Thin or dead

Ragen Chastian wrote an article Recognizing and Resisting Diet Culture for the National Eating Disorders Association. By diet culture she means both industries that sell diet plans and medical professionals who obsess over weight. I talk a lot about various forms of supremacy on this blog. This is thin supremacy. She lists several signs that diet culture and fatphobia are at work and how to resist them. My summary:

* Diet culture conflates size and health and treats some body sizes as intrinsically unhealthy. They give an evidence based treatment to thin people and diets to fat people. These diets can be such that if given to a thin person we would call it an eating disorder. But there healthy and unhealthy people in all sizes. Work for health at every size.

* Diet culture encourages following external rules about what, when, and how much to eat. Such rules when followed by a thin person would be red flags for eating disorders.

* Diet culture says that body size determines a person’s goodness, morality, and worthiness. It says that fat people should be stereotyped, shamed, stigmatized, and harassed. This leads to size-based oppression, including internalized oppression. Marilyn Wann said, “The only thing anyone can diagnose by looking at a fat person is their own level of prejudice toward fat people.”

* Diet culture creates thin privilege. It is created by a world that accommodates thin bodies. In this case it may be up to thin people to speak up against such things as fat people being asked to buy two airline seats.

* Diet culture suggests exercise is punishment for being fat or that exercise (even though it has been done all along) will melt the pounds away. People exercise because they enjoy it or get benefit from it. Exercise or movement or the lack of either is not a measure of worthiness.

* Diet culture views fat people as risk-able. Such things as stomach amputation (bariatric surgery) and diet drugs carry a great deal of risk. They have lifetime side effects and can kill.

Diet Culture creates a belief that it’s ok to risk the life of a fat person in order to make them a thin person. Diet Culture wants fat people to be thin or dead, and doesn’t seem to care much which.

It is never appropriate to risk a fat person’s health to turn them into a thin person.

* Diet culture is dangerous for those with or recovering from an eating disorder.