Tag: body image

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.
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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.
aging · body image · fitness · weight lifting · yoga

Muscles and Aging Women’s Bodies

Tracy I10 Comments

I loved Nanette’s post about strength training and the feminine ideal a couple of weeks ago, and I have to admit that it made me long for those days as a grad student in my twenties when I used to work out at the gym a lot and, like Nanette, I could literally see the results. If you didn’t see Nanette’s post, here she is and this is what it’s like to have a buff, young body that shows your effort:

nanette Back shotI know we’re not all about looks here, and for all sorts of reasons. I’ve talked openly about the inspirational disvalue of fitspo. But oh how fabulous those back muscles look.

Lots of us aren’t in our twenties anymore. And lots of us have bodies that never really did show the fruits of our labor in quite that same dramatic way (if at all) in the first place. For women with aging bodies, much of the mental work goes into accepting that we may never look the way we think we should, should have (or wish we would or would have) or we may not be able to maintain the body we had in our twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, etc.

We need to let go of some of those more superficial dreams because hanging onto an appearance ideal is the biggest indicator of who is going struggle with aging. Check out Sam’s post about this topic here.

We don’t have to fight aging. Instead, we can age well. See what Sam has to say about that here.

I’ve been reflecting on all of this lately because, not suprisingly for a woman in her fifties, I have lots of friends in their fifties too. And we all have thoughts about aging. Lots of “battle” language in my conversations with friends these days as they continue to fight their bodies.

I’ve already sworn off talking about people’s weight loss goals and diets with them. Not interested.

But I realize too that, true to the challenge Sam and I set for ourselves in 2012 when we started the blog, taking weight loss and body composition out of the equation, I am in fact the fittest I’ve ever been in my life. I feel pretty awesome. This week, another friend of mine, also in her fifties and also the fittest of her life, came with her partner to spend some time with us for a few days on our sailboat in the Bahamas.

We were super active, walking, hiking, swimming, kayaking, and even taking in a yoga class on the beach one day. We talked about how hard we work to stay strong and physically healthy these days, and also how energized and committed we feel to our respective routines. Being on vacation, it didn’t even cross our minds not to stay active. These things just evolved as part of each day.

Part of that “battle” language I talked about just now has to do with rejecting the aging body.  We are told that at a certain age, our bodies become “unsightly.” I swear someone invented the tankini to shame older women into ditching their two piece bikinis so no one would have to look at our bellies. If, as Nanette says, the feminine ideal is for women to be soft and demure and weak, the older woman is supposed to be even softer, weaker, and more invisible.

Not too long ago, it wasn’t uncommon to encounter lists of things that that women “of a certain age” should not wear.  According to this article:

Our bodies change and in many cases not for the better. Arms don’t have the muscle tone that they used to have and totally sleeveless tops show this is off so well. This will be equally true of thin woman as those who are overweight.

If these articles had their way, we would be walking that fine edge between being too frumpy and dressing in an age-appropriate way.  And no one is spared–the fat and the thin are equally at risk of getting it all wrong. But that was before it became clear that those women were a force to be reckoned with, responding with a loud and resounding “f**k that!”

The mental work of overcoming internalized and externally imposed expectations about how we are supposed to look has a huge impact on our ability to feel good in the bodies we have, no matter how the passing of time may affect how we look. I’ve heard lots of people say, and I believe it to be true, that body confidence is a lot more attractive, sexy even (and yes, we get to keep being sexy and get to — gasp — keep having sex), than even the most objectively perfect-looking body of an insecure person (remember: the more wedded we are to our looks, the tougher it is to age).

Anyway, if there’s one thing Cindi and I rocked this week it was body confidence. Why? Because both of us feel strong and healthy and energized by what we’re doing. We may not have tons of it, but both of us have some muscle that we didn’t have a few years ago and we feel it. Here’s Cindi, rocking her new found pipes on the beach.

My friend Cindi, looking awesome after beach yoga and a long swim in the ocean.
My friend Cindi, looking awesome after beach yoga and a long swim in the ocean.

And here we are after a bit of a hike to see “the monument” at the top of the ridge, down to the beach on the other side, and then back over again, on our way to the long and deserted beach that ranks as my favourite place to go swimming in the entire world. Smooth white sand, soft surf (on the calmer days), and clear turquoise colored water.

Cindi and I, expressing our trees with enthusiasm from atop the ridge. Photo credit: Jan Hertsens.
Cindi and I, expressing our trees with enthusiasm from atop the ridge. Photo credit: Jan Hertsens.

If Sam is right that aging is a lifestyle choice, it’s a lifestyle choice we’re not choosing to make right now, at least not in that way.  If you’re an older woman whose body isn’t quite the lean machine it once was, or maybe never was, then maybe it’s time to make the choice to love what you have and work it to its best potential.

I’m a bit squishier than my younger self, with the muscle I have hiding under a less lean physique, but I’m feeling strong and vibrant. And life is good. I can still do yoga. I can do squats, lunges, bench presses, dips, and am coming close to being able to complete a full pull-up for the first time in my life (stay tuned for a progress report when that day finally comes). Not to mention (but I will) the triathlons, half marathons, marathons…

We may be getting older, but we are not ready for those tankinis yet, unless that’s what we want, because as the Huff Post rebuttle to the ridiculous idea that people get to police our clothing choices says:

You are over 50 for fuck’s sake. Wear whatever you want. If you’ve made it to 50 and still need to consult articles on how to dress appropriately then you are so missing out on one of the best things about being over 50. One of the best things about getting older is realizing that we don’t have to spend our energy worrying what other people think and we get to be comfortable in our own skin…

 

 

body image · diets · fitness · weight loss

Are People Really Happy for People Who Lose Weight?

Tracy I9 Comments

This topic of weight loss has come up quite a bit lately, even though we are a blog that professes (rightly) not to be about weight loss and definitely not about dieting.

I can’t even count the number of posts we’ve written over the years that say fitness is not measured by weight loss (recent case in point: Sam’s musing yesterday).

And anyone who knows me knows well that I do not compliment people on weight loss. Pretty much never, since that time Sam and I both remember all too well when we complimented someone who, in fact, had indeed lost lots of weight — because she had cancer! Yes, that ranks up there with the times in my life I wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.  And of course, Sam’s recent weight loss has a lot to do with having her thyroid removed because she had surgery for thyroid cancer in the summer.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “you’ve lost weight! you look great!” is not a compliment. Granted, lots of people are trying to lose weight. And, granted, those people probably like it when people notice (maybe?) because heck, they’re trying. Why isn’t it a compliment? Because it implicitly says, “and you used to look like shit, and guess what? I noticed that too!” And it implicitly assumes that everyone wants to lose weight, that losing weight is a good thing in and of itself, that being fat is not good (and looks awful), and that people are entitled to monitor the size of others’ bodies. And all of that is crap that we shouldn’t be assuming and doing.

But here’s something: I wonder whether people are actually happy when someone they know loses weight (not because of cancer, but because of effort)?  The reason I wonder is that at any given time, I would say a good 50% of the people I know are trying to lose weight or thinking about it, and more than 50% of those aren’t successful (not surprisingly, given this and this and this and this and oh so much more!).

So I’m going to go out on a limb here, and it may be a lonely limb that reveals me to be petty and small-minded: a lot of the time, people aren’t actually happy for you when you lose weight. First, there are the killjoy feminists like me who don’t really notice anymore when the people around them lose weight.  I consider the not noticing to be a personal accomplishment of mine.

But even more than that, there are those people who are battling the odds when the odds are heavily not in their favour. That would be the majority of people on a diet or weight loss program, actively trying to lose weight. I’m going to venture that a good portion of those people actually feel a little screw turn in their gut whenever someone they knows beats the odds and actually “succeeds” at that elusive goal: weight loss.

Seeing people who, for whatever reason (sometimes cancer, sometimes dieting, sometimes grief, sometimes — though not nearly as often as we’d like — exercise) drop pounds can start an internal monologue that, far from being thrilled for the person, quickly turns inward to self-flagellation and a sense of failure: If she can do it, why can’t I? What am I doing wrong? What’s wrong with me? I’m such a failure.

I’m happy for you if that’s never you. But if that’s sometimes you, join the club. Because I do go there, still today–my non-weight loss noticing-self can go there.

So I’m just going to put this out there and be totally frank. I really can’t stand it when people talk about their weight loss. I don’t care what the reasons. I don’t care if you’re trying or not trying. I don’t care if it’s for performance or for looks or just because that’s what friends, family, and strangers like to talk about.

You know, you can dress it up any way you like. But to me it’s such a personal thing that our social world has made into a public thing. And I’m always stumped about what we’re supposed to say. “Good for you!” even when someone is trying just goes against everything that feels right to me. It’s like encouraging something that I see ruin the lives of perfectly excellent people who think that weight loss will afford them something they need in order to feel good about themselves (or better about themselves). I just can’t have the conversation anymore, with anyone. [I like Carly’s suggestion of saying, “how does that feel for you?” but those don’t feel like my words]

So this brings me back to the question of whether people are really happy for people who lose weight. If you’re like me, you’ve read lots of stuff on dieting and weight loss in your time. And they always talk about the saboteurs. Those are the people who want you to eat another helping because they cooked it, or a piece of cake because it’s a special occasion, or chocolate because it’s Valentine’s Day, and therefore thwart your efforts at weight loss. Are they happy when their loved ones lose weight? Sometimes, the literature says, they feel threatened.

And then there are those people who are trying and getting nowhere. Are they happy for you? I’m not so sure. But I think it’s complicated. And that’s because successful weight loss is hard to square with the reality of how difficult it is to lose and maintain weight loss. And so when someone achieves it, we may be a little happy for them (maybe some people are super happy for them), but lots more people just use it as another reason to get down on themselves. And that’s the painful truth for many.

I don’t mean to be saying that that’s the only reason, or even the main reason, I don’t like to talk about weight loss (yours or mine). But it’s not a neutral subject, and it’s loaded with all sorts of cultural meaning that hooks into horrible attitudes that I don’t like to encourage. And even when someone’s reasons aren’t about that stuff, it’s still highly personal and that makes it at the very least an odd thing to advertise and go on about.

I can’t control what others want to talk about, but over the last little while, after a few conversations (with a few different people) that made me squirm and feel uncomfortable, I know for certain that I’m not taking part anymore. And for all of these complicated reasons, I’m going to be totally honest and say I’m happy for people about all sorts of things, but not super happy for someone simply because they’ve lost weight. I realize that makes me sound grumpy and petty, but there it is.

fitness

The Panopticon Revisited: Kitchen Mirrors for Self-Surveillance

Tracy I4 Comments

 I hate tracking because it feels like the panopticon to me. I wrote about that a long while ago when we first started this blog. See my post here. The panopticon is a prison design that social-political philosopher Jeremy Bentham came up with in the 19th Century. The thing of it is, prisoners never know when they’re being watched. So they start to engage in self-surveillance and self-monitoring. They become so good at it that guards are hardly necessary.

Feminist philosophers have used this same idea to talk about the way normative feminity works. Always conscious of the possibility  that we are being watched and monitored, we women begin to do it ourselves. It’s basically the idea of keeping ourselves in line with rules imposed from the outside by internalizing those rules. Tracking feels like that to me.

But a new study that came out recently takes the panopticon metaphor to a whole new level, indeed, no longer even a metaphor. Maybe you’ve already heard. If you read the blog regularly you definitely have already heard because–and this is the beauty of having a team of feminists working together to respond to the latest research that does a disservice to women–Catherine blogged about it on Sunday. See her “Mirror, Mirror” post. 

If you want to eat less “bad” food (even though food is beyond good and evil), hang a mirror in the kitchen. Yes. You read that right. You can read more about the story in this story from The Washington Post and this one from The National Post. 

Apparently, watching ourselves eat food that we perceive to be bad, evil, or wrong to eat makes us feel crappy. We look for a reason and blame it on the chocolate cake.

This is just not something I can get behind. First of all, if you’re going to eat the cake, don’t you want to enjoy it? Do we really need to find further ways to feel shitty about ourselves?

Second, as if incessant tracking isn’t bad enough, now we are supposed to watch ourselves in the mirror too? It just feels so messed up.

Third, there’s the panopticon. It’s a bad thing, all that self-monitoring and self-surveillance to make sure we all into line with standards of behaviour that external norms impose on us. The panopticon is a prison design for Pete’s sake.  Its purpose in to promote compliance.

No, no, no. So please, let’s try to enjoy our food. Yes, let’s make choices. I’m all for thinking about how I may use food for all sorts of reasons that have little to do with keeping myself physically fed and nourished. Having some awareness is a good thing. But when we kick that to the level of self-surveillance and literally keeping an eye on ourselves so we behave, that’s a disturbing prospect worth resisting more than a piece of chocolate cake.

Good Advice, Bad Advice: some thoughts from our bloggers on 2015
fitness

Good Advice, Bad Advice: some thoughts from our bloggers on 2015

catherine w6 Comments

As this year wraps up, we’ve all been awash in benedictions on 2015 and expectations for 2016. Still, it’s cheering to look forward to fresh slates and new possibilities. This includes fitness. I’ll be posting Sunday on my fitness goals for 2016. For now, as a final adieu to 2015, I asked our bloggers what were some of their favorite fitness advice or revelations for this year. I also asked them what was the worst piece of fitness advice they ran across. Here are some of their responses (edited for brevity).

Let’s start with the revelations and good advice.

Gyms? You don’t necessarily need them.

I let my membership lapse in February, intending to switch to the YMCA; I then experimented with not joining, to see if all my outdoor activities could make the gym redundant. And they did. I cycled as usual with my club… I joined a rowing club in town and was motivated to get out on the water as often as possible because, no gym… I took up yoga at a specialist Iyengar studio in town because I could justify the added cost. And I swam, swam, swam at community pools around town, including my gorgeous outdoor neighbourhood pool.

Now, here we are at the end of the year, deep into winter, and I have no plans to head back to the gym! I am riding outside until it snows, riding my rollers, doing a trainer class with friends, using the ergometers at the rowing club as well as their weight equipment, and I’ve hired a personal trainer that my friends rave about, and indeed he is superb. I don’t miss the gym one bit. It’s true that all this stuff together costs a bit more than a year’s gym membership, but not much. Best of all, I’ve realised that doing sports stuff I love is WAY more fun this way.

Know that you can go slow.

I turned 50 this year and the biggest shift for me was to accept that I’m slowing down and taking longer to recover, that I won’t be in the faster group of runners or cyclists anymore. That was hard to swallow and I fought it. But acknowledging It helped me be present to what is true for me — that I’m 50 and can still ride 525 km through the Vietnamese hills with only my base fitness, I can run 10km with ease and joy — but all only if I slow down, stretch, remember that I’m preserving my body for mobility for another several decades rather than trying to win something in the now. 

For daunting exercises, divide and conquer.

There’s always a couple of exercises in my sets that make me anxious. A friend told me to divide my reps by three and make them more manageable chunks. It works beautifully!

Enjoy the immediate gratification of good feeling that exercise can bring.

Exercise does NOT have to hurt to be beneficial.

Just say NO to fat shaming at your doctor’s office.

Finally, after years of putting off medical care and gritting my teeth when I finally trudged into my doctor’s office, I changed practices and started afresh with someone I could be honest with. I told her I would not agree to be weighed anymore (except at a yearly physical), or unless it was needed (e.g. pre-operative appointment). I explained my position and she didn’t argue with me. I still get asked to be weighed each time to go (even for a cough—argh), but I say no each time and briefly remind them of the conversation we had. I’d prefer not being asked, but I can handle this, and it makes medical appointments much less stressful.

Goals/Schmoals—you can do the movement you do without judgment, assessment, or goals.

I’m trying to get out of the mindset that leads to self judgement when I don’t achieve an arbitrary goal. Self judgement is super demotivating. I have become very mindful of the temptation to critique myself when I don’t run/bike/whatever. Instead, I look to the next opportunity to do it, not because I should, but because I want to take care of myself. It’s resulted in the achievement of goals, ironically. I am now the proud owner of a 10minute mile (6 minute kilometer). It’s not that I’ve abandoned goals altogether, I just don’t take my failure as seriously as I used to.

When you feel the need, go for speed.

Speed work actually works! In swimming and running my times improved from speed drills. I will be doing more of this in my training through the winter. 

No one else is going to call you a failure (so how about don’t do it to yourself?).

I took a trad climbing course this summer. That’s a rock climbing technique where you place your own protection in natural features in the rock instead of clipping into already set bolts. It’s completely terrifying, since it requires even more trust in your own ability than regular rock climbing does. After a particularly knee-shaking, life-choice-questioning climb that weekend, I was once again reminded of a life lesson I probably should have learned by now (I don’t actually think I’ve learned it yet), that most people out there are not the least bit concerned with branding you a failure. And when you come back down off the cliff convinced that your friends will never let you show your face near them again because of whatever inability you have just displayed, you find yourself proven utterly wrong. Because they really don’t care half as much as you do about how good you are at things.

All movement counts—the power of everyday exercise is not to be underestimated.

I’ve blogged about this a bunch, and my experience on sabbatical demonstrated that just being active every day can strengthen me, improve the quality of my sleep, and make me feel happier. I’m keeping it up now that I’m back.

Now to the bad fitness advice to be avoided.

Anything to do with linking fitness and BMI is bad bad bad, especially doctor weigh-ins.

I see a rheumatologist regularly because I have an autoimmune disease; every time I visit her office – EVERY TIME – I have to be weighed and my weight noted in my file. My rheumatologist knows that I am an athlete and we talk a lot about which activities are helpful and/or harmful for the joint condition, and how to mitigate the latter. She’s a very good and sensible doctor, and I know she’s not *asking* for my weight; it’s something that gets done as a matter of routine for all patients by the interns. But why, for heaven’s sake, does it need to be routine? It’s just like the regular weigh-in when I get my physical at the doctor; the nurse duly notes my weight and then gets out the BMI chart. I always want to scream: put that away! It tells you nothing about my body or my health!

It’s one of the things I hate about going to the doctor – it makes me anxious for a good period of time before I head into the appointment room. I get performance anxiety about it. Surely that’s not a good thing?

Just say NO to diet trends.

I find the whole gluten free/paleo/deprive yourself of whatever trendy item is in vogue diet to be quite tiresome [you said it, sister! –caw].

I dislike the endless cycling of diets and “bad” foods everyone is obsessed with. I’m still with Michael Pollans “eat food, not too much, mostly plants “and keep a special place in my heart for carbs if I’m working out hard.

Worst advice was was to eliminate grains & starches from my plate as part of the Prevent weightloss program I’m accessing through work. After a week of feeling deflated and falling asleep every night after dinner for two hours I put grains and starchy foods back on my plate. I need that energy!

Bogus advice from factory farming and self-serving “health” industries: Milk (and its many contaminants), it does a body good.

Once more with feeling: weight loss does NOT equal fitness.

I continue to encounter people (mostly in my practice) that are fixated on the fitness=weight loss equation. By that I mean, fitness is for weight loss or weight loss means I’m getting fit etc. I have become more vocal about steering people away from that as a goal. I try to shift the conversation to taking care of the body by moving it and fueling it well, instead of punishing it and starving it. Punitive strategies never work in the long term and do great damage over time.

Demonizing fatness and body positivity are wrong and scary, and we all have to stand together on this.

The most appalling thing I’ve been exposed to fitness-wise is the sub-group of people who have made it their personal mission to debunk Ragen Chastain and everything she says. People need to get a life. I found it shocking to learn that there are whole blogs devoted to inspecting date stamps on her training photos and so forth to prove that her claims about training can’t be true. Seriously? It’s fat hatred in action. It was enough to make me leave the Pathetic Triathletes group, which made me realize too that I prefer the feminist fitness community that we have cultivated to any other fitness community in the world.

So, readers, what are some of your favorite fitness revelations of the year? Any really bad advice that stands out? Let us know.

And Happy New Year from Fit is a Feminist Issue!

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diets · fitness

Behind the scenes at a no-nonsense for-real weight management course: wrestling demons

catherine w3 Comments

As we approach the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016, we are pummeled with ads promising us that, if we just sign up for some new plan (however loony or expensive it may be), we will be renewed and transformed. Gone will be the extra pounds, the shame of unattractiveness, and the social rejection. In its place will be new-found confidence, social and professional opportunities aplenty, and inner joy. You can see for yourself right here:

new you

We’ll be posting a bit on this blog about the push to turn over a new leaf, start a new regimen, set new goals, and remake ourselves as soon as the calendar year turns over. And we also want to hear from readers, too, about how they are responding to the wave of self-improvement fever.

Not that I’m against self-improvement, or even against enthusiasm about new beginnings. The end of the year is a good time to take stock, reflect on what’s working in your life, what you want to change, and what goals you might want to pursue. However, doing a google search of images related to “new year’s resolution”, almost every image included the following:

lose weight

Sigh.

We all know (from great posts like these among other places) that losing weight may or may not be difficult, but maintaining weight loss over time is nigh unto impossible. But that doesn’t stop people from wanting it badly.

I do research on weight, weight stigma, health, eating and behavior change, have read and written lots about these issues.  But there is no substitute for hearing the stories of the struggles of real people as they try to make a more peaceful and accepting life that includes food.

Two weeks ago, I was invited to attend the last meeting of an 8-week course in Sydney, Australia on weight management run by Ginette Lenham, a counseler, therapist and support group facilitator specializing in weight management issues for women. She counsels women with complex sets of challenges ranging from fertility to gynecological to endocrine to psychological, working on how to respond to emotional eating and other triggers in their lives. Her website is here.

The stories these women shared were not surprising, but they were revealing. Here are some stories, and the underlying messages I am going to guard against as I face the new-year pull to remake myself in a more skinny image. These messages are powerful, but they are not true. The women in that room shared them in order to expose them for the falsehoods they are, and get some help in doing battle against them.

Message: Weight equals worth and status as a person

“You know, your position in a social hierarchy can change enormously with weight loss or gain. When you’re obese, people don’t see you as a person with control or discipline. My friends who have known me a long time (when I was thinner) have more confidence in me, in my abilities, than my newer friends (who only know me as fat). They think an obese person is a different sort of person, not a person like them.”

Message: Weight loss will fix any ailment

 “I joined a running club; it’s really helped my motivation and improved my performance. I was having trouble recently with getting blisters and talked with someone about it. She said, ‘oh—after I lost a lot of weight, I stopped getting them’. Argh! “

“One woman in our running club won an award; at the ceremony, all they talked about was how much weight she had lost.”

Message: There are ‘good’ foods and ‘bad’ foods, and it’s never okay to eat ‘bad’ foods

“I used to work as a waitress, and women were always apologizing for their orders. They would say to me, ‘I’ll have this cake but I won’t have any dinner.’”

Message: Eating “right” is a “natural” ability, which some have and some don’t

“I look at my kids to see how they are eating—what they eat and what they leave behind on the plate. I have no idea what to do, or how to eat intuitively.”

“Some people are just stronger and they know when to stop.”

Ginette’s approach is largely about helping people to identify these negative messages and then to set aside those harsh judgments, focusing instead on individual health and life goals. This is a long-term process, and is not about learning to love salad. There’s no gimmickry—no magic pill to swallow, no exercise machine to use. Will it result in weight loss? Maybe, maybe not. What she hopes for her clients is of course some solutions to their complex medical problems, some of which are weight-related, but more importantly, in her own words, “you can learn to be liberated from all the negative self-talk that is associated with your previous weight loss experiences.”

Now that’s a new year’s resolution worth making.

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Fit to be tied: clothes shopping and sizing madnes
Weekends with Womack

Fit to be tied: clothes shopping and sizing madnes

catherine w11 Comments

Finding clothes that fit is not the most unpleasant task women face, but it is constant, often frustrating and sometimes downright demoralizing. Sam has blogged here and here about clothing troubles athletic women have, and both Sam and Tracy have blogged (here and here, among other places) on the elusive search-for-the-right-sports-bra.

As a size 14/16 woman, I’m used to (if not happy about) the fact that many clothing manufacturers don’t seem to care about my demographic, even though 14 is the most common size for women in the US.  But this treatment extends to other sizes as well, as I found out in person this weekend.

My 30-year-old cousin Xina and I met in New York City this weekend to hang out with some friends and their kids, go to museums and engage in a bit of shopping and other girly activities. Xina is tall (5’ 11”) and slender. She wears a clothing size 10—12. On Saturday (after getting pedicures, which are a relative bargain in New York) we headed to Urban Outfitters. She saw this really cute jumpsuit that she wanted to try on.

jumpsuitBut we couldn’t find a size 10 or 12. So we went to ask a salesperson if they had one, or if they could find it at another store. The salesperson returned shortly and told us, in discreetly hushed tones, “That item doesn’t come in a 12. 10 is the biggest size we carry, but we don’t have one in the store.” There seemed to be at most only one size 10 left in the entire tri-state area. Huh.

I was astounded. So used to being size and body-shamed in retail outlets myself, I was nonetheless surprised to see it in action with my lovely young svelte cousin as the target. Seriously, people?

Xina used to work in retail clothing stores, and wasn’t surprised at all by this treatment. She informed me that lots of clothing retailers relegate their size 12 and up customers to online sales, not stocking those sizes in stores. There seems to be a fear on the part of these brands that if non-tiny people a) populate their dressing rooms and stores, and b) actually appear in public wearing their clothing, the brand will lose its cachet, its mystique, its je ne sais quoi. Witness Abecrombie and Fitch’s refusal to stock women’s size XL and Lululemon CEO’s claim that “some women’s bodies just don’t work” for their yoga pants. By the way, he resigned a month after making said comments.

One (super-lame-o) claim that clothing manufacturers make about their failure to make decent clothing in sizes 14 and above is that there is a lot of variation in body shape in those sizes, so it’s not possible to systematize tailored garment patterns enough for production.

Again—Seriously?

What holds for sizes 14 and above also holds for sizes 12 and under, namely that body shapes vary in systematic and predictable ways. Of course the variation isn’t unlimited—for instance, people aren’t usually shaped like this:

Screen Shot 2015-09-26 at 6.22.32 PMBut I digress.

Here’s a diagram of a UK size 12 on different height women (for a clothing tailoring website):

size 12

We also see this in action when we put the same dress on different shaped women:

garment

And just in case you didn’t see this already, the “one size fits most” myth got definitively busted here with women of different sizes, heights and body shapes.

And hey, this clothing maker managed to produce cute tops and pants for these different-shaped women without violating the laws of physics:

physics

So.  What do we want?

Reasonably well-fitting attractive clothing in a variety of sizes.

When do we want it?

NOW.

Okay, I gotta work on the phrasing, but you get the idea.

revolution

Weekends with Womack

Repeat after me: Athleticism is beauty. Athleticism is beauty. Athleticism is beauty. Athleticism is beauty…

catherine w23 Comments

Serena Williams, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, just won the women’s singles title at Wimbledon.

Again.

For the sixth time, actually.

That’s like, five times. And then again. For a total of six times.

six

Serena Williams is one of the great athletes of our time, and one of the greatest tennis players ever. But alongside the story of her win, what else does the New York Times– the paper of record—see fit to print? This story.

In this story ,“Tennis’s Top Women Balance Body Image with Ambition”, many of the world’s top women players interviewed said, in effect, that having the muscular world-class athletic bodies they have makes them feel “unfeminine”, as 14th-ranked Andrea Petkovic said.

“People say, ‘Oh, you’re so skinny, I always thought you were huge,’ ” she said. “And then I feel like there are 80 million people in Germany who think I’m a bodybuilder. Then, when they see me in person, they think I’m O.K.”

Heavy sigh.

Okay, let’s deconstruct this statement to see what’s going on here. Here are some assumptions I found:

  • Being skinny is OK (read minimally acceptable).
  • Being “huge” is bad.
  • Being perceived as a bodybuilder is bad.

Let us remind ourselves that this is coming from a woman whose tennis acumen is ranked 14th ON PLANET EARTH. Despite my intense racket-sports envy of her accomplishment, I feel both sympathy and frustration at what such comments likely accurately reflect about the culture that she navigates.  And this is the culture that we navigate, too.

Serena herself is affected by such assumptions. How can this be? I mean, glorious kick-ass-take-no-prisoners-forget-wearing-all-white-I-look-fabulous-in-orange-and-pink-on-center-court Serena? The woman who wore this at the French Open while firing a bullet serve?

serena

Serena Williams is now in position to be the 4th woman in history to win the Grand Slam of tennis in singles this year (The Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open).  By the way, there have only been three Grand Slam winners in men’s singles (two actually, as Rod Laver did it twice; also, my first tennis racket was a Rod Laver, but I digress…)

But this is what others are saying about her the very day she won Wimbledon:

Not all players have achieved Williams’s self-acceptance.

“That is really an important acceptance for some female athletes, that their best body type, their best performance build, is one that is not thin; it’s one of power,” said Pam Shriver, a former player and current tennis analyst.

Shriver, who cited Angelique Kerber and Sabine Lisicki as similarly powerfully built, believes Williams’s physique and confidence should serve as an example to others.

“The way Serena wears her body type I think is perfect,” Shriver said. “I think it’s wonderful, her pride.”

(taking deep breath)

Okay, let’s look at this more carefully– what assumptions lie beneath these statements?

  • Serena Williams’ body is one that requires a conscious attitude of self-acceptance, which suggests that it would otherwise be reasonable to expect her to be unaccepting of it.
  • Power in a woman’s build is in opposition to thinness– if you’re powerful, you’re not thin, and vice versa.
  • In most contexts, thin is better than powerful for women.
  • Even in professional sports, women with powerful bodies must acknowledge, justify, and defend those bodies, as well as deal with lack of acceptance by others.
  • Serena’s body type requires cultivating pride in a way that’s out of the ordinary, not automatic, but praiseworthy (albeit in a grudging and condescending way).

Note that these claims are made about a woman who wore this dress to the Oscars this year:

Screen Shot 2015-07-11 at 10.50.16 PM

I included this picture because this discourse about Serena’s body as being deviant, as

1) a woman’s body;

2) a professional athlete’s body;

3) an attractive woman’s body

is one of the many reasons why I’m glad this blog and this community exist.  We can celebrate Serena’s accomplishments and beauty in power and motion.  We can also celebrate ourselves in our own glorious athletic beauty, like this bunch of Kincardine tri- and duathletes.  Congratulations, and I look forward to reading all about it!

wpid-fb_img_1436651967018.jpg

body image · fitness

Treadmills in Sheds? Yes, That’s Happening for Reasons That Aren’t Okay

Tracy I10 Comments

shed-clipart-shed_tng_standard_feltDid you see the UK Huffington Post article earlier this week that said women are working out in sheds for fear of being judged? Sam and I were working on our book this morning. I’m on the part about the feminization of fitness, which led me to thinking about how form-fitting fitness clothing keep lots of women away from getting active.

Sam has blogged about that before. See her post “No way I’m wearing that: body conscious clothing as a barrier to entry to women in sport.” The irony is that the more absorbed we get in a sport the less likely we are to be concerned about how we look. I can tell you this: the last thing on my mind during the marathon on Sunday was my appearance (well, okay, I didn’t want to be caught sobbing on camera, but that was all).

We got chatting about that a bit (instead of writing) and then she reminded me about the shed story from the other day:

Women are steering clear of fitness for “fear of being judged”, a new Government report has revealed.

Another heartbreaking reality was that those who do want to keep fit are choosing to exercise in their sheds, hidden away, out of fear of being laughed at.

The report comes after Public Health England revealed that the number of women achieving recommended levels of physical activity was far lower than men – 31% of females engage in sport once a week compared to 40.1% of men.

The report, which has been collated by the Commons’ Health Select Committee, labels “fear of judgement” as a key factor when it comes to why women’s fitness levels are below par.

Kay Thomson from Sport England said: “Three quarters of women want to become more active but something is stopping them – fear of judgement.

“Judgement about appearance when exercising, ability to be active, confidence to turn up to a session, or feeling guilty about going to be physically active or doing something when you should have been spending more time with your family.”

It’s sad and alarming that fear of being judged about their appearance or their level of ability is keeping women from doing something that can, in fact, create confidence and an alternative body-narrative that isn’t so focused on looks.  More than that, getting active is a matter of social equality. If women are so worried that they will be judged harshly that they are either not getting active at all or are putting their treadmills in the shed, that’s a disturbing comment on the way fitness media, fitness culture, and normative expectations of women’s bodies work to exclude, marginalize, and dis-empower women.

The exclusion is well-articulated in the words of this woman who participated in the survey:

She revealed: “When I looked online for information, there was lots about weight loss and running but nothing about running just as an overweight person, the psychological aspects of that and how tough it is when you are constantly shouted at, laughed at and clothes in fitness stores don’t fit you.

“It feels like the whole sport is not geared up for you.”

Fitness activities and physical exercise are not just for people who are already thin, not just for the young, not just for those with athletic builds or natural talent.

We need a more inclusive approach that does not body-shame people and does not perpetuate the idea that only a certain demographic has a right to engage in physical activity. I’ve written before about this idea of inclusive fitness. We are far from that ideal and the UK study presents clear evidence that more needs to be done to deliver a different message:

“I have women who tell me they run on a treadmill in their shed because they just don’t want to be seen in public,” she said. “But that is part of the problem. Because we don’t see many overweight women exercising in public, other women don’t think that exercise is for them.”

“They think it is for all the slim people that they always see out in the parks.”

She added that larger women aren’t able to get hold of sports kits which fit them properly, which presents another barrier: “No woman wants to dress in men’s clothing to go out for a run when there is already the risk of being laughed at.”

In my post on inclusive fitness, I said:

I’m old school about one fairly simple staple in feminist discourse: people begin to believe they can achieve something if they see others like themselves represented doing the thing they want to achieve.

It’s not just in the media that we need wider representation, but also in everyday life. If larger women can’t even find workout gear that fits appropriately, then that sends the further message that such activity is not meant for them.

In the UK, there is a movement afoot to create a more attractive picture of physical activity to a wider group of women:

The Government now hopes to address these barriers and issues by releasing a programme on diet and physical activity which works to examine how women, those with disabilities and overweight people, can be encouraged and supported to be more active.

Sport England’s This Girl Can campaign is also helping to get women moving by showing “real women” working out – in a bid to help others summon up the courage to get active.

It’ll be interesting to watch how this all plays out, and whether the campaign will succeed in creating a truly welcoming and positive attitude towards diversity among those engaged in physical activity.

Meanwhile, I think we can all agree that sheds may be great places to store our gear, but no one should feel so judged that they choose the shed as the place to use their gear.

body image

“My boyfriend says my vagina is too fat”

Sam B4 Comments

image

Yes, people find our blog with a variety of search terms.

And all I can say is that judging by the search terms the world is a worse place than I’d like it to be. Seeing how many people follow our blog and engage with it in various ways makes me smile (I love our blog.) But often looking at the search terms which lead people here makes me sigh.

Sometimes I post them on our Facebook page to find a little humour in the situation. They’re often sexually loaded search terms like “women having orgasms on bicycles,” “big muddy boobs,” or “sexy CrossFit crotch shot tumblr.” Or “naked yoga babes,” “nude pro women athletes shower room,” and “sexy plus sized sweaty mamas.” Whatever. (These are all from recent weeks.)

The sexy searches don’t bug me so much. Yes, women’s athletic participation shouldn’t be reduced to a list of sexy body parts but other than that I’m kind of blase about it all. And often the searches show more diversity in taste than you’d expect. (See this post with some discussion of that, focused on a search for women with big tits wearing neon green bras.)

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