Fat acceptance movement

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Dear god, look at this thing and tell me it deserves rights.

The Fat Acceptance Movement, also referred to as the Fat Liberation Movement, is a grass-roots effort to change societal attitudes about fat people. The movement, generally accepted as having started in 1969, has gained steam since the 1980s and 1990s, and now consists of several activist organizations, publications, and conferences.

History

In 1969, William Fabrey founded the National Association to Aid Fat Americans, later renamed the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). However, in 1973, Sara Fishman (then going by Aldebaran) and Judy Freespirit, founders of a local NAAFA chapter in Los Angeles, separated from the larger organization to form a more radical activism group, which they called the "Fat Underground". Shortly afterwards, Fishman moved to New Haven, CT where she, along with Karen Scott-Jones, founded the New Haven Fat Liberation Front, an organization similar to the Fat Underground in its radical (for its time) actions. In 1983 their writings, along with those of others, became available to a wider audience with the release of their book Shadow on a Tightrope.

Following a relative lull in the mid-1980s to early-1990s, the independent zine community began addressing fat liberation again, most notably with zines including Marilyn Wann's Fat!So? beginning in 1993, Nomy Lamm's I'm So Fucking Beautiful, and the collectively produced 'zine "FaT GiRL -- the 'zine for fat dykes and the women who want them." More Recently, Sabrina Darling has collaborated with other members of the new generation of fat liberation to release the zine Two By Four, Krissy Durden has produced the zine Figure 8 since 2001 and Max Airborne and Cherry Midnight have produced "Size Queen: For Queen-size Queers and Our Loyal Subjects."

In addition to zines, there has recently been a steady stream of books written on the subject including Wann's book of the same title as her zine (1998), Sondra Solovay's "Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination" (2000);'Largely Happy -changing your mind about your body' by Lynda Finn; 'Don't Diet' by Professor Dale Atrens and a collection of short stories by fat people (What Are You Looking At? 2003) Paul Campos's examination of the health fallacies regarding fatness, 'The Obesity Myth' was published in 2004. In addition, there is an emerging body of fat theory developing in academia, and fat activist student groups at colleges, like those at Hampshire, Smith, and Antioch colleges, have been flourishing.

Susan Stinson's novels and poetry such as Belly Songs (1993) and Venus of Chalk (2004) have integrated the insights of fat liberation into literature. Several collections of short writing, including What Are You Looking At?: The First Fat Fiction Anthology (2003) and Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology (2005) have increased visibility of large persons in literature, and helped to disperse many stereotypes.

Recently, fat performance art has made an impact in the fight against sizeism. Groups like The Padded Lillies, Big Burlesque and the Fat Bottom Revue and radical cheerleading groups like F.A.T.A.S.S pdx and The Bod Squad have received significant attention, as have drag troups like the Royal Renegades: The Philadelphia Drag Kings, who feature a variety of body types in their shows.

Finally and most recently, there has been a flourishing of national conferences devoted to the subject of fat activism, including NOLOSE, the conference of the former National Organization for Lesbians of SizE (now just known as NOLOSE); NAAFA's annual convention held alternately on the west and east coasts; and the largest conference, Stacy Bias's FatGirl Speaks in Portland, Oregon.

Background

Fat acceptance covers several fronts but generally can be described as attempting to change societal, internal, and medical attitudes about fat people, despite a great deal of criticism.

Societal: The movement argues that fat people are targets of hatred and discrimination, with fat women in particular subject to more social pressure. Hatred is seen in multiple places including media outlets, where fat people are often ridiculed or held up as objects of pity. Discrimination comes in the form of lack of equal accessibility to transportation and employment.

Internal: The movement also argues that people of all shapes and sizes should accept themselves as they are, at any size. Thus, it promotes "health at every size," which aims to place one's mental and physical health before physical appearance and size.

Medical: Through the works of authors such as Paul Campos and Sandy Swzarc, the fat acceptance movement has arguably improved its standing on health at any size. Therefore, the movement's stance is that doctors should treat the problems of fat people independent of weight.

The movement faces challenges internally as well. Organizations such as the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) and the International Size Acceptance Association (ISAA) are small in numbers, and people interested in the movement tend to be clustered in larger cities and spread across medium- to small-sized web communities. NAAFA's history has been entangled with Dimensions Magazine, a highly visible website for men who have sexual preferences for fat women. NAAFA has recently changed leadership in order to cut these ties, and has made several policy changes (including taking a stance against feederism, the practice of weight gain for sexual pleasure) which were applauded in the fat community. The role of sites such as Dimensions in the movement is a contested issue.

Fat acceptance is a social acceptance issue and has ties and common ground with the feminist movement and lesbianism, as is shown above, and is associated with broader civil rights movements.

Visible people in fat acceptance

• Judy Sullivan, author of "Size Wise"
• Stacy Bias, founder of FatGirl Speaks [Portland, ORE]
• Paul Campos, author of books such as The Obesity Myth.
• Lynda Finn, author of 'Largely Happy' and 'Healthy Kids, Happy Kids' and vice-chair of International Size Acceptance Association.
• Nomy Lamm, performance artist and writer of I'm So Fucking Beautiful.
• Heather MacAllister, founder of Big Burlesque and the Fat Bottom Review
• Paul McAleer, author of Big Fat Blog.
• Daniel Pinkwater, author of The Afterlife Diet and other books
• Sondra Solovay, weight discrimination lawyer and author of the book "Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination"
• Allen Steadham, President and Founder of ISAA.
• Sandy Szwarc, author of articles challenging widely-held beliefs on fat and health[1]
• Pattie Thomas, Ph.D., co-author of Taking Up Space: How Eating Right and Exercising Regularly Changed My Life (a sociological memoir about the stigma faced by fat people, written in collaboration with Carl Wilkerson, MBA)Bioblog
• Marilyn Wann, author of FAT!SO? and Activism Chair of NAAFA.

External links

• Big People UK: An organization giving a voice to "Big People" living and experiencing discrimination in the UK
• Nolose: A community of fat dykes, bisexual women, transgendered folks and their allies seeking to end the oppression of fat people
• FatGirl Speaks: A celebration of size, self and spirituality
• National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance
• International Size Acceptance Association
• Big Fat Blog: A fat acceptance blog and discussion forum
• "Fat Action Troupe AllStar Spirit Squad": "FATASS": a fat cheerleading troupe
• SizeNet: A European site promoting size acceptance and self esteem