The most controversial post I have ever published on this blog was about the song All About that Bass. I can’t link to the post because I made it private. I grew tired of the daily onslaught of aggressive, intolerant comments. The comments from those who are here regularly were fine. Even those who disagreed did so thoughtfully and respectfully, as always. The ones from strangers were what moved me to delete comments, something I had never before done in almost 7 years of blogging. Had they been from regular readers, I would have kept them and rolled my eyes at the delivery. But when a stranger looking for a fight Googles the song and then stumbles upon this blog, I won’t keep comments that say I should be ashamed of myself for being fat or that skinny “bitches” have no right to complain about their bodies.
Thank you for your opinions, Collective Haters of the Internet, LLC. Excuse me while I search for a filament of interest to devote to your ramblings. Look at that! I’ve got nothing.
Of the people who comment here regularly, two really stuck out. Naomi’s was one of them.
The second every single woman stops saying sh!#*y things about other women to their friends, their husbands, and their children THEN there will be no more of this. As a happy fat person (yep, HAPPY FAT PERSON), I am sick to death of hearing about women feeling berated, put down, and crucified because of a number on a clothing label.
We are all beautiful. We have come through our journeys and our heartaches and our achievements with dignity and grace. We have men and women that love us for who we truly are. We have children who think we hung the moon. If it�s hard to love yourself right now, I understand. Begin loving yourself by embracing all of the women you see around you. Lift them up, and you�ll lift yourself up, too.
My reply:
Tell me how you got to be a happy fat person. I�m fat, but I can�t say I�m happy about it.
Naomi emailed me back with some resources for body acceptance, one of them being the work of Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphromor. I had heard of Health At Every Size (HAES) via The Fat Nutritionist. The idea that one can be healthy at any size goes against everything I grew up believing, and probably still believe subconsciously. My library doesn’t carry Healthy at Every Size, but on a hunch I went to NetGalley to see if they had the new book, Body Respect, available for review. They did, which I took as a nudge from God.
I read the book and found myself highlighting every other page. I enjoyed it so much that I’m buying myself a copy to keep on my nightstand. I should buy several copies for work, home, traveling, and meeting new people so that I can place them in my environment strategically, like emergency exits and fire extinguishers.
HAES does not claim that everyone is at a healthy weight. What it does do is ask for respect and help people shift their focus away from changing their size to enhancing their self-care behaviors–so they let weight fall where it may naturally. It also keeps the role of lifestyle as a risk factor for disease in perspective.
Body Respect
The Health at Every Size Manifesto
Refuse to fight in an unjust war. Join the new peace movement:
�Health at Every Size� (HAES). HAES acknowledges that well-being and healthy habits are more important than any number on the scale. Participating is simple:1. Accept your size.
Love and appreciate the body you have. Self-acceptance empowers you to move on and make positive changes.2. Trust yourself.
We all have internal systems designed to keep us healthy�and at a healthy weight. Support your body in naturally finding its appropriate weight by honoring its signals of hunger, fullness, and appetite.3. Adopt healthy lifestyle habits.
Develop and nurture connections with others and look for purpose and meaning in your life. Fulfilling your social, emotional, and spiritual needs restores food to its rightful place as a source of nourishment and pleasure.
- Find the joy in moving your body and becoming more physically vital in your everyday life.
- Eat when you�re hungry, stop when you�re full, and seek out pleasurable and satisfying foods.
- Tailor your tastes so that you enjoy more nutritious foods, staying mindful that there is plenty of room for less nutritious choices in the context of an overall healthy diet and
lifestyle.4. Embrace size diversity.
Humans come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Open to the beauty found across the spectrum and support others in recognizing their unique attractiveness.
It’s what I’ve been working at for years, but I still can’t seem to get it together. It amazes me that I can achieve so much in so many areas of my life but still completely and utter fail when it comes to my weight and my body.
We cannot emphasize enough the value in lightening up around the judgment you may feel about your body and your weight. The judgment evokes despair as you believe there is something wrong with you, meaning you are not entitled to the food that you want, and you need to deprive yourself as punishment or remedy for your “overweight.”
Body Respect
I have gained 10 pounds since I stopped dieting. It feels like a million. I’m short, so I’m convinced it looks like a million, too. I sometimes feel so uncomfortable in my own skin, ugly and undesirable. I hate taking pictures of myself or meeting people on a good day. Now, the idea makes me short of breath. We take school pictures on the 14th of October (see how I have the date memorized?) and I can’t stop thinking about how I will look in the picture.
Letting go of dieting often feels like the worst mistake I ever made until I read books like this one and am offered hope and validation. It’s enough to keep trying, even when I’d rather give up, and to remind me that I am more than the size of my clothing.
It can be hard to accept your body and build a coherent sense of identity when you are bombarded with messages that you need to change, so remember to show yourself compassion. The more you differ–and permit yourself to differ–from the social ideal, the more alone you may feel, at least at first. Conforming to media-imposed beauty standards and socially imposed gender norms is a path of least resistance and may seem easier than challenging them. But is it really easier? In the long run, you will more likely find peace in your body and contentment by throwing over those outwardly determined values and setting up your own yardsticks for attractiveness and value.
What is happening externally always starts internally. How I feel about my body image depends on how I am feeling internally. If I ate something that makes my body react and hurts me, I feel yucky and unhealthy and have a hard time looking in the mirror thinking I look great. Then there are days where I go for a hike, read a great book, eat something my body sings about and I look in the mirror thinking hey, lookin’ good today. For some, self-love comes easy and naturally, for others it can be a life long battle. I figure I go with what the day brings and if I feel ‘un-fit or un-healthy’ it is only up to me to do something about it. So, I need to eat better and exercise in a way that feels right for me. For me, I want to be fit and healthy and feel energized and feel good about who I am. For me, it is about loving myself as I transform and transcend and shed my own old skins. I will love myself in the various forms of self, even if that also means loving myself in the moments of self-hatred (wrap your head around that one).
Maybe, that is it. Just finding what it is for you …
I think what Naomi is saying is that she is a happy person — that whatever weight she is, she has learned not to interfere with how she lives her life. Currently, I am about 50 pounds overweight, and I am not happy about it. Still, I have never felt comfortable or confident in my own skin. Growing up, I was skinny-skinny, and I remember wanting to have at least some curve to my calves. I hated how clothes practically fell off my body. Then around 9th grade, I grew boobs, like, overnight. They were quite large, particularly on my thin frame. I had to start wearing giant tent t-shirts to accommodate them, which looked silly with my tiny little bird legs hanging out the bottom. Playing tennis (my sport of choice) was instantly harder, as I tried to navigate each stroke around those strange new appendages. I was teased mercilessly through high school and college by both boys and girls (some maliciously, others ignorantly), and I had to pretend not to notice the the stares or hear the sick comments from men of all ages, everyday. After I had my first baby, I remember asking my OB what I could do to get rid of the little pooch left just above my C-section scar — and he said nothing, that I would just have to live with it because that was part of the scar.
So I, too, do not feel comfortable in my own skin, in my own overweight body. But I really don’t ever remember feeling comfortable with it. Instead, I consider what my body has accomplished (and continues to do, everyday): given birth to two perfect (-ish!) kids, given hugs and snuggles and kisses, walked me up (and down) real mountains, taken me through Disney World with two small children, get me through each day relatively pain-free, etc. I work out not because I expect to feel better about my body (or even to lose weight), but to live longer and better.
I hope you find peace, Jules, but it is often a singular journey. I wish I could give you a squishy hug, and help you believe it will all be okay. It will.
You make an excellent point. Even at my thinnest–and I was pretty darn think at size 4!–I was never really happy with myself. I try to remind myself how horrified I would be if the boys treated themselves as I treat myself.
p.s. Thank you. :)
“I sometimes feel so uncomfortable in my own skin, ugly and undesirable.”
:(
Your words sum up precisely how I (sitting on the other side of the fence, weight-wise) feel much of the time. Naomi’s comment from that earlier discussion really spoke to me as well. She was so bang-on with it – every single thing she said – and I’ve been trying, in the time since that post and discussion, to incorporate that positive message and to override that self-hating and deflating voice in my head. I wish I could say I was 100% successful, but it’s not easy to quell a voice that’s been chanting the same damaging mantra for so many years. It definitely helps, as Julie said above, to think about all the amazing stuff this body has accomplished over the years. Wishing you (and me, and all others who need it!) peace and acceptance, and sending a big internet hug to you, Jules.
(And I have to add: I’ve often wondered, in the intervening time since the original discussion, if I was too vehement in my disagreement, if my passionate rant about what I perceived as injustice, came off as rude and disrespectful. I try not to make assumptions, but I truly am hoping that I’m included as one of your regular readers who, as you put it, “disagreed…thoughtfully and respectfully.”)
I actually thought your comment was brilliant. I LOVED it, especially the part about bringing people up doesn’t count if you stomp on other people to do it. That’s part of the reason why I started deleting comments. If someone struggling with their body image reads “skinny people don’t know what it’s like/have no right complaining,” how does that help? How is me leaving that comment up for everyone to see any different than giving my silent support to the statement?
I actually don’t remember making the post private. I imagine I did because at the time the response was so bizarrely aggressive that I feared turning off the comments would only bring an influx of hateful emails.
I really feel for you.
I’m totally behind you in the journey to accept and embrace the body you have!
I mean, I’m not standing behind you or anything. No, uh, I’m at work. HA that sentence maybe makes it sound like I’m pushing you forward like a lawnmower YOU’RE GOING ON A JOURNEY JULES YOU’RE QUEEN OF THE WOOORRRLD ON THE S.S. HAES! and you’re like “wow the internet gets weird sometimes”.
In conclusion: not a stalker.
Haha! :)
It makes me sad that you had to take down your other post, because I really, really appreciated it. I don’t think I told you that at the time, so I wanted to tell you now. Thanks.
I’m going to put it back up and see what happens. It really is a shame because the comments were really great.
I’m just now reading this post (I am so behind in reading my blogs, I have 59 unread posts in my feed!) and I hope you’ve put the post back up. I wanted to send it to someone who thinks the song is the greatest and seems to think it’s accepting of everyone.
I’ve pretty much realized that I’m never going to be happy with my body….so in a way I’m at peace with that. I continue to eat healthy and exercise, but I know I’ll never look in the mirror and think I look good, despite people telling me otherwise. I’m at the point that I just try not to make it a priority or an obsession, and I try not to talk about it to others. Sad reality, but I don’t really see that changing for me. I do try not to judge others though, and I’m actually pretty successful at that. Best of luck with your change in mindset :)
Thank you, Alicia. :)
This is so difficult! I really crave the sense of peace some have found with their bodies whether, overweight or not . As an overweight person, the part of me that hasn’t been willing or able to lose the weight thinks books like these are just an excuse to stop trying and to avoid the really hard work that weight loss, and sometimes health, requires. The four points make sense but still call for the changes that result in weight loss. Is that just a round about way to diet and lose the weight? So confused about how to gain self-acceptance.
I , too, really liked the first post and was sorry that it had to be taken down.
Also: you win the internet
“Thank you for your opinions, Collective Haters of the Internet, LLC. Excuse me while I search for a filament of interest to devote to your ramblings. Look at that! I�ve got nothing.”
CLASSIC!
It is so hard! And I fully admit to having the same thoughts you have about books like this.
So sorry you had to take down an excellent post because some people can’t control themselves. *sigh*
This was a wonderfully written post. I think every single woman in America struggles with body image & issues, no matter where we fall on the spectrum. I think I mentioned before that I’ve stopped dieting and GASP! It is DIFFICULT! So much harder than I ever realized. More ingrained than I knew. I have worked on just learning to respect my body and not assign everything ‘good’ and ‘bad’ tags, but rather pay attention to how I feel. It’s a process. Every.Single. Day. This books sounds excellent and realistic in the sense that it’s not saying, ‘overnight everything will be amazing & perfect and you will love yourself!’ It’s about building respect & trust with yourself. HA! In the Who Knew category!
As Susan said, ‘ you totally win the internet’ :)
It’s impossible not to diet! It’s by far the hardest thing I have ever done. Haha–laughing at the Who Knew category. SERIOUSLY. :)
It is practically impossible not to diet in our culture. When you don’t, people (mostly, sadly, women) look at you with the squinty eye either implying you should be on a diet or perhaps you are doing something sketchy if you are already considered thin. When I say to people that “I’m just eating. Not too much. Mostly unprocessed/homemade at home” squinty eyes peer at me skeptically with a note of judgment more often than not. Sometimes those squinty eyes? They’re mine.
Aww Jules I’m sorry you had to take down that post! I just heard that song the other day and thought to myself “Hey self, remember that awesome post that Jules wrote about that song? You should go back and read it again.” Sad it’s gone, but thanks for taking the time/courage to write it, and this one as well. You are awesome. Also, if the photos I’ve seen on Instagram and your blog are any indication, you are effing gorgeous :)
I’m a very good double chin hider. :)
I’m going to put the post up. I didn’t realize people might want me to keep it.
As always, so much to think about here. I had a conversation with Taylor the other day, as she has noticed I’ve been eating differently on the cleanse. I’m hoping that my explanation about doing it for health not because of looks, sticks with her, but who knows, some days I feel like we will never know how much we truly screwed them up, or helped them, until it’s too late.
Any way I can see the original post btw? Would love to read it, sorry I missed it
I always say that my goal is to screw up the boys as little as possible. It’s assumed I’ll do something wrong. I’m shooting for degrees, not success. :)
Yes, I’m putting the post back up. :)
Jules, have you seen the documentary “Fed Up” yet? We’ve been eating poison for so long. Too much, and all designed to tell us we’re still hungry and we want more. It’s horrifying, truly (and when watched with the documentary “Inequality for All”, you realize how much of this started in our lifetimes – the mid-70s to present day. I highly recommend both).
I recall your “Bass” post and was thankful for the perspective. I received far more attacks on my body when I was really skinny (something that stress from a bad breakup, the loss of my father, starting law school, and trying to control all the things was responsible for) – “are you sure you aren’t anorexic?” “you’d be prettier if you gained a few pounds…” “you are so skinny it’s disgusting…” which all made me feel terrible. Clothes fit well; my body felt utterly unfeminine. Somewhere in the ball of stress, food became an enemy. It felt bad. Tasted bad. Made me nauseated. Not because I didn’t want to eat or gain weight- I did.
In the 10-15 years since that time, I’ve gained about 35 pounds. I’m short, too, and I struggle with my weight far more here than I did when I was tiny (because I do feel like I’m carrying more than is healthy for my frame, and because I don’t like the way I look in most clothes right now). I’m astonished that it’s so hard just to pick a number, land there, and stay there. Somewhere just south of here, I feel curvy enough to be feminine, but thin enough to be acceptable.
It’s a tiny window. It’s brutal.
Most of the time I’m happy with most of me. And that’s a good start. But I’m finding being in my thirties, fighting some chronic medical stuff, and my body to be an interesting intersection to exist within.
That documentary sounds great. I’ll look for it. I’ve been thinking about you lately, actually, because I stopped all my rosacea medication and started using essential oils. My face looks the best it has in years!
Sounds like I missed a riveting blog discussion! I have to say that being pregnant for the first time right now, I have never felt so comfortable with my body (while at the same time, uncomfortable IN my body). I feel like I was perpetually pulling at my shirt or sucking in my stomach to hide what couldn’t be hidden. And now I can’t and instead I watch my growing belly with anticipation. Does this feeling go away when the baby is out? I feel like it is the tiniest glimpse of what body acceptance must feel like.
Pregnancy has always been when I feel my best and most empowered. It never lasted for me, but that doesn’t mean it can’t for you. Do it! Your children will thank you for it.
p.s. Congrats on the baby! :) <3
Ugh. It breaks my heart that your post about being positive about all bodies was destroyed by people who couldn’t understand. I’m someone who easily would have heard that song and thought, “oh hey, this is great! Body love!” And then missed the fact that it also kind of insults people who aren’t curvy�so, I really loved it and REALLY loved your overall point of appreciating our bodies as healthy vehicles for our selves. Sigh.
But the real point of this comment is yes. All of this. It’s so achingly difficult to love ourselves in this world that continues to tell us, no matter what we look like, that we aren’t right. I read this post this morning over my coffee and had to wait to comment because I just have so many thoughts on it. And I’m still not sure they are organized at all, or make any logical sense, other than to say a resounding YES. Our fight over this becomes so much more internal. I work with college students, and when I hear them talk about having to go to the gym to work off something they ate, it breaks my heart. Not that I don’t think it, but by 29, I am a little more practiced at not saying that to myself, thankfully. I want to scream to them “Don’t abuse yourself! Work out because you want to feel fit, because you want to prove what your body can do and feel the power of it. Eat to power your body and also for enjoyment. None of this is meant to be punishment or reward so don’t connect your body, food, and exercise to your overall worth!”
We can’t keep connecting our body status to our value and reward or punish it with food accordingly and the only way I have EVER found to separate those things is to find the value and power in my body and what it can do. In summary, I’m just as confused as you, but I’m deeply in it with you�and everyone else. I hope we get there.
That’s what was so insane about the comments! All I suggested is that we should be accepting of ALL bodies, and that the song glorified one body type at the expense of another. The response was so bizarre.
1) This comes at a perfect time as I have some functions coming up and I want to be thinner. So I decided to join a DietBet and a 14 day sugar detox. Because, if you’re going to do it – go BIG or go home. So I’m now I’m sitting here with a massive sugar/caffeine withdrawal headache, craving those damn Brach’s pumpkins that I would otherwise not even think, and beating myself up because I JUST NEED TO BE THIN ALREADY. Anyway, the point of all that being I think that my unhealthy attitude toward food – cheating, control, all that nonsense – is what is contributing to my unhealthy weight. When I was thin, I ate – what I wanted, when I wanted. It wasn’t until I wanted to lose 5 pounds and started dieting that I started having weight issues. I need to pick up that book,
2) I also was just thinking about your “All about that Bass” post because it’s only recently started to play in our Midwest market (we are way behind the musical times) and much like “Blurred Lines” I really, really want to not like it. But it’s so damn dance worthy!! Why do they have to make such trash songs so fun sounding!?!
I know you’ll shrug off this compliment, but you are seriously beautiful. I’ve seen you in person and it’s true.
I have a suggestion to ease your mind ahead of the school picture thing: Sit down with your phone or your camera of choice and take a million selfies. Seriously. Try different poses. Laugh, squint, make funny faces. Don’t let the camera own you. You own it. Take its power away.
Most importantly, resist the urge to delete. Keep them all. Look at them a week later with objective eyes, and keep in mind your favorite so you can ask the photographer to take a pic of your “good side.” (Everyone has one.)
Keep being the rock star you are.
This is excellent advice. I have been taking ton of pictures of myself lately–I don’t share them but I don’t delete them & then when I look back at them later, I tend to like more than I did the first time.
I think I need to read this book. I claim that these ideas are my beliefs, but I’m not really living them. I need to work on this one
“Develop and nurture connections with others and look for purpose and meaning in your life. Fulfilling your social, emotional, and spiritual needs restores food to its rightful place as a source of nourishment and pleasure.”
I tried to embrace exercise for exercise’s sake, but as the fat girl in the Zumba class I know people are expecting me to lose weight, and that extends to me expecting me to lose weight. (especially as I watch my self in the mirror for 60 minutes.)
One day I was wearing a more flattering top than usual and someone complimented me and said it “must be working.” In fact, my increased exercise is helping– it is helping me have more energy, be less stressed, bike up hill without getting winded, it has helped my legs and arms become stronger, and I like to think it is helping my bones & heart stay strong. That’s not what people want to see though. To be a success, I have to lose weight. I have to keep reminding myself that my success is measured in how consistently I have been going.
The other things that drives me crazy is that people think skinny=health. My husband is naturally thin. He eats pretty healthfully now, but he weighed the same when is diet consisted of beer, M&Ms & Cheeze-its. You can’t always see healthy from the outside.
People tend to automatically compliment weight loss like it is a an accomplishment, for some people it is a sign of stress or illness. Thin doesn’t always equal healthy, so it stands to reason that fat doesn’t necessarily equal unhealthy.
I have seen many doctors lately, as a cancer patient & they never comment on my weight. They have only ever told me to not smoke, drink in moderation or not at all, exercise & take a basic vitamin & calcium. Sometimes I have to remind myself that those are the important things.
The only point I want to emphasize here is regarding the school pictures, becaue I know you are continuing to work on your health and nutrition – it is a continuum with everything else and only you can get to that place of acceptance. But think about this:
“You are more than the size of your clothing.” Yes, you ARE. What will the kids think of you when they look at the yearbook this year (if you do yearbooks, our elementary does)? What will they think 20 years from now?
They will see your face, and your smile, and the lady who introduced them to their favorite book, or fanfic, or decorations in the library, or the one teacher who really, really paid attention to them (because no matter how awesome, we all have that one teacher).
They won’t see the things YOU see and cringe at. They will see the light and love and acceptance in your eyes.
You are making progress on this journey. I dare you to enjoy your photo.
YES!!! 1,000 times, yes!
MichelleJean is exactly right.