Name Removed 1

Name Removed
Professor Campbell
UWRT 1103
30 March 2015
Combating Fat Oppression: Can you be Fat and Healthy?
. . . Other than intense extremes, humans can be quite healthy at just about any size or
weight. This quote, said by psychologist and author of Body Respect: What Conventional
Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, or Just Fail to Understand is the quintessential belief of
those following the Health at Every Size, or Fat Acceptance, movement (Bacon). Closely
correlated with this generations feminism, HaES followers work to battle the stigma and all the
arguably false research trying to prove that being overweight or obese is detrimental to a persons
health. But is it truly all hearsay? Can people truly live a long, fruitful life with a BMI over 25?
This groundbreaking, rapid output of new research is worth exploring.
The Leaders of the Fat Acceptance Movement
No one quite knows where it beings, or who was the catalyst to a series of fat women and
men jumping out of the woodwork to tell their stories of health at their larger than average size,
but there stands three brave women in the forefront of this movement: Tess Munster, Ragen
Chastain, and Linda Bacon.
Outspoken, brash, and unapologetic Tess Munster is a size 22 model and hero for
thousands of overweight young adults; she is making waves on all forms of social media
platforms, primarily her Instagram, @tessholliday, after beginning the Eff your beauty

Name Removed 2
standards, saying and hashtag. Eff your beauty standards, was meant to take a stand against
the conventionally beautiful body type, or the slender body type. Tess Munster works hard to
promote body confidence, while simultaneously ensuring the masses that no matter the number
on the scale, everyone can be healthy and beautiful. While it truly is important to celebrate all
different shapes, claims with little research to back it up that health and weight has no correlation
could very well be harmful (Holliday).
Therefore, Ragen Chastain, another leader of the HaEs movement, and author of the
Dances With Fat blog, uses all her time into proving this point. In her blog post, Do 95% of Diets
Really Fail?, Ragen goes in depth to compare and contrast the 1959 study that 95% of diets fail
to the more recent re-analysis of that experiment from 1999. She concludes, after explaining her
thought process in great detail, that this percentage continues to hold true. . . . What Im trying
to say here is that the registry is no help in proving the efficacy of dieting because it utterly lacks
statistical significance and relies completely on self-reporting in addition to under-reporting,
some of those success stories could have regained their weight but not reported it, she writes.
I already love my body and Im healthy and Health at Every Size has given me everything Ive
ever wanted so I dont need another path to health (Chastain). She considers herself a naturally
talented athlete, and is currently training to attend the 2016 IRONMAN.
Linda Bacon takes research about the correlation between obesity and health even further.
. . . the majority of individuals are unable to maintain weight loss over the long term and do not
achieve the putative benefits of improved morbidity and mortality, she writes in one of her
many articles about the concept of dieting to lose weight, and therefore improve ones health.
With a Ph.D in psychology under her belt, Linda has taken the HaES movement by storm,
writing several books about body love and self-care. In her book Health at Every Size: The

Name Removed 3
Surprising Truth About Your Weight, she explains to a group of women, all overweight and fed
up with their constant failures of losing it, that it is not them who are failing diets, it is the diets
failing them. She tells them to abandon the thought that weight loss equals happiness, and to
embrace who they are and work on what is inside of them instead of out (Bacon). This way of
thinking seems reasonable, healthy, and safe, no?
Body Positivity: Harmful?
Unfortunately, research and peer-reviewed studies do not agree. Health care of obesityrelated illnesses costs the US about 190.2 billion dollars annually, 14 billion of that coming from
childhood obesity. Thats 21% of all medical spending (NLC). In better words, this means that
abandoning weight loss and maintaining a BMI of 30 and up costs not only an individuals
health, but also costs the rest of the country in taxes.
But that makes no sense, right, since a recent study proves that you can be fat and fit, and
therefore not cost the US in obesity-related medical bills? Marilyn Wann writes in agreement. A
recent study found people who were "metabolically healthy" and overweight or obese had no
higher death risk than metabolically healthy "normal" weight people, her article explains
(Wann). And while it is true that overweight and obese metabolically healthy people exist and
do not have a higher death risk, the same article that Wann cites from concludes with the fact that
youre still more likely to develop other metabolic risk factors that contribute to chronic disease
if youre overweight (Sifferlin).
It is not the only one. Researchers from Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at
Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada found that those with a BMI over 25 that did not have
high blood pressure still had a risk of having heart disease with their next ten years compared to

Name Removed 4
those who were also metabolically healthy but of normal weight. Metabolic health in
overweight and obese people also does not take into account that extra weight on joints
consistently over many years leads to joint pain and difficulties (Healy).
Then there is the study that Ragen Chastain debunked, still insisting that 95% of people
who diet fail. On a forum dedicated to fighting against the perceived false logic that Health at
Every Size followers and leaders present, one anti-HaES member responded to her article: OF
COURSE most diets fail at keeping the weight off in any long term way, because most diet plans
are designed to be used for only a short period of time. Let's face it; very, very few people are
going to replace meals with shakes or hold themselves to a ridiculously low carbohydrate plan
for the rest of their lives; these strategies work as short-term means to an end, but don't address
what to do to maintain weight loss or the psychological reasons that we overeat or put on weight
in the first place (qtd in Fatlogic). Over half of the people that exist on this forum were once
overweight or obese, and continue to maintain their weight loss, proving HaES leaders wrong
that healthy weight loss is only effective on 5% of dieters.
The professors who conducted another analysis on this 95% of diets fail study say that
the conclusion is misleading. Only 100 subjects were used, and they were willingly placed into a
hospital and given an extreme weight loss plan because they were unable to do it on their own
(Fritsch). 100 subjects in a closely-monitored hospital is simply a sample bias, and does not
represent the hundreds of thousands people trying to lose weight every day. ''The people we see
in clinics tend to be more overweight and have more psychological problems. They are more
likely by a factor of two to have binge-eating problems, said Dr. Brownell (qtd in Fritsch).
Body Positivity or Good Health? Why not both?

Name Removed 5
Does practicing self-love mean not taking care of your health? Linda Bacon, Tess
Munster, and Ragen Chastain would argue that they are healthy despite the number on the scale,
and while this may be true in the present, the future says it cannot be managed for long. The
constant pressure on joints, primarily the knees, from extra weight that the human body is not
meant to carry affects 1 in 3 overweight and metabolically healthy obese people (Kane).
Shockingly, this is not as high as the number of obese people suffering from heart disease or
diabetes.
In conclusion, it is important to practice self-love, but the Fat Acceptance, HaES
movement, can be more harmful than helpful. Ignoring the state of your body and how it can
damage your health in the very future in order to love yourself for who you are is not the road
body positivity should be taken. Instead, in order to love ourselves, we should eat reasonably and
exercise to prevent any obesity-related illnesses. That is being body positive and practicing selflove. If not, obesity could go on the rise, and the United States could see higher taxes and rates of
heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.
There is overwhelming evidence that being overweight or obese can lead to medical
problems. But, there also exists anecdotal evidence that those with a BMI above 25 can live
healthy, fruitful lives. Tess Munster and Ragen Chastain claim to be living proof of this. But,
how could we truly know if they are in full health if we are outside looking in? Anecdotal
evidence is full of flaws, and their claims of health could be because they are treating any
medical conditions they experience as normal, and independent of their weight. This mystery
may never be solved, but continuing to talk to and look into the minds of those following the Fat
Acceptance movement may lead me to the answer.

Name Removed 6
Works Cited
Bacon, Linda. Linda Bacon, Ph.D. N.p., 2015. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.
Chastain, Ragen. "Dances With Fat." Dances With Fat. Dances With Fat, 2015. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.
Fatlogic. "Reddit's Stories Are Created by Its Users." Reddit: The Front Page of the Internet. Reddit,
2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Fritsch, Jane. "95% Regain Lost Weight. Or Do They?" The New York Times. The New York Times, 24
May 1999. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.
Healy, Melissa. "Fat and Healthy Is a Myth, New Study Says." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 2
Dec. 2013. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.
Kane, Andrea. "How Fat Affects Arthritis." Arthritis Today. N.p., 2015. Web.
Koehly, Laura, and Aunchalee Loscalzo. "Adolescent Obesity and Social Networks."
NLC. "National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education & Families." Healthy Communities for a
Healthy Future Economic Costs of Obesity Comments. NLC, 2012. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.
Preventing Chronic Disease. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 June 2009. Web. 7 Mar.
2015.
Wann, Marilynn. "Big Deal: You Can Be Fat and Fit - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network, 3 Jan.
2013. Web. 7 Mar. 2015.

Name Removed 7