#anti-diet

[fatliberation]

"But I'm dieting, is fat liberation still for me?" Yes... And...

by @drrachelmiller

If you're pursuing intentional weight loss, fat liberation is still for you. If you're pursuing weight loss and are in a fat body, that is so understandable. It's not easy being fat in this world and wanting to move away from oppression makes sense. Here's a gentle reminder that sustainable weight loss isn't possible for the vast majority of people, dieting is a life and time sucking venture, and distancing oneself from oppression is not going to change the oppressive systems.

If you're pursuing intentional weight loss and you're not in a fat body, fat liberation is still for you. And wanting to avoid being in a marginalized and oppressed group is understandable. And dieting is a time and energy thief. And trying to avoid oppression is not going to change oppressive systems. And spending time restricting and trying to prevent weight gain will never set you free. And every time you talk about your diet, share about your desire for weight loss, etc., you are harming your fat friends.

No matter what size body you're in, if you are dieting, you are engaging in anti-fat behaviors and demonstrating anti-fat bias. It's understandable and also we need to call it what it is. You're not bad and you are also causing harm. You make sense and you are also contributing to the oppression of fat people. Both. And.

If you are dieting, you need fat liberation. You may not even be aware of how much you need it because you are being sold the lie that thinness is what will set you free. It won't. It was never going to. Fat liberation is what will set you free. With fat liberation there's no reason to diet. With fat liberation all of the time and energy and money that you've given to the pursuit of weight loss becomes yours again.

If you are dieting and believe in fat liberation for everyone else, I invite you to include yourself. Even if it's not feeling available to you right now. Consider the possibility that you get to be included. Because you are and you do. You need fat liberation and fat liberation needs you.

If you are dieting, fat liberation is still for you. And let's acknowledge that you are engaging in behaviors that contribute to the oppression of fat people. And that dieting isn't liberatory. And that anti-fat bias and the oppression of fat people is what leads you to dieting. You're impacted by it and you're contributing to it. It's complicated and nuanced. And fat liberation still includes you.

[therealieblog]

A big part of Intuitive Eating involves the de-stigmatizing of food. How do we de-stigmatize food? By not assigning it moral qualities, and by not using derogatory, negative language when we talk about food.

Examples of moralizing, derogatory and negative language we, under diet culture, still use regularly when talking about food:

"Sinful"

"Fattening"

"Unhealthy"

"Deadly"

"Bad for you"

"Clean"

"Pure"

"Healthy"

"Good" "

Junk/Junk food"

"Crap/Crappy"

Words to use instead of: Instead of "Sinful", or "Fattening", use "Decadent", "Rich" or "Delicious". Avocados and dark chocolate and many organic, "healthy" foods will make you fatter if you eat them often enough. Is this really about health? Or is it about fatphobia?

Instead of "Unhealthy", you can just say what it is about the food that impairs your health. "It hurts my stomach," "It makes my skin greasy/makes me break out", "I'm allergic to it" "I feel nauseous when I eat that." That at least is honest. Saying any food that isn't on some diet culture list of approved foods is "unhealthy" is just not scientifically accurate or backed by anything other than fear mongering.

Yes, eating foods high in fat and salt and sugar in large enough quantities, for long enough periods of time can negatively affect your health, but the vast majority of studies done on exactly how it affects your health, do not control for participants' smoking, drinking, drug use, genetic predispositions (genetics makes up a significant portion of health by the way), sedentary lifestyle, exposure to chemicals in the environment, mental health status, or literally anything outside of what they eat, so... yeah... f@ck that.

Ditto with "Bad for you." It's just so formless and un-researched and based in fatphobia. What does that even mean? In what amount is it "bad for you?" would it be equally bad for anyone to eat "unhealthy" foods at any time? Is there a magic threshold past which one's donut consumption goes from infrequent to "bad for you" levels? Or, are human beings a wildly diverse group of people, who all have very different bodies, metabolisms, genetics, tolerances, tastes and needs.

"Clean" is just as bad as "Bad For You", only worse, because it's so moralistic. If food is made out of animals, plants and grains, and is considered edible by human beings, it's fucking clean. Now if you're talking about gross things falling into the food by accident during the process of making it, or if you're talking about pesticides being used on your fruit and vegetables, then I get wanting to make sure the food is "clean". But if you're putting food on some sort of angelic pedestal for being free from sugar, or saturated fats, or carbohydrates, then you are still stuck in diet culture.

Instead of "Junk food", which implies that the food itself is garbage, which is honestly just a horrifying way to think about and talk about food, you could say "play food", "fun food", "snack food". These foods: chips, chocolate, cookies etc. aren't meant to fulfill your nutritional needs. We eat them for enjoyment, or to pick us up when we're blue, to calm us when we're stressed, or just because it tastes good and we like eating it. I think gentle nutrition is important, and paying attention to how food makes you feel is obviously important, but the way we perceive food and talk about food, reinforces what we think of ourselves when we eat it. If we are eating "bad" and "unhealthy" foods, then we are bad and unhealthy people, and that is a mind-fuck, believe me.

I've performed a 25 year longitudinal dieting study on myself. I know what it feels like to absolutely hate myself for what my body tells me it wants to eat. Not fun. So please have a care with the way you speak about food, and the way you look at yourself in relation to food. Food is sustenance and life. It is meant to be enjoyed, not feared. Lets not talk about food as if the thing meant to connect us to life also makes us inherently morally deviant.

[snarky-joan]

genuine question: if you think fat liberation and HAES are "junk food psy-ops" how do you feel about the way fat people are treated by society at large?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/04/03/diet-culture-nutrition-influencers-general-mills-processed-food/

There's a big difference between saying "people deserve respect no matter their size" and "being fat is healthy, there are no bad foods, intentionally getting fat as a choice is good."

I will gladly endorse the first sentiment.

[captain-kit-adventuress]

Billion-dollar idea: we need motivational coaches to help people stop dieting.

[manogirl]

It is actively painful for me to know so many rad, smart women who are obsessive about diets and weight.

[slow-burn-sally]

Diet Poll

My Intuitive Eating/Anti-diet side blog, @therealieblog doesn't have polls yet, so here we go.

[pullingatstrings]

Welcome to the Rebellion

This blog centres photography from a body liberation standpoint, but it is about so much more. Anti-diet culture, HAES, IE and more.

I will share some of the sexy photos I take with women who are ready for the world to make room for them in every way imaginable.

So, if you want to see artistic photos of bodies, or create some of them this might be the place for you. It is not a fetish site, sorry I will not reply to DMs.

Check out my insta for more info. on sessions

[comicdiaries]

I'm just a volunteer, I don't have the power of a librarian to recommend books!

[closetfascination]

All the book recommendations are great - a podcast really like Food Psych By Christie Harrison. She basically has had almost every big name in the anti-diet movement on her show and the episodes are so informative

Ugh that post has gotten me thinking about fat acceptance in a way I haven’t in years. I’ve read more studies about weight and health than probably any other topic I’ve ever researched. And every time I see someone wail about health I am just like

Did you know that in post-mortem examinations there is zero correlation between weight and levels of arteriosclerosis and related diseases found?

Did you know that people with an overweight BMI have the longest life expectancy, that those with an “ideal” and an “obese” have about the same life expectancy, and that being “underweight” raises mortality rates more than being “morbidly obese”?

Did you know that losing weight and then gaining it back is worse for your heart than remaining at the weight you started consistently?

Did you know that 95% of people who lose weight do gain it back, and there has never been a single documented weight loss program that has been demonstrated to keep the weight off for five years or more in the majority or even a significant minority of people? Like, telling people to lose weight isn’t much use if we don’t know HOW to make that happen.

Like I have read The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos and Rethinking Thin by Gina Kolata and Big Fat Lies by Glenn A Gaesser (Ph.D!) And Fat!So? and several other books that I don’t own and so don’t remember all of their names I spent like four years reading every single study coming out and looking at the methodology and noting which ones had huge holes or terrible methods and which didn’t (the holes were almost always in the pro-weight-loss studies) and like

Big Fat Lies has 27 pages of bibliography. 27 pages worth of scientific citation. The book content itself is only 197 pages. That’s a page of references for every 7 pages of book. Reading the book is just reference after reference and study after study. Most of these doctors (like Linda Bacon, author of Health at Every Size) started out the same way. They wanted to use the scientific method to find a real weight loss program or health solution that worked and could be proven to work, and so studied everything they could about weight and fitness only to find out that we didn’t need weight loss in the first place. That all the studies calling for it were lacking or nonexistent. That weight and underlying metabolic health have very little relation. That the history of our relationship with health and obesity has little basis in fact and a LOT of basis in capitalism, politics, and fashion. No, really, the association between weight and health was first proposed by insurance companies looking for ways to charge people more by claiming risk. They also charged tall and short people more. And people with different skin colors. When they got in trouble for charging people for things they had no control over and had no bearing on their health, they set out to prove that weight was controllable and that fat was unhealthy to make money. 

These are also a lot of the same people who went on to invent the President’s fitness program, so if you went to public school you probably already hate them. 

Anyway, if you want a place to start reading about the issue, this article is a pretty good launching pad. 

[ecstaticadventures]

‘bread is bad for you’ ‘rice is bad for you’ sorry im not subscribing to the idea that staple grains that have been integral to cultures for centuries are evil. i love you carbs

[fatliberation]

Do you know of any resources like blogs or podcasts that focus on parenting while fat, especially if your kid is very likely to also be fat?

I'm fat. Mom is fat and her mom was fat and my aunts are fat, so my kid probably will be too. I don't want to repeat my mom's mistakes and make my kid ashamed and feel like they have to change but I know I have baggage I haven't unpacked.

I believe the most popular book on this topic is Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith but I also know of a few Instagram accounts that educate parents like @mollyjforbes, founder of Body Happy Org, @anti.diet.kids, @moreloveorg and @kids.eat.in.color who offer resources like parenting newsletters, guides on how to talk to children about weight, health, and anti-fat bias, parent coaching and online courses, blogs, facebook groups etc!

Good on you for breaking the cycle! ❤️💪 Best of luck to you on your parenting journey!

[therealieblog]

Keep on the lookout for blogs that talk about "Moderation" and "Sensible eating"

Moderation is a diet word.

People usually hear me say that and flip out. "Moderation just means you should eat everything in... you know... moderation!!"

Yeah, and that's diet talk.

Why? Because it involves an opinion from outside your body. An opinion that usually encourages you to eat less. You don't hear underweight people who are trying to gain weight due to health issues being told to "eat in moderation."

"Eating in moderation" is just another way to say "portion control", no matter how rational and sensible it sounds.

You wouldn't be able to see that unless you'd eaten whatever you wanted for a few years, and learned the signals and signs from your body about what it wants and needs. Once you've done that, you are a self sustaining, self-knowing person, who can eat what is best for themselves without ANY intervention from other people's opinions.

Here's a hint: Sometimes "what's best for" you is to eat four slices of pepperoni pizza. You love pizza. You love pepperoni. You're very hungry. Eat four slices of pepperoni pizza. No one would ever suggest that amount of pizza as "moderation" but it's absolutely what your body wanted and needed at that moment. Maybe you had a really active day, or were really stressed out, and those four slices of pizza helped fill you up, calm you and make you happy. Maybe you ate them with friends, in a cozy restaurant. All of that has benefits to you beyond caloric intake.

Sometimes "what's best for" you might be to have a big salad for dinner, because you haven't gotten enough vegetables lately. Sometimes it's having a second piece of chocolate cake, because it's just so delicious. Sometimes "what's best for" you is to choose the whole grain cereal instead of Lucky Charms, because Lucky Charms hurts your stomach.

Same with "eating sensibly". Fuck eating sensibly. Either your diet is sensible for you because you make all the decisions about what to eat and when, or someone outside of you is trying to control what you eat by slyly suggesting it's not "sensible" or not "moderate".

[fiercemillennial]

The Diet Industrial Complex: How Big Food Hijacked Wellness

Yo, did you know Big Food is using "body positivity" to sell more junk? 🤯 This "anti-diet" wave might not be all it seems...Click the link in our bio for the full lowdown. #TheMoreYouKnow #Wellness #FoodIndustry #FierceMillennial #FierceWellness #TrendingTopics

Are we getting healthier, or are corporations just getting richer? A closer look at the shady alliance between food giants and the “anti-diet” movement. Listen, we’re tired of the yo-yo. The rollercoaster of restriction, guilt, binges, and shame – all in the name of some unattainable body ideal. The “anti-diet” movement seemed like a breath of fresh air, a way to escape diet culture’s toxic…

[captain-kit-adventuress]

Since some of you seem to need a fucking neon sign...

I made one.

[fandomsandfeminism]

Hey, if you're wanting to make some changes to how you eat, remember- it's much easier, healthier, and more sustainable to ADD foods that make you feel good than it is to REMOVE foods.

If you feel like you don't drink enough non-sugary fluids, it makes more sense to try drinking more tea and sparkling water than it does to just avoid soda. You gotta add in the good (and remember, that the only value food has is how it makes YOU feel. Food is morally nuetral and should be enjoyed.)

Try:

Adding a handful of easy produce to lunch and dinner- baby carrots or cherry tomatoes, something 0 prep. And yes, you are allowed to dip it in dressing! (The fats can make it easier for your body to absorb the vitamins in the veggies)

Adding a cheese stick or yogurt to breakfast. The protein is good and can help you wake up faster.

Adding some roasted nuts to your afternoon snack. (ADD, not replace.) That variety and little protein boost will do you good!

Have a glass of tea, sparkling water, or juice each time you have food. Let's be honest- you aren't hydrated enough. Go buy yourself some Kool Aide mix if that'll make you drink more water! Really!

If you struggle with binge eating sugary foods and it makes you feel yuck when the sugar crash comes- eat 1 or 2 pieces of chocolate with lunch and dinner. Every day. Really. Make it not a big deal. Make it not special. Make it something you can expect, instead of crave. Let yourself enjoy it without guilt.

Remember- food is a gift. It should bring you joy, not stress. Trust your body. Enjoy the cookie. Drink something tasty.

[shaynarlambert]

Writetober 2023 Day 2: Swallow