- 2 - I grew up during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s with TV characters who stereotyped "fat": jolly, lazy, stupid, dirty, unattractive, repellent. When chosen for high school theatre roles, I played dowagers or dead people (Our Town), but was refused Lucy in Charlie Brown because "Lucy isn’t fat." (I personally think that would explain a lot about her quirks.) I was repeatedly told lies based on the assumptions of prejudicial opinions, and there were few fat people like me to look up to. But through the help of NAAFA and countless fat activists, today’s children actually can see and hear positive role models espousing living healthy at any weight, and new series such as Drop Dead Diva and More to Love can actually find airtime on popular venues.
For twenty years my beloved husband Bill and I have used our belief in the civil rights of size and our not-ineffective writing talents to inform and enlighten the general population about vital issues within the size acceptance community, sharing experiences and offering personal insight into this "larger" existence. Our brand new romance collaboration, Measure by Measure, is a fictional labor of love, but not merely of our own mutual affection. Its cast of fat residents lives within a widely diverse size acceptance community set in a major Illinois metro area on Lake Michigan, and their adventures mirror the daily struggles of real people we’ve known, respected and loved. The fact that a publisher believed enough in its message and that an evergrowing audience is embracing the story and its message of tolerance is an anodyne for all those years of feeling ashamed of my body.
I’m not sure whether you’ve yet been made aware, but between July 31st and August 3rd, Washington D.C. will play host to NAAFA’s annual international convention and 40th anniversary celebration. Hundreds of plump, hefty, zaftig, weighty, rotund, pudgy, stout, portly, and just plain fat people, plus their non-fat friends, lovers and allies, will converge on our nation’s Capitol and exercise two of this country’s most fundamental rights - freedom of speech and freedom of assembly - to provide testimony and evidence of the extensive, insidious damage fostered by modern society’s hateful attitudes and active, endemic discrimination against people outside its accepted "norm."
Increasingly, what medical research (unsubsidized by agents of the multi-billion dollar diet industry or insurance companies) has revealed is that the range of "acceptable" weight is much broader than reported. The extreme ranges of the weight spectrum produce the larger mortality, due to eating disorders from anorexia/bulimia and body dysmorphic disorder to compulsive eating and hyper-obesity. Further honest research and advocacy into living healthy at any size continues, but too often studies are skewed to fit desired results, ultimately masking or negating any real conclusions. Throwing dangerous medications and dodgy diet plans at the marketplace may seem logical in a business sense, since diets, not the dieter, fail 95-98% of the time, and yet it’s the unsuccessful patient who solely bears the burden of failure - you know, that’s what "they all say," so how could it not be the truth?
As a mid-sized fat woman, I have endured countless slights, rejections, lectures, bullying, and certifiable discrimination over my 55 years. For the first 25, I truly believed that I was worthless, even if I’m smart, funny, attractive (in an earthmother way), hardworking, compassionate, talented, and all those other benchmarks that one quantifies regarding the worth or acceptability of another human being. Many lies about my abilities were laid on me, as well as viewpoints about who I was and had the ability to become. When, with the love and guidance of my exceptional hubby, I could objectively examine all those self-limiting, self-loathing shackles, I finally realized that no one does have the power to hurt me without my own permission (thank you, Mr. Ghandi!).
I had found my voice. Once, overhearing an overloud insult in a restaurant, I invited myself to sit down with the offenders, saying, "Do we know each other? I just heard what you said, and I’d really like to know why you felt the need to make assumptions about me without reason or provocation." After getting over their embarrassment (it seems some people think those of different appearance don’t understand the spoken word), we were able to communicate, sharing personal feelings - I let them voice what they were most afraid of, offering in turn my view from the fat side. We all left that restaurant a bit more civilized, perhaps.
In a country where polls reveal that more than half of the women asked would rather be hit by a truck than gain weight, fat phobia is mercilessly fomented by gluttonous industries which reap obscene profits on pharmaceuticals, nutriceuticals, surgeries, quackeries with results from negative to questionable to tragic. Hastily approved chemicals create far more dangerous, unexpected and far-reaching side effects than manufacturers had imagined, or seemingly cared. Even ten years after debilitating illness and deaths related to the use of Fen-Phen as a diet suppressant led the FDA to ban its use, previously unaffected patients are now succumbing to coronary valve failure.
Every day on nearly every television, radio, computer and print page, society is bombarded with the blatant message that we are all deficient beings, never thin or young or beautiful or blond or willowy or pale or tan or tall or petite or in any way visually acceptable to the very society we belong to. During the body esteem workshops I’ve conducted for nearly twenty years, I ask my students to imagine one day without sight, without the burden of presumption, assessing every encounter solely on verbal and tactile interaction. Funny, the ones who have most often expressed that prospect as a relief were very physically attractive, either still battling the demons of self-loathing or conversely striving for success earned by merit rather than beauty.
And so, Mrs. Obama, if you have a opportunity to meet with the NAAFA delegation while they’re in the city, please take time out of your crazy schedule to listen to our concerns and learn of the challenges we face. Then think back on every larger-than-life person you’ve ever known and loved, those folks who were built for comfort not speed, who selflessly enriched your life with their insight, humor, compassion - cooking! With your advocacy and support, we can ensure a world where Sasha and Malia, and their friends and family and children, will all be valued for the content of their character, and not for the size of their clothes.
Thank you for your time, consideration, and abiding inspiration. Our country is wonderfully blessed by the strength, patience, innovation, compassion, wisdom and spirit you have returned to the White House. I imagine two centuries worth of First Ladies, smiling.
Peace and bright blessings always, My Lady.
Rebecca A. Fox
P.S. Copies of this letter are being sent to the NAAFA organization for its archives and to the honored members of Congress who have it in their power to effect positive change for people-of-all-sizes. Please share it with your wonderful husband as well, if you wish. Once again, my deepest thanks.
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