Fat and Not Afraid

It's official; I've hung up my oven mitts.  For the past 6 years I've been the chef; I've made food that's tasty, usually not burnt, mostly nutritious and on the table when we're hungry.  All of a sudden, just the past two weeks or so, the hubby has jumped in and started cooking.  He had to cook while I was away in Thunder Bay, mind you, and I heard tales of porkchops and maple syrup, stir fry and other yummies, but hadn't SEEN any since I came home.  And now?  Now we have the yummy.  He's created something that's simmering on the stove, something with steak and tomatoes and peppers and garlic and oooooh it smells so good!  When it's done on the stove, it's going layered over chopped up potatoes, then put in the oven, and then at some stage is getting covered in shredded cheese.  I have no idea what it IS, but I can't wait to eat it. 

It's kind of funny, but I'm hoping that him stepping up in the kitchen will get me excited about food again.  Also, with the way he keeps throwing veggies around, I can see my immune system improving.  I'm actually looking forward to eating dinner, maybe because I didn't make it.  I haven't been a GREAT cook, mind you; I'm a little absent minded and my food isn't always that flavourful.  I don't know; for a while now cooking's been just another chore around here, like laundry or the dishes, something I just do because it's something I do.  Comments about my cooking from Ryan usually include "It's good." or "It's OK."  I don't even like my own meatloaf.  Gabe still wont eat what we do, but I chock that up to also not eating at the table together, which I completely blame on Ryan.  If we sat down together every night at the table and ate, I think he'd eat what we eat.  But, since I can't convince Ryan to sit, there's no way I can get Gabe to do it.  Oh well.   At least Gabe likes to help out in the kitchen by 'making' food or doing the dishes.

Edited to add:  Yup, I thought so; tastes as good as it smells, is very filling and full of flavour! <3

For me, the concepts go hand in hand.  Fat acceptance, to me, is about daring to love yourself the way you are, daring to not diet, daring to speak up against bogus research and people in your life who spout the claims of the diet and 'health' industry like it's law or something.  Health at Every Size is SO important and ties in so beautifuly to fat acceptance; I really don't think you can have one without the other.  Can you be fat accepting if you're still in the mindset that your fat is going to harm you?  I don't think so, because those fearful thoughts will poison any attempt at fat acceptance.  Health at every size is important as well because it goes BOTH ways.  I've got a couple of very dear friends who are very small; and by very small I mean they can shop in the children/teen section of Zellars if they want.  Lightly boned, almost pixie-like in stature, I know that in the past I've made remarks about their size; shouldn't you eat more? Got room for all that?  You're so tiny! (I'm so jealous!), etc.  In the past 2 years I've been reading the Fatosphere, I've come to realize that those comments are as harmful as someone commenting to me "Should you REALLY eat that?" or "You could lose a few pounds."  One of those dear friends mentioned did have an eating disorder, but is now thankfully recovered.  I hope that my thoughtless, rude comments didn't contribute to it, though I realize they may have. 

At any rate, what does this have to do with bodily autonomy?  This concept is, to me, the absolute basic and most important aspect of fat acceptance and health at every size.  If you don't have the right to do whatever you want with your body, to look how you want, to dress how you want, then you don't have much of anything, do you?  If I don't have the right to say 'no' to organ donation, for example, or the right to an abortion* if I need one, I don't have bodily autonomy.  Someone else gets to tell me how to take care of my body, what I supposedly *have* to do.  I don't buy into that, not one bit.  It's taken a few years, but I've realized that accepting the fact that my body is mine, is liberating.  If I want three cookies with my after dinner tea instead of two, I'll have three.  If I don't want to excersize, that's my right.  If I do, that's my right too.  Noone else has the right to tell me what to do with my body, and noone can make me.  I like that.  In that vein, I refuse to diet.  We know diets don't work for long-term weightloss and they certainly aren't great for your overall longterm health.  I know I *should* work out and be more active, if for the simple fact that my son is quickly going to out pace me at his rate of growth and I NEED to be able to keep up.  But the more I think about how I *should* do this, the less I want too. 

Fat acceptance, health at every size and bodily autonomy; the three amigos who are helping me to live a better life.  Really, could I ask for better guides?

*Comments should focus on the overall topics of FA, HAES and BA.

I'm going to come right out at the beginning and say that I love the movie Wall*E.  The animation is crisp and engaging, the story is one I can really get behind and the characters all have a wonderful depth.

When Wall*E first came out, there was a lot posted about it in the Fatosphere because a lot of people took offense that the only humans in the film were fat.  Not only were they fat, they were all using to hover-chairs, drank/ate everything from a cup via straw and appeared to have absolutely no interest in the ship they lived on or the people on it.  Even the babies at the "All Day Care" were in little hover seats and red jumpers, pleasantly plump and with soothers in their mouths.  It appeared to be a very large, very pointed slap in the face to fat people everywhere, and I can completely understand why people would think that and understand where they're coming from. 

However, maybe because I love Pixar a little too much or maybe because I'm Canadian and less inundated with the OMG FATTIES R BAD!!! messages, I look at Wall*E a little differently.  This is my take, and your mileage may vary.  After 700 years on a spaceship in low gravity, the brief explanation given by the head of Buy and Large Corp doesn't hold a lot of water; if the entire ship's cargo of people had been experiencing zero-gravity for the last 700 years, severe atrophy and osteopenia (that's bone loss similar to osteoperosis) would have occured and the people on the ship would likely, by that point, have no skeleton at all.  But they didn't have zero-gravity, just the hoverchairs and low gravity environment , so the osteopenia is out.  One would also hope that the hoverchairs wouldn't have been SO popular at the beginning of the voyage that the atrophy experienced by those using them (essentially putting themselves on voluntary bedrest) that when it was noticed, it was treated with excersize.  The chairs are advertised by B&L for those with physical disabilities so "even grandma can join the fun!", so I can't really see everyone rushing to use them.  The ads for the voyage we see Wall*E wander by during the opening scenes of the movie show what we would normally see in an ad; healthy, fit looking people, not a bunch of listless, bored, fat folk.

All of that aside, what I really wanted to focus on was not how or why the people on the Axiom became the way they are, but how they're treated by the robots who run the ship.  In many ways, the people on the Axiom are treated like babies; their every need and desire taken care of.  There's no desire to learn or work, a complete atrophy of the body, mind and spirit.  The way the people are so wrapped up in their own needs and desires is JUST like that of a newborn; there's nothing there yet but satisfaction of personal need.  Even into the age of 2, a lot of kids don't want to interact WITH other kids, they want to hang out NEAR them but still do their own thing.  We see a lot of that in Wall*E.  There's basically no human interaction (which makes you wonder where the babies in the daycare came from) until two humans are influenced by Wall*E and reach out to each other, almost by accident.  To me, the people in Wall*E aren't horribly obese, stupid and lazy, they're infantilized by the robots and treated like babies for their entire lives.

I'd add more but someone is pulling at my arm to go play "Find the Animals"! which is much preferable to watching Eragon.

I've had a partially incomplete thought rattling around in my head for some time now. We say, you can be fat and healthy. This is obvious, as being fat by itself doesn't really affect your health. However! I wonder, and am looking for opinions on, being fat and FIT. Being fit is different, in my head, than just plain healthy. Healthy to me means you're not sick. You're neutral. It's ok, but being fit would be better. Fit is being in top condition, or as close as you can get. Fit isn't necessarily marathon runner ready, but maybe it's better than most of us are. I'm fat and healthy, but I'm not very fit. Do you see where I'm going with this? What do you think?