#Fat Activism

[wolf-tail]

Socialists, get into fat liberation theory right the fuck now. I am speaking as a fellow dirty commie, DO IT.

You all like to lump fatness into either the category of "product of bourgeoisie decadence" or "side effect of capitalism forcing us to eat bad food" when neither is the actual case.

Fat people exist in all social classes and all walks of life, often regardless of individual choices.

Fat people are victims of capitalist exploitation at the hands of the multi billion dollar diet and weight loss industry that pushes eating disorder behavior and unnecessary surgeries on to us all in the name of profits.

Fatphobia ties into beauty standards that capitalists use to manipulate people into hating their bodies so they can be sold beauty. Think about how many of the ads you get every day are for weight loss.

[hopefulproblem]

From the zine “Fat Is Beautiful” by Crystal Hartman

[softestjilly]

the fact that fat people are made to feel bad about everything down to how loud or hard they are breathing says a lot about this society

[hedonefemme]

I LOVE How to Carry Water. It’s a short documentary and everything about it is stunning. The artist they focus on, the cinematography, and the thematic framing is fantastic!

FAT LIBERATIONIST FILMS

I noticed that the handful of lists on letterboxd for fat positive films only had Hairspray, Isn’t It Romantic, and I Feel Pretty (🤢) with the caption “I wish this list was longer!”

So I have taken it upon myself to compile a real list of real fat liberationist films: films that either confront the issue of fatphobia or portray fat bodies in a liberating way. I will not be including films where fat characters exist neutrally, only films with a message about fatness that does not promote weight loss.

I haven’t seen a majority of these films yet, so if you see one that you believe is not worthy of being on this list, please let me know! additionally, if you have ideas on more films that should be added, please share!

Films (left to right)

1. How to Carry Water (2023) dir. Sasha Wortzel

2. Piggy (2022) dir. Carlotta Pereda

3. Your Fat Friend (2023) dir. Jeanie Finlay

4. Dumplin’ (2018) dir. Anne Fletcher

5. Empire Waist (2024) dir. Claire Ayoub

6. PattiCake$ (2017) dir. Geremy Jasper

7. Läski (2019) dir. Kirsikka Saari

8. Aquaporko! (2013) dir. Kelli Jean Drinkwater, Anna Helme

9. Fat Hiking Club (2018) dir. Layla Cameron

10. Fat Front (2019) dir. Louise Kjeldsen, Louise Detlefsen

11. Disfigured (2008) dir. Glenn Gers

12. Riot Not Diet (2018) dir. Julia Fuhr Mann, Kristina Kilian

13. Straight/Curve: Redefining Body Image (2017) dir. Jenny McQuaile

14. In Our Skin (2017) dir. Rosa Beiroa

15. The Fat Feeling (2019) dir. Talia A. Darling

16. Dangerous Curves (2016) dir. Merete Mueller

17. Well Rounded (2020) dir. Shana Myara

18. Fat Chance (1994) dir. Jeffery McKay

19. Tales of Ordinary Fatphobia (2020) dir. Josiane Blanc

20. Fattitude (2017) dir. Viridiana Lieberman

21. (Not pictured) The Fat Body (In)Visible (2011) dir. Margitte Kristjansson

[psychicspacesquid]

The number of times I've earnestly seen the take "but it's good for fat people to be mean to them! It motivates them to lose weight!"

Also whenever you provide even light pushback that maybe bullying people does not magically make them skinny but instead makes them depressed, they immediately demand scientific sources as if "bullying fat people is good for them" is scientific concensus and you therefore owe them a peer reviewed paper.

No babe I'm so sorry you're not actually doing people a service by being an asshole to them you just want an acceptable target and have decided that fat people are one. You don't get to be a bad person until you've produced 3 peer reviewed meta analyses that being a dick to random fat people improves their health, OK? I'm sure people will thank you for your invaluable service of being an asshole.

[fatliberation]

anti-fatness is not just body shaming.

anti-fatness is discrimination. anti-fatness is having next to no legal protections for being discriminated against. anti-fatness is being denied housing, jobs, receiving less pay and promotions (legally) because of your size. anti-fatness is being denied access to clothing, seating, transportation, and other human rights because infrastructure has been designed to exclude you. anti-fatness is less likelihood of receiving a fair trial. anti-fatness is dehumanization. anti-fatness is being denied necessary surgeries, but not surgery that amputates the digestive tract with the intent to starve and shrink you (it doesn’t work either). anti-fatness is mutilation. anti-fatness is being subject to torture devices that bolt your mouth shut. anti-fatness is being told by close friends, family, and professionals that you are better off living with an eating disorder or other life-threatening illness. anti-fatness sells you starvation as a guaranteed opt-out of oppression, but doesn’t tell you that bodies will always regain weight to survive. anti-fatness blames and punishes you for failing at an achievement that is quite literally impossible. anti-fatness is a $90 billion dollar industry. anti-fatness is being denied gender-affirming care. anti-fatness is being barred from in vitro fertilization and reproductive healthcare. anti-fatness is being barred from adopting children. anti-fatness is being removed from your loving parents because they couldn’t make you thin. anti-fatness is intentionally starving your own baby so they won’t get fat. anti-fatness is disproportionately high suicide rates. anti-fatness is being killed at the hands of medical neglect and mistreatment. anti-fatness is the world preferring a dead body over a fat one.

[doublequaterpounder]

Hey You reading this!

check yourself and see if your sucking in your tummy

if you are let it go, release that tension! LET THAT TUMMY OUT💕

unlearn hiding yourself!

if your already letting it go, carry on, continue scrolling you’re good to go!

[feelingemotjons]

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*for decades, fat people in media are constantly shown as bullies even tho fat people are more likely to be bullied and harassed in real life*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*fat people in communities and fandoms are pushed out of them due to constant fatphobic harassment*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*fat people not being able to show their talents or interests online without people constantly bringing up their weight*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*fat people struggling to find clothes in their size especially online and when they do find clothes in their size their either overpriced or look ugly*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*people actually debating whether or not fat people should exist and even saying that fat people are a disease*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*fat people getting called cows, pigs, literal animals*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*skinny people being put in fat body suits for movies, tv shows, etc instead of just getting a fat actress*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*the ongoing dangerous stereotype about fat people being gr00mers/p€d0philes that just gets reduced to a joke*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*fat characters in books will be made skinny for movies, tv shows, etc*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

*fat people die every day due doctors not actually helping them until they lose weight*

“Fat people aren’t oppressed 🙄”

Do you guys not see a pattern here? Cause I see it and it's clear as day

[frmewrk]

f2u, no credit needed!

[morsobaby]

Important reminder that malnourishment, while often can be visible on the outside, is a STATE, not a LOOK. Fat people can be malnourished. Malnourishment ≠ skinny. Malnourishment means a person isn't getting all the necessary nutrients their body needs to keep itself healthy and energized. Already fat people will not automatically become skinny if they become malnourished, for the exact same reasons that many fat people can't/wont/have difficulty becoming skinny in the first place. Which is normal. It varies by person.

We need to abolish the idea that you can tell a person's health by whether they're fat or not.

Speaking for myself, I've actually become fatter even though I'm malnourished (due to parental control, disability and mental illness). This is because 1. the foods easily available to me in my current condition are often high calorie and fatty - partly because I crave more calories and fats due to my imbalanced diet and exhaustion. And 2. Because my ability crashed heavily within the last two years and I don't have enough energy to exercise regularly, or do so without pain and exhaustion.

Malnourishment is so much more than weight. It's lack of fibres, vitamins, essential nutrients, iron, and much more. It's Eating just enough to not feel hungry, instead of eating so you feel satisfied and full.

[softestjilly]

our love story. 💍🩷🌈✨

fat people get engaged.

fat people get married.

fat people are loved, desired, needed, and wanted.

[scrumpledorph]

I feel compelled by some recent realizations to share the story of my lifetime experience with weight, weight loss, fatphobia, and self acceptance.

I weighed 180 lbs for a lot of my early childhood, and got bullied constantly for it. It was comorbid with severe, impairing asthma that limited my ability to use my body at any pace faster than a brisk, if I was lucky, walk. Nobody ever blamed the asthma, they just called me out of shape, lazy - all the usual insults. I got kicked out of high school gym class in both grades it was a required course because I couldn't run fifteen laps of the gym. I never signed up for it again.

I was the school whipping boy wherever I went. (I moved schools a lot, because I'd lash out violently about this happening to me) One time in elementary school a group of boys hid behind me because they were being bothered by some girls, and knew they wouldn't get within ten feet of me outside the classroom where they were forced to. The first guy I ever hooked up with negged me to lose weight and join him at the gym if I wanted to do anything more serious with him.

Then a growth spurt combined with a two week vacation where I only ate ramen twice a day in high school shaved literally a third of that off. 120 lbs. My parents and I considered it a miracle. Suddenly I really liked how I'd come to look. I went from a frumpy, comely child to a heroin chic rockstar like David Bowie, and all the other imitators that chased after him, and I wasn't even trying!

I was skin stretched over bones. If I lifted my arms up every single rib from the collarbone to the stomach was pronounced, with gaps you could run your fingers along. This was before I realized I was trans, so I was mostly putting myself into the world as a twink (femboy hadn't really come into parlance yet, I'd probably have used it if so). People started treating me well for the first time in my life, I was popular. My romantic advances were reciprocated instead of pushed away in disgust for the first time in my life, I went on dates, I had a couple short lived girlfriends.

Some time in my twenties, I realized I was lactose intolerant. To both truncate and avoid needless disgust; once I took steps to mitigate that my weight rebounded back up from the 160 it had ended up settling at as my metabolism evened out, to 216. So I tortured myself with the most bland, boring diet in the world: plain oat cheerios, cashews, barely seasoned salads and coleslaw, microwaved chicken wiener sandwiches. It sloughed off the pounds, at first.

I hit a hitch around 180. I had originally wanted to go back down to 160, with the height I'd gained since high school that would put me in about the same ballpark range as how I looked then, and it's what the BMI scale says is healthy for my body proportions. But I simply could not go under 180.

Even a single cheat day a week, the recommended amount for any diet, would make my body snap back up by two pounds the next day, which took me the entire rest of the week just to get back to where I started. It was truly miserable, checking the scale every single morning and beating myself up over every single time my family took me out to eat or brought me leftovers.

So I stopped. I said fuck it, let my body sit at 185. Now? I can eat pretty much anything I want and it barely makes a dent in the long run. Recently checked in after three nights of stacked turkey dinner plates for the holidays, with eggnog and ice cream and a whole bag of christmas candy sitting on my desk next to me that I take occasional nibbles from. 184.8, exactly where I want it to be. The BMI scale says this is the borderline of overweight for my height.

An acquaintance who had known me while I was in that emaciated point in my life recently reconvened with me, and said that I looked a lot healthier. It was genuinely the first time anyone in the world had made a positive comment about my body outside of that short lived stint of emaciation. It was a genuine shock, because I hadn't up to that point considered for a second that I could possibly have looked bad to anyone at that point.

An article I doubt I could find with how bad google is nowadays once said that around 97% (I might even be lowballing it) of diets fail, because the body will slash your metabolism by 30% if you drop even 5% from where it wants to sit. I guess all I have to say is: listen to your body.

If maintaining your slim figure is a hobby all unto itself: with a meticulously crafted diet and double digit hour exercise regimen that you lock yourself in by checking the scale every morning? It's not worth it, holy shit. Maybe you'll end up with an extended illness that keeps you from working out for a week or two. Maybe your willpower will just finally give out, and you'll spend a week catching up on all the pleasure you'd denied yourself while you were dieting. But I know, from experience, that one day you'll just end up where your body wants you to be, whether you're comfortable with it or not.

I promise you that the freedom of accepting the weight your body wants to be at and being able to treat yourself guilt free will bring you so much more joy than having a thigh gap does.

[tobeabatman]

medical professionals listen to fat people!

It’s f*cked up how it’s the norm for medical workers to tell us fat people that we need to modify our bodies, to the point of coercion. 

This is my body. This isn’t a wrong type of body that you should try to convince me to change. This is the flesh I’ve been throughout my whole life; this fat is me:

I’m not a thin person in a fat suit. All medical workers need to get out of their asses and realize that fat people own fat bodies, not bodies that are ”thin-to-be”. I deserve the same care without mentions of how it would be the correct thing to modify my body, because this body has always been with me and always will. I grew in a fat body and this fat body is mine. 

Where I live, it’s recommended for doctors to gently try to talk to fat patients about weight loss. And as a fat person I don’t give a sh*t how gently you try to convince me, your main goal is still to change the way I am. You’re biased and your care reflects that. 

So stop f*cking trying to coerce us by fear-mongering. Read the many research papers that contradict current ideas of fatness in relation to health, and most importantly: listen to us fat people. 

I’m fat, and you have been convinced to throw away your work ethics as a medical professional just because our world says it’s okay to coerce fat people into weight loss, and that as a medical professional you should encourage people to drastically change their bodies but ONLY if they’re fat. Listen to yourselves. 

Toodles. 

[fatliberation]

How to survive the holidays with fatphobic friends and family

By Amanda Martinez Beck and J Nicole Morgan, Cohosts of the Fat & Faithful podcast

When someone says, “you look great, have you lost weight?”

NICE: No — I choose to focus on other things than weight. Good to see you, though!

SPICE: Nope! Still fat! There are so many more interesting things to talk about than weight.

ICE: Hi. Please do not comment on my body. Thin ≠ happy or better.

When someone comments on something you put on your plate

NICE: I didn’t drive all this way to spend today eating salad :)

SPICE: Oh, I’m sorry — did you think my food choices were any of your business? Because they’re not.

ICE: (Stare) RUDE. (Continue loading plate.)

When someone jokes about the holidays making us fat

NICE: Oh, stop it. One day of feasting is not going to make anyone fatter than they already are.

SPICE: And…? Nothing wrong with being fat.

ICE: Why is fatness a punchline for you? Do you think my body size is funny or to be mocked?

When food is moralized

NICE: Oh, stop… Food is morally neutral and today is about feasting. Let it go!

SPICE: Bad for you? Is it crawling with maggots? ‘Cause that’s the only way I see pie being bad.

ICE: Stop moralizing food. It is harmful to talk and think about food this way and I will not let you talk this way around me and my children.

Whether you chose NICE, SPICE, or ICE, don’t be afraid to voice your boundaries and push back against diet culture and fatphobia during the holiday season.

❤️, Amanda & Nicole

[doublequaterpounder]

my whole life i hid from fat

my first introduction to fat was to not dare speak its name. it was something to hide it was something to eliminate it was something to be ashamed of

and as i grew up it only got more complicated cause i liked fat. despite everything everyone ever told me deep within myself i liked fat and its an integral core desire of my body i could not change.

it’d be easier to fall within the status quo but i’d be going against what is deep deep inside of me

so yeah i am obsessed with fatness i want to be fat i want to honour that little voice in my centre and make it heard and not to let it feel it needs to be hidden away that i can be fat want to be fatter and be obsessed with all things fatness cause we’re all told that that’s a sensitive subject or something to feel ashamed for

be obsessed with fatness love fatness get fatter cause no one else will

[fatliberationdamnit]

Daily reminder that there is no wrong way to have a body. There is no configuration of physical features that is “bad” or “wrong”. You are allowed to exist just as you are.