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

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

Recently, one of my clients told me that one of the reasons why she was fighting for gay marriage rights in her state was that she wanted to be “on the right side of history.” She hopes that someday gay marriage will be so non-controversial that years from now she’ll have grandchildren that won’t be able to conceive of a time when the right to marry was dependent upon the sex of the participants. I really hope that her vision of the future comes true.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Image courtesy of The Seattle Times)

Similarly, I like to envision a future where discrimination based on weight is not only illegal, but obviously nonsensical. I like to envision a world where all of the negative things that are ascribed to fatness are no longer so ascribed, where people really are judged for the “content of their character,” (to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.), rather than the size of their bodies. My hope is that being on the right side of history means seeing weight oppression as the baseless, useless, horrifically detrimental thing that it is, and that future generations will see that more clearly.

I had always seen The Civil Rights Act and cases like Griswold v. Connecticut as settled. I thought that the hard fought battle for civil rights had resulted in legislation and court decisions that the vast majority of Americans now understood as a very obvious good idea. Even if implementation was messy at least the truths were self-evident. Now, actual, allegedly viable contenders (cough, Ron Paul, cough) for President are pro-repeal.  And as for gay rights, just please go ahead and google Santorum.

Despite all this angling on the Right to be the craziest extremist, I think the majority of people do support civil rights and they understand that discrimination is harmful and unfair.  So now if we can just pull the wool from their eyes and get them to see the harm in weight oppression, perhaps they’ll join us on the right side of history.

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

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! And, please join her and twenty of the biggest names in HAES(R) and Fat Acceptance at the Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit!

Being On The Right Side Of History originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 16, 2012.

For years, liberals like me had lauded NPR for reporting on stories that you wouldn’t hear anywhere else.  They could be counted on for revealing a different perspective on societal and political issues.

But when it comes to weight, NPR has a big problem.  Recently, as part of NPR’s series on obesity in America, it’s been running sickeningly laudatory reports on weight loss high schools.  (Trigger Warning for talk of calorie restriction and the merits of weight loss.  Plus, if you formerly liked NPR you might start to think that defunding it is a good idea. )

The piece below offers a different perspective, and gives you a sense of what these schools really teach: obsessive behaviors, extreme calorie restriction, body hatred, and outright lies.
  by Sarah Yahm

And while we’re on the topic of fat kids, please click here to petition to end Georgia’s fat shame campaign against kids.

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! And, please join her and twenty of the biggest names in HAES(R) and Fat Acceptance at the Body Love Revolutionaries Telesummit!

NPR’s Weight Problem originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on January 11, 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 podcast for this post here:

Last week, during her Body Love Breakthrough Session*,  my new client shared the pain she’d experienced by spending her life going on and off diets. She told me, “I feel like I’ve been in diet school my whole life.  When do I get to graduate?”

When she said that, it really blew my mind.  How many years had I and nearly all of my clients and blog readers spent in “diet school?”  I know that I’ve personally taken Restricting Calories 101, Advanced Techniques In Freaking Out About .4 Pounds, Workshops On Why It’s My Fault and Not The Diet’s, and so on.  I’ve studied every diet plan in depth, from Weight Watchers To Atkins To Chew A Lot Of Gum And Ignore Your Hunger.  If there were such a thing as diet school, I should have multiple PhD’s by now.

My Final Diet School Report Card (Image by Golda Poretsky)

But that’s the thing about Diet School.  You can never graduate.

Diet school doesn’t actually lead thinness for the vast majority of its students.  All you really learn is to hate your body and completely destroy any semblance of a normal relationship with food. Nearly everyone fails Diet School.  The statistics are grim — somewhere between 85-95% of dieters gain back all the weight they lose, and add on more, within 2-5 years of losing the weight.

And Diet School is so good at convincing you that your failure is your fault and not theirs that they convince you to re-enroll, for a fee, yet again. Here’s a statistic that you definitely won’t learn in Diet School.  In 2010, Americans spent $60.9 billion on diets and diet products.  That same year, as Marilyn Wann has noted in her blog, Americans spent $50 billion on 2 and 4 year colleges.  In other words, we collectively pay more to learn dieting than to get bachelor’s and associate’s degrees.

So here’s what I propose.  Let’s stop paying for Diet School and let’s do the only responsible thing: DROPOUT.  Let’s stop the vicious cycle of going on a diet, losing some weight, gaining it back, starting again.  Let’s stop the cycle of paying our Diet School tuition again and again only to be told that our failure is our fault.  Let’s thumb our noses at an establishment that is doing us harm, allegedly, “for our own good.”  Let’s embrace our bodies, embrace Health At Every Size (R) and never go back to Diet School again!

Are you a Diet School Dropout?  Thinking of joining our ragtag group?  Let me know all about it  in the comments section below or on my facebook page.

*A Body Love Breakthrough Session is a free session with me where we explore any issues you’re having with food and body image.  If you’ve never had one,  click here to get yours.  I’ve opened up 5 spots just for blog readers!

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!

Diet School Dropout originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on October 3, 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.

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.

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

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

When I wrote this cranky post about the “real women…” phenomenon, I never expected it to resonate with so many women.

Image By Wyanne Thompson www.wyanne.com

It seems that fat, thin, in between, curvy, not curvy, in between, cisgender, trans, various gynecological surgeries or symptoms, or whatever, there’s a lot of crap that makes us feel like not so real women.

For most of my teenage/ adult life I felt like not very much of a real woman due to having polycystic ovarian syndrome (P.C.O.S. for short.)  (This is not something I write about much, but I feel on a deep level that sharing it will be helpful to some of you, so I’m going for it.)  For those of you who don’t know what that it is, it’s basically a cluster of symptoms that people who have it get to varying degrees, including irregular or absent periods, weight gain, hirsutism, acne, anovulation, infertility, ovarian cysts, and insulin resistance (with a higher chance of type 2 diabetes).  Some women get only one or two symptoms and they’re mild and some get nearly all or all of them quite severely.

Back when I was a preteen, P.C.O.S. was not on anyone’s radar.  I went on The Pill as a young teenager to regulate my periods, which worked for a while, but now some researchers think it only makes P.C.O.S. worse.  Over the years, I’ve treated this with everything from hormones to acupuncture to meditation to vitamins and supplements to dietary changes.  (Some of you, I’m sure, are going to comment that I just need to do X, Y, and Z to make it better, and I can assure you that I’ve probably tried X, Y, and Z multiple times.)  I used to blame myself horrendously for my absolute failure to heal the P.C.O.S., and truthfully, a big part of body acceptance for me was accepting that I’m not a horrible person for not being able to get a period regularly. Spending as much time around holistic types as I did, you can sometimes feel shame for not being able to cure something with the right amount of probiotics, Bach’s flower remedies, and meditation.

I also had to come to terms with the idea that I was “not less of a woman” for it. I think a big part of the fact that I mostly had guy friends until my late twenties was that guys don’t complain about menstrual cramps nor talk about how fat they are (although lately, I think that’s changed).  I always dreaded the periods and fat conversations. Having P.C.O.S. always seemed like a failure and something to be ashamed of.  Unlike fatness, it’s something that you can hide pretty well, until your roommate keeps taking your tampons and then notices that you don’t replace them very often.

Over the last few years, I’ve changed my internal discourse around my womanhood.  I’ve realized that I’m not “less of a woman” (whatever that might mean) just because I don’t get the requisite number of periods.  I want to make choices that are as healing as possible for me/my body, but one of those choices is choosing to let go of the stress and striving and worrying about this.

Have you struggled with feeling like a “real woman” due to P.C.O.S. or anything else?  Let me know what you think in the comments section below!

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!

“Real Women,” PCOS & Body Image originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on June 6, 2011.

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

Listen to the podcast of this post here:

Lot’s of very well meaning people, when they find out what I do for a living, say something to the effect of:

“Right on!  Real women have curves!”

Real Women Have Curves. Maybe. (Image from wikipedia)

I know they mean well.  They’re saying that women’s bodies are more curvaceous than the emaciated bodies that are often held as an ideal by the media.  But the whole concept drives me bonkers.  And if it hasn’t driven you bonkers yet, let me explain why it drives me bonkers and you may end up agreeing with me.

1) Women Are Women, Curvy Or Not – Women’s bodies (just like men’s bodies) come in a diverse range of shapes.  There are plenty of curvy thin women and curvy fat women, not curvy thin women and not curvy fat women.  There are plenty of fat women with proportionately small hips and proportionately big hips.  There are plenty of thin women with the same.  Same for breasts.  Same for everything.  There are also some men with bigger hips and smaller hips and bigger breasts and smaller breasts.  In other words, there are plenty of “real women” who are not f-ing curvy and are still quite real, and sometimes even, quite fat.

2) What The Heck Is A Real Woman, And Why Should We Care? – Personally, I think that anyone who identifies as a woman is a woman.  I don’t really care if she has curves or a vulva or whatever.  I’m guessing that if you’re reading this blog, you probably don’t care to much about it either.  But aside from that, does it help anything to refer to larger women as “real”?  Does that make thin women fake?  Or not really women?  Ugh.  See item #4.

Which of these women is more real? (Image from Marie Clarie UK Online)

3) Can We Just Say FAT For Once? — I personally hate the curvy euphemism.  I hate it more than most others, like large or even plus size (though I agree with Queen Latifah that plus size should be “buried“).  Curviness has way more to do with chest/waist/hip ratio than anything else, and I think our fixation on those measurements has added to the negative way that most women view their bodies for decades.

4) Relegating Thin Women To A Lesser Status Isn’t Helpful – I realize that bigger women have been put down, discriminated against, considered non-ideal, and worse, and that is really, really wrong and needs to change.  But I don’t think the way to create that change is to try to prove that bigger is better.  How about we just start to see that bigger is great too. We don’t have to relegate ourselves to a scarcity model of beauty and “realness” belong to only a select few.  Perhaps one doesn’t have to be better than the other.  Perhaps we can see that there’s a thing called body diversity, that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes, and that attraction is viable among people of varying weights.

So, yes, real women have curves, and don’t have curves, and whatever, at least that’s what I think.  Let me know what you think in the comments section below!

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!

Real Women Have Curves, And Don’t Have Curves, And Have A Few Curves, And Whatever originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on May 31, 2011.

by Golda Poretsky, HHC
http://www.bodylovewellness.com

Listen to the podcast here:

I was hooked on Treme from the first episode.   For those of you who haven’t heard about it, it’s a show that follows the lives of a number of inter-related characters in post- Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.  It’s been getting a lot of acclaim for its great writing, moving storylines, amazing music and fine acting.

Fabulously Fat Characters On Treme (Courtesy Of The Telegraph UK)

But the thing that I like most about it is the way that size diversity is treated as the norm for the show’s characters.

Season #1 had two fat main characters: Antoine Batiste, played by Wendell Pierce, and Creighton Bernette, played by John Goodman.  And although I really wish there were a fat, female main character, fat supporting women crop often as attorneys (like Toni Bernette’s colleague), teachers, musicians, friends, and lovers.  Many of the musicians who play themselves on the show are also fat.

The really great thing about all of this fabulous fatness is that fatness is never a storyline.  It’s never mentioned.  No one talks about diets or weight loss or whatever.  Every character, fat or thin, has good things about them and not so good things about them.  Fatness isn’t a sign of weakness or strength or good or evil or whatever.  It just is.  Fat people aren’t relegated to flat characters.  They have depth, they live their lives, they dance, they get laid.

“

Wendell Pierce As Antoine Batiste [Courtesy of HBO

Treme is really what TV should be — well-written, entertaining, and representative of real people.  In other words, it’s just the kind of show that gets canceled too soon (except on HBO, right?).

Are there any fat positive shows out there that I’m missing?  Let me know in the comments section below!

Check out the Treme trailer here:

If you don’t have HBO, you can get the first season of Treme here.

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 get your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining.

Size Positive Spotlight: Treme On HBO originally appeared on Body Love Wellness on May 16, 2011.