Desiring to lose weight in an anti-fat world is normal. It would be wonderful if people especially fat people like me never felt that desire to radically and typically harmfully change our bodies. The individual desire is not the problem. The problem is how it reinforces and perpetuates anti-fatness.
If a person who has a typical profile (meaning not a public figure of any kind) talks about desiring or attempting to lose weight or even successfully doing so for a period of time, that person is reinforcing various beliefs about anti-fatness whether they intend to or not around family, friends and coworkers. That’s probably a few hundred people. Maybe a few thousand. If someone chooses to promote intentional weight loss online to tens of thousands or millions of people, that is a much more deliberate act that magnifies anti-fat ideas. The caveats they give are unlikely to counter the overall message, which is thinner bodies are better, change your body. Both are contributing to a culture of dieting as default. Both are buying into anti-fatness. The first can have a devastating impact on particularly impressionable people like kids. The second is trying to make money off of contributing to that culture by having that impact on many more people often including kids.
I honestly have a lot of sympathy for everyone who feels this pressure regardless of their role in it. At the same time, I feel like it matters to recognize people’s impact on others. If someone doesn’t know an alternative exists, I truly understand that they are doing their best. But for people who know about how diets fail people, who know about weight stigma and weight cycling and then choose to diet and especially promote dieting, I think that is worse. It demonstrates anti-fatness because they are choosing not to fight oppression but give into it and align with those with power by becoming/promoting them. I can be compassionate individually and there are extenuating circumstances for many multiply marginalized people (trans people denied healthcare unless they lose weight etc.). I also think we need to recognize this power and distancing from an oppressed group.
I am a fat person and sometimes I desire the power and privilege that goes with being less fat (I can’t imagine thinness for myself). But that doesn’t mean I choose that or promote it. I get those pressures. I dieted forever until I knew there was an alternative. What feels different is that it felt icky to promote dieting to friends, family or coworkers. I can’t say I never did it but it was rare compared to other people I knew. Maybe that’s because I always thought the health part was dubious or because I was dieting for social self-preservation and calling attention to it wouldn’t serve me. I know my dieting contributed to anti-fat ideas.
My main point is that while I fully support everyone’s bodily autonomy, doing things with our own bodies doesn’t make all of those things neutral actions that don’t impact others. Most of our choices are constrained and difficult and I want people to choose anti-oppression for themselves and others.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write out this response and all of the important additions you provided. I knew when I pressed "send" that I wouldn't have captured all of the important points and nuances that are important in this conversation, so I really am grateful to you for extending this conversation with your own wisdom.
Thank you so much for this! I have been taken aback at how frequently this “am I allowed to want to be thin” question has been coming up lately, just because it’s become slightly less socially acceptable to focus on smaller body size. (So slightly!) It’s not like there is an anti-diet SWAT team ready to break down your door and shove a cupcake in your mouth the moment you have a weight loss wish or thought! For me, the most important thing to emphasize (which you’ve done here) is both that the weight loss wish happens and is totally normal, and will be for the foreseeable — along with the fact of the total futility of sustained intentional weight loss. Over time, I have been more quickly categorizing weight loss thoughts as wanting something that is just unavailable to me, such as a wish to be four inches taller or, like, an heiress. Personally I think a lot of the work is in reframing and rejecting the idea of body weight as a choice or a dial, which it just isn’t over the long term. The Ozempics of the world really aren’t helping with that!
Yes! How I often explain it to my clients is that noticing the thought doesn't mean we have to take action on the thought. And working through our triggers, learning about weight inclusivity, and building up our own self-worth will help make the thoughts less frequent and "quieter" over time. Most people aren't able to unlearn their weight bias overnight (or even over months), so having compassion for ourselves when we experience lingering pressure to change our bodies can be more productive in changing over time than sitting in shame and guilt. Thank you for sharing your perspective!
I can't tell you how much I appreciate this post. I've found that in healing spaces there is so little room for people to navigate this desire safely. Although we must encourage people to work towards body acceptance, I don't think that letting go of the desire to lose weight is always necessary to accept one's body. We should encourage folks to hold multiple desires at the same time.
In a perfect world, we hopefully wouldn't have so much difficulty letting go of anti-fatness (I mean in a truly perfect world I don't think anti-fatness would exist), but, as it is, it can be really powerful to process the desire for weight loss in a safe space and explore your experiences that make thinness so desirable. And hopefully having support people can help people move toward body acceptance and release some of the guilt/shame/pressure to lose weight. Thank you for sharing your experience and perspective!
I would like to hear in-depth discussion on "balanced diet." I've been fat for 3 periods in my life. I've also experienced what the medical profession deems "healthy weight" for over 4 decades. I did that through what I crafted as a way of eating that supports an immense joy of food with nutritional "balance" meaning meeting the minimum macro and micro nutrients guidelines as defined by my registered dietician.
After reading extensively about anti-fat bias et al, I began to wonder whether I had disordered eating, brainwashed by diet culture. It took extensive self-examination coupled with conversations with my RD and therapist to realize that I had embraced shame around eating a vegetarian, organic, whole foods diet and living in a straight sized body, which is disturbing. So yes, let's not skim over mention of "balanced diet" as there is a huge gulf between what is balanced and what is disordered eating. It's time for questioning, sharing ideas and experiences, and grappling with difficult concepts. While there are undoubtedly no hard definitive answers, extensive discourse should be part of discussions around health generally. It's past time.
Desiring to lose weight in an anti-fat world is normal. It would be wonderful if people especially fat people like me never felt that desire to radically and typically harmfully change our bodies. The individual desire is not the problem. The problem is how it reinforces and perpetuates anti-fatness.
If a person who has a typical profile (meaning not a public figure of any kind) talks about desiring or attempting to lose weight or even successfully doing so for a period of time, that person is reinforcing various beliefs about anti-fatness whether they intend to or not around family, friends and coworkers. That’s probably a few hundred people. Maybe a few thousand. If someone chooses to promote intentional weight loss online to tens of thousands or millions of people, that is a much more deliberate act that magnifies anti-fat ideas. The caveats they give are unlikely to counter the overall message, which is thinner bodies are better, change your body. Both are contributing to a culture of dieting as default. Both are buying into anti-fatness. The first can have a devastating impact on particularly impressionable people like kids. The second is trying to make money off of contributing to that culture by having that impact on many more people often including kids.
I honestly have a lot of sympathy for everyone who feels this pressure regardless of their role in it. At the same time, I feel like it matters to recognize people’s impact on others. If someone doesn’t know an alternative exists, I truly understand that they are doing their best. But for people who know about how diets fail people, who know about weight stigma and weight cycling and then choose to diet and especially promote dieting, I think that is worse. It demonstrates anti-fatness because they are choosing not to fight oppression but give into it and align with those with power by becoming/promoting them. I can be compassionate individually and there are extenuating circumstances for many multiply marginalized people (trans people denied healthcare unless they lose weight etc.). I also think we need to recognize this power and distancing from an oppressed group.
I am a fat person and sometimes I desire the power and privilege that goes with being less fat (I can’t imagine thinness for myself). But that doesn’t mean I choose that or promote it. I get those pressures. I dieted forever until I knew there was an alternative. What feels different is that it felt icky to promote dieting to friends, family or coworkers. I can’t say I never did it but it was rare compared to other people I knew. Maybe that’s because I always thought the health part was dubious or because I was dieting for social self-preservation and calling attention to it wouldn’t serve me. I know my dieting contributed to anti-fat ideas.
My main point is that while I fully support everyone’s bodily autonomy, doing things with our own bodies doesn’t make all of those things neutral actions that don’t impact others. Most of our choices are constrained and difficult and I want people to choose anti-oppression for themselves and others.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write out this response and all of the important additions you provided. I knew when I pressed "send" that I wouldn't have captured all of the important points and nuances that are important in this conversation, so I really am grateful to you for extending this conversation with your own wisdom.
Thank you so much for this! I have been taken aback at how frequently this “am I allowed to want to be thin” question has been coming up lately, just because it’s become slightly less socially acceptable to focus on smaller body size. (So slightly!) It’s not like there is an anti-diet SWAT team ready to break down your door and shove a cupcake in your mouth the moment you have a weight loss wish or thought! For me, the most important thing to emphasize (which you’ve done here) is both that the weight loss wish happens and is totally normal, and will be for the foreseeable — along with the fact of the total futility of sustained intentional weight loss. Over time, I have been more quickly categorizing weight loss thoughts as wanting something that is just unavailable to me, such as a wish to be four inches taller or, like, an heiress. Personally I think a lot of the work is in reframing and rejecting the idea of body weight as a choice or a dial, which it just isn’t over the long term. The Ozempics of the world really aren’t helping with that!
Yes! How I often explain it to my clients is that noticing the thought doesn't mean we have to take action on the thought. And working through our triggers, learning about weight inclusivity, and building up our own self-worth will help make the thoughts less frequent and "quieter" over time. Most people aren't able to unlearn their weight bias overnight (or even over months), so having compassion for ourselves when we experience lingering pressure to change our bodies can be more productive in changing over time than sitting in shame and guilt. Thank you for sharing your perspective!
I can't tell you how much I appreciate this post. I've found that in healing spaces there is so little room for people to navigate this desire safely. Although we must encourage people to work towards body acceptance, I don't think that letting go of the desire to lose weight is always necessary to accept one's body. We should encourage folks to hold multiple desires at the same time.
In a perfect world, we hopefully wouldn't have so much difficulty letting go of anti-fatness (I mean in a truly perfect world I don't think anti-fatness would exist), but, as it is, it can be really powerful to process the desire for weight loss in a safe space and explore your experiences that make thinness so desirable. And hopefully having support people can help people move toward body acceptance and release some of the guilt/shame/pressure to lose weight. Thank you for sharing your experience and perspective!
Great points!
Glad you commented on this, Dacy — I ate this one up and am looking forward to more content from you, Gretchen!
Thank you so much - I'm honored to have you both here!
I would like to hear in-depth discussion on "balanced diet." I've been fat for 3 periods in my life. I've also experienced what the medical profession deems "healthy weight" for over 4 decades. I did that through what I crafted as a way of eating that supports an immense joy of food with nutritional "balance" meaning meeting the minimum macro and micro nutrients guidelines as defined by my registered dietician.
After reading extensively about anti-fat bias et al, I began to wonder whether I had disordered eating, brainwashed by diet culture. It took extensive self-examination coupled with conversations with my RD and therapist to realize that I had embraced shame around eating a vegetarian, organic, whole foods diet and living in a straight sized body, which is disturbing. So yes, let's not skim over mention of "balanced diet" as there is a huge gulf between what is balanced and what is disordered eating. It's time for questioning, sharing ideas and experiences, and grappling with difficult concepts. While there are undoubtedly no hard definitive answers, extensive discourse should be part of discussions around health generally. It's past time.
Thank you for bringing this up! I did write a little about this in a previous post - you can find it here: https://thefullxlife.substack.com/p/hey-everything-in-moderation-right
I’ll definitely keep this in mind to address more directly in the future!
Great. Thanks.
This article was in September 8th Washington Post. Thought you'd be interested in reading.
https://wapo.st/3Zdmoer