FA, HAES, and Bodily Autonomy

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.