Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation Pledge

Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation Pledge

Who will join me this year in my pledge NOT to talk about
--How bad I am for eating so much
--How bad I am for eating these particular foods (Californians, take special note of this one)
--How bad I am for being so fat

Imagine what it would be like if everyone at your Thanksgiving table took this pledge. What would you talk about instead? These are a few of my own preferred topics...

--How good the food actually tastes when I'm not apologizing for loving it
--A few of the million things I'm grateful for in my life
--Who I miss -- the loved who are far away, and those who are no longer embodied
--What I like about the people I get to spend this day with
--Whose butt I intend to kick at Scrabble after the dishes are done

Healthism, HAES, and Mental Health

It's been a month since the FAT-tastic NOLOSE conference, and I'm still processing the wealth of ideas and points of view. As a (mental) health provider, I found myself drawn to workshops that focused on health. In one workshop, we shared personal experiences about what happens when our self-help practices, especially those involving nutrition and exercise, get conflated with mainstream fads, and get people assuming that weight loss is our goal. Another workshop focused on ways to motivate ourselves to do everyday actions that might make us feel better and improve our health. Still another took a very different perspective by challenging the "healthist" assumptions that make self-care into a moral imperative, whether it's directed toward weight loss or not.

That last one really got me thinking about how, even with a Health at Every Size approach, it is really easy to slip back into the same kind of self-criticism, shame, and guilt we've learned from weight loss culture. In fact, I've often thought there is additional pressure on us, as size-accepting fat women, to work hard at keeping ourselves healthy. Our bodies become a battleground for the debate between Health at Every Size and the popular paradigm that equates weight loss with good health. The healthist assumption that stood out most for me was the idea that we have a great deal of control over our health. Healthism overlooks the environment, stress, genetic diversity, disability issues, and numerous other influences on the quality and quantity of our lives. One participant pointed out that behaviors we control represent only a tiny percentage of what affects our present and future health. One of the most useful messages I took from the workshop is that it's time to relax those moral judgments and fears about whether I'm doing all I can to take care of my body.

I've been thinking about the healthist assumptions in mental health, too. I work with clients every day on behaviors they can use to help reduce depression, anxiety, relationship problems … and the list goes on. But too much focus on those self-directed behaviors can lead to shame and a sense of failure when emotional distress comes back. I sometimes say to clients who are dealing with depression or anxiety attacks, for example, that even if we were all climbing the same hill (which we're not), they're having to carry an extra bag of rocks on their backs. It isn't fair and it isn't fun, and perfect symptom management is too much to expect of themselves.

On the other hand, I don't want to promote a message of disempowerment. There are usually SOME factors we can control. I think one of the keys for escaping the guilt vs. helplessness trap, might be to understand how fluid and varied all the factors really are. With depression, for example, the serotonin levels in the brain are affected by what we eat, drink, and, breathe; what we're born with (huge factor); and how we move our bodies. They can also be altered by what happens in our relationships and environment to bring us joy or deprive us of it. Mental and spiritual beliefs and assumptions affect mood, as well. All these influences are in motion every day, interacting with each other. Sometimes a positive or negative mood shift can seem (and may well be) totally random.

Bottom line (which I reserve the right to change as my life and my thoughts continue to evolve), I think the science of cause and effect is useful for giving us suggestions about how to influence the way we feel, physically and emotionally. But those suggestions stop being useful when feelings of empowerment and self-determination give way to guilt and shame. During those moments, what's needed is compassion. In other words, cut yourself some slack. And if that's hard to do, cut yourself some slack about that, too.

Unconditional Love

Do you know what unconditional love feels like? Perhaps in your childhood, or later in your life, there was someone who cared for you very much, who gave you total acceptance and approval. Maybe you have a spiritual practice that brings you into the presence of a Higher Power or consciousness that only sees the good in you and doesn't judge. It's a wonderful feeling to receive that kind of all-encompassing love. You can also get that feeling through self-talk, by using words that affirm your basic goodness and lovability. Try looking in the mirror and saying, "I love you and accept you, exactly as you are." The self you see in the mirror is your physical image, of course. So, at first, your statement of love and acceptance might get interrupted by critical thoughts about your body. See if you can say the positive message to your whole self, including your body. At first, you might not believe the words you're speaking. But with practice, you can learn to say them with conviction.

Fat, health, and the right to get sick

I've heard some discussion, and would like to hear more, about the pressure on advocates of Health at Every Size (TM) advocates to maintain perfect health. I think HAES (TM) carries a greater burden of proof than other approaches to health. It is still controversial, and still has to battle the prolific (and abundantly funded) claims of anti-HAES institutions such as the weight loss industry. The unquestionsed assumption that weight is unhealthy seems to be the starting point for the vast majority of conversations about our bodies. We may find ourselves teaching a crash courses in HAES (TM) 101, before we can even begin to discuss our health in a meaningful way. And in that discussion, our own bodies may get used as evidence for proving the validity of HAES. It feels triumphant to say, "I'm 'morbidly obese' and my blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and overall health are just perfect, thank you very much." But then what happens when health challenges do occur? This can create a roller coaster of success and failure. (Not unlike the roller coaster some people experience when their goal is weight loss.) It's easy enough, perhaps, to continue arguing for HAES when we get diseases that have no particular correlation with size and weight. But what if there are increases in the metabolic indicators that the anti-HAES view attributes to obesity? What if we need medical care for diseases considered to be "preventable" through weight loss? I wonder how many formerly healthy fat people end up feeling guilty or inadequate when this happens. People of all sizes, when we get sick, have plenty to deal with: accessing medical care, living with diminished abilities, and coping with pain or discomfort. It doesn't seem fair for fat people to bear the additional burden of feeling like being sick is our own fault. I believe people of all sizes are entitled to make our own choices about how to take care of our bodies, put as much or as little effort as we like into the effort to prevent illness, and receive affordable, compassionate medical care whenever and for whatever reason we need it.

Size acceptance and age acceptance

I had a birthday recently, so aging has been on my mind. For me, learning to accept my size has meant learning to accept my physical aging process, too. In her book, Look at My Ugly Face, Sara Halprin notes that during young adulthood, it's typical for a woman not to realize how attractive she is. As she grows emotionally and begins to challenge her negative self-perceptions, her body grows older, too. This takes her further away from any possibility of living up to the ideals of a culture that equates youth with beauty. This is why, at mid-life, we may find ourselves looking at photos of our younger selves, wondering why we weren't able to appreciate those youthful bodies when we had them. For many of us, longing for a time when we were younger goes right along with longing for a time when we were thinner. Some of us have been fat all our lives, and gotten larger over time. Others have gone from very thin to very fat, or yo-yoed up and down the scale, claiming triumph whenever the pounds went away and feeling defeated when they returned. Still others have experienced subtle, cumulative changes from year to year in the shape and size of their bodies. I hear women of all sizes talking about wanting to "get back to" specific weight levels from the past, or "get their figures back." It's as if our younger, smaller bodies are sitting in a lost-and-found box, waiting for us to reclaim them. I believe that comparing the present to the past can damage self-esteem, much the way comparing ourselves to other women can. My best remedy for compulsive comparing is to bring our awareness deliberately into the present time, focusing on this moment, this body. It's not easy to do, but it's essential, I think, if we're going to achieve size acceptance, age acceptance, or acceptance of our lives in general. Regardless of what I looked like twenty years ago or even twenty days ago, the body that I need to nurture and appreciate is the one I have right now.

Swimsuit season

We're having a beautiful summer here in the Bay Area. Of course, we have no cold winters to contrast it with. But, comparisons aside, I'm really enjoying the weather. Going to the pool is especially appealing on days like this. But wait. That means exercising in public, and wearing something that exposes my shape and size in a way that street clothes don't. I think about how many women are deprived of the fun of exercise, especially exercise that involves swimsuits, because of the fear of exposing our bodies. I've definitely been there. A couple of things helped me get past it. One was going to a weekly swim that was for fat women only. It was a size acceptance event, so diet talk was not allowed. Eventually, I got so used to seeing strong, beautiful fat women in swimsuits, my own image in the mirror began to look strong and beautiful, too. (That swim is still happening on Sundays at the Albany Pool. It's called Making Waves.) It also helped to get a swimsuit that fit well and felt good. I even let go of my old preference for basic black (how many times have we been told that black is "slimming" and therefore best for us?), and invested some cash in a beautiful plus size suit from Junonia. Now I get to play and stretch and move in ways that could never happen for me on land. Each body is different, of course, but what I've learned about mine is that 1) gentle movement in water is healing for my weight bearing joints (which, on land, bear more weight than average), 2) being in water means there's less weight for those joints to bear, so my heart and lungs can get a thorough, pain-free workout, and 3) fat is extremely buoyant, so I can spin like an otter, jump like a frog, or literally "hang around" in the pool as much as I want. Max Airborne has created a great resource for finding fat-friendly places to swim in the Bay Area and elsewhere at http://fatswimming.com/

Watch your language

Self-deprecating humor about weight is the way some women create camaraderie. Those little jokes may seem harmless, but each one is actually an attack on your self-esteem, reinforcing all the body hatred you've internalized in the past. Just for a day, try paying attention to the words you say about your body, even if you're just kidding. Listen to the way your talk about your size, your attractiveness, your athletic ability, your age . . . What do you hear? Disgust? Sarcasm? Self-pity? False modesty? Apology?  Also pay attention to who's around when you find yourself saying negative things about yourself. Do you do it to fit in with other women who feel bad about their bodies? To fend off criticism by criticizing yourself before anyone else can? Is it just a habit because you and other women around you have been doing it for so long? Listen for the exceptions to the put-downs, too. How do you sound when you're feeling really good about your body, exactly as it is?