Shut Your Fat Mouth

 











Pun intended. I have just recently begun exploring more openly food/body image/body acceptance issues in my own life in an open and honest way and feel I am just barely sliding one foot through that door, but come to think about it, it's time to kick the door wide open.

I am so sick of living in a culture that accepts and idolizes women starving themselves and being skinny-equating thin with healthy-while mocking heavy and even healthy-for-your-height weights, perpetuating this unrealistic image and condoning fatphobia.  I am so tired of heavy, curvy, or one of my favorite adjectives, thick girls getting treated as if they are lazy, uneducated, or unhealthy while I watch friends waste away to skin and bones trying to adhere to some obscene and truly unhealthy weight, losing their hair and sometimes losing their periods, yet people telling them they look fabulous.  Living in a culture where we are continually bombarded by contradicting images; commercials of fast food, "junk" food, processed foods many are supposed to deem "bad" (not that I think processed food or fast food is particularly good for you, but that can be a whole other piece on it's own) and yet we should all have six-pack abs and aspire to look like Kate Moss.  We are continuously given reinforcements that if we do have more junk in the trunk/more cushion for the pushin' (whichever phrase you prefer) we should be striving to be thin, because then and only then we will be happy, content, healthy. Many celebrity women have reinforced this message: Kelly Osborne, Jennifer Hudson who is now the famous face of Weight Watchers, Kirstie Allie who has yo-yo'd for years (and publicly ridiculed for it), and I think the woman who has been one of the most vocal about her struggles with weight is Oprah.

But even Oprah with all of her openness hasn't expressed being in a place of acceptance.  The message is clear-it's a continuous struggle; she made it clear back in the eighties before she was the empire that she is today: "This is the battle of my life." I wish the article in Bitch magazine online went a bit more in- depth, but I appreciate the writer's point of view and for, "[expecting] at least one voice representing fat acceptance to be present during this final OWS episode on weight."

I don't know a single woman who hasn't or doesn't continue to struggle with her weight/body image, whether that means trying to lose or gain or simply maintain. I definitely have had and continue to have a love/hate relationship with my body.   And I don't remember the last time a group of women got together and discussed things they like about themselves. All of the energy I spend on swinging from accepting to loathing to feeling indifferent to wanting to be in a place of acceptance of where I am, but also working towards being in the place I want to be; and yes, that does include losing weight, but it does not include starving myself, bingeing and purging, working out 8 hours a day, or only eating like a rabbit. 

Several fellow Ithaca College alumni also have blogs (you can find them in my list of blogs to check out in the right-hand column Amy, Marissa, and Steff).  It was in a guest post on Steff's blog that introduced me to a woman Golda Poretsky, founder of Body Love Wellness, with a philosophy about healthy at every size.

Through a free phone session with Golda from that post, I have joined her 4 month program and am starting to find community with like-minded women. In the phone session, I mentioned this blog, and generously, Golda is offering the first 5 readers a FREE Body Love Breakthrough session.  This is your chance to talk directly with Golda about any struggles with body image and food and get solutions instead of staying stuck! To sign-up for this FREE opportunity, go to: http://www.bodylovewellness.com/shapedbymylife/!