My goal as an activist is not about telling other people how to live. My goal is to insist upon the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by our own definition without shame, stigma, or weight bullying, and it’s about letting other people know that they have the option to do the same.
There are people right now who actively hate themselves and their bodies because they don’t know that there is another option. People who believe that they don’t have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness until they are thin. People who don’t know that they have the right to demand that they be treated with basic human respect.
When we stand up, speak out, and refuse to buy into the current culture of self-hatred, obesity hysteria, and thin obsession we don’t just model the option, we start being the option. Being the option is about being the choice, the power, the reason:
- The reason people start to see themselves and all fat people as human being and not fat headless bodies like the ones pictured in almost every article and news report about obesity
- The reason people realize that fat people are far too complex and different to be shoved all together and called an epidemic
- The reason people to start questioning the forces and money behind the messages about weight and health that get served to us on a platter 386,170 times a year
- The reason people start to wonder how it is possible for the diet industry to make so much more money every year if their product actually works
- The reason people start to question the statistics that they see about weight and health
- The reason a fat 12 year old on her 14th diet, being teased and bullied by other kids, her parents, and the First Lady of the United States, and considering suicide, realizes that she might be okay and that life might be worth living (all that’s from an actual e-mail that I received)
- The reason that someone might choose to stop doing unhealthy things to lose weight and start doing healthy things that nurture their body
- The reason that someone takes that first step and starts replacing hatred for how their body looks with appreciation for what their body does
An acquaintance once sent me an e-mail after reading my blog. He said that he believed in what I do but said I was wasting my “time, life, and a first rate mind”. He said that this battle is unwinnable and that I should spend my time doing something else because the diet industry is so big and the beliefs are so prevalent that it “doesn’t matter what is true”.
Bullshit.
I don’t care how many people are shouting a lie, it ALWAYS matters what is true. There are people out there, right now hating themselves, starving themselves, not aware that the diet industry that is lying to them about their chances of “success”. People who believe what they have been told - that they can never be healthy, happy, loved, or successful until they are thin, and some of them will die trying to get it done. I’m not wasting my time, life, or mind because it’s not about what effect I have on the diet industry or the views of the majority, it’s about giving people who are suffering a way out – another option. You can’t change the world until you change your world.
When we stand up to the diet establishment and thin-obsessed culture just by telling our truth, we can be the catalyst, that sparks people to consider other points of view, start asking a lot of questions about the status quo, and consider an option where they actually love themselves and start making their own choices about health rather than just gaining the weight back from the last diet and then starting the next diet. We’re giving people an option, and they don’t have to take it – that’s not our business, and by standing up and telling our truth we reinforce our self-esteem, body image and good health in the process.
It’s not about what’s easy or feasible or what people think is possible when it comes to changing the world. It’s simply that I believe that when it’s time to stand up, you stand up. Even if you’re standing alone. Because when you stand, others get the idea that they can stand to, then we stand together and fight for change, and then we win, but it all starts with an option.
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I do HAES and SA activism, speaking and writing full time, and I don’t believe in putting corporate ads on my blog and making my readers a commodity. So if you find value in my work, want to support it, and you can afford it, please consider a paid subscription (it works like a fan club where you get extras, discounts on stuff, free subscriber meet-ups etc.) or a one-time contribution. The regular e-mail subscription (available at the top right hand side of this page) is still completely free. If you’re curious about this policy, you might want to check out this post. Thanks for reading! ~Ragen
A very powerful and inspiring article.
WOW. Nothing else to say really.
Here is some positivity- have you seen this excellent video from everybodywalk.org! Not mention of obesity- just a fun way to encourage people to get moving for the health benefits:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/3dc51a407a/walk-and-talk-the-west-wing-reunion?rel=player
Ragen, You left me speachless. This blog is so Damn good there is nothing more to add. You are not waisting your time. You are doing the right thing. I believe in you and I believe it is my calling to do what you stated above. I am with you all the way. Thank you and please continue. You are a great writer and know how to get the point made without insulting. If only the fat haters could make a point without insulting. Again, Thank you. Sincerely and from my heart Marla
I’m sure there were also well-meaning people who told Gandhi not to waste his time on trying to get the Brits to go home, and people who told Martin Luther King, Jr. that marching for Civil Rights was a huge waste of his breath, too.
Nothing gets done by people who consider themselves defeated before they begin. But it’s surprising how much can be accomplished by one person standing up and saying the truth in the face of invincible odds, without concern for whether or not they can change the world all by themselves.
If I have ever given hope to one person who is suffering, then it’s worth my time, my life, and my mind.
In the immortal words of Winston Churchill to the British people battered by WWII:
“NEVER give up!
NEVER give up!
Never, never, NEVER give up!!!”
I just watched a show on the Science Channel (originally I think it was done for a show called Curiousity on the Discovery Network) about evil. Basically, they recreated the experiement where people believed they were shocking someone in the other room. Like 77% completed all the shocks. Afterwards, they did the experiment but also added another “shocker” into the mix who wouldn’t continue the experiment any longer and the subjects stopped. Now, there wasn’t a huge number of subjects, so we can’t call it science, but I think it’s definitely true that the more people speak up, the more people will join. I don’t speak up enough, I admit, but I’m vowing to do better.
Late last week, I was on a fashion-related blog and thread of comments. One of the women posting said that she had recently been diagnosed with uterine cancer and needed a hysterectomy. This woman said that not one, not two, but four doctors told her the reason she got cancer is that she is 30 pounds overweight! Worse, the woman with the cancer and almost everybody who responded to her post agreed that she got cancer because she’s fat. One woman finally responded by saying that maybe it might be a good idea if doctors took a woman’s problems and complaints more seriously instead of just trying to blame everything on weight (finally, a voice of reason!). Then other women jumped on HER! Wish the original poster, the woman with cancer, could read your blogs, because she, and many others like her, really need somebody like you in her corner!