I will admit that contemplating challenging my own anti-fat bias, including trying to challenge it in my parenting, makes me weary down to my bones. Not because it's not crucial, but just because it feels so Sisyphean, having grown up with fat parents, watching them struggle continually with their physical and mental health, which was so painful to witness and not be able to do anything about. At the same time that they were both struggling, particularly my dad, I was desperate to find some kind of constructive way to live inside my own body, some role models to look to, and not having any luck at all. The years I have spent policing my own body have been as much about my own experience of being in it as being reactively fearful of putting my kids in the same position that I was in. The irony, of course, being that the more I have focused on and struggled with my own weight the more I have actually recreated the same dynamic I grew up with. And now my kids are grown(ish)-- 15 and 20-- and I fear I've missed my chance to actually interrupt this deep-seated, generational anti-fat dynamic in our family.
Sometimes I feel like missing from this whole conversation is the enormity of the grief that arises when you face the number of years you've spent running on this hamster wheel and the resulting damage to yourself and the people you love.
I hope this doesn’t sound too glib, but I just wanted to say it’s not too late! I’m sure your kids are still watching and learning from you, and will be for a long, long time. And being able to see an adult in your life change and grow and admit they were wrong or didn’t/don’t have all the answers can be really powerful.
You’re modeling to your kids how to keep your mind and your heart open to new ideas and healing, and yes, how to grieve, and honestly I think that’s amazing.
I hope you give yourself grace with all of this. It's like that saying - the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago but the second best time is today. We can't go back in time and be smarter; we can only try to be smarter today.
I relate to this on so many levels. I am a 40-year-old whose body has changed from thin to small-fat in the last 5 years, and making peace with myself has required unpacking so much anti-fat bias. I just want to say, if I were to witness my (still dieting) mom unpack her own anti-fatness today, it would be such a gift to me! The grief is so real and worth making space for, but the work you are doing now is interrupting these dynamics for your kids and is making a difference.
you've gotten a lot of good responses to your thoughtful comment and i just wanted to chime as the completely grown (26) daughter of a mom who was angry at her own body for all of my growing up-- if she had challenged that narrative in her mind when i was 15, or 20, or even now- omg it is bringing tears to my eyes- how different our lives would look. How different wedding dress shopping last fall would have felt. How different every conversation about clothes, swimsuits, eating, bodies. It is not too late for your kids to see you become different/learn from you, and most importantly, it is not too late for you to become different for you. Just for you. Not for their sake- for your own. Sending you relief and kindness <3
Oh, Kellyanne. Thank you for this bit of sweetness. I'm sorry all those moments with your mom have been hard. Luckily, I have refrained from ever allowing my anxiety to leak out as any kind of judgement about my kids' bodies. But I still worry that they are witnessing my anxiety and management and internalizing that as the way they have to approach managing their own bodies, which is not what I want for them. Or for me.
I so relate to this. I grieve for how mean I used to be to myself and just for the unbelievable amount of time and money I wasted trying to hate myself thin for so many years.
YES to this. The enormity of grief but also I have wrestled a lot with anger. I'm angry at the time I wasted, the energy I gave, to a system designed to oppress. The anger at myself that I continue to struggle. The anger at others who want to make this even harder. I know anger is a component of grief. So I hear you, I'm 40 and we can still get our lives back. We got this.
Yes, we do. Do you know just this week I didn't get on the scale every morning when I first wake up? First time I've done that when I wasn't on vacation in years. I just thought, Seriously, why do I want to start my day with that tiny voice that shames me? Why? I'm 51 years old. I'm just counting the months until I can say I'm officially in menopause. Aren't I too old to keep doing this to myself?
Also here to say it’s not too late! I’m on my 30s and it would still be incredibly meaningful to me if my mom opened up a conversation about her anti-fat bias (instead of me having to continually confront it in her).
I have my first in-person physical in three years on Monday and have been dreading the weigh-in because I know I've gained weight in the pandemic. But I'm also the most physically active and happiest with my body that I've ever been.
Until I read Virginia's answer to the last question, I had no idea I could just... ask not to be weighed. THANK YOU.
"I had no idea I could just" - totally relate. I was at a medical appointment after my brother unexpectedly died and I just didn't want the feeling of the blood pressure cuff squeezing my arm. The nurse saw I was feeling agitated, so she said "You know, you can just say no." Like I knew that, but I didn't feel like I could say that.
Since then, I'm trying to speak up more when I'm in a patient role. And yes, it's OK to say NO.
I just want to brace you that you might face pushback. I refused to be weighed at a first appointment with an ob-gyn and she threw me out. The world is full of doctors, so I found another one. But it doesn't always go smoothly.
If they insist on weighing you for some reason (as they did when I was pregnant at all prenatal appointments) I turned around and did not face the scale. I told the Dr if there was a serious problem, she could raise it with me but even in that case the number did not need to be included. So grateful she agreed.
The OB/GYN I go to has a digital scale with the number pointing sideways for the nurse to see but that you as a patient doesn’t see. And they don’t say the number. I’m not sure why this feels like such a small kindness but it does.💜
I think this is helpful but I think it also only goes partway. What I think I’m hearing is that the number on the scale isn’t necessary for the nurse (or Dr) either.
It depends. I had atypical preeclampsia with severe features--basically every symptom EXCEPT the crazy-high blood pressure--and one of the things that tipped the OB/GYN off that something was very wrong and I wasn't just old and miserable and pregnant in the summer was that I'd gained only 26 lbs over the course of the entire pregnancy, but 10 of them were between week 36 and 37. That's just not possible without very significant fluid retention.
They took the kid out less than 24 hours later and I made a full recovery.
I’ve refused the scale (“I’d like to pass, actually”) at my last two doctors appointments. Highly recommend! I am not usually assertive in healthcare situations, but it felt so good to do it. I think it’s going to get even easier the more I do it.
I am currently beginning this reckoning with my own fat phobia. The guilt, shame, grief, are overwhelming and it's rough. You mean, to be truly anti-fatphobic that I have ACCEPT and be OK with the fact that I'm fat??? Like for real? And I will probably never be thin again? It's terrifying. And at the same time, I am actually able to feed myself the amount of food my body needs. For the first time in decades I'm not underfeeding myself and it feels good.
I'm so thankful for folks like Virginia Sole Smith, Aubrey Gordon, Lindsey Ashline, The Fierce Fatty Podcast and everyone else in this movement. I am devouring podcasts, media and newsletters. My brain has been pickled in diet culture messaging for 40 years, and I'm trying to re-pickle it in the culture they says it's ok to be in a fat body.
Apr 26, 2023·edited Apr 26, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
This was so interesting! I'm especially digging the whole emphasis on bodies changing. I actually didn't experience puberty as particularly transformative (both because I am asexual and because I was very thin--neither my body shape nor my hormones changed very much at all). I rarely thought about my body at all: it was just a receptacle for my mind.
So I feel like I was even *less* prepared when I hit my mid-20s and my body started changing quite a lot. I started gaining weight, which gave me hips, boobs, and a belly I'd never had, and then I hit my late 20s/early 30s and started just noticing my body in ways I had not before--how eating certain foods made me feel (goodbye, deep-fried foods I loved! you make me feel shitty now!), how sleeping wrong would make my neck hurt the next day, how freaking fragile the human back is, etc. And every time I looked in the mirror, I saw someone who looked different than my mental image of myself that had remained relatively unchanged for the first ~25 years of my life.
No one ever told me that your body keeps changing in between puberty and menopause. I found it so disconcerting when mine did! It would be so incredibly helpful to talk about how all bodies change and that's...just what bodies do!
(Also the stuffed I learned about how pregnancy changes your body--beyond the obvious--when my sister started having kids...wow! I had thought myself well-informed but there was so much I didn't know until she started saying things like, "Oh, my hair is falling out," or whatever.)
SO MUCH THIS. I was 24 when the pandemic hit so that also definitely changed parts of my body as well as the fact that I had finished my masters program so I was no longer walking around campus all the time. But nobody prepared me for the fact that your body changes between menopause and puberty even if you don’t have a kid. I really thought that it would stay the same from the point that I was 20 and till I chose to procreate or hit menopause. Super not the case.
Thank you for reminding people of that! I’m a 50-something women who never had kids, and when I was in my 20s and 30s people acted like kids were the only reason one’s body might change. Nope. Metabolisms change, more weight might go where you don’t want it, etc etc.
I think part of why it's so hard for me to push back on doctors is because I was raised to revere them. I'm supposed to trust their knowledge and experience, and I think maybe that when they made me feel bad about myself, I just assumed they were doing their jobs. I am just unpacking this as I write this. It reminds me not to let them talk to my kids in that "shame on you" kind of way.
Love Virginia and love the valuable insights she shared in this conversation, especially how she identifies the classism and white supremacy inherent in anti-fat bias, the "wellness" movement, and societal notions of what "good parenting" looks like.
I'm a 40 yo white woman who's spent the last five or six years working to dismantle my own anti-fat bias. I am now a student therapist with a particular clinical interest in working with folks on same. As I've done more and more of this work, it has become jarring to wade into comments sections (why do I do it?!) and see that health-ism and anti-fat bias are thriving, so huge thanks to AHP for curating this community where the comments are thoughtful and reflective of a community that is open to challenging our own biases and long-held beliefs.
I thought a lot about how to set up the comments section on this piece in particular, because in other spaces where Virginia or others are having these sorts of conversations, you get "well-intentioned" (I'm putting that in quotes for a reason) people who want to push back with the same arguments that have landed us in this place. How do we avoid that, and start having a different conversation? I'm happy we seem to be having one right here right now.
I really appreciate the way you introduced this interview. It was clear you were in her/our corner and ready to stand by the experiences of people who are not thin. There’s a real contrast between your introduction of Sole-Smith and Emily Oster’s (though I do also appreciate Oster for featuring this work!), that made me think maybe it would be safe to venture into the comments. And I’m so glad I did! My ED is trying to make a resurgence this week and the conversations happening here (and the normalisation of bodies changing) are such a timely gift.
This is really meaningful to me, thank you! And I am sending you strength to stand up/talk back to those ED voices...it's so hard when they're coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE but you have the tools!!!
Did you read the comments section on the ParentData newsletter interview with Virginia (Emily Oster)? It was overall pretty disturbing, with a lot of people claiming someone like Emily Oster should be critiquing the Data and Science (capitalized for effect - these people think Emily Oster is the word of god even though it's very difficult to replicate study findings and all of Oster's work centers around what studies have found...) behind what Virginia talks about - great way to hide your prejudices behind a claim of "caring about the facts". Welcome to the world people - we live in a cultural context, every day, all the time.
Sigh. I didn't, but I hoped for a higher level of discourse there. I made the mistake of clicking through to the comments for Virginia's interview in The Cut, and my nervous system was promptly overwhelmed (not in a good way!). Diet culture is so deeply entrenched and, unfortunately, the "science" that, in many cases, is flimsy at best, (I'm looking at you, BMI) has been accepted without interrogation or critical appraisal. I suspect it's very hard for folks, particularly thin folks, to separate themselves from the idea that they are morally superior for being in smaller bodies, choosing "healthy" foods (without recognizing the same choice isn't available to all), and if you throw out those ideas, well, there's a whole facade that comes crashing down...
Traumatising! But part of me is also laughing today at the number of people there who think vegetables are the only source of fiber (there are so many really easy ways to incorporate fiber in a toddlers diet! Berries! Canned fruit! Whole grain fruit bars and crackers!) or that if you roast your broccoli to perfection your three year old will gobble it down (steamed broccoli is the only veggie my 3 year old currently eats. Absolutely rejects the brown spots on my beautifully roasted broccoli). How are all these data hungry parents so out of touch with reality?
Also, I ate A LOT of beautifully roasted broccoli for dinner last night. Roasted broccoli is my love language.
My 11 year old ate one piece, wrinkled her nose, and opted for her fave veggie - sliced mini cucumbers with "everything but the bagel' seasoning liberally sprinkled on top. Then we both had ice cream sandwiches for dessert. This is what a Tuesday night should look like, I think.
And just this assumption that VSS is just, like, feeding her kids a nightly buffet of Oreos and ice cream.
The idea is so simple: make them dinner and then let them decide how much to eat. There is nothing - NOTHING- in that precluding the idea that dinner includes a variety of foods including veggies but people in the comments act like she's forcing her kids into a veggie free existence by letting them have dessert.
Lol, I had the exact experience you describe in your second paragraph. When I saw the interview posted this morning I was like “oh no an these ideas are featured in a community curated by a thin white woman who runs. DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!” But of course I read the comments, and was delighted to discover this IS one of the good places on the Internet. AHP has done good work.
Exciting stuff! I love the idea of my job not being to conform to an arbitrary, at times harmful, standard but making the world safe for my (and others') bodies.
I had a recent epiphany-like emotional breakdown of gratitude for my body after a major brain operation (weirdly I did not have this feeling carrying and birthing two babies). But in recovery I was finally like, omg, I see you, body, doing so much to carry me, carry us through this life, thank you thank you thank you, how can I make it easier for you? I'm still working my way through it but it has changed the way I talk to and about my body. Making the world safer is the natural next step.
I relate to this so much as a recent-ish diagnosis of type 2 diabetes led me to a similar epiphany. Daily, I express appreciation and understanding for all the ways my body struggled to keep me going before I had a name for what was happening to me. It was working so hard without any help from me. How could I not be grateful?
That sounds terrifying! I hope you've recovered well. This type of epiphany happened to me after a terrible nightmare where my body would not work; I dreamt I had been in a terrible accident and was completely immobile. When I woke up I was so damn grateful that my actual body works, and does so much for me, regardless of its weight.
So many thoughts about this topic, an area where I’ve focused some of my own unlearning, as Rachel Cargle calls it, the last several years. I’ve come to believe that each of us unpacking our own anti-fat bias is critical to making our society safer for everyone. Especially since it is often rooted in anti-blackness and racism.
As someone who is a thin person, a thin white woman specifically, it’s been hard to come to terms with how much of this bullshit I’ve internalized. I used to be a runner, a fairly decent one, and had the kind of body you’d expect from someone who ran 70 miles/week. But now in my late 40s, a chronic illness and menopause have come for me and my body has changed. I am still straight sized and maintain my unearned thin privilege. But the 35 lbs I’ve gained have really, really fucked with my head and laid bare all of the shit I’ve inhaled over the years. Making peace with myself and learning to live IN my body, something I don’t think I’ve ever truly done, has been life changing. I hope I get healthy enough to run again. But I hope I never let go of the ability to be with myself as I have been while I’ve been sick. What I’ve learned has changed how I talk with my friends about our changing bodies at this age, and given me the courage to initiate conversations with healthcare providers on the topic, since how my weight has changed opened the door to the dialogue. I can’t wait to read Fat Talk and continue my education.
I really relate to this post. After years of suppressing my body’s clear attempts to gain weight, my late thirties pregnancy finally blew the lid off. I am now small fat, and (though my years of weight gain were a mental storm) at home in my body. Fat activists created space for me to arrive at this home coming. In the past couple months I’ve taken up running again, moving at a slow, self-compassionate place--carefully attending to the needs of my knees, hips, shins, ankles and appetite 😆. It’s so different from the boot camp I would put my body through in my twenties and early thirties, but it feels like a new beginning, filled with so much promise.
Eye-opening. So helpful to re-frame for our kids — and ourselves. As a woman in her 50’s, I now see that all the newsletters about staying fit after midlife (and frankly, all those insta photo’s of toned, fit, thin women in bikini’s and men in gym shorts who “look so much younger” (read thin)) are just another damaging contribution to fat shaming culture for those of a certain age. The disordered eating, extreme exercise and attention to appearance that is necessary to “look healthy and young” (meaning thin) once you reach a certain age ramps up dramatically. It’s all proffered as wellness, but the older we get the harder it is to be that version of “well.” I am going to unfollow a lot of accounts, subscribe to Virginia Sole-Smith and read the book. We need this. Thanks!
I am on Instagram just to follow my friends and watch cat videos, and it drives me up a wall how many weight loss posts are recommended to me even though I've never expressed an interest in the subject.
I am not a parent, but I worked as a nanny for over two decades, and during that time my weight fluctuated. I also struggled with an eating disorder and grew up with very rigid (ahem, abusive) policing around food. I have worked with so many different kinds of parents, and all of them wanted what was best for their children. I think that is one of the most important things for all parents to recognize: that it's never going to be perfect; that they are often themselves struggling with their own experiences and internalized fatphobia, and also that food and eating can be so hard with kids even without the added element of body shame. Letting go of the worries around whether your child is eating enough, or is eating the "right" things, is a whole conversation in itself.
From my experiences as a nanny, I have come to believe that the most powerful way we can engage with kids is by talking about things and admitting that we (adults) don't always have the answers, and assuring them that every single person struggles with making meaning. That means that caretakers must process their own feelings in an honest way, and reckon with any internalized bigotry we may have on any level. With young children especially there is this cultural habit of trying to assure and smooth things over instead of confirming what children can literally feel is true. They're so intuitive. We can teach them to trust themselves around food by trusting them. We can teach them to trust that their body is okay the way it is by trusting that our own bodies are okay, whether or not they align with any ideal. I think so often the goal is perfection with caretaking kids. I think that what Virginia says here about confirming kids' feelings is so right.
I also think there needs to be a focus on many many other things besides people's bodies. So often the focus, especially for women and femmes, is on the body and appearance, and in such a commodified way. As a collective I wonder what it could mean were women and femmes to focus less on their appearance and more on their innate intelligence and power- though I fully understand both that these things are not mutually exclusive and that there are consequences for those of us who refuse to buy into the idea that our appearance has anything to do with our value at all.
I really love that Virginia dives into the medical aspects and consequences of fatphobia and discrimination, because it is SO real. I was on Weight Watchers when I was eight, and that had serious consequences not only for my mental but for my physical health. Sometimes I wonder if, had I not ever dieted, my body would be healthier now. I don't wonder, actually. I know that's true. Depriving ourselves of nourishment has real consequences, but it is also symbolic in such a profound way.
Anyways, thank you for this. Can't wait to read Virginia's book!
Thanks for this! I have just ordered the book and look forward to reading it. I had never once considered not having my kids weighed at the pediatrician before even though I do try to forego my own weigh in at my doc. Both of my kids are “late bloomers” (my daughter just started menstruating at 16) because, in part, they were micropreemies born at 25 weeks. Every aspect of their development has not been on the growth chart. It used to strike me that in the first 12 months every parent tried to get their kid to grow so there would be no question about failure to thrive. Then at age two it was like suddenly every convo I’d hear about a kid’s size was concern over gaining too much weight. I couldn’t figure I out what changed.
Ugh it’s so weird as a parent that you start our desperately shoving ounces into your baby while your doctor frowns at a weight chart, only to have your doctor frown at a weight chart in the opposite direction a few years later. That alone makes the whole thing feel arbitrary and frankly over-managed. Moreover why is this whole thing about making parents feel Iike they control anything, let alone their kids’ weight? Influence, maybe, but control, never. The most insidious part of parenting (in myself first and foremost) is the folly of control. Sometimes I feel like anti-fat bias is about that, too; we want to believe we can control the uncontrollable and we’re furious with people that break that illusion.
God yes! I have so many feels about my kids’ early years (son hospitalized for 105 days, daughter in a hospital or care setting for 3 years) but I never felt like I had anything resembling control. And feeding folks is one of the obsessive ways I show I love people.
I can relate to this so much! I have a 28 week preemie who is now 6 and always ranks below the 10% on the height and weight growth charts. It’s not for lack of trying, but I’ve seen how much stress it’s caused my daughter to be constantly encouraged to eat past satiety. It’s caused a lot of stress with my ex-husband because he’s approaches the “problem” of her smallness quite differently than I. It’s complicated, but these body talk discussions are important to pause and think critically about the messages we are sending.
There is a WHOLE other rat's nest that is the intersection of fatphobia and breastfeeding promotion. Do people tell you that giving your baby formula might make them fat? You bet they do and it is harmful AF.
I think that's why the comment section for Emily Oster's newsletter went so nuts...her audience is parents who crave control through the data driven answers...which don't always exist...
My daughter was also a 25 week micro preemie and she’s nine now and developing early. A friend who has a 24 weeker also had the early development experience with her kiddo and we were speculating maybe micro preemies go through puberty early; how interesting your former micro is the opposite! My daughter is squarely in the middle of the growth charts, but my son who’s 5 and was born at 31 weeks is still not on them, or is like below fifth percentile. I don’t think not weighing him at the doctor is a possibility, but I try to be super conscious about how we address and speak about size.
My husband (and my mother) want to do HGH for my 5 yo son because he’s so small. But whether or not someone receives it is based on how much their body is producing, right? I’m open to a blood test if his pediatrician isn’t opposed, but she hasn’t recommended it yet. I know my husband worries about our son being a very small man, even if we often talk about how that’s fine. (With one another, not in front of the 5 yo.)
The process was onerous for us. We had to see a geneticist (who was not a clinician and when she saw my daughters blood work was concerned that she had leukemia and was not a tracheostomy-wearing, petrie dish of infection) and then we were referred to an endocrinologist who ordered more blood work and a bone age scan. There are threshold levels for treatment. Our pediatrician never pushed or offered info until we asked. Also Late puberty makes sense because my daughters bone age is about 2 years behind.she has remarkably healthy body image all things considered. Her twin brother though is also short and smaller but never was referred for any treatment and it probably wasn’t needed. He is taller than I am and still growing.
Ooof. That does sound like a lot. The range of outcomes with these former preemies is fascinating. I’m so glad to hear your daughter has a health body image. I think mine does, too. And as I often remind my mother, we are small people: she’s 5’1, I’m 5’2, and her dad was 5’3.
Ok, I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, especially as all these new drugs are coming out (Ozempic etc) and we are told it's such a breakthrough for obesity. I guess I'm a huge newbie to this conversation and what follows is my brain dump of where I'm at.
I was raised DEEP in the diet culture of the 90's, like many of us, I would imagine. My Dad struggled with weight his whole life until he passed in 2020. One of the most vivid memories I have right before he died was sitting at the dinner table with him and my step-mom. He reached for the potatoes and she swatted his hand away from the dish and admonished him for wanting some carbs. The man dying from stage 4 lung cancer. I had to walk away from the table and sob. I can remember my grandfather making these horrible diet shakes (maybe it was SlimFast in a blender with ice?), and all the diet foods of the 90's, like I can't believe it's not butter and low fat everything. That crap doesn't help anyone be healthy, obviously. And so, I get that. And I get that the "image" we are sold isn't realistic.
And then... there's the puritan-ness of it all. I think this must be related to the ongoing workaholic issues I've been working on. I've really been examining whether I want to achieve something because I LOVE it, or if it's just yet another way I tell myself I'm a "good" person, because I equate that with working harder than everyone else. Spoiler alert, I don't really want to work 24/7. LOL. The anti-fat conversation fits right in here....Like you aren't a "good" person unless.... you're skinny. Writing that (as a fat person) makes me tear up.
I don't know how to fix this in my brain. I know it'll be a long journey of challenging what I know to be healthy and "good."
Anyway, I'll that said, I guess I just wanted to throw out what I was thinking in case someone else can relate. I'm with you. <3
I'm looking forward to reading all of your thoughts and responses too, because I know I'll learn something.
I also grew up in the 90s and the whole low fat and FAT FREE push and relate to the family struggle of weight signaling the goal was to overcome this horrible “fatness.” I love how she talked in the article about “health performance as social capital” and I can so relate to the feeling I lack value in society unless I am able to demonstrate some form of “skinny.” So much time I spent WAITING until I was the “right-size” or correct form to go reach for goals that should have nothing to do with some false perceived image I thought I had to obtain. Careers, relationships and even vacations were put on hold while I worked toward the “better” version of me. And not even just weight caused this. I once stayed away from everything for a month until an unfortunate haircut grew out.
Oh goodness. The story about your dad is so painful to read. I'm so so sorry.
I don't know how to fix this in my brain either. I'm currently seeing a therapist and a self-identified fat dietician and they are being super patient with me. I guess it's going to be a very long road...
Thank you, JJ. <3 You're such a supportive, empathetic person. I've seen you showing up for others on this thread too and just want to acknowledge you for that. Thank you!!
That's a good idea, to find therapists and dieticians who are educated in this. I mentioned it to my psychiatrist a couple of weeks ago, and he said, "Well, why don't you just go back to what you were doing before? It worked well for you!" What I was doing before was hard core restriction (<30 grams of carbs a day, gluten free, legume free, etc etc) and it was obsessive. I mentioned this to him and he just shrugged it off. Annoying. I think it's time to find someone who 'gets it.'
Thank you so much for saying that. And yes, you deserve better!!! I recently had a disastrous appt my my old-school cardiogist. Never going back to see his ass again!
one of the things that has really been helping me is virgina's newsletter. I don't have kids, but I'm around them a lot and it feels a lot like reparenting myself around food. working on our brains here isn't easy, and that story about your dad just breaks my heart. so much empathy on this
I haven’t even read the Atlantic piece on what dads do but if it’s anything like my own experience firm yes absolutely true. My mom never fat shamed me. But when I was stuggling to get loosey-goosy non commital guy to commit to me (who may have had his own mental health issues and was 20 so understandable!) my dad absolutely made it clear that it was bc of my weight. Again and again he would ask if any guys liked me (this was the 90s so ) or expressed interest. He was absolutely obsessed with my weight. He meant well I guess.
I'm really sorry this happened to you — and it's okay to both understand that he was influenced by anti-fatness and that those things he said to you were deeply fucked up.
That is so hard! The only dad response to heartbreak should be “I love you honey, you are amazing. Find someone who loves you for the beautiful person you are.” My dad, an otherwise kind and empathetic person, was SO fat-biased he would “oink” when fat people showed up on the news or in movies. It too me until my mid-30s to understand that that may have contributed to my body issues. Dads represent a unique intersection of patriarchy, misogyny and anti-fatness that just warps the child’s mind so hard.
Oh totally. Im really sorry about the oinking. That’s awful. My dad would do the equivalent not loud but just small comments also on the news or in public. It’s the worst! I totally agree with you about the dad intersection! (TM ha ha ha). It’s really hard bc yeah as you say empathetic everywhere else. But don’t even get me started on my NPractitoner Aunt and sister. This is all in Central Valley of CA-I sometimes wonder if the fat phobia is worse in places just slightly urban but by no means big cities. I know fat phobia exists in LA and NYC bit there are so many feminist/alternative subcultures and just so much diversity in every aspect that I wonder if it’s not as generally accepted. Just pondering
Excited to read this piece here and to have the relative safety of THIS comment section. I just want to applaud Virginia for her work and for her willingness to take a lot of anti-fat and demonizing from the terrible comment sections other places. People are so deeply committed to misunderstanding this work or having their anti-fat bias challenged and writers like Virginia get so much undeserved shit.
If you haven't been following Virginia's response to some of these questions on her IG/TikTok, it's been delighting me every day! https://www.instagram.com/p/Crgb1y9gkLK/
Apr 26, 2023·edited Apr 26, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
I’ve watched my mom struggle with her weight my entire life. I’m now 27 and I am the heaviest I’ve ever been, although I’m still in straight sizes and a white woman, with all the privilege that brings. But my mom will comment on my body — and her own body still — and it’s really hard working through my own bullshit that I’ve ingested over the years and trying to put boundaries around her comments or gently reinforce the idea that all bodies are good. She got a lot of this from her mom and was certainly less critical of me than her mom was of her but it’s still bullshit and so fucking hard. Growing up she never criticized any potential weight gain, but she did always say how jealous she was of my thinness. And I realize that she didn’t think that that was bad but all it’s done is reinforce the fact that my smaller body was better. I’m now struggling with the fact that I don’t look like I did when I was 16.
What I find challenging about Virginia’s position is the conflation of anti-fat bias with healthy eating. Of course no one should be shamed about their bodies, ever.
At the same time, some foods promote health and others do not. This doesn’t have to be about being fat or not, it’s about health. I see she’s trying to disentangle this, but in so doing she can tend to argue (not as much in this interview but I’m others I’ve read recently) that all food is the same in its impact on our health.
In fact, processed foods are pretty uniformly accepted as not promoting health (juice included)--and there’s a huge lobby and political machine behind getting more processed foods into Americans’ bodies. I think it’s ok and even essential to acknowledge and discuss health with kids. It just shouldn’t be put in the context of how our bodies look.
I'll let Virginia answer this one more in-depth. but my understanding is that we can acknowledge that some foods do different things for our bodies (I think the *for* is crucial here, because we're thinking of food as something that provides energy for our body; every food does something for our health, truly, and foods can do different things for health depending on the specific needs of the body) but as soon as you start trying to strictly organize and categorize, you end up falling (willingly or not!) into the matrixes that Stefanie highlights in her response.
I would also like to simply say that there is no moral imperative that any of us be healthy in any way we don't want to be, and that poor health indicates nothing about a person except that they are in poor health.
There is a thread of healthism here, which is the idea that being healthy is about being a morally upstanding person (if you sub in "thin" for healthy, in that sentence, you'll see what happens), and further, that if you don't pursue "health" (thinness), you aren't a morally upstanding person.
Lastly, all food is the same, in its very basic fact of filling up our stomachs and making it possible for us to continue on our way as human beings.
In addition to the other smart comments below, I'll just add that we don't actually have established consensus about what "healthy" vs "unhealthy" is... it changes all the time. Are eggs healthy sources of inexpensive protein or cholesterol bombs? Is butter healthier than margarine substitute because it is less processed or is margarine substitute better because it is lower in calories? Whole grain bread is great! Wait, no it isn't because is too heavy in carbs! We used to think fat was the devil and now it is sugar. "Healthy" is culturally defined, influenced by capitalism, and variable by individuals (I'm supposed to limit my intake of spinach because I'm prone to kidney stones, for example).
I think it is it's really hard to talk about "healthy vs unhealthy food" in a way that doesn't ignore the reality that there is SO much nuance needed to talk about how people interact with food.
I would argue that this perspective evinces some classism and healthism. For example, food can serve many needs: sometimes people eat for optimal health, and sometimes people eat for other reasons like pleasure or a quick snack or this is what they can get their kid to eat or because they’re at their brother’s house and this is what’s available. Putting food solely within a matrix of unprocessed=heath=virtue versus processed=unhealthy=vice is incredibly simplistic about the many imperatives that eating fulfills. Not to mention, as someone who is disabled, the equation of health and virtue generally is very threatening to me. Also, you talk about the “political machine getting processed foods into Americans’ bodies”, and that’s a useful critique as far as it goes; but until our sociopolitical circumstances change such that every household has access both to an abundance of unprocessed ingredients and, crucially, the leisure time to turn those into edible meals, the kind of shaming that gets leveled at people for eating processed foods is mere moralizing.
I agree we need to be sensitive in how we talk about these things because they are charged.
At the same time it seems excessive to throw out the idea that healthier and less healthy foods exist, and that we should not be educating our kids about this.
Type 2 diabetes runs in my family, and I know certain foods promote insulin insensitivity. I can measure this in my body and know it for sure. Tons of studies back this up. I am in a position where I can avoid those foods. Yes, that’s privilege but that’s also science.
I think it’s ok to talk about it and teach the next generation about how food impacts your health, while still being sensitive to different people’s experiences in the world, and promoting non-judgment.
I can offer some thoughts as someone who's worked hard to disentangle myself from my own anti-fat bias, and as a parent of a 10 yo girl who has tried to be incredibly intentional about how I frame food, eating, hunger, bodies, and nutrition. I am not perfect and I continue to learn.
Essentially, the idea is to remove morality from food. Labeling foods "good" or "bad," healthy" or "unhealthy" can create binaries that lead to guilt and disordered eating. We can talk about what foods offer us without assigning them "good" or "bad" labels. And we can encourage our kids to listen to their bodies' signals to determine what food would best serve them at a particular moment, be that carrots or cake. Taking this intuitive eating approach and working toward food neutrality helps reduce scarcity mindset that frequently accompanies foods that diet culture tells us should be limited. As a parent, I rely heavily on the framework offered by Ellyn Satter's Division of Responsibility, which places onus on the parents to select what and when a child eats, and offers children the opportunity to select if and how much they eat.
I would also offer that we have been oversold the impact that personal choices have on our health. Other factors, such as genetics, social determinants of health, and socioeconomic status, have a much more significant impact on our health outcomes. That's not to say that nutrition doesn't have a role in overall health, but I do think it's been overstated and I believe that's part of the same toxic individualism that places responsibility on the individual instead of investing in meaningful structural change.
Apr 26, 2023·edited Apr 26, 2023Liked by Anne Helen Petersen
You actually are in some ways proving her point about how healthy & non-healthy is not as clear of a division as you might think. For a family with Type 2 diabetes, X or Y food does or does not promote health. For a family without these concerns, but with food insecurity, the answer might be the opposite about the exact same foods. As someone in recovery from an eating disorder, for example, it was a huge deal when I started eating butter again. Butter is healthy for me.
I'd also encourage you to broaden your understanding of the "science". In my reading, I've been enlightened by how flimsy the science supporting weight loss is and how rooted it is in bias. Virginia actually has a lot of science in her work, and I'd encourage you to keep reading beyond these interviews. We need voices who push the conversation to its boundary to ensure we all can land somewhere better.
Laura Thomas is an RD who recently published some in depth research and reporting on ultra-processed foods on her substack. It’s a three part series and I’ll link the third part here (which links to the first two parts), in case you are interested.
Some thoughts: I have struggled with this as a parent. I thought my child needed to know which foods are "right". But really, the right food is the food that we have access to and which is safe to eat. I know she hears messages about what is healthy and not because she uses that language at home. When she told me "hot chocolate is healthy" I just smiled and agreed. What's the point in saying it's got too much sugar or whatever? Then she's just going to feel bad about food that she enjoys eating regularly. Kids think in black and white and can't process nuance well. They think that if a food is "bad" or "unhealthy", they must be bad and unhealthy for eating it, and maybe their parents are bad for giving it to them.
Also, as a fat person: I know what "healthy eating" is. I'm still fat. Nutrition knowledge is not going to make me thin. I eat the "right" things and I am still fat. To quote Rachel Bloom, as always, "the situation is a lot more nuanced than that."
I completely agree with this. I eat pretty healthy because it makes me feel better, and I happen to be thin-which probably has more to do with genetics, metabolism, and generally being active. I think there can be room in the discussion for nutrition regardless of body size, especially when our food supply has changed so much in the past 100 years. High fructose corn syrup & vegetable oils are certainly not ideal foods to be consumed in the amount we are eating them. So no-talking about nutrition should not be done as a response to weight ever, but I just don’t agree with the every food is fine in every quantity argument.
I hope you'll reconsider this last sentence in your statement. I want to tell you (with kindness) that the last sentence is the beginning of an argument that ends with people just trying to fill their bellies being demonized (and it also ends with parents being demonized for how they feed their kids, and that's a recipe for a CPS disaster). And in the middle is a great variety of reasons why people eat what they eat in the quantities they eat, from illness to neurodivergence to pleasure to boredom to...whatever personal reasons exist. The statement above is a moral judgement, and it's not helpful. There are truths about our food system that can exist in our heads at the same time that we also understand that all food is fine in any quantities.
Fat liberation and fat acceptance cannot happen with the last sentence in your statement. We cannot free ourselves from the oppression of our current anti-fat, fatmisiac society if we are always going to rank foods based on their perceived nutritional value and then create arbitrary quantity consumption standards based on that perceived nutritional value. There is no liberation when moral judgement enters the room, because creating rankings creates a hierarchy from good to bad, thus making some people ineligible for liberation.
I will admit that contemplating challenging my own anti-fat bias, including trying to challenge it in my parenting, makes me weary down to my bones. Not because it's not crucial, but just because it feels so Sisyphean, having grown up with fat parents, watching them struggle continually with their physical and mental health, which was so painful to witness and not be able to do anything about. At the same time that they were both struggling, particularly my dad, I was desperate to find some kind of constructive way to live inside my own body, some role models to look to, and not having any luck at all. The years I have spent policing my own body have been as much about my own experience of being in it as being reactively fearful of putting my kids in the same position that I was in. The irony, of course, being that the more I have focused on and struggled with my own weight the more I have actually recreated the same dynamic I grew up with. And now my kids are grown(ish)-- 15 and 20-- and I fear I've missed my chance to actually interrupt this deep-seated, generational anti-fat dynamic in our family.
Sometimes I feel like missing from this whole conversation is the enormity of the grief that arises when you face the number of years you've spent running on this hamster wheel and the resulting damage to yourself and the people you love.
I hope this doesn’t sound too glib, but I just wanted to say it’s not too late! I’m sure your kids are still watching and learning from you, and will be for a long, long time. And being able to see an adult in your life change and grow and admit they were wrong or didn’t/don’t have all the answers can be really powerful.
You’re modeling to your kids how to keep your mind and your heart open to new ideas and healing, and yes, how to grieve, and honestly I think that’s amazing.
I hope you give yourself grace with all of this. It's like that saying - the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago but the second best time is today. We can't go back in time and be smarter; we can only try to be smarter today.
I relate to this on so many levels. I am a 40-year-old whose body has changed from thin to small-fat in the last 5 years, and making peace with myself has required unpacking so much anti-fat bias. I just want to say, if I were to witness my (still dieting) mom unpack her own anti-fatness today, it would be such a gift to me! The grief is so real and worth making space for, but the work you are doing now is interrupting these dynamics for your kids and is making a difference.
I’m 42 and my mom has recently done a lot of work in this regard. It has been incredibly healing for me!
That is so beautiful!
you've gotten a lot of good responses to your thoughtful comment and i just wanted to chime as the completely grown (26) daughter of a mom who was angry at her own body for all of my growing up-- if she had challenged that narrative in her mind when i was 15, or 20, or even now- omg it is bringing tears to my eyes- how different our lives would look. How different wedding dress shopping last fall would have felt. How different every conversation about clothes, swimsuits, eating, bodies. It is not too late for your kids to see you become different/learn from you, and most importantly, it is not too late for you to become different for you. Just for you. Not for their sake- for your own. Sending you relief and kindness <3
Oh, Kellyanne. Thank you for this bit of sweetness. I'm sorry all those moments with your mom have been hard. Luckily, I have refrained from ever allowing my anxiety to leak out as any kind of judgement about my kids' bodies. But I still worry that they are witnessing my anxiety and management and internalizing that as the way they have to approach managing their own bodies, which is not what I want for them. Or for me.
I so relate to this. I grieve for how mean I used to be to myself and just for the unbelievable amount of time and money I wasted trying to hate myself thin for so many years.
YES to this. The enormity of grief but also I have wrestled a lot with anger. I'm angry at the time I wasted, the energy I gave, to a system designed to oppress. The anger at myself that I continue to struggle. The anger at others who want to make this even harder. I know anger is a component of grief. So I hear you, I'm 40 and we can still get our lives back. We got this.
Yes, we do. Do you know just this week I didn't get on the scale every morning when I first wake up? First time I've done that when I wasn't on vacation in years. I just thought, Seriously, why do I want to start my day with that tiny voice that shames me? Why? I'm 51 years old. I'm just counting the months until I can say I'm officially in menopause. Aren't I too old to keep doing this to myself?
That is amazing and actually a HUGE step so congrats to you, seriously. Keep it up!
Just here to support you and let you know you are not alone in this.
Thank you, JJ.
Also here to say it’s not too late! I’m on my 30s and it would still be incredibly meaningful to me if my mom opened up a conversation about her anti-fat bias (instead of me having to continually confront it in her).
I have my first in-person physical in three years on Monday and have been dreading the weigh-in because I know I've gained weight in the pandemic. But I'm also the most physically active and happiest with my body that I've ever been.
Until I read Virginia's answer to the last question, I had no idea I could just... ask not to be weighed. THANK YOU.
"I had no idea I could just" - totally relate. I was at a medical appointment after my brother unexpectedly died and I just didn't want the feeling of the blood pressure cuff squeezing my arm. The nurse saw I was feeling agitated, so she said "You know, you can just say no." Like I knew that, but I didn't feel like I could say that.
Since then, I'm trying to speak up more when I'm in a patient role. And yes, it's OK to say NO.
Wow, I'm really impressed with that nurse. That shouldn't be impressive...but it really is.
I just want to brace you that you might face pushback. I refused to be weighed at a first appointment with an ob-gyn and she threw me out. The world is full of doctors, so I found another one. But it doesn't always go smoothly.
That is so upsetting. I'm sorry you experienced that.
Thank you. I'm pretty old and tough, so I just moved on. But I thought it was worth a warning.
If they insist on weighing you for some reason (as they did when I was pregnant at all prenatal appointments) I turned around and did not face the scale. I told the Dr if there was a serious problem, she could raise it with me but even in that case the number did not need to be included. So grateful she agreed.
The OB/GYN I go to has a digital scale with the number pointing sideways for the nurse to see but that you as a patient doesn’t see. And they don’t say the number. I’m not sure why this feels like such a small kindness but it does.💜
I think this is helpful but I think it also only goes partway. What I think I’m hearing is that the number on the scale isn’t necessary for the nurse (or Dr) either.
Agreed.
It depends. I had atypical preeclampsia with severe features--basically every symptom EXCEPT the crazy-high blood pressure--and one of the things that tipped the OB/GYN off that something was very wrong and I wasn't just old and miserable and pregnant in the summer was that I'd gained only 26 lbs over the course of the entire pregnancy, but 10 of them were between week 36 and 37. That's just not possible without very significant fluid retention.
They took the kid out less than 24 hours later and I made a full recovery.
I’ve refused the scale (“I’d like to pass, actually”) at my last two doctors appointments. Highly recommend! I am not usually assertive in healthcare situations, but it felt so good to do it. I think it’s going to get even easier the more I do it.
I am currently beginning this reckoning with my own fat phobia. The guilt, shame, grief, are overwhelming and it's rough. You mean, to be truly anti-fatphobic that I have ACCEPT and be OK with the fact that I'm fat??? Like for real? And I will probably never be thin again? It's terrifying. And at the same time, I am actually able to feed myself the amount of food my body needs. For the first time in decades I'm not underfeeding myself and it feels good.
I'm so thankful for folks like Virginia Sole Smith, Aubrey Gordon, Lindsey Ashline, The Fierce Fatty Podcast and everyone else in this movement. I am devouring podcasts, media and newsletters. My brain has been pickled in diet culture messaging for 40 years, and I'm trying to re-pickle it in the culture they says it's ok to be in a fat body.
I love the image of pickling your brain! Such a great image.
What can I say...pickles are delicious! 😀
This was so interesting! I'm especially digging the whole emphasis on bodies changing. I actually didn't experience puberty as particularly transformative (both because I am asexual and because I was very thin--neither my body shape nor my hormones changed very much at all). I rarely thought about my body at all: it was just a receptacle for my mind.
So I feel like I was even *less* prepared when I hit my mid-20s and my body started changing quite a lot. I started gaining weight, which gave me hips, boobs, and a belly I'd never had, and then I hit my late 20s/early 30s and started just noticing my body in ways I had not before--how eating certain foods made me feel (goodbye, deep-fried foods I loved! you make me feel shitty now!), how sleeping wrong would make my neck hurt the next day, how freaking fragile the human back is, etc. And every time I looked in the mirror, I saw someone who looked different than my mental image of myself that had remained relatively unchanged for the first ~25 years of my life.
No one ever told me that your body keeps changing in between puberty and menopause. I found it so disconcerting when mine did! It would be so incredibly helpful to talk about how all bodies change and that's...just what bodies do!
(Also the stuffed I learned about how pregnancy changes your body--beyond the obvious--when my sister started having kids...wow! I had thought myself well-informed but there was so much I didn't know until she started saying things like, "Oh, my hair is falling out," or whatever.)
SO MUCH THIS. I was 24 when the pandemic hit so that also definitely changed parts of my body as well as the fact that I had finished my masters program so I was no longer walking around campus all the time. But nobody prepared me for the fact that your body changes between menopause and puberty even if you don’t have a kid. I really thought that it would stay the same from the point that I was 20 and till I chose to procreate or hit menopause. Super not the case.
Thank you for reminding people of that! I’m a 50-something women who never had kids, and when I was in my 20s and 30s people acted like kids were the only reason one’s body might change. Nope. Metabolisms change, more weight might go where you don’t want it, etc etc.
I think part of why it's so hard for me to push back on doctors is because I was raised to revere them. I'm supposed to trust their knowledge and experience, and I think maybe that when they made me feel bad about myself, I just assumed they were doing their jobs. I am just unpacking this as I write this. It reminds me not to let them talk to my kids in that "shame on you" kind of way.
Love Virginia and love the valuable insights she shared in this conversation, especially how she identifies the classism and white supremacy inherent in anti-fat bias, the "wellness" movement, and societal notions of what "good parenting" looks like.
I'm a 40 yo white woman who's spent the last five or six years working to dismantle my own anti-fat bias. I am now a student therapist with a particular clinical interest in working with folks on same. As I've done more and more of this work, it has become jarring to wade into comments sections (why do I do it?!) and see that health-ism and anti-fat bias are thriving, so huge thanks to AHP for curating this community where the comments are thoughtful and reflective of a community that is open to challenging our own biases and long-held beliefs.
I thought a lot about how to set up the comments section on this piece in particular, because in other spaces where Virginia or others are having these sorts of conversations, you get "well-intentioned" (I'm putting that in quotes for a reason) people who want to push back with the same arguments that have landed us in this place. How do we avoid that, and start having a different conversation? I'm happy we seem to be having one right here right now.
I really appreciate the way you introduced this interview. It was clear you were in her/our corner and ready to stand by the experiences of people who are not thin. There’s a real contrast between your introduction of Sole-Smith and Emily Oster’s (though I do also appreciate Oster for featuring this work!), that made me think maybe it would be safe to venture into the comments. And I’m so glad I did! My ED is trying to make a resurgence this week and the conversations happening here (and the normalisation of bodies changing) are such a timely gift.
This is really meaningful to me, thank you! And I am sending you strength to stand up/talk back to those ED voices...it's so hard when they're coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE but you have the tools!!!
Thank you!
Did you read the comments section on the ParentData newsletter interview with Virginia (Emily Oster)? It was overall pretty disturbing, with a lot of people claiming someone like Emily Oster should be critiquing the Data and Science (capitalized for effect - these people think Emily Oster is the word of god even though it's very difficult to replicate study findings and all of Oster's work centers around what studies have found...) behind what Virginia talks about - great way to hide your prejudices behind a claim of "caring about the facts". Welcome to the world people - we live in a cultural context, every day, all the time.
Sigh. I didn't, but I hoped for a higher level of discourse there. I made the mistake of clicking through to the comments for Virginia's interview in The Cut, and my nervous system was promptly overwhelmed (not in a good way!). Diet culture is so deeply entrenched and, unfortunately, the "science" that, in many cases, is flimsy at best, (I'm looking at you, BMI) has been accepted without interrogation or critical appraisal. I suspect it's very hard for folks, particularly thin folks, to separate themselves from the idea that they are morally superior for being in smaller bodies, choosing "healthy" foods (without recognizing the same choice isn't available to all), and if you throw out those ideas, well, there's a whole facade that comes crashing down...
That comment section was AWFUL.
Traumatising! But part of me is also laughing today at the number of people there who think vegetables are the only source of fiber (there are so many really easy ways to incorporate fiber in a toddlers diet! Berries! Canned fruit! Whole grain fruit bars and crackers!) or that if you roast your broccoli to perfection your three year old will gobble it down (steamed broccoli is the only veggie my 3 year old currently eats. Absolutely rejects the brown spots on my beautifully roasted broccoli). How are all these data hungry parents so out of touch with reality?
Also, I ate A LOT of beautifully roasted broccoli for dinner last night. Roasted broccoli is my love language.
My 11 year old ate one piece, wrinkled her nose, and opted for her fave veggie - sliced mini cucumbers with "everything but the bagel' seasoning liberally sprinkled on top. Then we both had ice cream sandwiches for dessert. This is what a Tuesday night should look like, I think.
Normal eating is such a delight.
And just this assumption that VSS is just, like, feeding her kids a nightly buffet of Oreos and ice cream.
The idea is so simple: make them dinner and then let them decide how much to eat. There is nothing - NOTHING- in that precluding the idea that dinner includes a variety of foods including veggies but people in the comments act like she's forcing her kids into a veggie free existence by letting them have dessert.
Lol, I had the exact experience you describe in your second paragraph. When I saw the interview posted this morning I was like “oh no an these ideas are featured in a community curated by a thin white woman who runs. DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!” But of course I read the comments, and was delighted to discover this IS one of the good places on the Internet. AHP has done good work.
Exciting stuff! I love the idea of my job not being to conform to an arbitrary, at times harmful, standard but making the world safe for my (and others') bodies.
I had a recent epiphany-like emotional breakdown of gratitude for my body after a major brain operation (weirdly I did not have this feeling carrying and birthing two babies). But in recovery I was finally like, omg, I see you, body, doing so much to carry me, carry us through this life, thank you thank you thank you, how can I make it easier for you? I'm still working my way through it but it has changed the way I talk to and about my body. Making the world safer is the natural next step.
I relate to this so much as a recent-ish diagnosis of type 2 diabetes led me to a similar epiphany. Daily, I express appreciation and understanding for all the ways my body struggled to keep me going before I had a name for what was happening to me. It was working so hard without any help from me. How could I not be grateful?
"thank you thank you thank you, how can I make it easier for you?" what a beautiful idea.
That sounds terrifying! I hope you've recovered well. This type of epiphany happened to me after a terrible nightmare where my body would not work; I dreamt I had been in a terrible accident and was completely immobile. When I woke up I was so damn grateful that my actual body works, and does so much for me, regardless of its weight.
So many thoughts about this topic, an area where I’ve focused some of my own unlearning, as Rachel Cargle calls it, the last several years. I’ve come to believe that each of us unpacking our own anti-fat bias is critical to making our society safer for everyone. Especially since it is often rooted in anti-blackness and racism.
As someone who is a thin person, a thin white woman specifically, it’s been hard to come to terms with how much of this bullshit I’ve internalized. I used to be a runner, a fairly decent one, and had the kind of body you’d expect from someone who ran 70 miles/week. But now in my late 40s, a chronic illness and menopause have come for me and my body has changed. I am still straight sized and maintain my unearned thin privilege. But the 35 lbs I’ve gained have really, really fucked with my head and laid bare all of the shit I’ve inhaled over the years. Making peace with myself and learning to live IN my body, something I don’t think I’ve ever truly done, has been life changing. I hope I get healthy enough to run again. But I hope I never let go of the ability to be with myself as I have been while I’ve been sick. What I’ve learned has changed how I talk with my friends about our changing bodies at this age, and given me the courage to initiate conversations with healthcare providers on the topic, since how my weight has changed opened the door to the dialogue. I can’t wait to read Fat Talk and continue my education.
I really relate to this post. After years of suppressing my body’s clear attempts to gain weight, my late thirties pregnancy finally blew the lid off. I am now small fat, and (though my years of weight gain were a mental storm) at home in my body. Fat activists created space for me to arrive at this home coming. In the past couple months I’ve taken up running again, moving at a slow, self-compassionate place--carefully attending to the needs of my knees, hips, shins, ankles and appetite 😆. It’s so different from the boot camp I would put my body through in my twenties and early thirties, but it feels like a new beginning, filled with so much promise.
Eye-opening. So helpful to re-frame for our kids — and ourselves. As a woman in her 50’s, I now see that all the newsletters about staying fit after midlife (and frankly, all those insta photo’s of toned, fit, thin women in bikini’s and men in gym shorts who “look so much younger” (read thin)) are just another damaging contribution to fat shaming culture for those of a certain age. The disordered eating, extreme exercise and attention to appearance that is necessary to “look healthy and young” (meaning thin) once you reach a certain age ramps up dramatically. It’s all proffered as wellness, but the older we get the harder it is to be that version of “well.” I am going to unfollow a lot of accounts, subscribe to Virginia Sole-Smith and read the book. We need this. Thanks!
I am on Instagram just to follow my friends and watch cat videos, and it drives me up a wall how many weight loss posts are recommended to me even though I've never expressed an interest in the subject.
super late comment, but it is one of my great delights to report all of those ads as scams. I don't get them very often anymore
I am not a parent, but I worked as a nanny for over two decades, and during that time my weight fluctuated. I also struggled with an eating disorder and grew up with very rigid (ahem, abusive) policing around food. I have worked with so many different kinds of parents, and all of them wanted what was best for their children. I think that is one of the most important things for all parents to recognize: that it's never going to be perfect; that they are often themselves struggling with their own experiences and internalized fatphobia, and also that food and eating can be so hard with kids even without the added element of body shame. Letting go of the worries around whether your child is eating enough, or is eating the "right" things, is a whole conversation in itself.
From my experiences as a nanny, I have come to believe that the most powerful way we can engage with kids is by talking about things and admitting that we (adults) don't always have the answers, and assuring them that every single person struggles with making meaning. That means that caretakers must process their own feelings in an honest way, and reckon with any internalized bigotry we may have on any level. With young children especially there is this cultural habit of trying to assure and smooth things over instead of confirming what children can literally feel is true. They're so intuitive. We can teach them to trust themselves around food by trusting them. We can teach them to trust that their body is okay the way it is by trusting that our own bodies are okay, whether or not they align with any ideal. I think so often the goal is perfection with caretaking kids. I think that what Virginia says here about confirming kids' feelings is so right.
I also think there needs to be a focus on many many other things besides people's bodies. So often the focus, especially for women and femmes, is on the body and appearance, and in such a commodified way. As a collective I wonder what it could mean were women and femmes to focus less on their appearance and more on their innate intelligence and power- though I fully understand both that these things are not mutually exclusive and that there are consequences for those of us who refuse to buy into the idea that our appearance has anything to do with our value at all.
I really love that Virginia dives into the medical aspects and consequences of fatphobia and discrimination, because it is SO real. I was on Weight Watchers when I was eight, and that had serious consequences not only for my mental but for my physical health. Sometimes I wonder if, had I not ever dieted, my body would be healthier now. I don't wonder, actually. I know that's true. Depriving ourselves of nourishment has real consequences, but it is also symbolic in such a profound way.
Anyways, thank you for this. Can't wait to read Virginia's book!
Thanks for this! I have just ordered the book and look forward to reading it. I had never once considered not having my kids weighed at the pediatrician before even though I do try to forego my own weigh in at my doc. Both of my kids are “late bloomers” (my daughter just started menstruating at 16) because, in part, they were micropreemies born at 25 weeks. Every aspect of their development has not been on the growth chart. It used to strike me that in the first 12 months every parent tried to get their kid to grow so there would be no question about failure to thrive. Then at age two it was like suddenly every convo I’d hear about a kid’s size was concern over gaining too much weight. I couldn’t figure I out what changed.
Ugh it’s so weird as a parent that you start our desperately shoving ounces into your baby while your doctor frowns at a weight chart, only to have your doctor frown at a weight chart in the opposite direction a few years later. That alone makes the whole thing feel arbitrary and frankly over-managed. Moreover why is this whole thing about making parents feel Iike they control anything, let alone their kids’ weight? Influence, maybe, but control, never. The most insidious part of parenting (in myself first and foremost) is the folly of control. Sometimes I feel like anti-fat bias is about that, too; we want to believe we can control the uncontrollable and we’re furious with people that break that illusion.
God yes! I have so many feels about my kids’ early years (son hospitalized for 105 days, daughter in a hospital or care setting for 3 years) but I never felt like I had anything resembling control. And feeding folks is one of the obsessive ways I show I love people.
I can relate to this so much! I have a 28 week preemie who is now 6 and always ranks below the 10% on the height and weight growth charts. It’s not for lack of trying, but I’ve seen how much stress it’s caused my daughter to be constantly encouraged to eat past satiety. It’s caused a lot of stress with my ex-husband because he’s approaches the “problem” of her smallness quite differently than I. It’s complicated, but these body talk discussions are important to pause and think critically about the messages we are sending.
It is SO HARD for me to not project stress about eating onto my tiny five year old (born at 31 weeks) who’s picky and eats very little.
There is a WHOLE other rat's nest that is the intersection of fatphobia and breastfeeding promotion. Do people tell you that giving your baby formula might make them fat? You bet they do and it is harmful AF.
Oh Jesus you’re so right. So much “right kind of parent” bullshit in “breast is bed” culture.
And, of course, that you should breast feed because it will help you lose weight. It just made me ravenously hungry and thirsty.
I think that's why the comment section for Emily Oster's newsletter went so nuts...her audience is parents who crave control through the data driven answers...which don't always exist...
My daughter was also a 25 week micro preemie and she’s nine now and developing early. A friend who has a 24 weeker also had the early development experience with her kiddo and we were speculating maybe micro preemies go through puberty early; how interesting your former micro is the opposite! My daughter is squarely in the middle of the growth charts, but my son who’s 5 and was born at 31 weeks is still not on them, or is like below fifth percentile. I don’t think not weighing him at the doctor is a possibility, but I try to be super conscious about how we address and speak about size.
Huh! Maybe it’s not her micro preeminess then. Talking about size is super complex for us because she has on HGH for ten years.
My husband (and my mother) want to do HGH for my 5 yo son because he’s so small. But whether or not someone receives it is based on how much their body is producing, right? I’m open to a blood test if his pediatrician isn’t opposed, but she hasn’t recommended it yet. I know my husband worries about our son being a very small man, even if we often talk about how that’s fine. (With one another, not in front of the 5 yo.)
The process was onerous for us. We had to see a geneticist (who was not a clinician and when she saw my daughters blood work was concerned that she had leukemia and was not a tracheostomy-wearing, petrie dish of infection) and then we were referred to an endocrinologist who ordered more blood work and a bone age scan. There are threshold levels for treatment. Our pediatrician never pushed or offered info until we asked. Also Late puberty makes sense because my daughters bone age is about 2 years behind.she has remarkably healthy body image all things considered. Her twin brother though is also short and smaller but never was referred for any treatment and it probably wasn’t needed. He is taller than I am and still growing.
Ooof. That does sound like a lot. The range of outcomes with these former preemies is fascinating. I’m so glad to hear your daughter has a health body image. I think mine does, too. And as I often remind my mother, we are small people: she’s 5’1, I’m 5’2, and her dad was 5’3.
Ok, I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, especially as all these new drugs are coming out (Ozempic etc) and we are told it's such a breakthrough for obesity. I guess I'm a huge newbie to this conversation and what follows is my brain dump of where I'm at.
I was raised DEEP in the diet culture of the 90's, like many of us, I would imagine. My Dad struggled with weight his whole life until he passed in 2020. One of the most vivid memories I have right before he died was sitting at the dinner table with him and my step-mom. He reached for the potatoes and she swatted his hand away from the dish and admonished him for wanting some carbs. The man dying from stage 4 lung cancer. I had to walk away from the table and sob. I can remember my grandfather making these horrible diet shakes (maybe it was SlimFast in a blender with ice?), and all the diet foods of the 90's, like I can't believe it's not butter and low fat everything. That crap doesn't help anyone be healthy, obviously. And so, I get that. And I get that the "image" we are sold isn't realistic.
And then... there's the puritan-ness of it all. I think this must be related to the ongoing workaholic issues I've been working on. I've really been examining whether I want to achieve something because I LOVE it, or if it's just yet another way I tell myself I'm a "good" person, because I equate that with working harder than everyone else. Spoiler alert, I don't really want to work 24/7. LOL. The anti-fat conversation fits right in here....Like you aren't a "good" person unless.... you're skinny. Writing that (as a fat person) makes me tear up.
I don't know how to fix this in my brain. I know it'll be a long journey of challenging what I know to be healthy and "good."
Anyway, I'll that said, I guess I just wanted to throw out what I was thinking in case someone else can relate. I'm with you. <3
I'm looking forward to reading all of your thoughts and responses too, because I know I'll learn something.
I also grew up in the 90s and the whole low fat and FAT FREE push and relate to the family struggle of weight signaling the goal was to overcome this horrible “fatness.” I love how she talked in the article about “health performance as social capital” and I can so relate to the feeling I lack value in society unless I am able to demonstrate some form of “skinny.” So much time I spent WAITING until I was the “right-size” or correct form to go reach for goals that should have nothing to do with some false perceived image I thought I had to obtain. Careers, relationships and even vacations were put on hold while I worked toward the “better” version of me. And not even just weight caused this. I once stayed away from everything for a month until an unfortunate haircut grew out.
Oh goodness. The story about your dad is so painful to read. I'm so so sorry.
I don't know how to fix this in my brain either. I'm currently seeing a therapist and a self-identified fat dietician and they are being super patient with me. I guess it's going to be a very long road...
Thank you, JJ. <3 You're such a supportive, empathetic person. I've seen you showing up for others on this thread too and just want to acknowledge you for that. Thank you!!
That's a good idea, to find therapists and dieticians who are educated in this. I mentioned it to my psychiatrist a couple of weeks ago, and he said, "Well, why don't you just go back to what you were doing before? It worked well for you!" What I was doing before was hard core restriction (<30 grams of carbs a day, gluten free, legume free, etc etc) and it was obsessive. I mentioned this to him and he just shrugged it off. Annoying. I think it's time to find someone who 'gets it.'
Thank you so much for saying that. And yes, you deserve better!!! I recently had a disastrous appt my my old-school cardiogist. Never going back to see his ass again!
one of the things that has really been helping me is virgina's newsletter. I don't have kids, but I'm around them a lot and it feels a lot like reparenting myself around food. working on our brains here isn't easy, and that story about your dad just breaks my heart. so much empathy on this
I haven’t even read the Atlantic piece on what dads do but if it’s anything like my own experience firm yes absolutely true. My mom never fat shamed me. But when I was stuggling to get loosey-goosy non commital guy to commit to me (who may have had his own mental health issues and was 20 so understandable!) my dad absolutely made it clear that it was bc of my weight. Again and again he would ask if any guys liked me (this was the 90s so ) or expressed interest. He was absolutely obsessed with my weight. He meant well I guess.
I'm really sorry this happened to you — and it's okay to both understand that he was influenced by anti-fatness and that those things he said to you were deeply fucked up.
That is so hard! The only dad response to heartbreak should be “I love you honey, you are amazing. Find someone who loves you for the beautiful person you are.” My dad, an otherwise kind and empathetic person, was SO fat-biased he would “oink” when fat people showed up on the news or in movies. It too me until my mid-30s to understand that that may have contributed to my body issues. Dads represent a unique intersection of patriarchy, misogyny and anti-fatness that just warps the child’s mind so hard.
Oh totally. Im really sorry about the oinking. That’s awful. My dad would do the equivalent not loud but just small comments also on the news or in public. It’s the worst! I totally agree with you about the dad intersection! (TM ha ha ha). It’s really hard bc yeah as you say empathetic everywhere else. But don’t even get me started on my NPractitoner Aunt and sister. This is all in Central Valley of CA-I sometimes wonder if the fat phobia is worse in places just slightly urban but by no means big cities. I know fat phobia exists in LA and NYC bit there are so many feminist/alternative subcultures and just so much diversity in every aspect that I wonder if it’s not as generally accepted. Just pondering
Excited to read this piece here and to have the relative safety of THIS comment section. I just want to applaud Virginia for her work and for her willingness to take a lot of anti-fat and demonizing from the terrible comment sections other places. People are so deeply committed to misunderstanding this work or having their anti-fat bias challenged and writers like Virginia get so much undeserved shit.
If you haven't been following Virginia's response to some of these questions on her IG/TikTok, it's been delighting me every day! https://www.instagram.com/p/Crgb1y9gkLK/
She is a DELIGHT.
I’ve watched my mom struggle with her weight my entire life. I’m now 27 and I am the heaviest I’ve ever been, although I’m still in straight sizes and a white woman, with all the privilege that brings. But my mom will comment on my body — and her own body still — and it’s really hard working through my own bullshit that I’ve ingested over the years and trying to put boundaries around her comments or gently reinforce the idea that all bodies are good. She got a lot of this from her mom and was certainly less critical of me than her mom was of her but it’s still bullshit and so fucking hard. Growing up she never criticized any potential weight gain, but she did always say how jealous she was of my thinness. And I realize that she didn’t think that that was bad but all it’s done is reinforce the fact that my smaller body was better. I’m now struggling with the fact that I don’t look like I did when I was 16.
What I find challenging about Virginia’s position is the conflation of anti-fat bias with healthy eating. Of course no one should be shamed about their bodies, ever.
At the same time, some foods promote health and others do not. This doesn’t have to be about being fat or not, it’s about health. I see she’s trying to disentangle this, but in so doing she can tend to argue (not as much in this interview but I’m others I’ve read recently) that all food is the same in its impact on our health.
In fact, processed foods are pretty uniformly accepted as not promoting health (juice included)--and there’s a huge lobby and political machine behind getting more processed foods into Americans’ bodies. I think it’s ok and even essential to acknowledge and discuss health with kids. It just shouldn’t be put in the context of how our bodies look.
I'll let Virginia answer this one more in-depth. but my understanding is that we can acknowledge that some foods do different things for our bodies (I think the *for* is crucial here, because we're thinking of food as something that provides energy for our body; every food does something for our health, truly, and foods can do different things for health depending on the specific needs of the body) but as soon as you start trying to strictly organize and categorize, you end up falling (willingly or not!) into the matrixes that Stefanie highlights in her response.
I would also like to simply say that there is no moral imperative that any of us be healthy in any way we don't want to be, and that poor health indicates nothing about a person except that they are in poor health.
There is a thread of healthism here, which is the idea that being healthy is about being a morally upstanding person (if you sub in "thin" for healthy, in that sentence, you'll see what happens), and further, that if you don't pursue "health" (thinness), you aren't a morally upstanding person.
Lastly, all food is the same, in its very basic fact of filling up our stomachs and making it possible for us to continue on our way as human beings.
Thank you for this, it’s CRUCIAL!
Yes!! This is what I was trying (and failing) to say in my comment yesterday. Thank you for saying it in a much more eloquent way :)
In addition to the other smart comments below, I'll just add that we don't actually have established consensus about what "healthy" vs "unhealthy" is... it changes all the time. Are eggs healthy sources of inexpensive protein or cholesterol bombs? Is butter healthier than margarine substitute because it is less processed or is margarine substitute better because it is lower in calories? Whole grain bread is great! Wait, no it isn't because is too heavy in carbs! We used to think fat was the devil and now it is sugar. "Healthy" is culturally defined, influenced by capitalism, and variable by individuals (I'm supposed to limit my intake of spinach because I'm prone to kidney stones, for example).
I think it is it's really hard to talk about "healthy vs unhealthy food" in a way that doesn't ignore the reality that there is SO much nuance needed to talk about how people interact with food.
I would argue that this perspective evinces some classism and healthism. For example, food can serve many needs: sometimes people eat for optimal health, and sometimes people eat for other reasons like pleasure or a quick snack or this is what they can get their kid to eat or because they’re at their brother’s house and this is what’s available. Putting food solely within a matrix of unprocessed=heath=virtue versus processed=unhealthy=vice is incredibly simplistic about the many imperatives that eating fulfills. Not to mention, as someone who is disabled, the equation of health and virtue generally is very threatening to me. Also, you talk about the “political machine getting processed foods into Americans’ bodies”, and that’s a useful critique as far as it goes; but until our sociopolitical circumstances change such that every household has access both to an abundance of unprocessed ingredients and, crucially, the leisure time to turn those into edible meals, the kind of shaming that gets leveled at people for eating processed foods is mere moralizing.
I agree we need to be sensitive in how we talk about these things because they are charged.
At the same time it seems excessive to throw out the idea that healthier and less healthy foods exist, and that we should not be educating our kids about this.
Type 2 diabetes runs in my family, and I know certain foods promote insulin insensitivity. I can measure this in my body and know it for sure. Tons of studies back this up. I am in a position where I can avoid those foods. Yes, that’s privilege but that’s also science.
I think it’s ok to talk about it and teach the next generation about how food impacts your health, while still being sensitive to different people’s experiences in the world, and promoting non-judgment.
I can offer some thoughts as someone who's worked hard to disentangle myself from my own anti-fat bias, and as a parent of a 10 yo girl who has tried to be incredibly intentional about how I frame food, eating, hunger, bodies, and nutrition. I am not perfect and I continue to learn.
Essentially, the idea is to remove morality from food. Labeling foods "good" or "bad," healthy" or "unhealthy" can create binaries that lead to guilt and disordered eating. We can talk about what foods offer us without assigning them "good" or "bad" labels. And we can encourage our kids to listen to their bodies' signals to determine what food would best serve them at a particular moment, be that carrots or cake. Taking this intuitive eating approach and working toward food neutrality helps reduce scarcity mindset that frequently accompanies foods that diet culture tells us should be limited. As a parent, I rely heavily on the framework offered by Ellyn Satter's Division of Responsibility, which places onus on the parents to select what and when a child eats, and offers children the opportunity to select if and how much they eat.
I would also offer that we have been oversold the impact that personal choices have on our health. Other factors, such as genetics, social determinants of health, and socioeconomic status, have a much more significant impact on our health outcomes. That's not to say that nutrition doesn't have a role in overall health, but I do think it's been overstated and I believe that's part of the same toxic individualism that places responsibility on the individual instead of investing in meaningful structural change.
Thanks for this. What a thoughtful response.
You actually are in some ways proving her point about how healthy & non-healthy is not as clear of a division as you might think. For a family with Type 2 diabetes, X or Y food does or does not promote health. For a family without these concerns, but with food insecurity, the answer might be the opposite about the exact same foods. As someone in recovery from an eating disorder, for example, it was a huge deal when I started eating butter again. Butter is healthy for me.
I'd also encourage you to broaden your understanding of the "science". In my reading, I've been enlightened by how flimsy the science supporting weight loss is and how rooted it is in bias. Virginia actually has a lot of science in her work, and I'd encourage you to keep reading beyond these interviews. We need voices who push the conversation to its boundary to ensure we all can land somewhere better.
Laura Thomas is an RD who recently published some in depth research and reporting on ultra-processed foods on her substack. It’s a three part series and I’ll link the third part here (which links to the first two parts), in case you are interested.
Forgot the link 🤪 https://open.substack.com/pub/laurathomas/p/the-truth-about-ultra-processed-foods-47e?r=1qx52j&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Thank you so much for sharing this work and for the kind words - super appreciate it and makes the agonising research process feel worth it! x
I was just going to post this -- it was such a good series!
Some thoughts: I have struggled with this as a parent. I thought my child needed to know which foods are "right". But really, the right food is the food that we have access to and which is safe to eat. I know she hears messages about what is healthy and not because she uses that language at home. When she told me "hot chocolate is healthy" I just smiled and agreed. What's the point in saying it's got too much sugar or whatever? Then she's just going to feel bad about food that she enjoys eating regularly. Kids think in black and white and can't process nuance well. They think that if a food is "bad" or "unhealthy", they must be bad and unhealthy for eating it, and maybe their parents are bad for giving it to them.
Also, as a fat person: I know what "healthy eating" is. I'm still fat. Nutrition knowledge is not going to make me thin. I eat the "right" things and I am still fat. To quote Rachel Bloom, as always, "the situation is a lot more nuanced than that."
I completely agree with this. I eat pretty healthy because it makes me feel better, and I happen to be thin-which probably has more to do with genetics, metabolism, and generally being active. I think there can be room in the discussion for nutrition regardless of body size, especially when our food supply has changed so much in the past 100 years. High fructose corn syrup & vegetable oils are certainly not ideal foods to be consumed in the amount we are eating them. So no-talking about nutrition should not be done as a response to weight ever, but I just don’t agree with the every food is fine in every quantity argument.
I hope you'll reconsider this last sentence in your statement. I want to tell you (with kindness) that the last sentence is the beginning of an argument that ends with people just trying to fill their bellies being demonized (and it also ends with parents being demonized for how they feed their kids, and that's a recipe for a CPS disaster). And in the middle is a great variety of reasons why people eat what they eat in the quantities they eat, from illness to neurodivergence to pleasure to boredom to...whatever personal reasons exist. The statement above is a moral judgement, and it's not helpful. There are truths about our food system that can exist in our heads at the same time that we also understand that all food is fine in any quantities.
Fat liberation and fat acceptance cannot happen with the last sentence in your statement. We cannot free ourselves from the oppression of our current anti-fat, fatmisiac society if we are always going to rank foods based on their perceived nutritional value and then create arbitrary quantity consumption standards based on that perceived nutritional value. There is no liberation when moral judgement enters the room, because creating rankings creates a hierarchy from good to bad, thus making some people ineligible for liberation.