Category: fat

body image · disability · fat · fitness · health

Reflections on the exercise pill by a reluctant desk potato (Guest post)

Lady Day3 Comments

The exercise pill is in the news again. We’ve talked about before (here and here), as has Fit and Feminist (here). The pill made the headlines again this week because of new experimental results that the drug allowed mice to run on a treadmill for 270 minutes before exhaustion set in (compared with 160 minutes for untreated mice).

Here’s a quick explanation of the experimental drug from The Guardian:

Scientists led by Ronald Evans at the Salk Institute in San Diego made the discovery after they set out to explore what endurance meant on the molecular level. “If we really understand the science, can we replace training with a drug?” he said.

They turned to a drug known as GW501516 which had previously been shown to improve stamina and burn fat faster. Through a series of tests with mice on treadmills, Evans found that the drug changed the activity of nearly 1000 genes. Many of the genes that became more active were involved in the breakdown and burning of fat. But other genes were suppressed, including some that convert sugar into energy.

The result is a pill that reproduces some of the effects of endurance training, with some other downstream effects, such as less weight gain and better control of blood sugar levels.

I listened to a discussion of the new results on CBC’s The Current this morning. The conversation inevitably turned to a discussion of who might benefit from the drug – athletes, folks with limited mobility who aren’t able to do endurance exercises, couch potatoes. At that point, the interlocutors chuckled at the notion of someone who could exercise taking a drug instead. LOL. Just imagine being such a couch potato that you would take an exercise pill!

That got me thinking about the ways in which we moralize health and fitness. I’ll be honest. I’m pretty sedentary these days, owing to advancing arthritis, injuries, and an out-of-control work schedule. (Really, I’m more of a desk potato than a couch potato.) And I feel guilty about that, as if it’s some kind of moral failing not to work out.

As I listened to The Current, I found myself both thinking that it would be great if I could take a pill and thereby acquire some of the benefits of endurance training, and feeling guilty for wanting to take a “short cut.” What the heck? Exercising is fun, and can support good health. But surely it’s not a moral duty.

I mean, we’re not opposed to short cuts in other domains: we take them when we’re driving, and we adopt tons of conveniences to make our lives easier (pre-fab food, dishwashers, motorized lawn mowers…). So, it can’t be the very notion of taking a short cut that prompts my feeling of shame when I think about how great an exercise pill would be. If there is a moral tinge to the notion of an exercise pill, that element must come not from the short cut part but from the exercise part.

But what makes exercise a moral obligation? Plausibly, the moral valence that we seem to attach to exercise and fitness is an side-effect of fatphobia. (Sam talks about similar stuff here.) Regular readers of this blog are well aware of the ubiquity of fat-shaming. When folks are pressed on their fat-shaming (and sometimes even when they’re not), they associate being fat with being lazy and therefore not exercising. Of course, no one makes corresponding judgments about skinny people who don’t exercise. They’re not lazy; they’re just lucky. This is pretty similar to the way in which a fat person with a milkshake is mocked (a standard trope on social media, alas) but a skinny person with a milkshake is celebrated for not being obsessed with dieting.

I don’t know if the exercise pill will ever make it to market, whether it will be safe, and whether it will be affordable. But I’m going to declare here and now that if there is ever a legal, safe, affordable exercise pill, I’m not going to let internalized fatphobia and accompanying moral double standards cloud my judgment about whether the pill is right for me. And neither should you.

A light skinned woman wearing glasses. She is standing in front of a window, smiling slightly.

Shannon Dea is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of Waterloo. Her research areas include (among other things) the metaphysics of sex and gender, and applied issues related to sex and gender. Before she became a desk potato, she was an avid runner. 

body image · diets · eating · eating disorders · fat · food

Weight Watchers is going after children and Sam thinks that’s extra awful

Sam B10 Comments

As you may know, if you’re a blog regular, I hate Weight Watchers.

They’re now marketing to children, offering free classes with parent’s permission. See here.

Rebecca Scritchfield writes,

“Weight Watchers this week announced its plans to offer free six-week memberships to kids as young as 13, beginning this summer. The company’s move is part of a bigger plan to grow revenue and a loyal customer base for life. (Start ’em young, right?) As a health professional and mother, I am appalled. With celebrity names such as Oprah Winfrey, who is on the board of directors, and DJ Khaled, the latest spokesperson for Weight Watchers, the company is on track to exert powerful influence on people far and wide. Kids will undoubtedly pay a heavy price for this “free” membership, in the form of body shame. It will not only affect those who participate, but also every other teen who is exposed to the message that some bodies are “problems,” and if you’re at a higher weight, your body needs to be fixed. Thus, kids of all sizes will have something to fear.”

There are many problems with this plan but even if you just care about weight, it’s a disaster.

Study after study shows that early dieting is a huge predictor of weight gain.

The reasons aren’t clear. See Why does dieting predict weight gain in adolescents? Findings from project EAT-II: a 5-year longitudinal study.

I’m one of those kids who joined Weight Watchers and attended with my parents’ permission. I’m not sure if and how that contributed to future weight gain but I do know that I wasn’t really that chubby when I started.

I also know it made me think of myself as someone whose weight, whose body, was a problem to be solved. Best tackle it while you’re young, people would say.

It did start the habit of dieting that persisted through my teens and twenties.

What do you think of Weight Watchers, diets, and weekly weigh ins for children?

Bowls of fruit
Three bowls of breakfast berries, photo by Unsplash
body image · diets · fat · fitness · tbt

Imagine if size really didn’t matter. Can you? #tbt

Tracy I

Today I’m doing a “Throwback Thursday” post where I invite you, once again, to imagine how different life would be if we actually lived in a world where size doesn’t matter. Happy Thursday!

body image · fat · feminism · fitness · inclusiveness

I don’t have any fitness goals for 2017 (Guest post)

jessicaireland72 Comments

Other than to listen. And to understand.

We are at war with so many things. And our voices are hoarse from yelling about things that we can’t believe we still need to yell about. And yet we are still at war with our bodies.

I am becoming acutely aware of where I sit in this space. My race, the gender I identify with, the way my body is put together puts me in a particular position. I acknowledge my journey the past year and a half has been one of more fun movement, less punishment, loving food and full-belly breaths (no sucking in!) – but I also recognize how lucky I am that my journey looked that way, that I was able to explore those avenues.

But now it’s time to listen. I can’t tell you to celebrate your body (as much as I want to because you’re awesome). As a beautiful friend of mine said, it’d be like me saying you don’t need face creams when I’ve never had a zit (as an example – I’ve had plenty of zits in my day). I do hope that while we are looking at this world around us that seems like it’s growing increasingly unfamiliar, we also take time to examine where our goals around our bodies are coming from (there are correlations between a lot right now).

Many of us are stuck in this endless loop of self-improvement and striving, without knowing the roots of where that striving might actually be coming from (race, privilege, patriarchy, colonialism, etc.). And what I have taken away from it right now is that I need to be, open, on my own path and there for others.

So I will listen. And be there. And I hope you will be too. Because while we share many similarities as humans, our differences are still making a big difference in the way we are each able to experience life and our bodies.

 

JESSICA IRELAND-4 - Copy.jpg Jessica Ireland thanks all of her friends who increase her awareness on her privilege and how she can help others, while still validating and giving space for her own life experiences. She chooses to be kind to her body by being fortunate enough to move it often (often there is smiling involved), not eating animals, getting rest and choosing not to qualify food. She hopes others find ways to be kind to themselves and others that work for them. We may have a long road ahead of us – please listen and take care of each other 🙂 

body image · fat · feminism · fitness · Guest Post · health

Unpacking the ACSM’s Body Composition Table (Guest Post)

Rachel S5 Comments

In my Advanced Physiological Assessment class the other day, we conducted a body composition lab which measured body fat using a variety of clinical assessment tools including bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA), underwater weighing (UWW), and DEXA scanning. 

These tools use either electrical currents, x-ray scans, and Archimedes’ Principle to measure body density which is then converted to body fat. The conversion formula is then selected based on race, age, and gender, with many groups that are underrepresented. 

As a white, 21-year-old female, I was privileged in that there was a formula that was representative of my body. While the methodology is a little different, all of these tools rely on the principle that fat is less dense than water, muscle (which has a lot of water), and the other components of fat free mass, like bone and soft tissues. Some of these are pretty good assumptions, while others, like bone density can be highly variable.

On lab day, I was pretty excited. I am a 21-year-old competitive cyclist and triathlete, and as an exercise scientist, I am genuinely curious as to how my numbers compare to population norms and other athletes (to give you an idea, I voluntarily did a lactate threshold test which involves having your fingers repeatedly pricked during a graded exercise test just for funsies #nerd). I followed the protocol as best I could, holding my arms straight out and standing tall during the BIA, exhaling ALL of my air during two trials of underwater weighing, and laying perfectly still during the 7 minute DEXA scan. 

I will note that I was not able to follow all of the BIA protocol which includes no eating or drinking four hours prior. After running the numbers, I was completely astounded as to what the ACSM, the American College of Sports Medicine, that is, classified my body fat % to be. Turns out, depending on the method used, I’m either “good,” “fair,” “poor,” or “very poor.” Here’s a brief breakdown of the results:

Height: 170 cm

Weight: 64 kg

BMI: 22.2 = normal

Hand-Held B.I.A. Body Fat % -regular: 22.3% (Fair, 42nd percentile)

Hand-Held B.I.A. Body Fat %- athlete: 22.2% (Fair, 42nd percentile)

Scale B.I.A. Body Fat % -regular: 28.9% (Very Poor, 15th percentile)

Scale B.I.A. Body Fat % -athlete: 24.3% (Poor, 31st percentile)

D.E.X.A Body Fat %: 24.7% (Poor, 30th percentile)

D.E.X.A. Bone Mineral Density: 1.103 g/cm^3 (Normal)

Underwater Weighing Body Fat %: 19.2% (Good, 62nd percentile)

The rest of the classifications are “very lean”and “excellent.” There are so many problems with this that I hardly know where to begin.

First, the 2010 ACSM Body Composition Table for Women developed these norms based on patients from the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, Texas. As my professor pointed out in class, people who have their body composition measured tend to be rather self-selecting- athletes looking to “cut weight” for sports or individuals on weight loss programs to see how much fat loss is appropriate. 

The Cooper Clinic is a medical center that specializes in “comprehensive preventive exams.” By looking at this chart, I can only assume that they have a “very lean” patient base if the 50th percentile for a female between the ages of 20-29 is 21.0%. In fact, my most accurate number, which I will assume is from the DEXA scan, wouldn’t be exactly average until I was 40. Anecdotally, most of my female college of health sciences peers have body fat percentages around 25%, which is likely lower than campus as a whole. One would think that surely, this is the result of a small sampling base, but no, the listed sample size for my age group, 1360, with a total sample size of 12,116 for all females. If the average female wears a size 14-16, and I wear a size 4, it would make sense that I would be more towards the left side of the bell curve. The American Council on Exercise classifies obesity for women as having a body fat of 32% or higher. The ACSM chart stops at 38.9% for 20-29 year old females and 40.5% for 70-79 year old females as being the top (fattest) 1%. If 64% of American women are supposedly overweight or obese, these “norms” are clearly NOT representative of the United States female population.

The second problem with this chart is the very narrow classification ranges. I completed all four tests within 30 minutes of each other and got a wide range of results. On the 2010 ACSM chart, a difference of 2.6% moves you from the midpoint of “poor” to the midpoint of “fair.” I had a 2% difference between the scale and handheld BIA when they were both on the “athlete” setting. With such varied results, how can healthcare professionals make recommendations using this chart in good conscience?

Finally, the classification terminology is demoralizing and clinically meaningless. I would like to point out that essential fat, the fat that is necessary for normal healthy functioning for females is around 12-14%. Without it, your organs, central nervous system, muscles, and brain would not function. On this chart, values lower than that is not called “anorexia,” but “very lean”. Which, if you’ve listened to the health/fitness/diet industry lately, “very lean” is what we should all be striving for, right? I will concede that there is an asterisk next to the “very lean” classification that does state that body fat percentage less than 10-13% is not recommended for females. I will argue that “not recommended” doesn’t even touch the gravity of that lethal situation. That should be a call for medical attention. 

Unfortunately, “very lean” is the only descriptive term used on this chart. “Excellent,” “Good,” “Fair,”  “Poor,” “Very Poor” are completely subjective terms that have no clinical significance whatsoever. They are fat-phobic and encourage the orthorexic ideal that a lean body is the only kind of good body. I’d like to emphasize that this is the chart for the American College of Sports Medicine, the most respected medical organization that writes health and fitness recommendations for the general public. These are doctors, researchers, rehab professionals, professors, and trainers that rely on their information to make well-informed decisions regarding patient care every day.

There are other normative charts available, like the one mentioned above from the American Council on Exercise, although their terms, “essential, athletes, fitness, average, obese” aren’t much better. I’ve seen a similar chart where “average” is replaced with “acceptable.” I know many athletes who have body fat percentages much higher than mine. They are no less, perhaps even better, athletes because of it. I think that statement gets to the heart of the problem. What exactly is an acceptable body? Is it one that is healthy and functions as it needs to? Or is it just a thin body? If we rely on size as a quick indicator of good health, we’re not even measuring what is actually indicative of cardiovascular health- how the heart, lungs, and muscles work together. I know that my “poor” body fat percentage doesn’t mean I’m unhealthy- my other physiological markers such as blood pressure, lactate threshold, cholesterol and VO2 max all show that I have excellent cardiorespiratory fitness. My behaviors (which are perhaps even more indicative of long-term outcomes) like engaging in regular aerobic and strength training exercise, eating a healthy balanced diet (I like something similar to 80/20), taking time for self-care, not smoking, and getting enough sleep agree with that.

Fortunately, the ACSM has updated many of their exercise prescription recommendations as of 2015. Some updates are expected in 2017, but I am not sure if the body composition norms will be included. For now, I’m taking these results with a grain of salt. I know that despite what the ACSM has to say, my body is good, acceptable, perhaps even above average no matter how much fat I have.  

The author carrying her bike up a hill at a cx race
Charging my way up the run up at the Boone Town Throwdown CX race!

bras · equality · fashion · fat · fitness · gender policing · inclusiveness · men

Liberation, two nipples at a time (Guest post)

Cate Hundleby3 Comments

When all the fashion magazines featured women with hands (their own or others’) covering their breasts, a thought flickered that hands are much more comfortable than the average bra. Hiding women’s breasts, one way or the other, is standard media fare, and of course in some places women aren’t allowed to go topless in public, a clear gender disparity.

Fashion in the last few decades has even come to erase to nipple that might protrude from a shirt — again only for women like Serena Williams, not for men like Andy Murray.

It’s become really hard to find a non-padded bra, even for sports. Yet it’s seriously unpleasant to exercise with sweaty padding. Does anyone really believe in “breathable padding”? Sorry Victoria’s Secret, but my skepticism was well placed.

However, in recent years fashion has shown glimpses of the saucy braless 70s, including the bralette and bandeaus, all pleasant options for small-breasted women. The news even declares that bralessness is in fashion.

Many of us may sneer “how nice for you!” Bralessness and even lightweight bra alternatives are not realistic choices. Many heavy breasted women are simply not comfortable and even experience back pain without support from a bra. Sizes small, medium, and large rarely do the work we need them to do either. Sports bras tend to be sized that way and create a special kind of hell. We end up pinched and unsupported on top of being sweaty.

So I suggest the new move away from bras and padded bras may be good for all women. It marks a greater diversity in the types of breast support and sports tops available for women. The less women are expected to hide our breasts the easier it will be for us to demand comfortable functional support.

Breaking news: fat suit use in western hospitals unrelated to WHO report on global diabetes; Details at 11…
body image · fat · fitness

Breaking news: fat suit use in western hospitals unrelated to WHO report on global diabetes; Details at 11…

catherine w2 Comments

There’s a new report out today by the World Health Organization about global increases in diabetes.  The news is bad:  there’s been a fourfold increase in the number of people with diabetes world wide, and the incidence has increased from 4.7% to 8.5%.  Those increases are especially concentrated  in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

I’ll be blogging in more wonky detail about recent studies and reports on body weight and global public health concerns on Sunday.  But one thing struck me about how this particular news outlet  presented the information (thanks Samantha for sending me the article):  the picture they chose to illustrate and identify the news story.  It’s at the top of the blog and here.
Screen Shot 2016-04-07 at 12.49.19 AM.png
In case you’re having trouble parsing the image, it appears to be a white woman from a well-resourced country being helped by a white female hospital staff member to put on a hospital gown in an examining room, WHILE WEARING A FAT SUIT.
What? Can someone explain this to me?
This ridiculous nonsensical image conveys the following messages to me:
  • Fat people are grotesque.
  • Fat people are passive, not able to do things for themselves.
  • Fat people need to be in hospitals.
  • In order to depict fat people we think it’s more effective to show a person in a fat suit.
The WHO report and other studies show that type 2 diabetes is affecting Asian and African and middle eastern populations severely, but the picture doesn’t reflect that message.  Diabetes also strikes Asian populations at much lower BMIs than in, say, Latino populations.  But we don’t see an Asian person or a Latino person at a diabetes clinic.  Nope, just that white lady in the fat suit.
I suppose it could be worse– they could’ve depicted her with no head.
Okay, this may seem like just a rant.  Well, it IS a rant, but for a reason.  Images that represent fat people in these bizarre or scornful or pathologized ways have two bad effects:
1) they stigmatize fat people, causing all kinds of harm;
2) they distract us from the real and pressing global public health issues, like how to deal with increased diabetes globally.
So enough with the weird staged fat suit pictures.  And while we’re at it, please put the heads back on those headless fat people– they need them.  Thank you.
fat · fitness · weight loss

Students struggle with why weight loss is so hard

Sam B3 Comments

As Tracy wrote in a post  a few weeks ago one of the great privileges that we have as professors in the Department of Women’s Studies and Feminist Research at Western is that we actually get opportunities to talk to smart students about fitness as a feminist issue.

Writes Tracy, “As we did last year, we got to guest tonight lecture in the Women’s Studies course, “The Body.” This time, our colleague Andrea Allen invited us.”

My half of the class was called “The Obesity Panic” and I talked about the social construction of the “obesity epidemic,” gender, the obese body, and normative thinness. The students had read an excerpt from Eric Oliver’s book Fat politics. The real story behind America’s obesity epidemic.

image

Oliver is critical about the characterization of obesity as an epidemic, “Such a characterization, however, has many problems: the average American weight gain has been relatively low (eight to 12 pounds over the last 20 years), and the causal linkages between adiposity, morbidity, and mortality are unclear.”

We also looked at Kathleen LeBesco‘s characterization of moral panic, as another way of understanding the social hue and cry about obesity. She writes: “Moral panics are marked by concern about an imagined threat; hostility in the form of a moral outrage toward individuals and agencies responsible for the problem; consensus that something must be done about the serious threat; disproportionality in reports of harm; and volatility in terms of the eruption of panic. “

image

One of things I talked about was the very low long term success rates of diets. Why do doctors recommend them given the likely outcome? See Well intentioned lies, doctors, and the diet industry and Doctors and unwanted weight loss advice.

Part of the answer is that no one–not even doctors–wants to believe it’s impossible. Certainly none of the students that day wanted to believe it. We all want to hold on to that dream.

Someday our Prince (or Princess will come)! Someday we’ll lose that 5/10/20/40/60/100 lbs!

I told the students that I sometimes looked at Oprah’s failures with a sigh of relief. If one of the richest women in the world can’t do it–with a full time personal trainer and her very own chef–what’s the hope for someone like me?

But my students were skeptical.

Maybe the women who want to lose weight but can’t aren’t trying hard enough?

Maybe, maybe we just don’t how to lose weight?

Some students had specific helpful food suggestions. Others thought maybe the women gained scale weight but last fat and they didn’t know that muscle is denser and heavier than fat.

It was one of the most fervent bouts of class participation I’ve ever experienced.

Of course, weight loss is hard work, they thought. But it’s not that hard. It’s not rocket science. It’s not brain surgery. I showed them the numbers. Their brows furrowed. Here’s hoping I got them thinking.

 

body image · fat · fitness

Can we train the shame away? (Guest Post)

meganeeze

MeganSpoiler alert: I don’t think so.

I started hating my arms when I was very young. They were much too big and too jiggly, and I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out ways to hide my arms from anyone’s view (while spending a similar amount of time staring at them in the mirror).

Then, sometime during high school, I started lifting weights. At first I didn’t want to do upper body exercises because I thought it might make my arms bigger (perish the thought!). But eventually I got bored with lunges and gave it a try. I cranked out my first “real” pushup, and then five, and then ten, and something started to change. I started appreciating my arms. I even kinda liked them. I don’t think the size of my arms actually changed much. They didn’t look much different either. But they felt different. My experience of them changed. Instead of feeling like frustratingly flabby and unattractive appendages, my arms felt strong and capable of doing cool things. As a nice side benefit, I didn’t mind so much if people saw them, and I spent a lot less time poking at them in the mirror.

A few years later I came across this Jezebel post where blogger Erin Gloria Ryan describes the ways running improved her relationship with her body. The “contempt and animosity” she felt for her body faded as running took her from “worrying [that] a plate of spaghetti would go straight to [her] thighs” to “worrying that it wouldn’t.” Readers wrote to Ryan sharing similar experiences, explaining that “using their bodies in physically demanding ways has helped them appreciate themselves as more than pretty little knickknacks with attached boobs.”

This resonated with my own experiences and got me really excited about exercise, but not for the usual “this new regime is surely going to get me six pack abs in five weeks or less” kind of reason. I got excited (and am still excited) about the power of certain kinds of exercise to change the way we think about, feel, and experience our bodies.

I argued in my MA thesis that certain kinds of exercise can improve our relationships with our bodies when asserting “I love my body” over and over again fails. And cultivating positive bodily experiences through exercise can undercut the unwarranted shame many people—especially women and fat people—feel about their bodies. Since we live in a society where women and fat people are regularly shamed for “publicly flaunting” bodies that—gasp!—take up space, or for “daring” to wear shorts or a bathing suit while having cellulite or stretch marks, this is a huge deal. In fact, it’s the best feminist reason for exercise that I’ve come across.

So, shall we all go out and get pumped and rid ourselves of sexist fat phobic body shame once and for all?

I was pretty optimistic about this once. But now, not so much.

Here’s the thing: body shame is like a weed. It’s stubborn. No matter how agile, graceful, or strong you feel when dancing or running or lifting, it only takes some laughing kids, a snide remark or sideways glance, or bathing suit shopping for shame to return. I recently attended a yoga class where the instructor told us to do extra chaturangas in order to “burn off those chicken wings” as she jiggled her arms suggestively at us; I was so ashamed I contemplated hiding under my mat (would not recommend that class, if you were wondering).

If we think that exercise is good because it helps us get rid of body shame, the apparent response to stubborn shame is to work out more or better. But I don’t think stubborn body shame is a sign that we need to work out harder. I think it’s a sign of the limits of what exercise can do for us.

We aren’t just pretty (or not so pretty) knickknacks, and we aren’t isolated hermits either. (Do contemporary hermits have wifi?) We live in communities that consider women’s bodies and fat bodies disgusting and shameful. Even if we disagree with this (I certainly do), the fact remains that we belong to these communities. And most of us care about our moral standing in our communities; we want to be decent people and we want others to know we are decent. When people see us as shameful, we might feel ashamed because we care about what they think—even if we disagree with their evaluation of us.* In short, stubborn body shame might be a sign that we care about our moral community. And caring about our community is good, even when that community has reprehensibly sexist and fat phobic standards.

I’m still thinking through these things (and would love to hear your thoughts!) but here’s where I’m at today: we can do a lot to improve our own relationships with our bodies through physical activity and engagement in smallish supportive communities like at this blog. And this is marvelous! But our experiences of ourselves are also partly made up within our larger communities, communities that we care about and want to have good standing in, even though those communities have sexist, fat-phobic views about which bodies are shameful. If we really want to do away with unwarranted body shame, then, maybe we need to change our communities, not just our workouts.

*This idea comes from Calhoun, Cheshire. “An Apology for Moral Shame.” Journal of Political Philosophy 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2004): 127–46. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9760.2004.00194.x.

Megan Dean is a PhD student in Philosophy at Georgetown University. She’s interested in thinking critically about the ways we understand and experience our bodies. She’s also interested in watching sci fi, doing whatever exercises make her back feel better, and keeping her balcony garden alive for as long as possible. Her research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Georgetown University. You can check out some of what this support enables her to do at https://georgetown.academia.edu/MeganDean

fat · feminism · fitness · Guest Post

Freedom To Define Fitness: I’ll Do It My Way (Guest Post)

Jenn Seeley29 Comments

I’m new to the blog and feel it’s important to toss out a disclaimer before I continue: I am unapologetically fat and super great with that.

Now, you’re either tossing your hands in the air excitedly about that proclamation with a ‘yassss-girl-on-the-internet-I-don’t-know’ or you’ve hit the X and I lost you and that’s ok too. But boy howdy, am I having a time finding balance between fat, fitness, & fitting it all in. Perhaps sharing about it will help me figure a few things out?

jennhula

I have a desk job in IT and a whole lot of… we’ll call them reasons … that I’m not super active. My employer, however, understands that these reasons are a struggle and does something pretty great to help change that.

Working in the world of tech start-ups, it’s not uncommon to find two things especially to be true: really great snacks on site & an incentive to be active. Currently I’m working at a fantastic eCommerce company called Shopify and they’re really good at adding the –ify ending to lots of things, so Sportify as an athletic allowance just makes sense. What didn’t make loads of sense to me initially, however, were the really loose rules around what constituted appropriate spending of this well loved perk. Maybe this is because the previous unnamed IT company I worked for had such rigid ideas around how to spend their active bonus.

Many things we talk about and do are labeled and given boxes to live within, so this feels like a great space to deconstruct those ideas and truly consider what constitutes fitness or being active. 

But I NEED a definition!

Ok, ok! But I’m not going to link you to my favourite online dictionary definition or delve into the etymology of the word fitness, so if you need that I’m feeling fairly confident you can use the power of Google to self-serve. With that definition, the one you either already hold in your head and your heart or the one you just took 90 seconds to find, I’m challenging you to also find the meaning of and in fitness that speaks most to your needs right now and not just what you were taught in grade school.

Here’s a look at how 2 different IT companies suggest you spend the money they allocate to fitness/wellness:

The Other Co Gym memberships, some sports clubs, but not golf fees or hockey dues. Basically, we have a list and you’re welcome to ask us to consider your idea. We might say no.
Shopify Does it get you moving? Cool. Send us the receipt!*

* gym membership discounts on top of the Sportify incentive also exist at Shopify!

Don’t get me wrong here, both companies offer fantastic incentives and The Other Co actually offers more dollars per year despite the stricter guidelines. Not everyone is into going to a gym and some people really just need a supportive pair of sneakers for early morning walks on the boardwalk. I’m not into the business of comparing my physical activity (as low as it may be right now) with others. My walks on the boardwalk don’t compare to your gazillion reps of things I don’t understand in a fancy elite gym, for no other reason than they are two different things. Is one better than the other? Nope!

Different =/= better.

If two different companies can have such different ideas around how to spend money on helping you be active & fit, I say you can be in charge of your own defining of fitness in your life, too.  One of the most difficult things I know that I face as a fat woman, is just how unlikely it is that I will fit within the very design of the box made by The Other Co. Gyms are not a space I feel especially welcome or comfortable in, for example, yet they are the most common way for people to spend the incentives that workplaces offer for fitness. Nobody knows my body better than I do, and I’m telling you this: A treadmill is not what what body wants or needs. If you are invested in parking at the furthest corner of the parking lot to move that little bit more, then I applaud you for doing what you get to include in your own definitions around caring for your body. That doesn’t mean that I compare your outward act of grocery shopping endurance to the person who parks in the spot for people with disabilities or parents of small children.

Fitness is not a contest (unless you want it to be)

When did it become important to look at the people on either side of us and measure ourselves next to them in some sort of fitness currency, determining our worth based on how many marathons we have completed or how many really large tires we have flipped the length of a football field. What tool are we actually using to place this secret value on activities, that when we compare ourselves against we either feel very rich or as if we have insufficient funds? Can we not decide that, the only true fitness lack is when, by our very own definition, we are not doing the good things our bodies deserve by moving and caring for them?

I rather like Shopify’s approach to how I get to be the master of my own ideas around the needs of my body to be active, and happy, and healthy. So whether I spend my annual perk on killer sneakers for cross fit, new paddles for my canoe, some gear for my bike, a yoga ball and meditation CD, tennis lessons, a salsa class, or a hula hoop,  I am ultimately deciding for myself what constitutes Sportify. Where is this label in the rest of our fitness lives and how can we apply it positively in a way where nobody needs to feel fitness poverty when reading their friends’ Facebook status updates?

As for me? I bought a bike. The first bike I ever owned in 25 years. And I am terrified to ride it, but already it is so valuable to me on our short little journeys together. I plan to find my way with my bike and not once feel poorly about how others are faster, stronger, better, thinner than me. My fitness counts.

What about you? Are you feeling rich by your own definition of fitness? Are you able to applaud others for their milestones while also being mindful of your own ride being awesome and entirely unique? I would love to hear about it in the comments below!

jenn

Bio: Queer, Fat, Feminist of intersections. Not so fit, but chewing on the reasons why and the ways to challenge what that means. No apologies for any of it.