Let's End the FAT Talk

I have signed up to the promise! I love being curvy and not being stick thin.

Leetid

http://lifeofleetid.blogspot.com

This is the name of a documentary I saw when I was in my early thirties, and unhappy with that size six after having 4 babies. I too look back at those pictures and think, what a waste of energy.

The point of the documentary was that for most people, all the effort is just that, wasted energy, we are who we are.

Toward the end of the program, a doctor made a statement that I will paraphrase here: Think of all the progress we could make as women toward solving the world's problems,if we just channeled all that energy we spend on our weight.

Of course I still watch what I eat and try to keep my body strong and healthy, and as G-Money pointed out, I always have 5 pounds to lose. This year I am making a conscious effort to not obsess about weight.
Adela
www.oncealittlegirl.wordpress.com ( http://www.oncealittlegirl.wordpress.com )
www.theblacktortoise.com ( http://www.theblacktortoise.com )

Adela
www.oncealittlegirl.wordpress.com ( http://www.oncealittlegirl.wordpress.com )
www.theblacktortoise.com ( http://www.theblacktortoise.com )

I'm still actively attempting to NOT do the fat talk. It slapped me in the face that society/tv/whatever is already showing our girls that enough without me participating when my 6 year old stood in the mirror today and said "I LOOK SKINNY!"

It took my breath away, in a really bad way.

- Maria Young

immoralmatriarch.com ( http://immoralmatriarch.com )

@maria0305 ( http://twitter.com/maria0305 )

Plenty of us - both adults and children - are fighting a REAL battle of weight. The consequences are well beyond how we look in our bathing suits - there are dire health consequences.

Some of us talk about the topic not because we fall short of looking like Barbie, but because we are concerned about very real things such as high blood pressure and type-2 diabetes.

We cannot pretend those things away. We need to get the taboo topics out where where they can be discussed in the light of day - without superficial judgments but with real concerns for our own health and the health of our children.

It's the right balance between the two sides that is the tricky part. Let's not bury our health concerns under a blanket of denial simply to avoid coming across as superficial.

I agree with you that too many people who needn't be concerned are, but in our quest to put their minds at ease, let's not create collateral damage regarding those who should be addressing a real issue and are not.

This tightrope is a treacherous thing to walk - we ought to approach it from a position of optimizing our health and fitness so we can keep our balance and put our best foot forward.

JustLinda

fabulously imperfect Nothing to See Here... Just Linda ( http://justlinda.net )

Twitter @JustLindaSTL

I started my blog White Girl With a Fat Ass to refocus all the negative energy and time wasted by my body issues. Recently, I found out that I've put back on all the weight I lost during my BareAss 2008! campaign on my blog. I am so discouraged to start all over again and have been too embarrassed to admit my failure until now.

Even though I need to get my weight back down for health reasons, I was just thinking this morning what if this time I don't wait to be "happy" until I get back down to a certain size or weight? And embrace who I am now. Buy new spring clothes now instead of waiting a few more weeks to shed some pounds. Celebrate life and how I look now while simultaneously finding new healthy practices to implement. Instead of punishing my self-proclaimed failure. What kind of difference might that make?

I have a young niece and I would hate to see her spend her childhood negatively focused on her body like I did. I would love to blast Fat Talk off the planet for her!

White Girl With a Fat Ass

www.jellykean.wordpress.com ( http://www.jellykean.wordpress.com/ )

Wow - great video - thanks for sharing.

Just last night, I attended a reading by author Frances Kuffel, who wrote two great books about her weight struggles: "Passing for Thin" and "Angry Fat Girls".

At the event, one young woman who had lost 80 pounds asked Frances if the "questions ever stopped" -- she was speaking of the well-meaning family and friends who make derogatory comments about her former "heavy" body as if it were another person, constantly ask her how she did it and if she's buying lots of new clothes.

This is another example of harmful Fat Talk: weight issues and food addicition tend to be very complex problems that go much deeper than food choices and workout schedules.

Given the scope of the world's problems, ending "FAT Talk" may seem trivial, but in fact, it is a bit of kindness you can contribute to other women...that might, in the end, change someone's life for the better.

Michele Coppola is a Portland-based writer and radio personality whose most recent work has been published in the feminist journals So To Speak and Melusine. Find her blog at www.coppolawords.com ( http://www.coppolawords.com )

Yes, it is hard to feel good about ourselves sometimes. Especially when we look back at old pictures of ourselves. I look back to pictures only 5 years ago and remember that I thought I was fat then and have gained at least 15 pounds since then. Really makes me wonder, if I thought I was fat 5 years ago and now am bigger, how did I let that happen? (And I haven't even put my body through pregnancy or parenthood yet, which would be an acceptable excuse I think).

There are so many men out there that don't like the skinny model types! (I know we aren't supposed to rely on what men think, but it does affect us, in a big way) I wish there was some kind of campaign where men would speak out about the body types they like. I think a surprising number would say they like a girl with 'meat on her bones'.

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