F*ck the Nutrisystem

Source: Pinterest

Why are we so worried about the after photo?

Because capitalist society has stopped almost everyone from being comfortable in their bodies; and this is especially true for fat people.

The diet industry is an incredible example of this. Dieting programs and television series capitalize on the objectification of people's bodies from a position of power with no real intention of breaking the cycle. Based on a standardized attractiveness (having everything to do with looks) enmeshed in systematic oppression (capitalism, patriarchy, racism, etc..) fatphobia has taken hold as an industry in of itself.

Worrying about fat stems from the medicalization of the term despite that, based on those systematic positions, it is really more of a political term. Healthism becomes a proxy for talking about fat. BMI is how we speak medically about fat even though many findings point to its inaccuracy. For example, diseases found to be associated with higher BMI also are found among lower BMI. Additionally, studies between higher BMI causing ill health do not consider other factors that have huge impacts on this relationship including physical activity, nutrition, sleep, access to care, etc (Burgard 2009). I will use myself as an example. By simply inputting my height and weight, and clicking compute, I am labeled as overweight. I would typically not identify in this way, but a system I am taught to have my best interest in mind does it for me. As someone exposed to fat activism and weight-based stigma I am enraged that the voice of those with real oppressive experiences are silenced by a population forced to claim a title unfit for them. Thankfully I know I can refuse these titles, but for those of whom feel they cannot because of the way society strips value from their bodies in space, capitalization continues.

These ingrained ideologies allows for the exploitation of fat bodies to be a successful (albeit problematic) business model. When it comes to unhappiness, consumers will buy it, so therefore companies sell it. The NBC hit “The Biggest Loser” and Nutrisystems “Five Day Weight Loss Kit” do an incredible job of defining health as the outcome of lower weight in the moment rather than by the daily life one lives to achieve a sustainable quality of life. In a clip titled “The Autopsy Room Wake-Up Call” the doctor individually calls out the contestants and shames them for the choices they have decided to make. Rather than acknowledge big business and capitalism create a system where it is easier to access sugar-laden food and drink than healthy options, these people are left thinking, quote, “I am leading myself down a dark road that could self-destruct.” These systems place all the blame on the individual and offer no constructive way to escape it. Nutrisystem, on the other hand, claims to give you the way out. “Lose up to 7 pounds in two weeks” or have a fast fix with the five day weight loss kit. What could be more unsustainable than a five-day-fix that will do nothing but result in feelings of ineffectiveness as a cycle of loss, gain, shaming and disappointment are perpetuated?

Source: Nutrisystem, Inc.

The fact that health is much more holistic is lost when one equates fat bodies to unhealthy and thinner ones to healthy. Health includes mental, social, spiritual, as well as physical well being and all of those can look different for different people. That is the glory of individuality. A campaign, “Health at Every Size”, gets away from the ideology that weight loss automatically has to do with enhancing one's health. It de-emphasizes weight with the goal of making healthy practices a lifelong investment so people of every size can learn to value their bodies and prevent body neglect and abuse (Burgard 2009).

Perpetuating the ideologies of fatphobia through relentless weight loss programs and television series just continues to keep fat individuals from being in the world. It reduces their purpose for living in this society to 1- being consumers for a multi-billion dollar industry more worried about keeping its followers unsuccessful and therefore involved and 2- objects of entertainment for a sad audience avoiding their own decision to sit on a couch and pity or mock fat people based solely on the fact that their bodies do not look like that. Two scenarios that sound much more toxic and unhealthy to me than some body fat.

Rather than worry about what we could be, or what we “should” be, lets celebrate living now. Because as Bugard (2009) says, “people take better care of the body that they accept and love now than one that they are punishing for being the source of their ill treatment at the hands of other people.”

References
Burgard, D. (2009). What is “health at every size”. The fat studies reader, 42-53.

Staring is Caring

What if we were allowed to stare? What if it was not only allowed but encouraged, celebrated even? What if rather than being told "don't stare" or "it's rude to stare" we allowed that curiosity as a moment for learning and for teaching-- as a moment for inclusion. We cannot allow our stare to supersede the narrative of the individual, or for our stare to make a spectacle out of them. But rather than avoiding the difference a disabled individual has from an able-body, offer a compassionate gaze. Notice.

Our inability to acknowledge the disabled persons in the world around us perpetuates othering and undervaluing of these individuals. We simply need to notice.

Is there room in our society for disabled individuals? I think the majority of us would not think twice before saying yes. But I also think in order to make this room, to really include this portion of the population in our social and physical environment, we have to see them. We have to acknowledge them. And after these two steps we can finally be compassionate toward them.

Seeing

How many of us have told or have been told not to stare? My guess is almost everyone. Now I understand that obsessive staring can make us feel uncomfortable, but I want to explore wider social implications staring, or the lack thereof, can have on individuals with disabilities. For example, children's curiosity results in the tendency to stare. When a guardian attempts to break a child's stare, to distract them, or otherwise avoid their curiosity, it sends the message that something is wrong. For children who are at such a critical stage of life for learning how to interact socially, this instills in them that it is bad to pay those individuals attention-- that different is something to avoid. As simple as it sounds, these moments have a larger impact on us than we would think. 

Allowing a child to stare is the first step toward interaction. Sure, as mentioned before, a stare can turn creepy or uncomfortable, but it could also serve as an opening for social inclusion. The social signal is what shows the individual they are viewed as more than an object or a spectacle. So, notice. Show the individual you see them for what they are-- a human before a disability.

Another reason we do not see disabled people in the world around us is because of the actual physical separation they face due to the built environment. Access has to do with what and who are privileged. In the case of ableism, those with the body norm are more valuable, aka privileged, because they are more capable. I see this as a vicious cycle. Hear me out. Able bodied individuals are more privileged to access the built environment because they are capable enough to maneuver it. But the environment is only built that way because of who is privileged. And they are only privileged because they are capable. Therefore, if we simply built the environment to be accessible to a wider variety of mobility, disabled individuals would be capable and then therefore equally as privileged.

Having more physically accessible areas allow for socially accessible scenarios for disabled people. In a study (2013) interested in this topic of seeing disability around us, researcher Lisa Aziz-Zadeh and her colleagues concluded that,"Exposure to people with disabilities is actually quite important because the more you become exposed and see people with disabilities the more you start to process them the same as you do other people who don’t have disabilities."

Once we see we can interact. And interaction in turn requires acknowledgement.

Acknowledging

Robert Macfarlane once said, "We do not care for what we do not know, and on the whole we do not know what we cannot name." In order to show value toward a person, place, or thing we must first show it outward acknowledgment. How can we care for something we do not know about?

Similarly to how Sunaura Taylor in her book Beasts of Burden draws parallels between the structures that oppress disabled people and animals in our society today (while making clear they are not the same just parallel), I would like to draw conclusions between wild animal advocacy and/or zoos and the acknowledgement of disabled individuals.

Regardless of the various debates I hear on wild animal advocacy or zoos, I see their underlying value for education. They are a tactic to educate individuals on a life different from theirs. It is not our fault that we are not always exposed to all of the different life on Earth, but in order to care about those different from us, we must be shown them. We must acknowledge their shared value and recognize their presence among us. Similar to how we see, acknowledge, and in turn care for animals, the same could be applied to addressing the people around us-- disabled or not, they are there and worthy of our recognition.

Compassion

Accepting that able bodied persons will not understand disabled lives but that seeing, acknowledging, and showing care toward each other as coexisting humans can still occur is a necessary step to stop the undervaluing of disabled persons in our world.

Not everyone can understand everything, and that is ok, but everyone can show compassion and be present in each other's lives. This creates a more accepting and accessible social and physical environment.

And how beautifully simple is it that it could all start with a stare?

References

Southern California Public Radio. 2013. Study: Is it impolite to stare? Or just human nature? Retrieved from https://www.scpr.org/news/2013/01/25/35747/hey-its-not-polite-stare-or-perhaps-it-study-sugge/.

Poetry Archives. 2019. Retrieved from http://www.minervareads.com/category/poetry/.

One Size Fits No Woman: A Cry For Individuality

Timothy Leary once said, “Throughout human history, as our species has faced the frightening, terrorizing fact that we do not know who we are, or where we are going in this ocean of chaos, it has been the authorities, the political, religious, the educational authorities who attempted to comfort us by giving us order, rules, regulations, informing, forming in our minds their view of reality. To think for yourself you must question authority and learn how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open-mindedness...to inform yourself.” This remains true today and appears even more relevant as a gendered issue. It is capitalist power that has saturated the westernized culture with ideals for women to achieve that, often unconsciously, rather than revel in their own individuality, women have learned to be complacent.

Women are taught to be consumers based on the fact that we are always lacking--that we can always be better.

However, there is a myth in that the ‘ideal’ is achievable. Consumers are created to be insecure and unhappy with what they currently have. The truth is that this ‘goal’ is a moving target. It’s unachievable because it does not exist. Nearly every body-image ideal promoted for women is a contradiction. We are told to be slim but curvy, sweet but sexy, and once we buy into one ideal to strive for, we are almost immediately told what we should be aiming for next. This exploitation of women’s self image is tied to the global economy and has its roots based in the context of colonialism, capitalism, and race politics. As long as women are insecure, they can be controlled.

Now, although the media and culture are saturated with expectations we may be unconscious of, considering free will, we are buying into the system if not actively fighting it. Nicholas Chamfort said, “Men [those] whose only concern is other people’s opinion of them are like actors who put on a poor performance to win the applause of people of poor taste; some of them would be capable of good acting in front of a good audience. A decent man plays his part to the best of his ability, regardless of the taste of the gallery.” It is especially important for women and girls to understand that they do not need to compromise their sense of self to feel important. It is the capitalist nature to suppress women into believing their value comes from how they serve to the desires of others. This is a woman’s immanence; the taking on of social structures as their own.

 Immanence is all about socialization. One of the most clear and common examples of this is the learned and overlooked insult, “like a girl.” This saying has become so widely used by all genders that even women may not realize they are putting themselves back and below the image of masculinity. Creating the dichotomy between what it means to be a ‘girl’ and to be one’s ‘self’ just further perpetuates feminine as a stereotype and something to achieve. It is not until we undergo transcendence that women can express their individuality. This explains why women’s liberation demands more. Transcendence is about overcoming internalized social cues and values to reach empowerment even at the chance of ridicule. It is about challenging oneself to be authentic.

Almost certainly, people will raise the question of, “what if a social norm is how someone identifies or it brings them joy?” By all means, embrace it! But without exploring oneself and questioning why we are doing something, women may not know that they are simply adhering to the norms. If you are having the constant feeling of dissatisfaction or want, think more about why that hole is there. Are you actually lacking what you need to express yourself or are you struggling in the dichotomy of self and social self-image. Women should not have to pursue these norms to feel respected, recognized, or valued.

Rather than, how Leary states, be frightened or terrorized by the thoughts of questioning one’s identity and where in life we are going, why not embrace the beautiful truth that it is up to us to invest in ourselves and make those choices on our own? This is especially hard for women to overcome due to the institutionalized belittling of the gender. However, once we transcend these pressures by allowing ourselves, as well as other women, to act as and for themselves rather than complying by the unrealistic expectations of society, our true selves will be able to shine. Betty Friedan said it best, “who knows what women can be when they are finally free to be themselves.”