The Tenets of Fat Acceptance.
Back in the day, Paul over at Big Fat Blog started working on this list of Absolutes for the Fat Acceptance movement. The idea of some sort of Fat Acceptance tenets has always been attractive to me. If a person isn’t going to lead our little grass roots movement, I think it would be useful to have some sort of guiding principals.
Jumping off from that post on BFB, I’ve drafted a list of eight ideas that I think are pretty consistent throughout FA, while still leaving some wiggle room for personal interpretation.
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The Tenets of Fat Acceptance
- Body Positive — We affirm that all people deserve self-esteem regardless of shape or size.
- Body Diversity — We affirm that humans come naturally in a range of shapes and sizes and they all deserve visibility (particularly in the media, pop culture, and fashion.)
- Bodily Autonomy — We affirm that we don’t need to justify our size and we refuse to give up our right to make choices for our own bodies.
- Cultural Prejudices — We fight the stigma of fat because you can’t tell anything about a person simply by looking at them and the negative traits associated with being fat certainly aren’t restricted to fatties.
- Health at Every Size — We affirm that fatties can be fit and healthy behavior can benefit any shape or size.
- Equal Opportunity — We demand equal pay, equal treatment, and equal opportunity in the workplace regardless of size or shape.
- Equal Healthcare — We demand decent, preventive, and comprehensive health care without the condition that weight is lost before we’re offered fair treatment.
- Fat Rights — We demand legal protection against discrimination for all shapes and sizes.
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I don’t think everyone in FA will ever exactly agree about the details of “what FA is” (mostly because when you put too many strong-willed people together you’re bound to see some sparks), but wouldn’t it be nice if we could try to find some common ground?
I’m posting this list because that’s my wish. But I’ll settle for being like Paul. He inspired me, and maybe someday someone will find this post and take it to the next level. And that would be kinda awesome.
I LOVE this list!
Those are all great statements and I would be hard pressed to see how someone could disagree with them. (And yet, trolls everywhere seem to, no?)
This is a great list, thanks for putting it together. I think there’s more than enough common ground there for people from every stage of FA to agree on!
Excellent job. I think these are the core beliefs, the core messages we are promoting. I’m glad we have them in simple list form. Great job Elizebeth!
Peace,
Shannon
I love lists!
And I especially love this list as it succinctly lists what common sense should tell every human on the planet.
Fabulous list! Thank you.
Covers all the bases. Except maybe could use some nod towards acknowledging that, at least in many parts of the US, preventive care has become code for “harass patients about losing weight by any means necessary since almost every condition we consider preventable is caused by the fat, and the other two are smoking and alcoholism”.
Yeah I’m a little bitter about the concept of preventive medicine as it is practiced by the majority of healthcare providers in the US.
I’m not sure how to word this, but I think I’d like something about sexuality on this list-about how fat folks can be sexual beings too, and that’s okay.
This would also fall under the category of medical f*ck-ups, since-as has been amply documented-doctors provide inadequate sexual health services to fat patients, because they assume we’re not getting it on.
@SimoneLovelace
YES!!!! I mean, how come there’s so many fatty Mcfatterson’s out there, if we aren’t reproducing??? This always cracks me up, because as a fat woman, I’m either considered asexual (not that there’s anything wrong with that) or I’m a completely insatiable nympho ( not that there’s anything with that, either) and/or I’m lucky that I can get anyone to sleep with me at all because being FAT is such a horrible disfigurement. How about we go out on a limb and offer fat folks the same options as everyone else??? Like, fat people, as a group, inhabit the same descriptors of sexuality as every other “group”-sexuality is a term that covers a wide range of experiences and behaviors. Being fat doesn’t preclude us from any one of them.
Great list. It sums up the FA movement.