End the Fat Talk: Friends Don't Let Friends Talk Fat
posted by: Ximena R. 59 days ago
Do I look fat in this?
If I could only lose 10 pounds!
You look great! Have you lost weight?
We hear women in dressing rooms, locker rooms, and bedrooms around the world complain about one thing over and over again – their bodies.
In a culture that equates beauty with thinness it's no wonder that women have become obsessed with the figure staring back at them from the mirror. To many she never seems thin enough, not like the ultra slender women that strut down fashion runways, are splashed across glossy magazine pages, and star in today's biggest blockbusters.
We are told these women are beautiful. We are told that if we are thin we will be beautiful too. So we strive to attain this thin ideal and along the way destroy our self-esteem and berate ourselves for not measuring up to these unrealistic, not to mention unhealthy, bodies.
Well, it's high time that women break the thin ideal and start embracing a wider (no pun intended) definition of what it means to be beautiful.
We can start by celebrating Fat Talk Free Week, an international 5-day body activism campaign that raises awareness of body image issues and the damaging impact of the thin ideal on women in society. The campaign was born from the award-winning body image education and eating disorders prevention program Reflections: Body Image Program.
Fat Talk Free Week encourages women to strive for a healthy ideal and take care of their bodies by focusing on health – not weight or size. The campaign encourages women to let go of the fat talk that plagues our every day conversations and promotes a celebration of things about ourselves that have nothing to do with the way we look.
Breaking free from the unrealistic thin ideal of beauty has never been more urgent.
Did you know that:
- 1 out of 8 adolescent girls reported starving themselves to lose weight
- 40% of moms tell their adolescent daughters to diet and 45% of these girls are of average weight
- 81% of 10 year old girls are afraid of being fat
- 51% of 9 and 10 year old girls feel better about themselves if they are on a diet
- More than 2/3 of women ages 18-25 would rather be mean or stupid than be fat
- Over 50% of women ages 18-25 would rather be hit by a truck than be fat
- 70 million people worldwide struggle with eating disorders
These statistics are startling and proof that the thin ideal is affecting younger and younger women. They are also frustrating and sad. Imagine all the things women could be doing with the time and energy they spend dieting, exercising, and obsessing over their figures. What kind of world would that be?
Fashion models are thinner than 98% of women – 98%! . They are not the norm, their bodies are not realistic, and for many their figures are unattainable – it's about time we start acting like it and stop judging our own reflections.
What can you do to help fight the thin ideal?
- Pledge to end fat talk from your vocabulary.
- Host a Fat Free Talk event.
- Bring Reflections: Body Image Program to your college campus.
- Watch and share the video Friends Don't Let Friends Talk Fat
- Send this post to 5 women you love and encourage them to end fat talk!
Statistics thanks to http://www.endfattalk.org/stats.html
Read more: eating disorders, womens rights, body image, thin ideal, fat talk
comments
"I am obese. I am a very nice person and I am discriminated against on a daily basis when I leave my home. I get stared at. I get ignored. I have an eating disorder. I don't choose to be fat. It is a disease. People are so afraid of becoming fat that they treat fat people as non persons."
As a fat person myself (someone that is "morbidly obese" as measured by BMI) I can relate to your experiences. However, being fat in itself is not a disease, certainly not if being fat means having a BMI anywhere what is deemed normal - at most it is a risk factor for disease. Actually, being simply overweight does not seem to impact health negatively at all, and being obese only impacts health negatively at the far ends of the scale (so, yes, as someone who has a BMI of about 50 my morbidity and mortality risk is increased, but for someone with a BMI around 30 this is at least questionable). Also, being fat is not an eating disorder. You say you have an eating disorder, and I have struggled with an eating disorder as well, but this is not true for all fat people (just as not everyone who is medically "underweight" has anorexia).
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Amen to all the commenters :).....
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I am obese. I am a very nice person and I am discriminated against on a daily basis when I leave my home. I get stared at. I get ignored. I have an eating disorder. I don't choose to be fat. It is a disease. People are so afraid of becoming fat that they treat fat people as non persons.
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I never wanted to be skinny...probably because I suffered malnutrition and was underweighed before being adopted. I enjoy food way too much. As young girl everyone said I was too fat, when I look back now at pictures of that, I can only wish I never believed them. Not until I got into severe mental stress and medicin-use I grew out of my pants and now I'm returning to normal size....which will still be more than favored by designers. As long as I can be active, I'm happy.
And I don't have to complain about male attention, in fact I never had to.
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Toute les femmes sont belle et croyer moi ce nai pas un skelette bien habiller qui va me faire changer d'idée ... Oui regarder vous dans une glasse et essayer de trouver qu'elque chose de plus beau que la vie qui est en vous ... je suis belle , tu es belle , elle est belle , vous etes belles , nous sommes belles , vous etes belles , elles ont belles N'arreter jamais de vous le dire et de le dire aus autres ...
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Insurance companys make me ill..they come up with so much crap about this and that..I have not had any health,dental,vision or prescription ins in 10yrs now due to selfish companies that don't want to give it out unless someone is there for so many months, some temps do offer health ins which is like paying Cobra which is ridiculous..anytime I have had to go to any health or dental services it comes out of my pocket..when a company does let you in on their ins they act like they are giving you something!!..Hell it comes out of your pay check as well..I say now and alway will..the Dr's, insurance co's, dental, vision, and pharmacutical companies are all rubbing each others backs!!
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Being oblem, but being thin also is. The weight should be the adequate for your body strucutre. Anyway, none of this has nothing to do with beauty. I know many fat women who are beautiful.
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Our value is not in inches, centimeters, pounds or kilos. We are more than that. We are priceless. It is our nature to be beautiful. This means valuing ourselves and others too.
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it not what you on the outside it what you are on the inside as the old saying goes (beauty is skin deep)
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Sigh. When my daughter and I buy blouses or tee-shirts, she takes a size XS and I go the other end of the range by taking XL or even 5 XL depending on the manufacturer's sizing! We're both comfortable with our sizes, I know I'll NEVER be HER size and take it well when she gently admonishes me to watch what I eat, as I'm diabetic :-)
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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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