It is sad that this even needs to be said, but given the fact that we essentially live in a health meritocracy, let me be the first to announce:
You are under no obligation to be healthy.
And, as an addendum: even if you were, eating “well” and exercising wouldn’t guarantee your success. There. I’ve said it. And as much as this might chap the ass of every health promoter out there, I feel that personal agency and a basic sense of privacy are sorely missing from most conversations of health promotion, and from Health at Every Size.
Health at Every Size exists in order to address the health concerns of people who, well, have health concerns. It is not, nor should be, a vaunted ideal that everyone must strive to live up to. It is an alternative. To what? To weight-loss dieting, to punishing “health regimes,” to doctors whose anti-fat bias drives them to diagnose you as fat and send you limping off on a sprained ankle with a prescription for steatorrhea.
An alternative, not an obligation.
It’s sad that we’ve come to the point where this needs to be pointed out. But it seems to be the reality that health habits, and health status, are no longer private matters. When people believe that you are receiving health care services off their backs and their premiums, they believe it becomes their business to police your personal habits. When health becomes not just an indicator of damn good luck, but of social status — because only responsible, smart people know how to avoid getting sick, and have the money for all those special foods/supplements/alternative therapies you’re supposed to buy in order to be a worthy citizen of the health meritocracy! — people forget about respect for their own and other people’s privacy.
This, despite the fact that the definition of health itself has not even been definitively pinned down, that it has evolved through numerous variations through the years, and will likely continue to evolve. Despite that nutrient requirements are different for each person. As are genetic profiles, family histories, and every single one of the social determinants of health.
The factors that determine health are different for everyone — which means it is up to you to decide what to do. No one can do it for you.
But we live in an era, a really strange era, where our life expectancy is better than ever before, and where we have (arguably) adequate access to health care. But, in some kind of terror, we strive continually for a zero-risk situation — and we strive for it not by addressing systemic disparities in access, but through laughably insignificant personal attempts, and individual finger-pointing.
But there are no zero-risk situations. Even people who do everything “right” sometimes get sick and die. In fact, everyone eventually gets sick and dies. Despite attempts to the contrary, our mortality rate as humans remains stubbornly at 100%.
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Thank you for emphasizing the fact that these concerns about health in this day and age come not from genuine concern for ourselves and other, but from an oppressive idea that health should be tamed and controlled in an attempt to make our bodies and minds presentable to those around us. While most people would certainly never feel that they would be disgusted or embarrassed by sickness, the truth is that there is a certain amount of shame related to illness. Why else would the dreaded “diabetes” be such an effective scare tactic to use in the ridiculous “War against Obesity?”
Moreover, I think health is a massive red herring in the FA movement. I don’t disagree that one of the stereotypes that are so effective in dehumanizing fat people is the idea that we’re all giant balls of unhealthy lard who are simply doomed to an early death, but the way to combat that is not to make the search for elusive “health” the primary, sole concern in life. Of course fat people can and are also healthy, but people who use unhealthiness as an excuse to oppress us don’t hate us because we’re going to die early, they hate us (or our weight itself) because fat is seen as ugly, undesirable, and a dreaded other. They use the false claim that fat = early death as a highly effective tool in oppressing fat people and maintaining social privilege. If someone seeks to re frame the argument such that, no, health is something even fat people can control and tame, eventually people with health concerns that can’t be controlled or tamed would face the brunt of oppression.
Honestly, though, I don’t think anyone out there really feels that way. But I do agree that making claims about health in the same breath as claims about freeing others from oppression inevitably creates schisms, even if that was not the intension.
In other words, very good post.
“…but people who use unhealthiness as an excuse to oppress us don’t hate us because we’re going to die early, they hate us (or our weight itself) because fat is seen as ugly, undesirable, and a dreaded other.”
So very true, Karen. Thanks.
I feel that, like you said, no one likes to admit it, but we inherently believe that if someone is ‘unhealthy’ or falls ill, there is shame involved because it’s likely to be their own fault somehow. I believe this stems from the fundamental attribution error — we’d rather believe someone else’s misfortunes as result from their own choices and behaviours rather than simple bad luck, because that means we can therefore prevent the same misfortunes from happening to us.
Why are we even making this an issue? The fact that some activists choose to make HAES a part of their FA platform, while others do not, shouldn’t be this big of a deal, really.
I think it’s hard not to make it an issue, Rachel, because of the larger cultural context we live in. As much as fat acceptance advocates believe in a subversive paradigm of weight and health, most of us still deal with a culturally ingrained belief that good health is a measure of status, responsibility, or worth.
I’ve noticed many reactions to the good fatty/bad fatty topic centre around people’s assumptions that they are supposed to practice certain lifestyle behaviours in order to be legitimate fat people. It’s an understandable misunderstanding, especially for people new to fat acceptance, and as a health care professional, I feel the need to address the larger issue behind it — which is the widespread belief that people’s health practices are anything but private matters.
It’s only a divisive issue if we make it one - and we are making it a larger issue than it need be. There is no monolithic FA movement. There is a movement encompassing a diverse group of people of all sizes, who all have different beliefs, perspectives and experiences. The movement is large enough for us all.
Actually, in this post, more important to me than attempting to separate the concepts of fat acceptance and health at every size — fat acceptance is definitely not dependent on HAES, though it can be a useful tool — is attempting to separate the concept of health at every size itself from the cultural health meritocracy within which it exists and competes with other health promotion concepts.
This is a HAES-oriented post, not primarily a FA post. As I said, I work in health care, so the theory holds an interest for me independent of fat acceptance.
I’m not saying all fat acceptance advocates should have one opinion about HAES, I’m saying that anyone who hears the HAES message need not feel that it is an obligation. But obviously, if people in the movement are still interested in discussing this, then maybe it’s still a legitimate issue.
I think I get what you’re saying. It reminds me a little of one of my arguments with enviros who throw out the “if we walked more and ate local, nobody would be fat” bullshit. I always say that walking everywhere and eating local are good things in and of themselves, regardless of any effect on fatness (so why is fat relevant?). I think, for me, HAES is similar: eating well and exercising aren’t means to an end, they’re the ends. Enjoying them on their own merits, regardless of how they might or might not change my shots at the Healthy Lottery, is central to my own experience of HAES.
“I always say that walking everywhere and eating local are good things in and of themselves, regardless of any effect on fatness (so why is fat relevant?). I think, for me, HAES is similar: eating well and exercising aren’t means to an end, they’re the ends.”
I like this view of HAES, Tari, because sometimes it seems that people simply replace the “weight loss” objective of traditional health regimes with a “health status” objective in HAES. Maybe the practices that are supposed to promote good health SHOULD be an end in themselves — because if you’re doing a lot of health practices you don’t enjoy, and then you end up stricken down with illness anyway, you’ll certainly have felt it was a waste of time. And maybe it was.
But I’m trying to go even one step further here, and let people be aware that just because there is such a thing as health at every size, doesn’t mean anyone has an obligation to do the behaviours it promotes, and certainly not to maintain some ideal “health status.” It seems silly that one should even have to say this, but I’m surrounded by health promotion rhetoric both at work and school, and the personal choice element often seems to be forgotten — sometimes even by people who advocate fat acceptance.
the personal choice element often seems to be forgotten
I agree. And certainly there are plenty of (cracked, IMO) arguments about health being a moral obligation (”you owe it to your loved ones” “health is cost effective” yada yada) to help reinforce that crap.
But I’m with you. Choice is the name of the game. I just think that HAES is a great option, and I think it’s a good framework for offering fat people options of eating and exercising that they may not have ever considered for themselves in a weight-loss-glorification context.
“And certainly there are plenty of (cracked, IMO) arguments about health being a moral obligation (”you owe it to your loved ones” “health is cost effective” yada yada) to help reinforce that crap.”
That’s mainly what I’m referring to, Tari. It’s such a strong message around us, that I don’t think many people even hear it anymore. It’s often just internalized as an unquestioned truth: “If I really were a good person, I would do something about my health.”
And that kind of thing doesn’t work for me, and I suspect many people. Some of us are like trained to sniff out coercive, manipulative messages and will throw a tantrum against them, even to our own detriment. Because we are rebellious, and we don’t like people stomping all over our intrinsic motivation to do things. Maybe we need to talk about the concept of intrinsic motivation a bit more in health promotion and HAES?
Well, for me, empowerment comes in one flavor: the power to make my own choices by my own standards as much as humanly possible. I think it takes a lot of work to know myself well enough to discern what’s my desires talking, and what’s a filter (like rebellion for rebellion’s sake) or external influence (like cultural brainwashing)…and I think that’s never a constant, but something I’m always examining for myself.
For me, part of HAES is letting go of the idea that I *must* exercise and eat twigs and leaves to be healthy….and also letting go of the idea that those aren’t options if they work for me. In a truly neutral morality, neither is privileged, which is where I really try to come from. And would like to see both FA and HAES conversations come from, too.
Thank you for this post! There are many of us who do experience this issue as divisive, from both the SA and HAES perspectives, so this is a point that really needs to be made.
Thank you for this post. I think it needs to be said and that many HAES proponents don’t fully realise that the constant focus on HAES is alienating a lot of fat people.
Thank you, Sarah and Bri — it’s a strange issue, and though I wasn’t targeting FA advocates who focus on HAES, specifically, I agree that it may be a problem if people (plural) are getting the same vibe about it. Health, outside of FA, has taken on moralistic overtones that I disagree with. Everyone, from time to time, seems to forget that there’s no law written anywhere that states you must be healthy, or that health is even a matter of choice in the first place.
Wow, it’s like I have a blog writer, or something . . . Seriously, I love most of what you’ve had to say, but it does get kinda tiring having to say “what she said” so often. Good job. Keep it up; you’re probably doing better than I would. Just one thing to add.
Yes, luck is the primary component in good health, but the reason we look down on those with less of that luck is not necessarily because we are striving for a zero-risk situation. We’ve always had some idea of what was necessary to stay in good health, but staying on the right side of God just isn’t seen as the be-all end-all it used to be. Science now is that perfect route to salvation. Besides that, there has always been a portion of population that achieved social status through being born with the appropriate genetics. We’ve just decided to look down on people for something not quite as “shallow” as skin color or genitalia. We can do that because we can tell ourselves (as a society) that science is an impartial God and we can believe that it has given us all the tools we need to achieve long, healthy, eternally youthful, life (immortality even!) and if you aren’t all of these things, we get to believe that you just aren’t doing it right. It doesn’t even matter that the science doesn’t support these things, we’re taking it on faith just as much as we used to take God.
To comment somewhat off topic, the whole “obligation to be healthy” thing is way out of control.
When my mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, which spread into her bones and organs before it was detected and able to be treated, she was told repeatedly by ‘well-meaning supporters’ that she could conquer this disease by drinking juices and doing a detoxs. This is when she was on morphine and her entire body was shutting down. And after her death, these same people implied that her cancer was due to moral failing (imploded anger and not dealing with her ‘issues’) and not eating ‘healthily enough’. That these people were of the new-age hippy persuasion does not alter the fact that they believed being unwell was a personal failing, and therefore death was the ultimate failure. That’s an extreme example, but in our culture blaming the ill people for their illness is all too common these days.
No, Fatadelic, your comment is actually exactly ON-TOPIC. I didn’t realize until after I wrote this that it would be interpreted as a message for people in fat acceptance. Really, it’s both a defense of HAES and a critique of the culture of healthism at large.
“And after her death, these same people implied that her cancer was due to moral failing (imploded anger and not dealing with her ‘issues’) and not eating ‘healthily enough’.”
Your mom’s story might sound extreme (and it is), but I seriously don’t think it is at all unusual as our attitude toward health becomes more extreme. I have seen this same attitude toward genuinely sick people myself — generally from well-intentioned friends or strangers. It’s troubling and shows a startling lack of compassion.
Finally! I’ve heard some people in the fat acceptance movement, say something like “Well you should go out there and exercise, to prove that fat people are healthy” I feel like, what does that prove other than being able to relax is a privelage only afforded to thin people? I eat healthy, I mean seriously eat a salad every other day. I never got into exercise, probably never will. Chalk it up to bad P.E. experiences, or something else. It’s not happening. The only exercise I do, is exercise that involves video games. Which is why they keep making games that combine exercise. It is unfortunate, that moving your thumbs around for over an hour, is not considered true exercise. LoL
If I want to do something active I’ll do it. If I don’t, I don’t see where that fits in with “Get your lazy butt up and do some working out, or people will think cause you’re fat you are lazy”. I’m fat and I’m lazy, there I said it. Big deal. I mean, on the Mr. Men show Mr. Lazy is thin, so what does that say?