susanstinson

Three ways of looking at fat bodies:

There will be a screening of the short film Nothing to Lose by Robert Y. Chang (oops, I mean tonight!) May 8, at the Landmark Theater on East Houston Street in New York City. Robert (who has a quiet, engaged, respectful presence) did some filming for this at the Fat and the Academy conference, but I think that the central focus in on fat activists who are members of the NYC NAAFA chapter.

The screening is part of a group of short films called Docs on the Edge, and he says that anyone just interested in his film could come at intermission, shortly before eight, to see his piece in the second half of the program. But the rest of the program (click "events poster) looks pretty fascinating, including what I think might be a documentary about the owner of beccawrites' favorite hot dog stand, if he's from Bangladesh...

I'm going to the ASDAH conference in Cleveland in June, which has a Health at Every Size focus on alternative ways to think and practice about fat and health.

The HAES (Health at Every Size) movement is a continuously evolving alternative to the weight-centered approach to treating clients and patients of all sizes. It is also a movement working to promote size acceptance, to end weight discrimination, and to lessen the cultural obsession with weight loss and thinness.

The basic tenets of Health at Every Size, as stated in the literature of ASDAH, are:
- Accepting and respecting the diversity of body shapes and sizes
- Recognizing that health and well-being are multi-dimensional and that they include physical, social, spiritual, occupational, emotional, and intellectual aspects
- Promoting eating in a manner which balances individual nutritional needs, hunger, satiety, appetite, and pleasure
- Promoting individually appropriate, enjoyable, life-enhancing physical activity, rather than exercise that is focused on a goal of weight loss
- Promoting all aspects of health and well-being for people of all sizes
I haven't seen it, but my brother sent me an email this morning to say that in this week's People magazine, in the middle of an article about a woman recovering from exercise bulemia (page 166 or so), there's what he thinks is a photocopy of the cover of my first novel, Fat Girl Dances with Rocks in her journal about her recovery.

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