Tag: advocacy

When a Prominent Fat Activist Dies

A prominent fat activist, not just any fat activist but the chairman of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, has passed at the age of 46. He died of pneumonia which can strike young, healthy people and kill them within days but the “Fitspiration” crowd is too busy gloating and crowing to get the facts. It’s all …

Continue reading

Uncovering the History of Fat Acceptance: Lew Louderback’s 1967 Article

Lew Louderback was darn angry. He was a fat guy with a fat wife and fat people were being discriminated against and unfairly judged quite severely so he did something about it. He unleashed a scathing critique on the treatment of fat Americans that appeared in a national magazine. He exposed some pretty awful truths. And they were true. …

Continue reading

Why I Am an Advocate for Weight Loss Surgery

I already write with some regularity about weight loss surgery but some issues have arisen this week that prompt me to write yet again! For people with 100 lbs or more to lose, it’s a reality of life now that their doctor will talk to them about weight loss surgery and/or they will consider it …

Continue reading

Criticism of Weight Loss Surgery is Vicious Fat Shaming

weight loss surgery

Why should anyone care if someone else has weight loss surgery? It would not seem to be loaded with the controversial moral implications that complicate other healthcare issues like abortion, birth control, or euthanasia. There aren’t any religious admonitions against losing weight. So why all the scathing blog posts, militant opposition, and vitriolic criticism? “It’s …

Continue reading

Managing Our Weight: It’s NOT a Level Playing Field

My primary objective is to break down the paradigm that says if you are overweight, there’s “something wrong” with you and replace that with the fact that some of us are simply born with bodies that want to be larger and brains that want to think about food. It’s only logical! Consider that our culture …

Continue reading

Resolving Our Conflicting Body Image & Weight Conversations

A stranger on Facebook thoroughly bitched me out for not being “supportive” of an extremely overweight woman who had written a post expressing her positive body image and her assertions that she “eats healthy” and gets exercise. She regularly posts photos and elaborate descriptions of her meals with all the delight of an enthralled foodie. …

Continue reading

“Flab to Fabulous Pageant” Fades Away

It seems unlikely that the “Flab to Fabulous Pageant” will go off as announced at the end of May or sometime in August or whenever, it was never all that certain just WHEN this thing was happening. The pageant’s Facebook page has not had a “Like” in months and there are just a handful of …

Continue reading

Political and Moral Aspects of Weight Advocacy & Fat Acceptance

I navigate the concept of “fat acceptance” with reticence. It’s sure to incite emotional responses, sometimes even hostility. Weight has become intensely “politicized” and “emotionalized” in our society. How should we consider political and moral aspects of weight advocacy? Are there lines to be drawn? There are two primary issues to address, first of all …

Continue reading

Why Do You Fail at Losing Weight?

I was fat all my life. It wasn’t until my mid-forties that I finally found what I needed to do to take my weight under control and find a way out of what had caused and maintained an undercurrent of anxiety and even torment in my life. I’ve had to fight off feelings of regret …

Continue reading

The Most Important Thing You’ll Ever Read About Obesity

If you deal with weight at all, you need to be following the writing of Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, founder of the Bariatric Medical Institute in Ottawa. Click to read his blog, Weighty Matters. Dr. Freedhoff writes quite a bit and I just read an article that appeared in in the Huffington Post. Dr. Freedhoff addresses …

Continue reading