
This is a generalisation. It surely doesn’t apply to exactly 95%, and many people would probably lose a few pounds indeed if they simply did what you did. They would NOT, however, become thin.
It is a well known fact in the fatosphere that following HAES may result in weight loss for some, in weight gain for a few, while not having any effect at all on others. That doesn’t make it the wrong approach, though. :)
yoganut, that’s one of the nastiest, hateful things I’ve read on this thread yet. Who should be ashamed again? And what are you doing on FA blogs if you think of the FA movement as nothing but “angry fat people”? Not to mention, do you even care why people are angry? Do you think discrimination is not cause for anger? But I suppose anyone who faces discrimination (including legal discrimination) should just “get over it.” My god, have you read ANYTHING anyone else has said?
LaWade, the 95-98 stat, as far as I know, refers specifically to people who have lost at least 75 pounds, after 3 years. Of course, there was an awesome examination over at Fat Fu of the Weight Watchers’ stats, and I think it was very illuminating. C’est la vie.
Oh, and when was fatgirlonabike held up as an example of a “fit/fat” person who can’t lose weight?? I thought she was being help up as an example of a fat and fit person, period.
Every person I have met in the entirety of my life who lost weight and gained it back had reverted to their old lifestyle behaviors. They just couldn’t give up the junk food crack pipe and they didn’t exercise enough.
A very few of them damaged their metabolisms by going on unhealthy diets. Instead of working to heal their metabolism (contrary to popular views, metabolism isn’t a one way street), when they went back to their former eating patterns they gained MORE back.
Everyone has a right to stay fat if that’s what they want. But I think it’s wrong to tell people they “can’t” do it by trotting out statistics like these (please note that when DIETS are studied, that’s just what’s being studied, DIETS, not genuine lifestyle changes. “lifestyle change” isn’t a phrase to trick you into going on a diet. It’s really really not.) You’re only reinforcing other people’s fears to support your own ego and decision not to lose weight.
Of importance is, obesity does not occur regularly in nature. How many obese wild animals have you ever seen? Obesity was very rare a hundred years ago. Lifestyle cannot be ignored in this issue. By ignoring it you’re lying not only to others but to yourself.
But she’s only held up as a “fat and fit” person BECAUSE she doesn’t lose weight. If she lost weight like PQ she’d be the subject of the same vitriol PQ has gotten.
Fatgirlonabike is trapped. She will only be accepted by your movement as long as she maintains her weight. If she loses AND omg becomes “happier” then all bets are off.
If PQ hadn’t lost any weight you’d all be lauding her as “fit and fat and fabulous”
The hypocrisy of this movement is obvious to anyone not in it. Those in it seem to be too close to see how ridiculous they are.
Well now. Here is what I think – I think that PQ speaks for many overweight people who would rather be thin and have either lost the weight or feel the same way and are trying to.
I don’t think she speaks for the many overweight people who are either perfectly okay with their weight or are not, but medically cannot do anything about it without damaging their health.
I do not believe in trying to communicate her journey with those that relate to her, she was in any way trying to give a different perspective to those who don’t relate to her.
On Paul’s site, he is not trying to relate to those overweight people who want to lose weight. In fact, he goes out of his way to shoo them away. His site is about FA and how to get people to stop thinking that people over the “average” weight number are in some way not as acceptable as those who are.
PQ’s site is a personal journey about her life. She got asked to write a book about her life. She is not on any personal mission to change anyone or gain acceptance or stand up for anyone.
Mopie site is about all of the above. If a certain post doesn’t relate to you or angers you or makes you feel some movement has been harmed- I would ask you if everyone in your life needs to conform to your mentality in order to be okay with you?
Sure, some commenters posted thoughtful and articulate rebuttals to what PQ answered. But those who got angry and defensive are the ones “hurting” the FA movement. Because FA stands for Fat Acceptance. Not Fat Acceptance as long as you don’t say anything about weight that I don’t agree with.
I for one would like to apologize to fat girl on a bike. I am not much interested in triathlons (and have never been very athletic) but I’ve admired what you’re doing since I first heard about it. That doesn’t make her someone to be bandied about as if she isn’t a real person with real feelings; and that you would say such horrid things about her and others’ admiration of her is too awful, yoganut. I am sorry I even mentioned it now. However, PQ was the one who started with the “half-marathons” and how fat people can’t run them, and how most people would hobble home and collapse after a half-marathon, not that fat people could ever do a half-marathon, and here is someone who is fat and does triathlons. She is far from the only fit person who is fat – I’m pretty amazed at what some of the people in the FA movement accomplish physically. Running triathlons is only one example of many.
oh Wow Annie, could we tone down the sensitive martyr complex please? I guess “nasty” is completely subjective. I said you come off as “angry fat people” I did NOT say you WERE all empirically angry fat people.
I’m just telling you what you look like from the outside. Ostensibly the FA movement is supposed to be about getting less discrimination and having the non fat people not see you as a stereotype. Yet the behaviors on this blog in response to PQ exactly reinforce the stereotypes you’re upset about.
This is all about perception and how you come off. I am not a “hateful nasty” person. What I am is someone honest about her impressions on people’s behavior. Being fat doesn’t give you a get out of jail free card to be as rude as you guys have been about PQ.
Please note also, the anger displayed on this blog has NOTHING to do with discrimination and everything to do with the fact that PQ lost weight. That’s it. One woman lost some weight and you guys are freaking out. That has nothing to do with discrimination so get off your moral high horse.
I have never supported the discrimination of anyone no matter their size, color, or whatever. And to be quite honest, before I heard about the FA movement I NEVER looked at people and thought “she’s fat, she needs to lose weight.” I used to be treated badly for being too thin.
It’s only been AFTER I saw how the FA movement at least in large part reacts to things such as this that I’ve started to notice fat people at all. So what is your movement accomplishing?
People like MoPie IMO is awesome. She’s a moderate. So is PQ. But FA extremists damage your movement just as badly as feminist extremists damage feminism. Because no one outside your movement can relate or empathize with people who are over the top and angry about everything and playing the victim card about everything.
If you don’t want to hear what people honestly think outside your group, fine. Stay insulated. But please be aware these are the attitudes outside your cloister. And they are attitudes you all are promoting by being so friggin hostile in all your interactions with those who were once fat but are no longer.
Oh please, I”m not nasty and bigoted. I just get tired of people whining every time someone who’s not them loses weight. I think it’s jealousy. That’s how it comes off to me and I’m sure to others who are too cowed by your angry rhetoric to speak up.
Someone was fat and now isn’t and is happy. Cue the freakout. Sounds like jealousy to me. If people weren’t jealous they wouldn’t be this loud about it. So call me bigoted all you want. I’ve seen enough bigotry within this movement toward those who were once fat but lost weight, to know that your pronouncement against my moral character stands on sand.
“pronouncement against my moral character stands on sand.”
Is that a dig against fat people? That they would just be standing on the beach sweating and panting and then sink in the sand and thin people would be in bikini’s playing vollyeball without even breathing hard? Is it? Is it?
bwahahahahaha. Um. No. (I sincerely hope you’re kidding.)
Also, in case someone decides to bring it up, i reread where I said I didn’t notice fat people at all, i’m sure someone will say: “Oh, so fat people were invisible and unimportant to you.”
Um no…I just never really paid attention to their weight. It was never an issue to me.
yes, i was kidding. all this defensiveness! instead of everyone trying to understand each other, without having to agree, everyone is picking each other apart. I think this whole comment section on this post is a sad commentary on how we women treat each other. No wonder we all comfort eat. I KID I KID!
Yoganut, many of your pronouncements are also empirically, categorically false. Others are just so wrong, that the cognitive dissonance is burning like a bonfire. I wouldn’t know where to begin. Have fun.
What? What, what, what?
Don’t go “lifestyle” on me now, please. I’ve been leading the most unhealthy lifestyle EVER for ages and I’m not at all happy with this and trying to change it, but it never made me fat. Don’t tell me I’m an exception. That is SO not true. Genetics, people, genetics.
“I think this whole comment section on this post is a sad commentary on how we women treat each other.”
So ironic that I do too. Funny how we see completely different things, though.
Is “angry fat people” supposed to be an insult? Fuck yes, I’m an angry fat person. I’m angry that fat people are discriminated against. I’m angry that fat people are denied medical care. I am more angry than you can imagine that people are dying of eating disorders and side effects of WLS. I am angry that every place I go, I am told: “Your body is ugly. Your body is unacceptable. You have to change.” I am angry and I am not ashamed, because anger drives change. My question to you is, how can you look at all that and not be angry?
Thanks to all of you who have kept this discussion civil. Let’s please try to respond to the reasonable comments and keep the discussion productive, rather than attacking particular commenters.
I just want to say I am shocked by the comments to this post. I couldn’t even finish reading all of them because they seem to be filled with anger and hate.
I respect and admire PQ for her accomplishments and don’t think she deserves these attacks. People are twisting and turning her words around and consider her weight loss as some sort of slap in the face or an attack on fat people.
PQ worked hard to get fit and healthy and the fact that she used the scale to measure her progress doesn’t mean she doesn’t respect people who are fat and happy. It is a personal choice what you do with your body and she chose to lose more than 1/2 her weight.
If you are comfortable with your body and *healthy* at 200, 300, 400+ pounds – good for you but if you don’t feel good in your own skin or have weight related health problems you don’t need to hate on the people that eat healthy and exercise to lose weight.
I think we should try to encourage each other to fulfill our goals whether it is losing a few pounds, maintaining a certain weight or exercising to get the blood flowing.
It appears I am in the minority here and don’t want to piss people off but I felt the need to defend a woman who is honest, sincere, funny, talented and very healthy now.
I congratulate PQ on her success and wish you all good health and happiness no matter what your size.
Peace Out
Andrea, you say: “During the prehistroric time there was no such thing as obesity.”
The Venus of Willendorf” is some 20,000 to 25,000 years old, and looks very much as though it’s a representation of a live model. I’m not saying obese people were common prehistorically, but they did happen.
MB you’re wrong. No one would have batted an eye at this, even remotely, except that it appeared *on the fatosphere feed*. Which is, presumably, the fat acceptance corner of the internet. Had any one of us seen it anywhere else, we would have just clicked on to the next thing, as the hahafatpants weightloss books are *everywhere* and this one is not especially remarkable. It became remarkable, and objectionable, when it appeared on the *fatosphere feed.* Can you for one moment comprehend why that is objectionable to fat acceptance advocates?
And yes I’m seeing a lot of hateful comments, but not from the FA people – for a moment I thought you were a FA advocate annoyed by the vitriol and attacks FA people were having slung at them here (now that actually IS hahafunny.)
As to anger, Becky said it well. How can anyone look at the legal and social discrimination that is going on against fat people and NOT be angry? Even if I were still rail-thin, I’d be angry if I took the barest amount of time to educate myself about what’s going on. Any person of good will ought to be angry about it. If one isn’t, that speaks volumes about one. At least insofar as size acceptance/fat acceptance goes. But also far more than that.
If anyone has any questions about whether this is strictly a “fat acceptance blog,” you might want to read this discussion from January.
So I dare to have my blog on the fatosphere feed? (This has come up several times here, I’m not responding to anyone in particular.) Well, I’m a fat blogger and I write about body image and weight. In fact, if you look at the blogs on that feed, apart from Big Fat Blog, I think I’ve been writing the longest (four years) and the most consistently. I’ve been on television and in newspapers as a representative of the “fatosphere.” I think I’ve earned a modicum of respect from this community as a result.
I posted the interview in part because PQ has been supportive of me and this blog since the very beginning, and I respect her views even when I don’t agree with her. I thought it would be interesting to talk about the intersection of weight loss and fat acceptance that she talks about in her book, and that it might generate an interesting discussion. The fact that this has turned into an attack on this blog, on which I have worked very hard for many years, is quite frankly depressing.
Well it wasn’t my personal intent to disrespect you and I’m aware of your views (I read the manifesto thing at the time) but it didn’t seem to me to be an “intersection” to see the FA movement attacked right in the interview and at Amazon. I’m not sure why a dieting thing (especially with some of that imagery, using pants that many of us could fit into, the “fat people can’t do X, etc.) would be expected to draw kudos from people who go to the fatosphere to read about fat discrimination, fat rights (and the lack thereof) and so forth…I don’t really get why anyone would expect it to draw kudos. Naturally it’s your blog to do with as you wish. I just wish pro-diet and rather anti-fat posts would have a little warning attached so I wouldn’t click on them. It hits you like a bucket of cold water to see something like that when you’re expecting something at least sort of pro-fat-acceptance. And really, the FA people have mostly been moderated in their tone while being accused of some pretty nasty things. It makes a person stop and go “Huh? Really?” How can fat acceptance not be part of size acceptance; it’s just…rather shocking.
I saw you on TV and you did very well; but there was no hint of anything like this – it doesn’t strike me as finding a balance or being moderate, but as a disconnect. I’m sorry if you take that as an attack on your work. But no worry, I don’t even register on the meter to begin with. Your place in the feed couldn’t be determined by the likes of me even if I wanted that kind of power, and I’m fairly certain I’d never be featured on it. But I guess there are more and more people coming in to FA and some of them are going to be, well, really pro-FA. If YKWIM.
I believe our society puts too much emphasis on appearance, including body size and weight. It’s a shame that people are judged undisciplined because of their size.
And I think the obesity epidemic is overstated. And I believe that healthy people come in all sizes.
However I think Jeanette Fulda is a charming young woman who has achieved something important to her and she deserves her moment. Her goal was not to “put down” anyone. I find her to be delightful and an inspiration.
The anger that is felt by those who are criticized for their size, while it is justified, angrily attacking people when they express their viewpoint does little to help the cause. Most thinking people are turned off by it.
Reading these comments and the venom some contained was akin to watching Jerry Springer whose show I find disgusting and therefore do not watch.
If you want to influence people, you must win them over, not offend them.
Good grief! I can’t believe this sparked such outrage.
Mo Pie, I think it’s great you posted it. PQ, I think it’s awesome you took part! Of course, I’m “biased”–I’ve read PQ’s blog start to finish, so I “know” her. And I agree that you can accept yourself but still want to change something. PQ is one of the few people in the world who was able to change this particular thing, and railing on her about it is closed-minded. In the process of getting healthy, she lost weight. And yes, society is rewarding her for it with the book deal. If you don’t like that, don’t buy her book! But there’s no reason to be angry at someone for her personal choices that don’t impact the rest of us at all.
I thought it would be interesting to talk about the intersection of weight loss and fat acceptance that she talks about in her book, and that it might generate an interesting discussion.
And it has. Many of us don’t believe there can be an intersection of deliberate weight loss and fat acceptance, because deliberately losing weight is by definition not accepting fat. You can call it anything else you like, but by definition it is not fat acceptance.
This has lead to us being labelled rude, mean, ignorant, angry, oversensitive (because no one’s ever called a rights movement ‘oversensitive’ or ‘too angry’ before), whiny, and other things I can’t even remember. For insisting that fat acceptance involves accepting fat. There have also been posts displaying a completely stunning level of ignorance of basic FA and HAES concepts, but trying to correct these misconceptions is apparently “worthy of the Jerry Springer show”. You want to talk about depressing, let’s start there.
Anyway, it was never my intent to attack your blog and I don’t believe I did so. It’s this post I have a problem with, and I voiced that problem.
I don’t have alot of sympathy for her contention that she was not accepted on SA boards because she wanted to lose weight. One of the purposes of SA boards is a place where people can be free of diet talk. We are so bombarded with it in this culture, that for those of us who chose to free ourselves from the “only thin is valid mindset,” we absolutely NEED that! We need a place to go to affirm our beautiful large bodies, and not hear the same old negative scripts. I wonder if she stopped to think about how her negativity about her body was impacting other posters??? It violates our safe space!!! There are countless number of web sites where one can engage in diet babble! Why not go there if that better suits one’s goals? I just never understood why folks who literally have thousands of options insist on infultrating the handful of SA boards designed to be free of it. I lose patience with “slimmers” who seem to have a need to get validation from the SA community and there are many out there. I know when I was breaking free from the brainwash I couldn’t handle friends who constantly talked about dieting or indulged in self/fat hatred. I could agree to disagree and leave the topic alone, but if they couldn’t I had to drop them. If they continued to vent despite my feelings I saw it as self absorption. We all have the right to be surrounded by people who will not stand in the way of our own goals.
To me, it seems like she wants it both ways. But then again, she is trying to sell her book!!!
And please let me add, I am not talking about THIS site because the owner obviously has pro diet sympathies. That is her right. I have no issues with people who either want to diet as a personal choice, or want to be “middle of the road.” My qualm is with people who go to boards that are designed to be free of diet/fat negativity then complain they are not accepted when they engage in both!
<i.The fact that this has turned into an attack on this blog, on which I have worked very hard for many years, is quite frankly depressing.
This is a very sensitive issue for many people. I completely understand the frustration and anger. But after being on the receiving end of that anger in the past, I just hope that we can all articulate that anger in ways that do not make Mo or Jennette feel as if their characters are being attacked, also. Mo has never proclaimed BFD to be a strictly FA community, but she has done a lot for the movement and for fat (and thin) folks everywhere. In evaluating our comments, I think we have to ask: “If Mo or Jennette were standing in front of me, face-to-face, how would I phrase my rebuttal to them?” and then post accordingly.
I would also like to add that many of us “old timers” in the movement are naturally feisty. We had to be! When we started, all we had is a paper copy of a newsletter every month. There was no instant support via the internet. We stood alone. What is really sad is that this argument is just a repeat of what I have seen being played out for over 30 years now. Different faces, same script!
As far as thinking about not saying anything we won’t say to their face, I think that is a great idea Rachel! Which is why I changed my screen name to my real last name and included my myspace with a pic of my face. I am a very direct person! So I feel comfortable with my comment. Really, if she does a book tour that comes to Chicago I would pretty much say the same thing in a face to face question. Since she IS promoting a book, that takes it to a different level. Marketing almost always subjugates feelings to profit; I am sure the publisher encourages a bit of fat negativity to promote sales. If one is going to be in that kitchen…..