Tonight, I’m going to be speaking with Ragen Chastain (of Dances With Fat) and Linda Bacon (who literally wrote the book on Health At Every Size®) as part of the 2nd Annual Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit!

As you may have heard, Ragen has organized a 1 day only money bomb to put up a billboard in a high-trafficked area of Atlanta with a positive message to counteract the negative Strong4Life campaign.

On top of that, the wonderful More Of Me To Love site is matching money bomb contributions up to $5,000!

I’ve already made a donation, but I want to do more. So, I’m donating 30% of the proceeds from Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit All-Access Passes purchased before 11PM Eastern today.

That means that when you purchase an All-Access Pass today, the proceeds will go:

• 30% to the Support All Kids Money Bomb
• 10% to NOLOSE
• 10% to NAAFA

(and the rest, as always, goes to supporting more free events like this from Body Love Wellness!)

Plus, you get live access to all the calls and access to the recordings through the end of March!

You can check out the Telesummit by clicking here and check out the money bomb by clicking here. You can even purchase your All-Access Pass right here!

Yes, Golda, please sign me up for an All Access Pass to the Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit. Payment Options Great! $20.00 USD Yay! $30.00 USD Awesome! $40.00 USD Mindblowing! $50.00 USD

Thanks and I hope to “see” you tonight!

xo,

Golda

EDIT:  We raised $73 for the billboard project just from All Access Pass purchases!  Yay!

Buy A Pass, Get A Billboard originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on February 2, 2012.

If you haven’t been privy to the awesome images coming from Marilyn Wann and the STANDards campaign, you need to check it out now. It’s okay, go ahead. I’ll wait!

Glad you’re back!

Me & Michelle Matthews (fatsocialworker.blogspot.com) Stand 4 Kids!

As you scrolled through the images, maybe you noticed that the people taking a stand for kids really represented a wide range of people. Some are very fat and some are a little fat and some are pretty thin. Some are small children and some are elderly and many are in between. Some are doing pretty athletic stuff and some are sitting happily.

It seemed that a really diverse group of people were submitting photos for the campaign, so I found it interesting when Marilyn posted this on Facebook last week:

“I notice that so many of us (and I can imagine myself having this feeling if I came across such an invite)…anticipate that we will be excluded for some reason. Confronted with this open invite to share a photo and a credo in these STANDards, people are telling me they must be too thin, not the right gender, not healthy enough. I am not going to exclude anyone for any reason.”

How interesting that people were assuming that they’d be excluded from this campaign because they’re too thin or not healthy enough.  I find this sad because I hear this a lot from people.   I’ve had clients tell me that they know it’s silly, but that they feel too fat for fat pride or too unhealthy for Health At Every Size®.  Like, other people can love their bodies because even though they’re fat, they’re not too fat.  Other people can practice Health At Every Size® because they’re already pretty healthy.  I also find that people toward the thinner end of the spectrum think they’ll be excluded from fat pride because they’re not fat enough.

So I want to deal with these objections in turn.  Check for the objection that applies to you and please take what I write to heart!

THE OBJECTIONS

I Can’t Be Part Of The Fat Pride Movement Because I’m Not Fat (Or Not Fat Enough) — Poppycock!  Well-meaning people of all sizes are welcome in the fat pride movement.  Those immersed in fat pride understand that discrimination against fat people is bad for society as a whole, negatively impacting thin people as well.  We want to live in a world where assumptions are no longer made about people’s bodies based on their relative fatness.  We want to live in a world where thin people don’t hurt their bodies out of a fear of being fat.  And we know that having allies is good for the movement.  Your voice and your presence is wanted and needed. So, welcome!

I Can’t Be Part Of The Fat Pride Movement Because I’m Too Fat – Hogwash!  There is absolutely no weight limit on loving and accepting your body.  Hating your body and trying to change it never got you anywhere before, right?  So why would anyone in the fat pride movement want you to continue that?  There is no separate set of rules that apply to you because you weigh a certain amount.  Your voice and your presence is wanted and needed. So, welcome!

I Can’t Be Part Of The Health At Every Size® Movement Because I’m Not Healthy Enough and/or Too Fat – Hooey!  Health At Every Size® is not Health At Certain Sizes And Only If You’re Healthy Enough.  It’s freakin’ Health At Every Size® and it’s not a misnomer!  HAES® recognizes that intentional weight loss isn’t a good idea and does more harm than good.  So the best thing for anyone’s health is, in a nutshell, eating well, getting appropriate exercise, and accepting their bodies.  Of course, you’re human, and sometimes humans get sick, but that doesn’t mean that  HAES® no longer applies to you.  In fact, accepting HAES® can help you clarify to the health professionals in your life that fixating on your weight will not help you heal.  Healthy or sick, you are an important part of this movement. Your voice and your presence is wanted and needed. So, welcome!

I hope I convinced you that Fat Pride and Health At Every Size® is for you.  And, I really hope you’ll join me for the Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit which starts tomorrow night!  You don’t want to miss it.  Here’s just a sampling of what you’ll take away:

	Learn what to do when confronted with negativity about your weight.
	Find out how you can live your best life without the highs and lows of weight loss efforts.
	Connect with other people who are committed to being body positive.
	Get fashion tips from people who know and love exactly the body you have.
	Body positive exercise advice for all fitness levels, body types and abilities.
	Get historical and political perspectives on anti-fat efforts.
	Learn how queer activism can inform fat activism.
	Sex-positive and fat-positive advice for the awesome sex life you deserve.
	Hear the body love journeys of your favorite bloggers.
	Learn how to create fat-positive community locally.
	And so much more!

To join us, just register here.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight.

Fat Pride Is For Everyone, Even You (Yes, You!) originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 30, 2012.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast here:

Click here to listen in itunes.

This post really could be an indictment of the way that fat always equals bad in the symbolism of Progressive movements, including Occupy, but it isn’t.  And as much as I wish that fellow Lefties would take up the call of fat acceptance rather than fatphobia, for now it’s a dream deferred.

But I do think that the Occupy movement and the fat acceptance movement have a lot in common.  In essence, the Occupy movement is trying to break down a prevailing myth.  The myth is that with enough smarts and fortitude and hard work, the American dream of prosperity will be realized.  People have been led to believe that it  just takes hard work, dedication, putting your nose to the grindstone, and various other cliches and you too can make it in America, when the reality is endemic income disparity, high unemployment, lost homes, hunger, poverty, and discrimination and all the while huge multinational corporations are in cahoots with much of the government to keep things that way.

Here's my 68% rant!

The reality could not be more different than the myth.  And yet, the Right’s only response is, “Get a job, ya hippies!”  The Right continues to attempt to discredit Occupy’s argument by insisting that the myth is real.  If the Occupy folks would just work harder and do things right and stop being so lazy, they’d all be living the American dream, the Right argues.

Does this sound familiar?  Have you ever been told that if you just worked harder at it and did things right, you’d lose weight and keep it off?  It’s pretty much the argument of every diet pusher when their diet fails.  It’s the argument of every doctor who, despite supposedly having a knowledge of the way the body and metabolism works, insists that diet and exercise will work if you just work hard enough.  It’s the argument that supports continued discrimination against fat people because if fat people really are just lazy and not working hard enough, then it’s their fault, and the diet companies, and pharmaceutical companies, and doctors, and the AMA etc. don’t have to do the work of realizing that the whole system is based on a lie and that it’s dangerous and needs to change.

According to the Lancet, based upon the (utterly bogus) BMI, 68% of Americans are overweight or heavier.  That’s more than two thirds!  Imagine if all of these people had a new awareness.  Imagine if all of these people (and their thin allies) began to see that fat wasn’t bad, that diets don’t work, that discrimination against fat people is wrong, and that people having a diversity of bodies is beautiful.  Imagine the healing that could happen for all of us.

I think it would be exciting for some of us to share our fat stories of being one of the 68%.  I shared mine above, and I’d love for you to share yours here, on the Body Love Wellness facebook page, and anywhere else you desire!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Occupy Fat Street: We Are The 68% originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on November 28, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the full interview here!

Even if you don’t totally recognize the name Nancy Upton, you have seen her pictures everywhere. For the last two weeks, news outlets and blogs have been abuzz about the woman who entered American Apparel’s Next Big Thing Contest by sending in pictures of herself bathed in ranch dressing, eating in a pool, and covering her lady regions with a cherry pie. For those in the know, it was clear that her intent was to skewer the way American Apparel and other fashion industry giants seem to view plus-sized women. But she never imagined that she’d win the contest in a landslide nor cause an international media stir. So I was particularly thrilled to be able to break into her very busy interviewing schedule to have a chat about fashion, sizeism, body image and more!

(Image of Nancy Upton by Shannon Skloss. Used with permission.)

Nancy first heard about the contest when she read about on Jezebel. When she checked out the contest, she found it really condescending. “I’ve always found [their advertising] to be a little pornographic and obviously really objectifying of women but also portraying women in a submissive, kind of negative, role.” She said that normally she would notice that and just go about her day, but this time, she couldn’t get the idea of the contest out of her mind.  “I just got this image of these people sitting around a conference table, being like, ‘Oh, these fat girls eating food and blah blah blah.’ And I thought, wouldn’t it be funny if I gave them . . . what I imagine they’re thinking about.” She also wanted there to be a nod to the bizarre high fashion imagery that we see on shows like America’s Next Top Model.

So she got together with her friend, photographer Shannon Skloss, and they shot the now well known images of Nancy. But when she submitted the photos, she had no idea of the impact it would have. “I was doing this interview with Jeanne Moos today who is on the Wolf Blitzer show,” she told me. “This woman, who has probably interviewed Hilary Clinton, who’s talked to diplomats… talked about the financial crisis, is interviewing me to put me on CNN to talk about me getting in a tub of ranch dressing. ” On a personal level, putting together this project has given Nancy the opportunity to begin to find her voice as an artist. Nancy had always admired musician/performance artist/ author Amanda Palmer and the way she uses different media to express herself. She told me, “I had a lot of strong opinions and I had a lot of strong ideas but I could never think of how to express them. And I would get ideas to do things and I would think, ‘That’s dumb; nobody wants to see that.’ . . . So to do it, when I’m almost not even realizing I’m doing it, has been the most amazing gift.”

(Image of Nancy Upton by Shannon Skloss. Used with permission.)

I asked Nancy about her own experience with body image, and not surprisingly, her story mirrors many of the ones we often hear. “I used to hate my body,” she told me, “I used to be extremely depressed about my body.” Even at her most athletic, when she was running 7 or 8 minute miles, she would “torture herself about” love handles and cellulite. “If I liked a guy and he didn’t like me, I would think it was because of my weight. If I was auditioning for a role and I didn’t get, I would think it was because of my weight.” Nancy credits therapy and the realization that there were things she could change and things she couldn’t change about her body that she grew to accept it.

(Image of Nancy Upton by Shannon Skloss. Used with permission.)

For Nancy, taking these photos and putting them out there also represented another level of healing for her. All of the photos she submitted (except one) were completely un-photoshopped, because she wanted her body to look as it looks in real life. But it was still hard for her to look at the proofs. “My immediate reaction to them was to be a bit scared . . . if I hadn’t told people I was going to do it, I might have chickened out.” Now she’s so glad that she posted them. “Since I put those up and had the response I had and it started a dialogue — I don’t think I’ve ever felt so comfortable with my body. It really has been kind of a powerful thing.”

Going forward, Nancy’s considering doing more in the area of body image and fashion. “Right now, I have what very few people get in their lives, and that’s a platform. . . . I feel like it would be a missed opportunity if I couldn’t bring more light onto this subject.”

To hear our whole interview and learn about what Nancy thought of American Apparel’s response, click the link above to listen to it or go check out the podcast on Itunes. To keep up with Nancy, check out her Tumblr here.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Profile In Flabulousness: Nancy Upton (She’s The Next Big Thing, For Real) originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on September 19, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the full interview here!

Here’s the part where I tell you how cool I am because I’ve known Leslie Medlik, star of TLC’s Big Sexy (which airs tomorrow, Tuesday, August 30th at 10PM ET/PT), for years.

Leslie Medlik of Big Sexy (image courtesy of TLC)

She is one of the excellent and flabulous shop girls of my favorite plus sized store, Re/Dress NYC.  I’ve always dug her style — vintage duds, Bettie Page bangs– and her down-to-earth advice on everything from fashion to relationships.  Leslie describes her personal style as a cross between a vintage vixen and a fat hipster. “Sometimes those worlds collide and there’s Leslie,” she told me.

So when I heard she was starring in a fat-positive reality show (what the???) on TLC about five plus sized gals trying to make it big in fashion in NYC, I made sure to get the scoop before she got mobbed by everyone from Curvy to More.

Buzz has been building for Big Sexy over the last few weeks.  It seems that when anyone posts about the new show on Facebook, lots of women write, “this is me!  I need to be on this show!”  So I was curious what the casting process was like for Leslie. ”For me, it was just one of those things that the world dropped in my lap.” A scout had come into Re/Dress to consider it for a location for the show.  She ended up talking to Leslie and asking her to audition.  “It was just really easy and fast.”

Leslie & Nikki At The Beach (image courtesy of TLC)

Unlike most reality TV shows about plus sized women, Big Sexy is supposed to show plus sized people having full, fun, sexy lives.  Since this is pretty groundbreaking, I wondered if Leslie had any trepidations in doing the show.  “I’m someone who’s very cautious about these things and there is always that concern that, while I had talked to the producers about it . . . you never know how things are going to be edited or what’s really going to happen. But at this point, I’m fairly confident that what they’re putting together is going to be a great show.”

Given that this is one of the first really size positive reality shows out there, it could have a big impact on how people generally view fat people and how fat people view themselves.  For Leslie, she’s hoping the show helps more women love their bodies: “the women who are waking up every day hating themselves — maybe this will give them the edge to stop doing that or at least start the process to stop hating themselves.”  She also hopes that people will begin to get the message that size and health are separate things and that attacking people for accepting their bodies is not okay. “That’s the immediate go to, ‘Okay, well you might be confident but you’re unhealthy and you’re gonna die because you’re fat’ and it’s not true.  If we could help debunk that ridiculous myth — that would seal the deal for me.”

The cast of Big Sexy (image courtesy of TLC)

In the first episode (airing tomorrow!), Leslie puts together a fabulous fashion show, which included some gorgeous Monif C. bathing suits.  Three of the other stars of Big Sexy (Nikki Gomez, Tiffany Bank, and Audrey Lea Curry), all plus sized models, are part of the runway show, yet a few of them really struggled with feeling comfortable wearing the bathing suits on the runway.   I asked for Leslie’s take on that.  “I think it’s twofold: I was a little surprised but then, well, not so much because this is how women are constantly dealing with their bodies. And, initially, knowing those two, I was surprised, but then, at the same time, I get it.  I get why they were questioning it, because now not only were people going to be looking at their bodies, judging them coming down the runway, but there are cameras there and there are going to be millions of people [judging them] and all of these things that start to creep in and put doubts in your mind.”  In essence, this struggle over swimsuits really showed how brave a thing it is to be a plus sized woman showing your body with confidence in a world that isn’t accepting of it.

So what’s next for Leslie? She wants to help more women have fun with fashion by offering her services for personal styling, personal shopping and also some wardrobe consulting. “There’s nothing better than helping a woman feel good about herself, regardless of size.  It isn’t just fat women it’s skinny women who have tons of issues with the same thing — not being skinny enough, right? So I want to help women of all sizes.”

Stop by Leslie’s facebook page to stay in touch with her and check out her web site for info on her styling work!

To listen to the full interview, check out Golda’s podcast.

And here’s the commercial!

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/free to get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Profile In Flabulousness: Leslie Medlik From TLC’s Big Sexy originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on August 29, 2011.

Happy Friday!

I’m going to be taking part in the Lingerie Loves Your Curves Charity Blogathon in a few weeks.

The blogathon is an effort to “bombard the internet” with size positive stuff and raise money for NAAFA, so as much as the “curvy” euphemism drives me bonkers, I’m up for it.

About Curves put this together because:

Women are bombarded every day with messages that they are not beautiful enough. About Curves is fighting back with a “Lingerie Loves Your Curves” charity drive. This two-week “blogathon” event is dedicated to size acceptance and self-acceptance based on the philosophy of health at every size. Let’s fight back against industries that make money from women’s lack of self-esteem, and share our stories so that we can help empower women everywhere. Let’s celebrate our curves!

If you’d like to get involved, you can:

• Click the banner above to donate.
• Put a banner on your website or blog.
• Spread the word through Twitter and Facebook .
• Or if you are a fellow blogger, join the blogathon. Dates for post and possible topics can be found here!

Charity Drive For NAAFA! originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on July 22, 2011.

Velvet D'Amour (used with permission)

by Golda Poretsky, H.H.C.
www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

Velvet D’Amour is a Renaissance woman in the truest sense.  Born in Rochester, New York, Velvet went to Paris in her late 20′s to pursue dance and photography, and since then she has walked the runways of Paris (at age 39 and weighing around 300 pounds), been sought after by renowned photographers, appeared in French films, music videos and French, Swiss, and Japanese TV, and continued to take photographs for magazines.  If you’re here in the U.S., may know her as a judge on M’onique’s Fat Chance, and from appearances on Entertainment Tonight, E News and CBS Sunday Morning. In 2010, Velvet was selected to participate in TF1’s, La Ferme Celebritie (Celebrity Farm), where she made it through nine of the ten weeks living in the rough, caring for wild animals on a nature reserve in South Africa. Velvet raised over $73,000 for her chosen charity, SOS Enfants Disparus.

But Velvet’s road to fat positive stardom wasn’t paved with gold stars. In her late teens, she considered modeling.  Weighing around 140 pounds, she was told by modeling scouts that she had the face for it but would have to lose weight.  She went on a crash diet and managed to get down to 117 pounds, and was told again that she was too fat to model. “The more severely I dieted, the more fat I got,” she said.  “I’d have these big extremes of eating tons and then starving myself.” Because she couldn’t maintain the size she needed to be to please the modeling agencies, body hatred set in.

Velvet D'Amour at The Cannes Film Festival in 2010 (used with permission)

As it happens for many body positive folks, Velvet reached a turning point where she started to see her struggle to conform to beauty standards as a larger struggle.  “I started questioning our ideals of beauty and why I hated fat and I why I didn’t like looking fat. . . . The more I questioned it, the more rebellious I felt about it, the more I tried to find images that somehow related to how I looked and the more difficult it became [to find them].” Part of the reason why Velvet turned to photography was to help herself and others let go of our singular ideas around beauty.  “We’ve evolved so much in society that we don’t need to consistently leave people out.  We can open up our ideal of beauty to be more accepting and find beauty in every individual.”  She thinks that one of the reason why fatness is so dreaded and derided in our society is that fat is often depicted as unsexy and non-seductive.  “I started emulating photos that I would see in regular fashion magazines but using myself . . . and it ended up helping me and a lot of other people.  I would try to make the images so seductive that you had to question something.”

It was photography that led Velvet back into modeling nearly twenty years after her original foray.  When  the first plus sized modeling agency was opening in Paris, Velvet sent her photography portfolio, along with a picture of herself, saying that as a plus sized woman she knew how to make the models feel comfortable.  But the agency wanted more pictures of her, eventually asking her to sign with them as a model.  “I thought, this is crazy.  I’m 39 years old, 300 pounds, and . . . I’ve gone through this really amazing journey of self-acceptance and now I’m kind of reaping the rewards of that.”

Velvet D'amour (used with permission)

Velvet’s way of styling herself and her models has a timelessness about it that I’ve always connected with.  In photos she always seems to be inspired by different time periods, from pre-revolutionary France to a 1940′s pinup aesthetic.  So I wasn’t surprised when she brought up her interesting perspective on broadening beauty definitions.  “Instead of honoring what the media’s trying to sell us, why not honor the ancestors that have come before you? . . . .  For me, thinking about how many people came before me was another way of thinking that I don’t need to buy into someone else’s idea of what ‘pretty’ is.”

I asked Velvet about how ‘pretty’ is often limited in the plus sized community too, given that the plus sized models that seem to get the most work (like Crystal Renn and Ashley Graham) are often no larger than a size 12 and therefore don’t even need to wear plus sized clothes.  “Well, it was interesting.  When I did Galliano and Gautier [runway shows] my expectation was that the plus community would be fully behind me and they were actually my most severe critics. . . . [There were] forums on how awful it was that I was on the runway, how I was promoting obesity, what joke it was, that I was dragging down the plus model industry, etc., etc. by being a genuinely fat person on the runway.”  But for Velvet, this just brings up how exclusionary the whole world of modeling is.  “For me, it’s just so much more global than plus sized women. . . .  You’ll never have an actual person in a wheel chair in a fashion magazine.  Why is that?  There are 90 year old women who are stunningly attractive but you’ll never, or rarely, see them in a “women’s” magazine. . . . It’s 99.9% white women, not any other ethnicity.  It’s 99.9% very young people.  So for my quest, it’s about bringing diversity to fashion and all types of media.”

Velvet with Dita Von Teese (used with permission)

As for the debate that having more fat people in media “promotes obesity,” Velvet has this to say.  “There’s much more pressure put on [plus sized models] and it’s a form of denying our right to be included in media by constantly using the health debate, where no other person is expected to discuss their health, nor should they be. . . .  It’s an utterly ludicrous notion that we as fat people aren’t allowed in media, and if we are allowed in media, it’s to berate us and tell us that we need to lose weight and have some thin person screaming over you. . . in order to be in their glorified circle of health.”

If you’re looking to connect with Velvet, she invites to join her Facebook page and check out her photography.  Some of her upcoming projects include, a feature in Vogue Curvy, her inclusion in Valerie Berlin’s burlesque art expo in NYC, a feature on Tellement Vrai (Popular French TV show), shooting for several plus magazines in UK and US, an appearance in an Axel Engstfeld documentary film for ARTE, as well as the release of several songs in which she sings lead vocals.

Golda Poretsky, H.H.C. is a certified holistic health counselor who specializes in transforming your relationship with food and your body. Go to http://www.bodylovewellness.com/stay-in-touch/ to sign up for her newsletter and get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining!

Profile In Flabulousness: Velvet D’Amour originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on June 27, 2011.

Beth Ditto -- Example #4,304,890 of Gorgeous, But Not Slim

It’s really hard for me to write this post, because I’m writing it about women who, at one time, I saw as figures of female empowerment.  I saw them as crusaders for a new kind of female embodiment that combined the goddesshood of 5,000 years ago with the badassness of the feminist movement.

I didn’t know that they’d sell us all out if a weight loss message meant extra sales.

Then, today, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a bunch of links to the Sane, Slim & Gorgeous Teleconference.  I couldn’t help myself.  I clicked the link.  And what I saw was a bit mindboggling.

The conference includes 34(!) women who are considered leaders in women’s empowerment.  Look at their pictures for just a second and you’ll notice something — all of them are thin (natch! fatties can’t be empowered) and, perhaps even more startling, not one of them is a woman of color.

Just reading the page for a few seconds and you get the message loud and clear — if you want to be an empowered woman, then all you have to do is become thin (and white).  If you want to be empowered, just be more like us.  Thin privilege and white privilege had nothing to do with us getting to where we are today.  It’s because we’re empowered!

The site invites me to learn from my “sister sages.”  And though I would have, at one time, counted women like Mama Gena and Barbara Stanny as my sister sages, I no longer can.  I can no longer see myself as part of a group that would promote weight loss or how to “turn weight loss into permanent fat removal”.

Although, they’ve definitely succeeded in fat removal, since they’ve removed the ability for anyone fat to be part of this group.  Events like this continue to reinforce the message that says that if you’re fat, you’re excluded.  So why don’t you just get thin?  We’ll show you how if you pay us!

I find it interesting that the conference is promoting sanity, along with slimness and gorgeousness.  Maybe that’s because studies have shown that weight loss efforts result in lower appearance evaluation and self esteem.  In other words, efforts at slimness and mental health don’t go hand in hand.

If you want to empower women to feel sane and gorgeous, we need to drop the worries over slimness. Slimness, fatness and everything in between should be recognized as part of the community of women, should be allowed to feel empowered, should have the right to feel gorgeous no matter what their size.  That is  true empowerment.  And that is what all of us, thin, fat or in between, should be fighting for.

Female Empowerment Via The Fat Hatred Paradigm originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on March 10, 2011.

Let’s put an end to the weight-obsessed dieting resolutions and start this year off differently!

Here’s what you can do to be a part of it:

1. Join the Facebook Event Page and let everyone know you’re taking part.
2. Grab the logo on the right and make it your facebook image.
3. Check out the New Year’s Revolution Resource Site for great HAES and fat positive resources.  Use what you find there to get the word out on facebook, twitter, tumblr etc. about putting an end to diet culture and starting a revolution of body positivity!

By the way, starting at the end of January, I’m going to be interviewing some amazing Body Love Revolutionaries, so stay tuned for some info about that.

Happy New Year’s Revolutioning!

What’s Your New Year’s ReVolution? originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on December 31, 2010.

by Golda Poretsky, HHC
www.bodylovewellness.com

I hope you’re all having a great holiday!  I’m taking a little holiday break myself, but I couldn’t let Monday roll by without giving you something to chew on.  So here’s an inspiring and thought-provoking (and fatshion-provoking) documentary of the visibility/invisibility or fat (and so much more) by Margitte of Riots Not Diets, featuring Jessica of Tangled Up in Lace and Keena of Buttah Love.

(You may have seen it by now, but it’s fabulous enough to stand another viewing.)

the fat body (in)visible from Margitte Kristjansson on Vimeo.

Watching Videos Is A Holiday Tradition! originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on December 27, 2010.