1. The “fat tax” is not a tax that would be levied on fat people, but a tax on soda, sweets and fast food.

2. I think that this article on why “fat pride” is a bad idea is interesting. Thank you Dr. J of Calorie Lab for forwarding it to me.

3. “Lori” and “Living The Questions,” sorry but I had to delete a couple of your comments that were addressed at my regular readers, because I do not allow random readers of this blog to harass my regular readers. Attacking me is fine – being a blogger for 2 years grows you some pretty thick skin – but I cannot allow you to attack my readers.

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Before I close off comments to this post, I wanted to thank my regular readers for their thoughtful comments, and to also thank the Fat Acceptance folks for teaching me a few important lessons:

1. Heidi, B. Adu, LexieDi, Erylin and Knowledge1913 have taught me that portion control and mindful eating are hogwash. There’s nothing wrong with gorging on large amounts of junk food while not even paying attention to what one is eating. In fact, all these years of limiting my own junk food consumption and of teaching my kids to be satisfied with a small cone of ice cream and with a single daily treat after dinner were a huge waste of time and energy because portion control does not matter. Michelle Obama is getting it all wrong too in her current campaign against childhood obesity and when she talks about changes her own family is making, such as drinking more water, eating out less and monitoring portion sizes.

2. LexieDi and Knowledge1913 have taught me that fat people do not become fat by overeating, but because of a myriad of other reasons, and especially a slow metabolism. I guess this means that the human body has underwent huge changes over the past 50 years, since there are so many more obese people now than there used to be in the past. Lots more slow metabolisms in our society these days, huh?

3. Atchka! and BB have taught me that doctors have been getting it all wrong. Fat and health are completely unrelated! All those studies that show a clear link between excess weight and high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes and even some cancers? Hogwash. There is absolutely no connection between being overweight or obese and having health problems.

4. Most importantly, Amy, Miriam Heddy and SC have taught me that when you think someone is wrong and would like them to see your point of view, your best course of action is to attack them personally. This will immediately cause them to see the light and to join your cause and will never ever push them from simply being unaware, maybe insensitive to your pain, into actively, knowingly, wholeheartedly opposing you, your lifestyle choices and your cause – for the rest of their life.

I am 5″9″ tall and weigh over 200 pounds. I get checked for diabetes every time I walk into my Dr. office( and I pay for the lab work myself) …I do not have it….I exercise regularly, I measure, write down every bite I eat, I eat organically, and carefully….I believe for all the cancer/chemo I have had in my life my body is protecting me….non-stop…..I almost never eat in public or on planes or trains, because I get such nasty comments. I have taught a teen “style” program for years with a dietitian and we can no longer get kids to sign up for it…just like my marriage preparation classes…..it is very hard to be the small folks competing against the MacDonalds etc…..I watched Supersize ME, Food, INC. and keep hoping I can get other’s to understand.

I have done numerous weight loss programs and have been approached about having the weight on my upper arms surgically removed. I don’t think I look much like the person in the picture, but I most of all hate what people feel free to say to me….

I think programs like the BIGGEST LOSER and even Oprah and Dr. Oz help….(though I do not really watch TV)

WE NEED EDUCATION – because Greed is driving us to the brink …..what will we do when there is no clean water left? No CSA farms? No Health Care? I am more embarrassed by being the US citizen in my family than by my heaviness.

Maybe I am with Mother Theresa on this one: “There is enough bread in the world, but not enough love and appreciation.”

I think we have reached the rats in the cage…..eating each other and attacking….

What I feel for the obese is sadness. I think it starts in childhood and is predominately nurtured, rather than a genetic predisposition. I doubt any outside influence from any agency can stop obesity or mandate against it. Support group can certainly help. But change, as all change must come from within. And if all a person has ever known is being fat it will most likely be a harder battle than someone who was always thin, then put on weight.

Then, I found the “truth” all of these anti-fat people want to drill into our heads – it wasn’t just the weight that was bad, it was the fat itself, and I’d have to stop eating and exercise more to make it go away. So I did, and lost my job, my college career, and almost my life. It’s ironic, I was anorexic and admitted to a hospital eating disorder unit, but never looked thin because I still had excess skin from my previous fat. If only I had learned how unacceptable eating and being overweight were earlier in life, before the age of 19. Maybe I could’ve skipped the weight gain and bulimia and went straight to restricting in 5th grade, rather then binging or purging. I could’ve been a skinny role model or another dead teenager, but at least I wouldn’t have been another fatass around to pollute society with my appearance.

Seriously, what do people want? Are they that offended by unperfect bodies that they’d rather encourage starvation or see us all drop dead or locked away than put up with a few extra pounds? Without some form of fat acceptance or positivity, that’s what it will take, because it’s pretty damn hard to take care of yourself and get healthy, at any size, when you are hating yourself and shamed by others. People get healthy by loving themselves and seeing themselves as worthy of taking care of, and that takes acceptance, not judgment.

You don’t know this girl. You have no idea what may have caused her to become fat. It could be any number of reasons from emotional problems, to physical problems, to side-effects of medication, to yo-yo dieting. You don’t know anything about her, and yet you assume because you’ve witnessed her eating ONE ice cream that she’s fat because she’s stuffing her face with junk food 24/7.

Seeing one fat person having the balls to eat a foodstuff other than salad or raw vegetables in public does not provide proof that fat acceptance is flawed. Fat acceptance can actually help people recover from life-long struggles with eating disorders and prejudice and to lead them to live happier, healthier lives.

And it’s exactly the response that you’ve had to seeing one fat person eat just one ice-cream that makes it so vital to us to have the fat acceptance movement, to have allies against the prejudice that we experience every day. The fat acceptance movement gives us the support we need to break from the starve-binge cycle we’re trapped in, to get out into the world and live our lives, to take up healthy pursuits involving exercise (even when people are falling over themselves to shout “run fatty run” when you’re trying to enjoy a morning jog). It’s what makes us realise that we don’t have to eat everything in the fridge because tomorrow is a ‘no food day’.

And it’s this kind of prejudice which makes people equate thin with healthy. Which encourages the thin and averaged size to believe that important messages about healthy balanced diets and exercise don’t apply to them because they don’t need to lose weight. When a thin person sits on their arse all day eating cake then that’s just fine by society’s standards but in reality poor diet (lack of variety, lack of nutrients) and lack of exercise will cause you health problems whatever your size, just as a good diet (lots of variety, listening to what your body wants, plenty of nutrients) and increased exercise (even a small amount of gentle exercise will improve your health) will keep you healthy no whether you’re 7 stone or 17.

Fat people are not the enemy. Ice cream is also not the enemy – you shouldn’t live on it, but you shouldn’t live on peas either. Making snap judgments on other people without even speaking to them is a problem, but it’s not just your problem, it’s society’s problem. And quite contrary to popular belief, it’s not going to make any of us lose weight. If telling people they’re fat (as if they haven’t noticed) made people magically thin, trust me you’d have not one fat person in western society.

I’m 24 and spent my childhood and teenage years fat. I went to weight watchers with my mom for the first time when I was 11. I was subjected to so much shame, so much ridicule and hate, and I believed everything anyone ever said to me. You think that people don’t know they are fat? That’s ridiculous. From childhood, if there’s something different about you, you know it because the other kids latch onto it and make sure of it. I spent my adolescence thinking that I was subhuman and disgusting because I was fat. I tried dieting, exercising, not eating at all, and nothing worked and just made me feel more ugly and shameful (and come to find out, made me gain more weight, as yoyo dieting does). I prayed most nights for God to please just make me thin, that I’d do anything. I remember praying that I could be rich when I grew up so I could pay for diet programs or to go to a gym.

So for a good 10 years of my young life, I was completely miserable and hated myself. It wasn’t until I found FA that I realized that it didn’t have to be that way. I gained so much confidence just reading other people’s experiences of being fat and happy. I started wearing cute clothes, makeup, caring about how I looked. I became more outgoing, tried new things, and started living a fuller life. FA saved me from becoming a shut in. I still have a lot of self-loathing that I am working through in therapy, but the one thing I know now is that my life won’t be magically better if I lose weight, and going through the unhealthy process of yoyo dieting only makes things worse.

Also through the Fat Acceptance movement, I found women who seemed to have the same traits as me, and with their encouragement I went to three different doctors before I was finally diagnosed with PCOS. The other doctors I saw told me my symptoms were caused by being fat. PCOS makes you gain weight and makes it even more difficult to lose it.

It’s so hard to take proper care of your body when you hate yourself. Fat Acceptance has also exposed me to Health at Every Size. It’s all about being able to be healthy at any weight. I eat a lot less fast food and a lot more fresh meals because I finally pay attention to my food signals and how things make my body feel instead of good/bad/diet foods. I explore new ways to get moving not because I want to lose weight but to find ways to feel good and energized and have fun.

There’s already enough hatred in this world for fat people, we don’t need more. We don’t need educated. We need doctors, other people, teachers, and leaders to be educated about the negative effects of harassment, shame, and ridicule toward us.