There are three things you don’t want to be in America these days:
1) A chain smoker.
2) A suspected terrorist.
3) Overweight.
Sometimes it seems even smokers and terror suspects get more sympathy than overweight people, who are often cruelly stigmatized by our Atkins-crazed, carb-counting, your-body-is-a-wonderland culture.
But some people are fat, and they’re OK with that.
Fed up with the public’s obsession about her weight, Kirstie Alley turned the tables on the tabloids and paparazzi by announcing she would take on the topic herself in a new TV show, “Fat Actress.”
By going on the offensive against her critics, Alley joins a growing group of people who know they’re overweight and say they’re fine with being fat.
Alley–whose show is in development with Showtime–said the magazines treated her weight gain like a tragedy but that she’s happy with the person she is.
“Tragedies in my mind would be like AIDS, starvation, illiteracy, child abuse,” the 53-year-old actress told People magazine.
But it’s the diet stories–and a fixation on celebrity weight gain or loss–that flood the media, Alley and others complain.
Enough with the diet talk, they say.
They’re tired of the message from society that the only ideal body shape is a thin one, and they’re sick of being bombarded with news about the latest diet and weight-loss surgery and obesity reports.
Wander through any restaurant, and it’s hard to miss the diners picking at salads, shunning bread and whining (or bragging) about their latest diet endeavors.
Leading the way toward a less diet-obsessed world are fat activists who speak out about the culture’s treatment of fat people and their rejection of it. But there also are books, therapists and support groups such as the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance that promote the idea of “size acceptance.”
“The word ‘fat’ is still very, very scary for people,” said Wendy Shanker, a 32-year-old writer in New York who recently penned “The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life,” a book about her struggles with weight loss and her decision to give up on dieting. “I’m a fat person, but I’m not an evil person. I won’t eat you.”
Shanker said she was initially worried that her book would be poorly received because she used the word “fat”–but she was surprised when she got a strong positive reaction. She received letters and e-mails from people who said they were sick of being told they didn’t look good enough.
“Everybody just seems to be so fed up with weight loss. … I think people are just tired of it,” Shanker said.
Shanker’s self-acceptance came after dieting and struggling with her weight in her 20s. After spending almost $10,000 at the Duke Diet and Fitness Center and losing only 2 pounds, Shanker decided she’d had enough.
“I realized I’ve got to use a different number than what’s on the scale to determine my health,” Shanker said. “Maybe there’s a way to pursue fitness and health that isn’t tied to the size of my ass.”
She started looking for other ways to be healthy, such as exercising and eating well, without fixating on pounds.
In Chicago, a group of women who describe themselves as fat activists are starting a program to help teens who identify themselves as fat be happy in their bodies. They’re calling it “Phat Camp.”
Kim Paulus, a therapist who’s helping to develop Phat Camp, uses the word fat to describe herself and says it’s empowering. The word “fat” is treated in society as something morally wrong, she says, and using other phrases such as husky, plus-size, voluptuous or overweight, just plays into that stereotype.
“I feel like when you use those euphemisms, you bring those connotations that it’s shameful,” said Paulus, 32. “You’re dancing around what it is.”
Paulus says she’s not always happy with the way she looks–“I have some days where I feel like the most amazing person and days when I just want to hide,” she said, adding that her good days far outnumber her bad ones.
Lisa Breisch, a therapist in Rockford who heads the Chicago chapter of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, says there are stages to size acceptance that can take a long time for people to achieve. NAAFA can help people to become more comfortable with who they are, Breisch said. She also teaches a class at the College of DuPage called Body Image and the Larger Woman.
“It does take an investment of a few years to really understand the brainwashing of society and to really live life in the body one has,” Breisch said.
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kmasterson@tribune.com
