A word before reading. I am writing in the dialect of a group of people who
are deeply environmentalist and concerned with global food issues. It is in
response to an interview with Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a
Small Planet. I would encourage especially our members to check out the
blog, and especially the entry about some womens' reaction to Morgan
Spurlock's film Supersize Me.
In places I refer to ideas she fielded about mirror neurons, by which we
all vacariously learn from the actions of others we see, about the
difference between pausing to consider an action and being petrified or
stuck in fear.
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I was listening just now to Frances Moore Lappe’s interview on KPFA’s
Living Room. As often happens, only a few of many articulate listeners were
able to field ideas on the air, but I wanted to send a few of my own
experiences to you.
I just returned from the national convention of NAAFA – the National
Association to Advance Fat-Acceptance - in Newark, NJ last week. My mind is
already roiling with ideas from there regarding our future directions, and
I am always inclined to communicate outside that community as well to
gather ideas that might be useful to what we’re doing. Much was spoken by
Frances about how Americans are afraid of each other, and act on a false
perception of scarcity. And I worry sometimes that this plays into even
your own work, for I worry that some use the title of her book to forward
the idea that the only good people are small people. Though I am one of the
thinnest men I know, this is an idea my own mind and body have never had
use for.
I came to NAAFA for reasons of sexuality – from very young I have been
intensely aligned toward fatness as a beautiful quality – but also with an
already fierce consciousness borne of being a student at UC Berkeley in the
mid-80s. It does seem, to follow Frances’ words, that I have neurons which
were lying in wait to mirror the affect of these people whose bodies are
nothing like my own, and to see a beauty not as easily seen by some others.
I saw that they were led into being stuck – sometimes quite literally – and
until I found NAAFA I was afraid myself of attempting to communicate this
different truth I felt about them. But in one regional conference in San
Francisco in 1988, many of those fears were crushed by a group of fat
people who had declared open revolt against the stereotypical life which
had been mapped out for them. Still controversial, still too radical even
for some who call themselves radicals, and sometimes still enduring the
mocking trivialization of what to them are life and death issues as I just
saw in one article in the commercial media, for fifteen years I have seen
them work and struggle, adapting exercise and movement classes to their
needs, scrutinizing reduction industry research on obesity and often
turning it on its head, acting as watchdogs against dangerous drugs and
surgeries. On the more personal side, I have seen women wear string bikinis
who have not worn a swimsuit in years. I can see their eyes light up when
the moment of internalization strikes home that the men looking at them see
beauty throughout. And I feel the energy about them, it is a positive and
healing energy, and while no path is ever perfect, I do see them
substantially immunizing themselves against obesity-associated ailments,
partly through the principle Frances’ mentions of being in motion. The way
fat people move has often been itself a target of scorn, but in NAAFA they
embrace it as something all their own, as bodies capable even of doing
certain things no thin person’s body can mimic.
How this can integrate into what work you are doing, I am not sure, but I
wanted to put a feeler out about it. Then again, I am scanning down through
your blog, and I can say that NAAFA is indeed a hopeful group, as exercised
as it currently is by many transisions and discussions. With regard to
Supersize Me, I can tell you one thing. Spurlock interviewed Alan Steadham
and his wife, who are founders of an allied group called the International
Size-Acceptance Association, but none of it made the final cut of the film.
Perhaps if they had included something from the fat-acceptance faction, the
film might have struck a better balance with the women who were discussing
the film. Certainly it does bring up a pressing problem, whether it comes
in overt or more hidden and protracted forms – fat suicide. Perhaps
Spurlock could not bring himself to publicize some in-depth discussion of a
dissident view of adiposity. If so, that is unfortunate, because for my two
cents, and those I dare say of most NAAFA members, the adipose are being
given a death sentence without a fair trial.
The last entry is in regard to the diet wars. Who to vote for? I trust no
one who seeks to make fat people thin. I have seen them leave too many
broken bodies in their wake. Fen-phen turns people’s heart valves into
jelly, and the reductionists claim it is just obesity-related heart risk.
Its pharmaceutical cousin, dexfenfluramine, was found to contribute to
primary pulmonary hypertension, and when the FDA review panel for it
hesitated based on this evidence, diet industry hack Judith Stern said, as
was openly quoted in the commercial media, “Any panelist who does not
approve this drug should be shot.” I take that as one momentary dropping of
the veil on how much they truly care about fat people’s health. And now
experimental surgeries are booming, and complications are turning up from
those. It has become a program of somatic cleansing; indeed, it has been
for years.
From the conciousness of the mind-body connection, I say this: if we make a
whole category of people feel broken hearted and lead them to cry their
lungs out, should it be any surprise when cardiopulmonary complaints are
often found in them? I choose the opposite path, to make them feel loved
and lead them to sing about the work of drawing their hope and beauty out
of the snares, and the freedom they feel dancing in the wide open spaces of
empowerment.