Announcing the 2018 ASDAH conference!

We’re excited to announce the theme, dates, and location of ASDAH’s next international conference.

Theme: Uniting Against Oppression: Navigating the Learning Curves in the Health at Every Size® Movement

Date and location: August 3rd-5th, 2018 in Portland, Oregon

Here’s how we’re thinking about the conference theme. ASDAH is a social justice oriented organization that is committed to promoting size diversity for everyone while dismantling the systems and behaviors that contribute to size oppression. Recognizing that size discrimination does not occur in isolation, ASDAH seeks to utilize an intersectional approach that acknowledges intersections of race, socioeconomic status, gender, and able-bodiedness, among other forms of oppression.

While some of us have been doing this social justice work for decades, others of us are newer to the journey of exploring privilege and oppression. Similarly, while some of us are experts in the HAES® principles, others have recently been introduced to these life-changing concepts. This year’s conference is designed with these learning curves in mind, as we seek to unify under our clarity of the ASDAH mission, providing enriching content for everyone.

This year’s conference theme is greatly informed by the last conference, “Difficult Conversations: Building Relationships in the HAES® Community and Beyond.” We want to continue the work that started in 2015 and acknowledge that we are still learning and growing. On this journey, we are all students. We all have much un-packing and re-learning to do around the ways we have been indoctrinated into oppressive thinking by “othering” individuals, bodies, places, and cultures.

This conference is for all of us. We will have sessions for beginners in anti-oppression and HAES® work, and sessions for “veterans” in applying what they have learned regarding social justice in the context of their professional, clinical, or advocacy work. The goal here is to be welcoming and open to each other, understanding that we all have gathered unified in spirit to stand against size oppression around weight stigma, as well as others forms of oppression. We have all gathered because we care. We have a stake in this work because dismantling oppressive systems matter to us. We will create a brave space. Stronger through our differences, we are here to navigate the learning curves. Together.

Does that sound like it could help inspire, inform, and build support for your work? We’ll be announcing the Call for Proposals, sponsorship opportunities, and more ways to participate in the coming weeks.

ASDAH has been convening conferences for more than a decade, most recently in 2015 in Boston. That event’s description and inspiring list of conference sessions are a good source of context on the conversation preceding the 2018 event. We’re also excited about this year’s conference art, made by the incredible Shoog Mcdaniel.

We hope you’ll consider joining us in Portland next Summer – and we hope you’ll help spread the word among your colleagues and friends.

Want to learn more and get updates about the conference as we publish them? Join us on Facebook where practitioners and the HAES community discuss this and other issues on the ASDAH page, follow our updates posted on Twitter, watch your email inbox if you’re at ASDAH member (it’s easy to join!), or follow this blog!

Thanks for your support, we hope to see you in Portland next Summer!

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Rosie O’Donnell Was Wrong To Fat-Shame donald

I was so disappointed to hear that Rosie O’Donnell joined in on fat-shaming donald on Twitter. It’s really not ok no matter what he weighs or how much weight he has or hasn’t gained. The real problem is that the thread she Tweeted out to her 1.09 million followers is a cesspool of size bigotry – including the constant no-less-wrong-just-because-it’s-so-predicable conflation of weight and health.

In looking at the thread that she links to (which is not linked to here because I’ll not give it clicks) I’m extra disappointed to find that so many of the people who are gleefully engaging in fat-shaming have Twitter pages that are absolutely full of social justice posts. The idea that fat is the last acceptable prejudice is total bullshit – there is way too much prejudice and it’s all far too acceptable, what this does remind me of, is that people who are vocally anti-racist, anti-homophobia, anti-transphobia, anti-misogyny, anti-ableism and more are often still absolutely comfortable engaging in and supporting fat-shaming (Melissa Toler wrote an incredible piece about this here.)

There are those who will claim that it’s ok because donald regularly fat-shames people, or because he is an absolutely despicable racist, xenophobic, islamophobic, homophobic, transphobic, fatphobic, ableist, misogynist sexual predator who installed white supremacists into the highest levels of our government while constantly trying to give less to people who already get crumbs while he and his cronies steal every cookie from the jar.

Those people are wrong.  There is more than enough material to criticize donald from now until the end of days without taking cheap shots at his size. In fact, his body might be the only thing about him that isn’t a problem – there is absolutely nothing wrong with donald’s body.  Besides which, answering his bigotry with size bigotry is super screwed up.

Speaking of donald’s bigotry, when he fat-shamed Rosie in the past, she was justifiably furious (and, happily, a lot of people backed her up,) so why go after donald’s weight and, in the process, add to the notion that there’s something wrong with fat bodies?

The thing is, it really isn’t about donald at all. It’s about us. With our speech, our actions (and our Tweets)  we are always either helping to dismantle fatphobia or we are adding to it.  Let’s choose to solve the problem rather than become it.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support fat activism and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

NEW!!! Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!

Over the course of eighteen self-paced, content-packed, quick videos you’ll get the tools you need to create healthy relationships with food, movement, and your body, and you’ll map out a path to health that makes sense for you, in an easily digestible format. Built-in tools allow you to track your progress and keep notes individually or as a group.
Click here for all the details and to register!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

If you are uncomfortable with my selling things on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

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A Resort Just for Fat People

Fat people should be accommodated by the all the same places that thin people should be accommodated. That statement shouldn’t be controversial, and it shouldn’t even need to be said.

Sadly, that’s not the way the world works right now.  Fat people can’t even be guaranteed accommodation when our lives depend on it – with healthcare facilities not bothering to have blood pressure cuffs, chairs, or beds to fit us, ambulances to accommodate us, with medicine doses not tested on fat people, and medical students prevented from working on fat cadavers, and with surgeons allowed to refuse to give us routine surgery while requiring us to risk death with dangerous surgery we don’t need.

So if we can’t even count on those who are charged with saving our lives to accommodate us, how can we count on vacation spots?  The truth is that we can’t. It’s possible for a fat person to pay a lot to go on vacation only to find that the chairs, beds, resort restaurants, even the poolside chairs don’t accommodate us.

So, while we do the slow and difficult work of creating a world that isn’t full of sizeism and fatphobia, it also makes complete sense to create and enjoy spaces just for us, and James King’s “The Resort” in the Bahamas is exactly that. James is not a fat person, but he was working at another resort when he saw a chair break because it wasn’t built properly to accommodate the woman who was trying to sit in it.  Then the hotel tried to charge the woman for the chair.

James says [Content Warning – the linked article uses words that pathologize body size, and obviously the comments are a dumpster fire of fatphobia.) ““I tried to convince the owners that we needed furniture other than this plastic flimsy stuff, and they didn’t care. I decided that I had to do something.” And so he did – including having to design all the furniture and have it built because, as he says “We needed beds that are able to hold up to 1,500 lbs., we needed lounge furniture and beach furniture that doesn’t break. And it just doesn’t exist. So everything that we have there I had to create and prototype.”

And it worked!  “The response has been phenomenal,” King says. “I’ve been booked all year and about 10 percent of that is repeat customers, which is amazing when you’ve only been open for two years.”

Fat people deserve to be accommodated and included in all aspects of daily life and The Resort is a step in the right direction.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support fat activism and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

NEW!!! Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!

Over the course of eighteen self-paced, content-packed, quick videos you’ll get the tools you need to create healthy relationships with food, movement, and your body, and you’ll map out a path to health that makes sense for you, in an easily digestible format. Built-in tools allow you to track your progress and keep notes individually or as a group.
Click here for all the details and to register!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

If you are uncomfortable with my selling things on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

 

 

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Sitcom “Mom” Should Know That Fat Suits Aren’t Funny

The sitcom “Mom” has decided to hide Jaime Pressly’s pregnancy by having her wear a fat suit and pretend to be “addicted” to food. In the past the show has dealt with alcohol and gambling addiction and they plan to deal with food the same way.

That’s a hot mess. The idea of “food addiction” being the same as an addiction to alcohol or gambling is highly controversial for a number of reasons, including the fact that nobody needs to drink alcohol or gamble so “abstinence” is possible, but everyone needs to eat.

If what they are actually talking about is a health condition such as Binge Eating Disorder, they should know that  binge eating issues happen to people of all sizes, so conflating them with her new body size fat suit, is playing to stereotypes and creating a confusing and inaccurate message about eating disorders and body size.

Regardless, wearing fat suits is seriously questionable even when people claim that they are trying to learn from it (yes, even if it’s Dr. Oz) since we have plenty of fat people telling their actual lived stories and we could just listen to and believe them. It’s 100% wrong when does for a Halloween costume, or for cheap laughs.

It seems very much like this is an example of the latter, and not just because it’s being done in a show that’s part of a genre that has “comedy” in its name. In addition to enjoying blithely donning a fat suit and engaging in stereotypes about fat women in a world where fat actresses face almost impossible odds of getting hired at all, in an attempt to claim that they won’t be making fat jokes (though the interviewer says that “…seeing the petite Pressly in puffy prosthetics will certainly be a gut-buster…”) Pressly made a fat joke:

“They don’t make fun,” says Pressly. “The writers are very careful. For everything we talk about on the show, there’s a fine line between what’s right and what’s wrong, and what we what can and cannot say. There is sensitive material in recovery. The other women kind of tiptoe around it. They don’t want to make Jill feel bad. There’s a big elephant in the room and that elephant is Jill.”

She’s an elephant – because she’s fat. Get it?  It’s so funny I forgot to laugh. According to Jaime, having her hide behind tables and such would have been too “cheesy” – so that had her dress up as a fat person instead?  Dressing in someone else’s skin is a terrible and offensive idea. Especially when we know that once the babies are born she’ll shed her pretend fat skin and return to her life of thin privilege while people clamor to ask her what it’s like to be fat.

This is crap. Apparently it’s not enough for Hollywood to burden the few fat actresses who get work with scripts chock full of stereotypes and shitty jokes about their food intake, now they’re putting thin actresses in fat suits to do the same.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support fat activism and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

NEW!!! Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!

Over the course of eighteen self-paced, content-packed, quick videos you’ll get the tools you need to create healthy relationships with food, movement, and your body, and you’ll map out a path to health that makes sense for you, in an easily digestible format. Built-in tools allow you to track your progress and keep notes individually or as a group.
Click here for all the details and to register!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

If you are uncomfortable with my selling things on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

 

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It’s The Underpants Rule!

This is one of those annual tradition posts – it’s the Underpants Rule and it is pretty simple: when it comes to personal choices, everyone is the boss of their own underpants. So, when it comes to personal choices, you get to choose for you and other people get to choose from them and it’s not your job to tell other people what to do and it’s not their job to tell you what to do. (Note that I’m talking about choices like what to eat and whether/how to exercise, not whether or not to encroach on some people’s civil rights, as that’s not a personal choice. Over the years, there have been some misunderstandings about the Underpants Rule – mostly confusion about what is and is not covered, rest assured, the Underpants Rule has limitations.)

To illustrate, if someone is considering saying something about personal choices that starts with

• People should
• Everyone ought to
• What people need to do
• We should all
• Nobody should
• You shouldn’t
• blah blah things that have to do with underpants that aren’t yours blah blah

then there is a 99.9% chance that they are about to break The Underpants Rule. Of course telling you that you should follow the Underpants Rule is, in fact, breaking the Underpants Rule which is pesky, so let me instead make a case for the Underpants Rule and then you can make your own choice.

I chose a Health at Every Size practice (knowing that health is not an obligation, barometer of worthiness, or entirely within our control)  because I am a fan of research, logic, and math.  I think that the research clearly shows that a HAES practice gives me a much better shot at supporting my health with way less downside risk than a weight loss- based health practice.

There are people who think the exact opposite of that.  I know that because they come here and tell me so – they say that I should make a different choice.  This blog is my little corner of the internet.  It exists only because I created it and I am thrilled to pieces that people enjoy reading it, that people get inspired by it, that it gives people information to help them make choices etc. I try very hard to make sure that I always follow the Underpants Rule and never tell anyone else how they have to live when it comes to their personal choices, and yet people come here and try to tell me how to live when it comes to my personal choices.  That’s annoying.

For this reason, I would never go onto someone’s weight loss blog and tell them all about Health at Every Size and quote research as to why I think it’s a better choice.  Those are not my underpants.

I do not enjoy (or believe them) when people tell me that I need to become smaller to be attractive.  Therefore I would never say that thin women need to become larger to be attractive.  Besides the fact that I don’t believe it, those are not my underpants. (Not to mention that the path to high self-esteem is probably not paved with hypocrisy so doing to someone else exactly what I don’t want done to me seems ill-advised.)

The “War on Obesity” is an underpants rule breakdown on a massive scale. A group of government, public and private interests (with various profit and political motivations) has chosen a group of people who are identifiable by sight and is now trying to tell us everything from how we have to prioritize health, to the path we have to take to become healthy, to how our bodies have to look.  Who died and made them Underpants Overlord?  Nobody. (And another year has gone by and I’ve still not received my official fat person pony, so there’s another angry letter I have to write.)

My metaphorical underpants and my actual underpants have something in common:  if I want somebody else in them, that person will be among the very first to know.  I have definitely not invited the executives at HBO, Kaiser Permanente, the government, or the diet industry into my underpants.

Now, I’m not telling what to do (cause, you know, Underpants Rule) but I’m suggesting that if you don’t like it when people attempt to be the boss of your underpants, then maybe take a pass on trying to be the boss of someone else’s.  I’m fairly certain that “Do unto others exactly what you don’t want them to do to you” is the brick rule or the pile of crap rule or something – at any rate a LOT of steps down from platinum and gold. (If you are suddenly

Remember, you are forever the boss of your underpants – occupy your underpants (with a nod to reader Duckie for that phrase)! I’m going off to see if there is a Guinness World Record for number of times the word underpants is used in a blog.

Underpants. Underpants. Underpants. Underpants.

Underpants.

Under…

…pants.

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support fat activism and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

NEW!!! Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!

Over the course of eighteen self-paced, content-packed, quick videos you’ll get the tools you need to create healthy relationships with food, movement, and your body, and you’ll map out a path to health that makes sense for you, in an easily digestible format. Built-in tools allow you to track your progress and keep notes individually or as a group.
Click here for all the details and to register!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

If you are uncomfortable with my selling things on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

via Dances With Fat http://ift.tt/2yb0bP4

The Honey Beez and Plus Size Role Models

Design by Kris Owen

The Honey Beez are a dance team that represents Alabama State University. They were originally started by band director James Oliver who was unhappy with the lack of plus-size representation on the ASU dance team. He helped pull together the first group and now the Honey Beez perform on the field, on stage (including on America’s Got Talent,) and they even go into high schools to talk about Body Positivity and dealing with bullying.

Oliver says 

When my assistant and I interview, some of these girls are crying because they’ve been through so much because of their size. But they are so happy to be part of the Honey Beez and to be dancing. They’re doing such a great job. They’re representing the plus-size ladies and they’re representing ladies who want to build their self-esteem.”

The fatphobic society we live in systematically tries to deny fat people representation and role models, and that’s compounded for fat folks who face multiple oppressions, like fatphobia paired with racism, ableism, and other marginalized identities.

You don’t have to dance on a football field to be a role model (though it should certainly be an option!) by being yourself and doing what you want to do in the world you increase representation of fat people and, whether you know it or not, you’ll likely become a role model for another fat person who thought that what you are doing wasn’t possible for them – right up until the moment they saw you doing it.

Here is some Honey Beez awesomeness!

Like this blog?  Here’s more cool stuff:

Become a Member! For ten bucks a month you can support fat activism and get deals from size positive businesses as a thank you.  Click here for details

NEW!!! Wellness for All Bodies Program: A simple, step-by-step, super efficient guide to setting and reaching your health goals from a weight neutral perspective.  This program can be used by individuals, or by groups, including as a workplace wellness program!

Over the course of eighteen self-paced, content-packed, quick videos you’ll get the tools you need to create healthy relationships with food, movement, and your body, and you’ll map out a path to health that makes sense for you, in an easily digestible format. Built-in tools allow you to track your progress and keep notes individually or as a group.
Click here for all the details and to register!

Book and Dance Class Sale!  I’m on a journey to complete an IRONMAN triathlon, and I’m having a sale on all my books, DVDs, and digital downloads to help pay for it. You get books and dance classes, I get spandex clothes and bike parts. Everybody wins! If you want, you can check it out here!

Book Me!  I’d love to speak to your organization. You can get more information here or just e-mail me at ragen at danceswithfat dot org!

If you are uncomfortable with my selling things on this site, you are invited to check out this post.

via Dances With Fat http://ift.tt/2hJEaAr

On being in a surgery oblivion

This is a special blog post. As you probably know, my fat positive radio show has been on a world tour since 2016. At the moment, the show is working its way across Africa, and is currently in Namibia. One of the women I wanted to speak with in Namibia was Cindy from Sugary Oblivion. Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out a way to do a recorded interview, so instead, we’ve done an interview via email. Enjoy!

 

First up, Cindy, tell us a bit about yourself:

 

Hi, my name is Cindy. I’m a 27-year-old writer, sub-editor, columnist, lifestyle blogger from Windhoek, Namibia. I’d describe myself as a body positive fat babe who is passionate about good wine, good books and good people.

 

I’m so glad we were able to work out a way for you to be on the show/blog! I just finished reading your review of Roxane Gay’s Hunger, and I’d love to know a bit more about your thoughts. To be honest, I haven’t read it. I don’t feel strong enough yet, because I know it’s gonna be a rough (but worthwhile) experience. I’m a bit too fragile at the moment, but I know that one day I will. You end your review suggesting that everyone should read it. What value do you think it brings to people?

 

Well, the most obvious value is giving a fat, black woman the space to voice her truth without being interrupted or asked to make excuses for herself or her body and therein lies the simple beauty of ‘Hunger’. Also just being able to experience different sides of a fat woman’s experience that isn’t the cliche of “was fat, lost weight, got happy” is refreshing.

 

How did you get involved in fat activism/acceptance/body positivity (& what’s your preferred term to use)?

 

I prefer the term body positivity because I believe every single body is worth love, respect and affection, regardless of its shape, size or ability.

 

I would say I’ve always been on the body positive side of things but joining Twitter and meeting and engaging with so many people across the world has definitely helped me learn (and unlearn) so much about my own body politics. Meeting my best friend was also a massive turning point for me because I finally had someone who could not only relate to fat issues but who has gone and is going through them every day. She opened my eyes to a lot of things and I think we spend a lot of time (both knowingly and unknowingly) teaching each other so much about respect and compassion for every kind of body.

 

 

What’s the body positivity scene like in Namibia?

 

The body positivity scene here is in its infancy stages but it’s definitely growing. I would say feminists here are a definite driving force to helping it grow and showing other women what reclaiming your body and time looks like. I think so many of us are pushing back in little ways and it’s been adding up. I’m proud of our little community and the strides it’s been making.

 

What advice would you give to others in Namibia, or Africa, or across the world, who are interested in being more body positive?

 

Listen. Listen to the stories of other people whose politics you admire. Listen without interruption. Listen without expecting a ‘Body Positivity 101’ lesson. Just listen and take it in and understand. Also read a lot about why body positivity is so important and why it is imperative for the movement to be inclusive across all races, ages, sizes, abilities, etc. And then I would also say live your truth, and live it boldly. Walk with the knowledge that your body is beautiful and worthy, even when you can’t see it right now, even when society constantly tells you otherwise.

 

Cool. Where can people find you online?

 

I’m everywhere (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) as Sugary Oblivion/Sugary Oblivion Lifestyle and I blog at sugaryoblivion.com.

 

 

 

 

 

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