Because I am a Woman

Diet culture, even when it doesn’t involve surgeries or starvation or physical harm (although it very often does involve these things) is violence. Even the language of diet culture is about hurt: burn those calories, zap that fat, I’ve been so bad, no pain no gain, beat the hunger, crush the cravings, fight the fat, battle the bulge, waging war on obesity. See? All about the hurt. It’s no wonder then that some people seem to perceive fat acceptance as a new kind of danger. Some assume it’s a movement that promotes harm to one’s own body or to the health of others, or even to taxpayers. It doesn’t. It simply illuminates this fact: if there is a war on obesity, there’s a war on ‘obese people’ and those people have a right to resist. So we do, often by opting out of the war altogether and making peace with bodies. I don’t want to fight my body anymore and I sure as hell don’t want to fight yours, whatever size it is. In fact, I don’t even want all that rhetoric about fighting. Why are softer words (embrace, accept, listen) less utilized? Traits commonly seen as ‘feminine’ and therefore weak — like kindness – are actually some of the most effective mechanisms we have to use against fat-hate. It’s hard to sell diet pills to someone who’d like to be gentle on themselves, accept themselves for who they are, listen to what their body needs and embrace size diversity. And it’s hard to see how creating a world without diet pills wouldn’t be a win for feminism.

The diet industry is deeply invested in leading you to believe that your are fat and sick. As a trainer, I talk with women every day who look me right in the eye and start listing all the things that they believe are wrong with themselves. And I’m looking at them thinking ‘you’re freaking BEAUTIFUL woman! There is NOTHING wrong with you at all. If you only could see what every other human being on this planet can see, you would stop wasting all this energy and time hating imaginary flaws.’

The diet industry plants those thoughts, and waters them with marketing, and before too long you’re buying their pills and potions and diet books in the belief that 1. you’re flawed, and 2. their pills and potions and diet books will correct those flaws.

You are not flawed. Not a single one of us, NOT A SINGLE ONE OF US, looks like the models in the magazines and ads. Not even THE MODELS look like the pictures in the magazines. We ALL have lumps and bumps and hairs in crazy places and wrinkles and cellulite and bellies that bulge over our waistbands when we slouch, and no diet book or pill or potion is going to turn you into a photoshopped and professionally lit image on a magazine cover.

Oh and also. Enjoying a special meal and some pie some extra candy on Christmas is not going to ‘ruin all your hard work’ or make you gain 15 pounds. I promise. It’s ok to relax and enjoy time with your family, and that includes EATING THE FOOD that has been lovingly prepared and offered up in celebration. No guilt. No shame. Promise me that you will ENJOY the next few days with every fiber of your being, and enjoying includes letting go of the shame the diet industry tries to shove down your throat.

Love and pie to all. ♥