This week Vyckie Garrison over at No Longer Quivering is posting my Body Image Workshop on her blog. Formerly it was available on her forum but she felt it deserved more attention. :)

So, here is the first installment and the link that will take you to the posts all week: Tapati's Body Image Workshop.

The No Longer Quivering Carnival has kept me hopping, first with writing material in advance for the news items that are being posted throughout each day, short essays on different aspects of our experience by several women, really dynamite stuff. Then I'm running the body image workshop and that's been quite active (yay!) and there have been lots of very good questions. (Don't forget to check it out--guests can post and there will be a prize drawing among the participants.) I have a few behind-the-scenes jobs also.

Tonight on the Joy Behar show on HLN (the other CNN channel) Vyckie Garrison herself, NLQ blog owner, will be on debating Rachel Scott, mother of eight and author of "Birthing God's Mighty Warriors." Don't miss it! 9 p.m. ET/PT.

You can look at my introduction and first assignment on the Body Image Workshop pages today and get started on your homework and thinking about your questions.

Here's what Vyckie says:

Beginning Sunday evening, Nov. 1st until we collapse sometime before midnight on Wednesday the 4th ~ we’re creating a party-like atmosphere here at No Longer Quivering and on the NLQ forums which includes fun & games ~ and even some cool prizes!

There will be lots of interesting things to read, prizes, fun, and food for thought. Please check it out!

On November 1st I will begin hosting a body image workshop booth over at No Longer Quivering Forum for the Carnival. You won't need to sign up in order to participate--for the duration of the Carnival, guests will have access to post, ask questions, and have fun.

There will be exercises and assignments each day and a drawing among participants for the winner’s choice of either Self-Esteem Comes in all Sizes: How to be Happy and Healthy at Your Natural Weight by Carol A. Johnson, MA, or Bodylove: Learning to Like Our Looks and Ourselves by Rita Freedman, Ph.D.

Bring your questions about problems you are having with your body image. I'll be happy to answer them.

Please join us!

Look At The Fat Girl is a review of two shows representing fat women by blogger and author Kate Harding.

I love how she addresses the fact that every segment of the audience will watch for their own reasons, whether to hope for fat acceptance and positive representation or to jeer at fat women. So true.

ETA: For anyone who doubts that many people jeer at fat people, see the letters section in response to this article.

Though I am amused by the idiot who rants about "denyal." Too bad there isn't a foolproof diet to increase "maotsetung's" IQ.

I was quite touched by this letter:

Fat acceptance is not a joke

Two of my closest friends--who are both beautiful, smart, funny, cool women-- are severely obese, and they struggle daily with it, and I often listen to them weeping about how they wish things could change for them--granted, much of that change has to come from within themselves and they know it. (One of them is married by the way, so it's not all about attracting a mate either.) They just feel powerless a lot of the time. One of them just had a lap-band put in.

Just to illustrate how desperate they are to be thin, both of my friends have said many, many times, that they would trade places with me in a heartbeat. Why? Because I am thin. I am also visibly physically disabled. They have actually, literally said that they would trade their limbs to be thin, I'm not kidding. Even when I've thought about it, I definitely wouldn't want to trade my body for theirs. We all get stared at sometimes, but they assert it's worse for fat women, and you know what? I actually think they're right. That's how judgmental our society is against fat people.
-- not_rebecca

I cringed when I saw the promos of the new Fox (where else) show More To Love. Following the usual Bachelor format, large women compete for the attention of a self-admitted Fat Admirer. I couldn't bear to watch, but fortunately another Fat Acceptance Activist did and published a review: Really Big Love, by Marianne Kirby.

Excerpt:

More to Love, at least so far, doesn’t show big women in the pursuit of being small—a definite step forward.

But the show also falls into the same old fatty-hating, fatty-baiting traps that belittle the Fat Acceptance movement. The women joke about Spanx, a girdle-like product that’s supposed to smooth you out and make you look slimmer. One girl, who jumped into the pool in a bid for attention, worries that she looks like a whale.

It’s a one-two punch of acceptance followed by a knockout blow of shame.

Luke manipulates a woman into kissing him by playing on her fear of being cut the first night, playing on her body insecurities. She kisses him again.

More to Love is a confounding welter of self-confidence and self-loathing. I like these women, the interesting ones, and while Luke is a bit too much of a frat boy for my tastes, I applaud his lack of shame—he likes big women and he’s unapologetic about it. That shouldn’t deserve the acclaim it gets him, and it shouldn’t deserve the points it scores him with these women, who seem convinced this is their only chance to find love.

Ultimately, I think that’s what made me the most upset about More to Love—the show’s depressing portrait of these young women, already afraid they will die alone and unloved, unworthy of companionship. I’m not mad at them, though I want to send each and every one of them a copy of my book, a useful guide to getting over self-loathing. I am mad at every man and every woman who has taught them this kind of fear. I am mad at every jerk who wants these women to loathe themselves.

But there is a glimmer of hope. More to Love shows us beautiful fat women, refusing to apologize for who they are. That alone is positive. And I’m trying to hold on to that.

Published in Radiance: The Magazine for Large Women in the Fall 1995 issue. Radiance has since gone out of publication.

The View From Both Sides Of The Easel By Tapati Amber Sarasvati

The Model: Five years ago I would have laughed at the suggestion I might be doing nude modeling for an artist. Nothing could have been further from my mind. I was only beginning to work on changing my body image. I was just beginning to appreciate my wide hips, powerful buttocks, smallish breasts, and round belly with its network of stretch marks like ribbons of fine silk. The only parts of my body I had always liked were my blue-green eyes and my soft, thick brown hair.

It was a major step just to go to a beach or a pool in a swimsuit. First I had to know that I deserve access to the water just as much as any thin person. Then I had to use that knowledge as a shield when I ventured out in my bathing suit. I met shocked stares and the occasional rude remarks, but it was worth it to be in the water again. Still, it took a lot of work.

Early in my exploration of body image, I did a series of visualizations with body image educator and hypnotherapist Ruah Bull. The first visualization involved going inside a house--representing the self--and finding the "body room." I was to enter and take note of what I saw and how I felt about it. The first time I did this exercise, I could not see anything but pitch blackness. It was too scary, this body room. I could not confront it.

Months later, after much work with Ruah, I was able to see into the body room. I saw a room that was much more pleasant than I had expected. It was homey and welcoming. Ruah asked me what changed I might like to make, if any. I said that the windows needed to be bigger to let more light in. When Ruah asked what that meant to me, I said that I wanted more freedom to wear clothing that was revealing, such as shorts and swimsuits. I was tired of being expected to hide myself away.

Years later, I unexpectedly found myself posing nude for an artist's sketch. I had been swimming with friends in a mountain river, dressed in shorts and a top. I found a natural seat formed by a projection from a cliff wall and sat on it to rest. Everyone remarked that I looked like a mythical Earth goddess and wished someone had a camera. Our host, artist Heather Lee, decided to run home and get her sketch pad.

Excited, I thought about how the sketch might look and decided that I could not imagine a goddess wearing shorts and a top. All of the fat goddess figures I had seen were unclothed. I decided to risk posing nude. I figured that if anyone came down the trail we would hear them long before they could see us, and I would be able to duck into the water. I was surprised to find myself getting as excited about skinny dipping for the first time as I was about being sketched.

My friends giggled with me as I undressed, knowing that this was out of character for me. Heather began to sketch me, and I encouraged my friend Rebecca to pose with me, on the seat just below mine.
( Read more... )

Thinking can make you fat, study shows

11 Sep 2008

Researchers found the stress of onerous mental tasks caused subjects to overeat.
The results may help suggest how modern lifestyles have contributed to an obesity epidemic.
The research team, supervised by Dr Angelo Tremblay, measured the spontaneous food intake of 14 students after each of three tasks.

The first was relaxing in a sitting position, the second reading and summarizing a text, and finally completing a series of memory, attention, and vigilance tests on the computer.
After 45 minutes at each activity, participants were invited to eat as much as they wanted from a buffet. The researchers had already calculated that each session of intellectual work requires only three calories more than the rest period.

However, despite the low energy cost of mental work, the students spontaneously consumed 203 more calories after summarizing a text and 253 more calories after the computer tests.
This represents a 23.6 per cent and 29.4 per cent increase, respectively, compared with the rest period.

Blood samples taken before, during, and after each session revealed that intellectual work causes much bigger fluctuations in glucose and insulin levels than rest periods.
Jean-Philippe Chaput, the study's main author, said: "These fluctuations may be caused by the stress of intellectual work, or also reflect a biological adaptation during glucose combustion."
The body could be reacting to these fluctuations by spurring food intake in order to restore its glucose balance, the only fuel used by the brain.

Mr Chaput added: "Caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, combined with the fact we are less physically active when doing intellectual tasks, could contribute to the obesity epidemic currently observed in industrialised countries.

"This is a factor that should not be ignored, considering that more and more people hold jobs of an intellectual nature."

The results of the study, carried out at Université Laval in Quebec, Canada, are published in the most recent issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

Burning Man 2008: The American Dream

I would add that it also sounds like a space that's not terribly accessible to disabled artists or poor white artists.

Another excellent piece talks about roles for women of color in Hollywood. Wow, we have black women judges? Who knew? ...Duh!

"A group of women started a collaborative YouTube channel, Project LifeSize, which aims to give a voice to women of size, to discuss and dismantle ridiculous beauty standards and inspire young women."--Feministing

Finally, evidence of what the fat acceptance movement has always said (based on comparisons between fat people in their native cultures vs. those who move to America and live a less heart healthy lifestyle): Overweight doesn't always mean heart risks and normal-weight people aren't always heart-healthy!

Excerpt:

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- You can look great in a swimsuit and still be a heart attack waiting to happen. And you can also be overweight and otherwise healthy.

A new study suggests that a surprising number of overweight people -- about half -- have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity.

The first national estimate of its kind bolsters the argument that you can be hefty but still healthy, or at least healthier than has been believed.

The results also show that stereotypes about body size can be misleading and that even "less voluptuous" people can have risk factors commonly associated with obesity, said study author MaryFran Sowers, a University of Michigan obesity researcher.

"We're really talking about taking a look with a very different lens" at weight and health risks, Sowers said.

Of course people of any size with a family history of heart disease will want to be cautious about weight gain and want to be particularly careful with their diet. It is recommended that they also keep their cholesterol well below the 200 that used to be considered normal. (Mine was only slightly higher than that in the years leading up to my diagnosis.) We should all be aware of our risk factors since heart disease is the number 1 killer of both men and women.

The Myth of Moderate Exercise examines the role of exercise in weight loss. Along the way they make a very important point:

Still, the underlying question remains: are diet and exercise a reliable cure for obesity? Modern-day obesity researchers are skeptical — achieving thinness, they say, is not simply a matter of willpower. Research suggests that weight may largely be regulated by biology, which helps determine the body's "set point," a weight range of about 10 lbs. to 20 lbs. that the body tries hard to defend. The further you push you weight beyond your set point — either up or down the scale — some researchers say, the more your body struggles to return to it. That might help to explain why none of the women in Jakicic's study managed to lose much more than 10% of their body weight. After two years on a calorie-restricted diet, keeping up more than an hour of physical activity five days a week on average, most were still clinically overweight (though much less so than before). But what Jakicic and other obesity researchers stress is that a 10% reduction in body weight represents a tremendous boon for overall well-being, lowering blood pressure, improving heart health and reducing the risk of Type 2 diabetes. For the obese, the end goal should not be thinness, but health and self-acceptance, which are more realistic and beneficial objectives. "The women's health was absolutely improved," Jakicic says.

Regardless of whether it contributes to substantial weight loss or not, exercise does lots of other things for your health. If women could only be as excited about improving health as they are about improving appearance according to society's standards, imagine how healthy we all could be!

Wrong, just wrong, in so many ways and for so many reasons.

The Fat Princess Game is a fat and woman-bashing game that could have easily been a fun and positive game if tweaked a bit. Feed the Cow? Arm the Princess? Be creative!

However, our side strikes back with an amazing letter to the creators of the game.

Thanks to Feministing.

I put her first one on my LJ in 2007, here are both of them:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUTJQIBI1oA&eurl A Fat Rant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dm5VpYGH4 Fat Rant - Confessions of the Compulsive

I just love her sense of humor. :)

Women can withdraw consent for intercourse after initially saying yes.

Also noteworthy: Body Image Panel. Participating on the panel: Rosario Dawson (RENT), Kerry Washington (The Last King Of Scotland), Ali Larter (Heros, Legally Blonde), and Amber Tamblyn (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants).

Flab Isn't Fab, is a fat-bashing rant by Ruth Fowler, who is apparently convinced that people like me eat "...six whole rotisserie chickens a day washed down with 16 pints of double cream, half a cow and probably the entire produce of Ireland's potato farms, deep-fried and with a coating of beer batter." Ruth thinks we eat "12,000" calories a day and our food bill per month would pay her mortgage for a year. Um, Ruth, if we ate 12,000 calories a day that would equal 24 pounds a week gained, more or less. That would cause us to gain over 1200 pounds per year. Only a very few fat people ever reach a thousand pounds.

But Ruth, tell us what you really think. Don't hold anything back. How do you feel about short people? Old people? People in wheelchairs? Is there anyone you approve of?

Fortunately the commenters ripped into her, though it's now closed to comments. But once again I must say that we need to separate out appearance and health issues, prejudice and medical needs. I suspect that someday we'll all have a better understanding of the mechanism of appetite, the role of psychology, and have appropriate therapies--preferably to prevent excessive weight gain in young people that leads to childhood and adult obesity. In the meantime, I wish to point out that the fat acceptance movement has gotten more fat people to exercise than any amount of fat bashing ever did.

I followed the link provided by xtremeroswellia (thanks! I think...) to this story about a teenage girl named Megan Meier dealing with ADD, depression, and weight issues who was driven over the edge and committed suicide after being manipulated via a fake Myspace account and taunted, mocked and ridiculed one day. You will be utterly shocked by who was posing as a cute boy named Josh to win over Megan's friendship and gain her confidence.

This article touches upon so many important issues--body image, verbal abuse, the vulnerabilities of children with ADD as well as depression and weight issues, the failure of our laws to keep up with new technologies, and the difficulties parents face even when they try hard to be very watchful and involved with their children's online lives.

I often tell members of my forum that words really can hurt--this is even more true when dealing with teenagers who are impulsive even when ADD is not added to the mix.

Sign the Body Peace Treaty. This is a project by Seventeen Magazine and they hope to collect over a million signatures. They have organized with celebrities to promote a more positive body image in Hollywood and to inspire young women to accept and love their bodies. Spread the word!

The Body Peace Treaty:

* Remember that the sun will still rise tomorrow even if I had one too many slices of pizza or an extra scoop of ice cream tonight.
* Never blame my body for the bad day I'm having.
* Stop joining in when my friends compare and trash their own bodies.
* Never allow a dirty look from someone else to influence how I feel about my appearance.
* Quit judging a person solely by how his or her body looks — even if it seems harmless — because I'd never want anyone to do that to me.
* Notice all the amazing things my body is doing for me every moment I walk, talk, think, breathe...
* Quiet that negative little voice in my head when it starts to say mean things about my body that I'd never tolerate anyone else saying about me.
* Remind myself that what you see isn't always what you get on TV and in ads — it takes a lot of airbrushing, dieting, money, and work to look like that.
* Remember that even the girl who I'd swap bodies with in a minute has something about her looks that she hates.
* Respect my body by feeding it well, working up a sweat when it needs it, and knowing when to give it a break.
* Realize that the mirror can reflect only what's on the surface of me, not who I am inside.
* Know that I'm already beautiful just the way I am.

Quotes from an article about dieting and obesity:

A University of California, Berkeley-led survey of women defined as clinically obese shows that nearly two-thirds of them went on their first diet before age 14 and, as adults, were more likely to be heavier than women who started dieting after age 14.

and

"These findings should counter the popular myth that fat people are lazy gluttons, and that they've never made an effort to manage their weight," said Joanne Ikeda, co-director of UC Berkeley's Center for Weight & Health and lead author of the study.

She added that there is "growing evidence that repeated dieting adversely affects the body's metabolism, and that dieting before puberty disrupts the body's normal development."

Meanwhile, Salon's Broadsheet reported on the new research that shows a virus may cause some cases of obesity and the letters in response already contain some fat-bashing. Of course I had to write a letter too.

In 2005 I wrote another post about obesity in our society and what we can do about it instead of just hating fat people for being fat: A War on Fat People.