I think INDD has the best origin story of any holiday. From Wikipedia:
The concept of INDD originated at 1992, when British Feminist Mary Evans Young decided to fight the diet industry and to raise awareness of the dangers in anorexia and other eating disorders. In order to do that, Evans Young addressed the local media saying “Fat Woman Bites Back”. When she was interviewed on television, she “reminded” the audience to celebrate the International No Diet Day on May 6. This specific date had no specific reason other than its proximity to the television interview.
Followed that interview, feminist groups around UK celebrated the INDD, and as the years went by, groups in other countries around the globe started to celebrate this day, especially in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and Israel.
So whatever you do today, don’t diet. And maybe go enjoy a Chinese buffet.
Or celebrate the day by purchasing a copy of Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby‘s new book, Lessons From The Fat-O-Sphere: Quit Dieting And Declare A Truce With Your Body (currently the #1 bestseller at Powell’s). Kate’s been asking people to plug it for INDD, and I don’t have any hesitation about plugging it unread, because both those writers’ blogs kick ass.
I’m going to buy a chocolate bar right now. :D
Mmm…Chinese buffet. I had Chinese buffet last week, and now I don’t want to eat the lunch I brought to work.
While I totally agree with criticizing the diet industry and deplore the shaming of fat people that goes on in America, making people feel guilty about dieting doesn’t seem right.
Saying to people “whatever you do today, don’t diet” is fine for people who have a lot of options in life, but for a lot of us, being fat is a serious impediment to living a decent life.
Fat people have a much harder time getting work, something that isn’t easy to begin with right now. Dating is harder for fat people, because dealing with some people’s disgust, on top of the rejection that is an ordinary part of dating can be pretty devastating.
In my own case, I began a very intense diet and exercize regime in February because I found out I had diabetes. I have no insurance and can’t afford insulin, but by losing 70 lbs, I have gotten to the point that my blood sugar is fairly stable now. The weight loss has also helped my sleep apnea, another condition that I couldn’t afford medical treatment for.
Maybe for people with secure, middle-class jobs with good health insurance, the best thing to do about being fat is to shrug off the social pressures to diet and accept being fat as a part of who you are. However, many people don’t have that option, and advising them all to just give up trying to lose weight and accept being fat is not helpful. It is just condescending.
Jay, I’m sorry to hear about your health issues.
Here’s the thing: I don’t have a stable job. I work contract and freelance work. I don’t have anything other than the incredibly minimal health insurance that I pay for myself. And yet I still find my life incredibly enriched by refusing to participate in the ridiculous and arbitrary beauty standard and the current, utterly broken paradigm.
I started the Rotund, honestly, because I needed a place where I could articulate my own thoughts and see if anyone else felt the same way. Amazingly, lots of people, from all different walks of life, country, class, sizes, etc., feel the same way.
I’m not going to comment on whether or not your health is influenced by your fat – that’s a totally personal thing (as is Health At Every Size which we discuss in the book). But your other examples? It isn’t my fat’s fault that people are douchebags on the dating scene. It isn’t my fat’s fault that hiring managers make untrue assumptions about fat people. It’s the fault of the douchebags and the hiring managers! I think it’s time to hold them accountable instead of internalizing all of that misplaced blame, particularly when diets are proven to fail the vast majority of the time.
Sorry to be all earnest and impassioned, Ampersand! Thank you so much for linking to the book.
Totally true.
Unfortunately, also totally beside the point.
It’s like … I think it would be awesome for LGBT folks to come out of the closet, but if they’re living somewhere where employment discrimination against LGBT folks is fully legal, it’s inappropriate for me to snark at them for not.
Jay is talking about life survival stuff.
—Myca
yeah, Myca kind of articulates the tension I feel not with regards to fat acceptance, or even really not dieting(the extent of my “dieting” has been recently trying to decide that at a certian point, dinner is over and grazing all night is not good for me) but I guess in regards to totally saying “I don’t care what people think about how I look”. I’m not worried about my weight and dating-I’ve got a wonderful boyfriend who loves me at whatever size I am. But I’m terrified of hiring managers deciding I won’t be able to “sell the company image” or whatever. My weight just barely crosses into the overweight category from time to time, and I’ve seen some of the extra insurance fees people at my weight get when they have to buy insurance. I know that weight and health don’t have a direct correlation. but I couldn’t afford to pay some of the rates that they get charged.
Jay, I’m sorry you have health troubles (many of which I share, btw).
However, looking at our society as a whole, I can’t sign on to the idea that the problem is that fat people are under too much pressure not to diet. Your views are entirely within the mainstream, and get tons of support. It is the anti-diet views, and fat people who don’t want to diet and want to not feel guilty about that, who most need the support of ideas like International No Diet Day.
Seriously, Jay, if you need a diet support group, go find one. There are thousands. I promise, I will not attempt to stop you or to guilt you.
But when you come on to my blog and tell me that, out of consideration for you, I shouldn’t support an idea which is important to my health and well-being — well, you’re coming off as a little self-centered.
Agreed. (Although the dating problems, I’d attribute more to the way we’re taught to hate ourselves; it’s hard to have enough confidence to deal with dating when you’re full of self-hatred.) But none of that will change if we don’t fight back.
Great! This is, in most details, my own life story, although I’m lucky enough to be insured. But like you, I was diagnosed with diabetes (almost 2 years ago). Like you, I changed my diet (cut out carbs, which in my body tend to cause blood sugar spikes) and started exercising regularly. Like you, I lost a lot of weight (60 pounds, in my case).
That said, I never tried to lose weight — that was a side effect. And although I weigh less than I used to, I’m still fat by any definition.
Also, there’s lots of reasons to be skeptical. Yes, my blood sugar is under much better control now — but is that because I lost weight, or because I changed my diet and started exercising? Studies tend to show that the first five or ten pounds lost after a diabetes diagnosis make a big difference, but there’s not much evidence that a diabetic who loses 120 pounds is better off than one that lost 12 pounds, all else held equal.
Furthermore, two years isn’t very much time. The data is clear that the more time passes, the more likely it is that people who lost weight on a diet, will regain it. Is the lost weight really sustainable? Maybe it will be, for you — I hope so.
But we shouldn’t forget that weight-loss diets fail most people over the long run. So it’s really not a solution. That’s great for the 1 out of 20 it works for — but what about the other 19 out of 20? What’s the solution for them?
And by the way, even 60 pounds lighter, I’m still obese, by medical standards. I still face the discrimination you described. What should I do, according to you — give up on fighting discrimination and accept my lot, since dieting has not transformed me into a non-fat person?
(Note: The above paragraph is NOT an invitation for people to post their weight-loss tips. Weight loss tips will be deleted.)
When did all the working-class fat people — of whom I am one, by the way — get together and elect you our representative? I don’t remember voting for you.
Diets don’t work for 95% or more of fat people, if by “work’ we mean losing a substantial amount of weight and keeping it off over the long term. They just don’t. So if you’re saying that dieting is the only acceptable thing for us to advocate for fat people, you’re essentially throwing away the interests of 95% of fat people. That’s not something I’m willing to accept.
If you don’t want to join the anti-dieting parade, then don’t. But please don’t rain on it. Because dieting is working out for you (and, again, great!) doesn’t change the reality that it doesn’t work for 95% of fat people. What’s good for 95% isn’t less important than what’s good for 5%.
Hmmm… I didn’t see this as an attempt to shame fat dieters, but an attempt to shame the diet industry.
I don’t think anyone should be made to feel guilty for dieting. I do think, however, that people who are dieting or considering dieting should be warned about the dangers of diets and the low chances of long-term success. It’s not “dieting makes you a traitor” but “dieting may harm you and probably won’t make you thin.” Don’t feel guilty about trying to protect yourself from injustice by losing weight. Just be warned that it will eat into your time and energy and probably only make you appear acceptable to the bigots for a few months, after which you’ll return to your original size and have to deal with all the cruelty again.
I don’t mean the following as weight-loss tips, but to try to resolve something I don’t understand:
I was reading the interview of Kate Harding at salon.com and was a bit confused by her reference to being suckered by “lifestyle change” diets. My understanding is that diets generally don’t work because they’re not sustainable; people just can’t go through life without carbs (Atkins) or without fats or whatever part of the food pyramid the diet is urging you to cut out. When my mom tried the Weight Watchers and similar programs, she had exactly the health-harmful weight cycling, yo-yoing back and forth that Harding describes, because it was Diet Food.
On the other hand, when she did commit to a permanent change (more importantly in exercise than in diet; she’d been unwilling for years to do any exercise besides walking on a home treadmill, because she felt ashamed of her body and didn’t want to exercise in front of others), and perhaps more importantly when my dad also began needing to be conscious of his eating and exercising and could be a partner rather than a bystander, she could lose weight and maintain it. She has a lifestyle now that is supportive of her eating differently and exercising much more than she used to do — a lifestyle that is possible only because she is well-off (she can afford a weekly trainer, a gym membership, the time to prepare good food) and not necessarily accessible to everyone. But why, for people who can afford this, is a change in lifestyle considered inappropriate and more likely to do harm than good?
PG, “lifestyle change” diets have never been shown in a peer-reviewed study to lead to long-term, sustainable weight loss for the large majority of people who try them. Most people don’t find those lifestyle-and-exercise plans any more sustainable than any other diet, in the long term, and they don’t seem to have a better record than other weight-loss plans.
The reason I’d discourage someone, if they asked my advice, is that losing weight and then regaining it several times — which is the most likely outcome — is called “yo yo dieting,” and it can have bad long-term effects on health.
For someone who is health-conscious (and I emphasize that because imo it’s also fine to not be health-conscious) I think it makes far more sense to focus on regular exercise and eating healthy foods, and let the weight fall where it falls.
The one study that’s been done so far directly comparing a Health At Every Size approach with a weight-loss program found that the HAES program was more sustainable and because of that, had better outcomes. Which is pretty much the outcome I’d expect — “exercise” and “eat well” is a much more achievable goal than “lose weight.” So that’s why I’d recommend HAES, if someone asked me.
But isn’t “exercise and eat well” what lifestyle change is about? It seems like the difference between what my mom did and what HAES advocates is only a difference in motives; my mom wanted to lose weight as well as be healthier, whereas HAES discourages thinking about one’s weight at all.
Well, that’s not all HAES is, although it’s part of HAES (you can read the link for a further description of what they did). I think self-acceptance actually has physical health benefits, because it leads to reduced stress.
What happens if your mom (not thrilled with using such a personal example, but…) continues with her lifestyle change, but regains the weight, as most weight-losers do? If her primary measurement of success was the number on the scale, then she may find that it’s no longer worthwhile to continue her “lifestyle change.” But if she has another goal that’s more under her control — especially if she isn’t in that lucky 5% — then she’s more likely to maintain the new behavior.
There are hundreds of thousands of people dieting at any one time. If only 1% of those diets are successful, that’s still tens of thousands of success stories. But even if your mom is one of those tens of thousands, that doesn’t make what she did the best possible route for all fat people, most of whom will be part of the 95%, not part of the 5%.
Jay
“whatever you do today, don’t diet”
In a sense I agree with you. I’ve never warmed to INDD because for me, every day is a NDD.
I also think that it’s worth pointing out that there are different rules for people who have chronic disease- in this case diabetes- than there are for those who are free from disease and it does a disservice to both to mix them up.
Disease or illness of any kind usually means, more, not less conscious intervention, that is one of the primary roles of the conscious mind, to intervene and take the lead when natural processes need a bit of help.
One thing I’ve noticed about those diagnosed with diabetes is that they seem to lose a lot of weight. Apart from what I’ve said previously, the balance between threats to life, alters.
If you do not have a potentially life threatening disease, weight loss dieting is the overriding threat to you existence.
If the situation is reversed, then it that disease may become a more dominant threat.
I think having a no diet day is a nice concept and a good way of raising awareness about the diet industry, oppressive beauty standards etc. But telling people to stop dieting for a day seems like a bad idea in practice. Most dieters take treat days, because it’s Christmas or their birthday or they just plain can’t stand being hungry all the time any more. But stuffing yourself with food all day because it’s the one chance you’re going to get for months isn’t healthy, physically or psychologically.
The point of the HAES thing is not “keep eating rich foods until you absolutely can’t bear one more mouthful”; the point is that if you can eat when you feel hungry and don’t have to worry about forbidden foods, you can settle down to a pattern of eating that suits your body. Perhaps I’m being too picky, but I’d prefer an international stop dieting day, not just a day when you “treat yourself” to an “extra” slice of cake and then diet extra hard to “make up for it” for the next several weeks. Because that’s exactly in line with the standard dieting mentality, not subverting it at all.
Gah! I tried to resist the urge to go into an off topic rant about health insurance, but I failed. Jay’s post and others’ stories about their difficulty getting health insurance has destroyed my self-control.
No one should be in a situation where they can’t afford treatment for life threatening diseases like sleep apnea and diabetes. Especially no one in a wealthy country which could easily afford to provide good health insurance to all its citizens if it only had the political will. This link to employment is insane! No first world country leaves its citizens without health insurance simply because of their employment situation. Heck, the more ambitious developing countries don’t either. Only truly corrupt and incompetent governments allow people to die unnecesssarily from preventable and treatable illnesses.
Jay and Amp both mention diabetes. They both made lifestyle changes and improved their glucose control. Great! I’m happy for both of you. However, my guess (and, of course, I neither know nor should know the details of your medical history so I could be completely wrong) is that you would still be better off with a number of potential medical interventions, including frequent monitoring of your blood sugar, checks for complications, an ACE inhibitor if you have protein in your urine, and probably a glucose lowering agent because depending on what you mean by better control, you may still have hyperglycemic spikes that may be doing damage to your body.
Even assuming both of you have gotten your blood sugar under excellent control, are effectively now non-diabetic, the same is not true for every diabetic without health insurance. And they’re going to have a stroke or heart attack or severe gastroparesis and end up in the hospital. They’ll get a bill they can’t pay, possibly go bankrupt trying to pay it, and the cost will be passed on to the taxpayer. Pay for someone’s metformin or pay for their cardiac bypass–it’d be cheaper and better for everyone to do the first, but our current system sets things up so that we end up doing the second. We’d spend less public money on health care if we had a universal health care system as well as getting better outcomes.
Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Amp, Jay, and anyone else in that situation, please take care of yourselves and consider looking into whatever public aid for health care is available in your area.
What Dianne said.
NO HEALTH INSURANCE just jumped right out at me in those posts, diets be damned. This state of affairs is just an abomination.
I think Dianne and Daisy misread my post. I wrote:
I certainly agree with Dianne about insurance. I didn’t mean to suggest that my story parallels Jay’s in every way — as far as insurance goes, I’m definitely one of the lucky ones.
My apologies. I did misread your post. Or possibly didn’t read the post closely enough and made an unwarrented assumption. Nonetheless, I stand by the content as a general statement, just retract its application to amp.
Incidentally, most of what I’ve read on diabetes (and I’m no endocrinologist so take my statements with caution) suggests that changing one’s diet (decreasing concentrated sweets and fats, for example) and increasing exercise can decrease the chance of developing diabetes or improve glucose control whether weight is lost or not. Internists frequently use weight loss as a surrogat marker for compliance with a low fat/cholesterol or low concentrated sweets diet (if you radically decrease the amount of fat you eat you are likely to lose a small amount of weight in the short run) but I’ve never seen any convincing evidence that weight loss is the mechanism by which these interventions work.