Before and After (and Before): The Right to Be Pretty

Is fat acceptance working?

I’d been trying to avoid weight loss ads, but found myself recently paying attention to them … with a new focus.

Before pictures in weight loss ads look GOOD to me! I think FA is working for my eyes, and it gives me hope that we can change everyone’s eyes and add a new way of looking at fat.

Allowing myself the possibility that fat can be attractive, to not automatically discount it because I’m instructed by my culture to do so has lifted the scales from my eyes — well, maybe except for the corner of one eye I use to look at myself sometimes.

I am proof people CAN change how they look at fat! I never thought I could but it’s happening. This is a new one for me, and I credit fat acceptance.

Here’s a woman before and after WLS:

I think she looked great before she had the surgery.

Here’s Christian Finnegan, “Best Week Ever” panelist:

He’s even cuter before.

Here’s another woman, this time after WLD:

She was just as pretty before the weight loss.

These are but three examples. When I happen upon a weight loss ad or a weight loss reality show, I catch myself finding the participants just as attractive as (or even more so) before the weight loss. Yes, the “after” shots in these before&after’s are better quality pictures usually: new hairstyle, make-up, dressed to the nines in well-fitting clothes. But it’s really the confidence the “before” is lacking that the “after” has when basking in societal approval. Confidence is so, so much to do with it. That is exactly what we must claim/reclaim: the confidence to exist just the way we are.

I recently came across my diet journal, which includes various snippets of “thinspiration,” including the “Half Their Size!” People magazine from January ’06 (I got this to plaster on my wall for motivation). Looking at it now, with new eyes, I see how many of the before pix are showing beautiful people the way they are … it’s really the confidence to own themselves that’s lacking, if anything.

One note to myself in my horridly dysfunctional diet journal is that “even plus size YIM avatars look bad.” Jeez, how brainwashed was I?

They actually look closer to “average size” than plus size, IMO. And they look great. I think it’s cool Yahoo Avatars added some plus size outfits. I wish they’d take it even further.

It’s really such a pleasant surprise, this new way of looking at fat. Some imagery not in the before/after vein that has also helped widen my perspective include Beth Ditto on the cover of NME, the adipositivity project (here’s my current fave from there [NSFW]), and — OK, this one’s a bit unusual, but — the guy from the “American Idol” auditions who dressed like Princess Leia from the beginning of Return of the Jedi:

I may be in the minority on this one, but I think his body looks good with the outfit. And oddly enough, it’s made me think that maybe, just maybe, if I wanted to cosplay as Princess Leia or any character, I could do that and enjoy myself. I never thought this before. Cosplay was definitely out of bounds for me because of my fat, pre-FA.

I realize some people think the “right to be pretty” isn’t important. But I do. Here’s why.

The “right to be pretty” isn’t frivolous. It’s the right to EXIST. To be indoctrinated that NO ONE could ever possibly find you attractive is to negate your very existence. It denies not only your looks but also it says that no other part of you can possibly make up for your looks — your “lack of good looks” eclipses the rest of you as a person. It wants to render you worthless.

“Such a pretty face … if only …”
“All fat women can do to be attractive is their nails.”
WTF? How dare people be so narrow-minded as to dismiss a whole PERSON based on one attribute (fat).

To tell (and convince) fat people that they are unattractive is to dehumanize them. It seeks to make a part of them worthless and that can bleed into other areas of their lives. The “right to be pretty” is a step in accepting the whole person and normalizing fat bodies. The urge to mate is a strong biological drive — if not the strongest (rivaled only by, what, eating and drinking?). Beauty is tied to attraction is tied to love. Teaching a fat person she/he is unattractive forevermore is teaching her that she’s unlovable and unhuman.

It’s a tool of the haters to say (and make us and others believe) fat=ugly. How do those types of people even know if they naturally find fat people unattractive? They didn’t grow up in a vacuum. They grew up in an anti-fat culture! They weren’t allowed to view fat as attractive, if they chose to.

We really can’t pretend that there’s no conditioning involved when it comes to attractiveness. It is not solely biological/genetic/primal. When TPTB decide someone’s “The Hottest” and you just kinda scratch your head. Hrmm. Everyone, it seems, jumps on the bandwagon. Double hrmm. For me, examples include Gisele Bundchen and Jennifer Barretta. I know some find them “hawt” and I can understand why, even though I don’t agree (I especially don’t agree that pool table+bikini is hot, let alone makes any sense).

But sometimes I really do believe regular folks think a certain celeb is hot merely because they were told to. I came across a very interesting comment a few years back that suggested had Hugh Hefner’s preference run toward darker and larger women, that would be the current beauty ideal. It’s a fascinating and scary hypothesis to think that one man has managed to impose his aesthetics on the rest of his culture.

Do you ever get the sense that people just do as they’re told when it comes to what’s/who’s considered attractive? Like, the media decides a certain starlet is über-hot, and all of a sudden, the majority follows suit. I find it especially jarring when the “celebrated hottie” is actually not hot at all. Equally frustrating is when I find a person beautiful, but their body type dictates they aren’t permitted to be considered beautiful. Like why are “butterfaces” (a horrible term, yes) still categorized as “hot,” but the inverse (butterbodies? i.e., beautiful faces with not conventionally attractive bodies) not?

“A resourceful woman who is almost downright plain can achieve the reputation of a beauty simply by announcing to everybody she meets that she is one.”
–Erté

It’s what the media does, too. Many “Most Beautiful/Most Sexy/Most Hottest” are but constructions of the media.

The women (all celebs, natch) considered “the most beautiful in the world” are considered ugly by some. Those same non-fans acknowledge the fans’ ability to find the celebs attractive. Clavicles showing (I remember that part in The English Patient, the Almásy Bosphorous) — I don’t find that in the least attractive, but I can see why others do. That’s what’s missing when it comes to the general view of fat and attractiveness — an as-you-please to be “permitted” to find whatever you like attractive. Again, attracted to versus finding attractive are two different things. I am not attracted to women, but I find a great many of them attractive.

Frankly, I don’t find bones sticking out attractive. I know some do, and I see how they can be seen as attractive. That’s all I ask/hope for when it comes to fat. If you don’t find it attractive (and I don’t believe this is an innate, primal preference at all … I think it can be learned/unlearned), at least open your eyes wide enough to see how someone else can see it as attractive. I mean, it has worked in the opposite direction, hasn’t it? The media has presented us with ever-shrinking ideals, and for the most part, we seem to have accepted them (as a society). Why wouldn’t a more inclusive media representation of beauty not only work in broadening our attraction horizons, but in increasing our respect for everyone, no matter how they differ from us?

And I may be El Capitan Obvious here, but if the media chose to feature different sizes, those sizes would become accepted. If men and women were told it was OK to find a plus-size woman/man attractive by virtue of one being on the cover of FHM or whatever, they would/could find them attractive. They’d be given permission to and perhaps allow themselves or at least others to, too. I wish for a democratic view of attractiveness and beauty. I think a great deal more people are and can be considered attractive than currently “permitted” — by themselves and their societies.

When fat people view themselves as ugly, it reminds me of how fat peoples’ lives are adversely affected by the ill treatment they receive because they’re fat, NOT adversely affected by the fat itself. Perhaps fat people believe they are ugly because of the treatment they receive, not because of their fat itself.

The “right to be pretty” is twofold: from within and from without.

On the right to be pretty from within, here’s a comment I saved from Jezebel.com by girlinterrupted:

“It’s so easy to love yourself. You just DO IT. You wake up one day sick of hating yourself, sick of the energy wasted on hating yourself and trying to change yourself, sick of the fact that whether you are fat or skinny, society will still judge you, and you realize that all you have to do to win is drop out of the fucking race. And you DO IT. It’s so easy.

I have worn a size 14/16 since puberty. I woke up one day with big boobs, big hips, and my period, and that was all she wrote. When I hated myself, I didn’t get hit on. Now I get hit on every day. The only thing that has changed? My attitude.

Seriously, love yourself. It’s so much easier than hating yourself.”

If we can convince ourselves we deserve to love ourselves and be loved (and do it), that would convince us that we don’t deserve the ill treatment. To stand up for oneself, one must respect oneself: the “right to be pretty” represents that self-esteem. It could just as easily be the right to be smart, the right to be industrious, the right to smell good, the right to be fit — anything that contradicts the tired old stereotypes used as weapons against fat people. The “right to be pretty” is a right that’s more than skin-deep. It’s the right to exist in the world. To be seen and looked upon. The right to allow oneself to be seen as pretty. The right to allow others to see you as pretty. It’s really about the right to be seen, to have a visual voice.

On the right to be pretty from without — I’ve covered this quite a bit above, but also a lot of what the “fat is unattractive always” bleaters find attractive IS a result of conditioning. So it wouldn’t kill them to broaden their perspective. I have done so. It came out of the blue and was a very nice surprise, but I just have to wonder since it’s happened for me, can it happen for others?

So, no, fat-haters, I won’t ask you to be attracted to us. I will expect that you find us attractive — in that others have been, can be, and are attracted to us fat people and that you can appreciate why that is, if only you put your glasses on.

We fat people are dismissed on the basis of our looks. Why would it not be a worthy endeavor to fight for acceptance of our looks? According to the rest of the world, our looks and what they (erroneously) “prove” about our character ARE the problem. It’s the justification for discriminating against us. Even when a person concedes that fat is beyond a person’s control and is not unhealthy, etc. — he still ultimately says, “But it’s still fucking ugly.”

The “right to be pretty” is the right to *be* — and the right to be more inclusive.

You CAN be fat and beautiful
and fat and smart
and fat and fit
and fat and whateverthehellyouplease …

You CAN be fat and *BE*.

Kudos to you!

I would like to thank all the fat acceptance bloggers, readers, commenters, and lurkers. In building this community, you’ve exposed me to ideas that have helped me reclaim my life and my body. It’s hard to express how thankful I am for that.

I also wanted to thank Fat Fu for taking a chance on a new kid and adding me to the Notes from the Fatosphere feed. I am certain that had she not, this blog probably would not have been read even once. Notes from the Fatosphere has not only made my own FA blog-reading very convenient but also it’s helped give a shape to the FA community (“yes, round is a shape” ;)).

I’d like to give extra props to the bloggers that update frequently. I find it difficult to keep up with my own goal of posting weekly. So color me highly impressed that there are those of you who do so several times a week.

(Just felt like showing some love after Worth Your Weight turned six months old.)

Hated to Death

I recently encountered a statement along the lines of “No one has ever been killed by fat hatred.”

SeaFATtle’s A Place at the Table Memorials* asks us to reconsider if such a statement is true:

“A Place At the Table” honors the memory of people whose lives were needlessly shortened by size prejudice, discrimination based on weight, or fear of fat, and whose deaths were caused (or significantly contributed to) by such factors. Some of these people include:

• those who have died as a result of weight-loss dieting, including the immediate effects of crash diets, as well as the long-term harm caused by yo-yo dieting;
• those who have died from side effects and complications from weight-loss drugs like “fen/phen”;
• those who have died from weight-loss surgery and its complications, after having their health ruined and their lives shortened by its long-term effects;
• those who have died from eating disorders, which happen as a direct consequence of this culture’s phobia about fat and the resulting pressure to be thin at any cost;
• those who have been misdiagnosed, or received misguided or inadequate medical care, by practitioners and insurance companies who couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see beyond their size and treat the real problem in time;
• those who had been so mistreated and abused by the medical profession because of their weight that they lost all faith in it, and so failed to go for diagnosis and treatment for a problem until it was too late;
• those who were refused medical insurance because of their weight, or were denied jobs because of the size prejudice of potential employers, and were therefore unable to afford necessary medical treatment that could have prolonged or saved their lives;
• those who died in abusive relationships, whose abusers focused on their weight or used it as an excuse to continue their battering;
• those who, in moments of pain and despair when the fatphobic ridicule and rejection became too much to bear, have taken their own lives

The exhibit has 13 memorials thus far.  Each one is heartbreaking. Here is Kelly Yeomans’:

Kelly Yeomans was a thirteen-year-old girl who lived in Allenton, Derbyshire, a working-class town northeast of London. People described her as kind and caring, bubbly and charming. She played the tambourine in the Salvation Army Band. She visited with the elderly people at a local senior citizens’ home.

Kelly was teased and bullied by her schoolmates about her weight for years. They called her “fatty,” put salt in her lunch, and dumped her clothes in the garbage. Kelly tried to escape the abuse, to avoid giving the other kids the opportunity. She would wait until everyone else had gone before she’d leave gym class, so no one would see her in her gym clothes. She told school authorities that she was being harassed at school and at home, but nothing was done.

In the summer of 1997, the harassment got worse. For several nights running, a group of mo[r]e than a dozen teenagers gathered outside her family’s house. They shouted taunts, made jokes about lard and fat, and called her “Smelly Kelly.” They started tossing eggs at the house, and someone threw a package of butter through a window.

Kelly told her parents, “It’s nothing to do with you, but I can’t stand it anymore. I’m going to take an overdose.” Her family knew she was unhappy, but they didn’t believe she really meant it…but she did. On the night of September 28, Kelly Yeomans took an overdose of painkillers. Her parents found her dead in her bed the next morning.

*The site is currently down, but I’m linking to the Internet Archive’s cached version(s). Not all links may work, but I will update with a current link as soon as/if one becomes available.

Comparing oppressions

Again from Pattie Thomas’ “Top 10 Things I’m Tired of Discussing” (PDF) (well worth a read if you haven’t already):

Number 8
Whether it is fair to compare other stigmatized groups to stigma placed on fat people.

African Americans have a history of slavery and oppression that shapes their experiences in a way that no other group in this country can share. Native Americans have a history of cultural and literal genocide that no other group in this country can share. Homosexuals have a history of repression, criminalization and medicalization that few other groups have experienced. Women, poor people, various ethnic groups and so forth all have unique experiences as social groups that shape their lives and limit their life chances. These differences in culture and history create differences in group experience that both enriches and limits members of those groups.

But all these groups have stigmatization in common. The social mechanisms of stigmatization are shared with any group or persons that face a cultural belief that they are not human.
Making comparisons between fat people’s experiences and the more well-known experiences of other stigmatized groups is useful in order to illustrate how stigma works. One of the most insidious aspects of fat stigma is the assertion that fat people can help being fat and therefore are worthy of scorn. I reject this belief and often use comparisons with other groups to illustrate that the plight we face as fat people has parallels to other groups.

Making that comparison an issue because it somehow is insensitive to the unique experiences of other groups is a quintessential straw man or red herring. If someone wants to debate on that level it is obvious that they really don’t want to address the issue at hand and just want the discussion to end.

[And just my own afterthought. I believe fat hate is the last acceptable prejudice. Note I did not say “the last prejudice.” There’s a qualifier there.]

I Can Make You Privileged

Secrets of the naturally male …

Secrets of the naturally white …

Secrets of the naturally straight …

Coming soon to the TLC channel?

Touchstones

Whenever I feel adrift in the fat acceptance community and tempted to go to war against my body, these are the points I return to and that keep me anchored:

1. Fat people eat the same amount as thin people do. This is a fairly radical idea, but well documented in Gina Kolata’s Rethinking Thin. Junkfood Science talks about it, too. My mind often comes back to the woman who performed a size zero diet experiment and who pre-diet consumed around 2500 calories a day. The obesity experts would call that a good eating plan to get/stay fat. Yet, she is not fat.
2. Fat people are not fat because they under-exercise. In Glen Gaesser’s Calorie Myths lecture in 2007, he mentioned the results of a study that showed the difference in weight between the least active subjects and the most active was five to seven pounds. Laura Fraser, author of Losing It, puts the figure at four to seven.
3. Fat people are not fat because of psychological problems. From Rethinking Thin, pp. 93-94:

   The conclusion reached by Stunkard and others who were doing similar experiments was unmistakable: There is no psychiatric pathology that spells obesity. And there is no response to food that is not shared by people who are not fat. You can’t say you got fat because you, unlike thin people, are unable to resist temptation. Both fat and thin people are tempted by the sweet smell of brownies or the sight of a dish of creamy cold ice cream. You can’t say you got fat because there is a lot of stress in your life. Thin people are just as likely to eat under stress. You can’t say it was because you used food as a reward. If that is the reason, then why do thin people, who also use food as a reward, stay thin?

4. Fat does not equal unfit. Covered extensively in the Fatosphere, plus see the last paragraph under “About this blog”
5. Normal eating has zip to do with calories, carb count, and fat grams. See the Ellyn Satter quote here.
6. Fat is not an aberration; it’s a variation. Again, from Rethinking Thin (forgive me; it’s sort of become my FA bible), p. 115:

   The Rockefeller researchers explained their observations in one of their papers: “Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of this study was that the removal of obesity by means of caloric deprivation led to behavioral alterations similar to those observed in the starvation of non-obese individuals. It is entirely possible that weight reduction, instead of resulting in a normal state for obese patients, results in an abnormal state resembling that of starved non-obese individuals.”

   Eventually, more than fifty people went through the months-long process of living at the hospital and losing weight, and every one of them had these physical and psychological signs of starvation, Hirsch reports.

7. My most successful weight loss attempt killed my gall bladder. Even though for years doctors had recited the risk factors for gall bladder disease as “forty, fat, and female,” they never factored in the most important part of that equation. Fat females in their 40s are highly likely to have dieted repeatedly. Dieting is linked to gall bladder disease. I know we are expected to function without it, but I think the removal of my gall bladder has made digestion more difficult for me. If for nothing else, I vow not to harm my body and its organs again by dieting — a “prescription” that’s never been proven safe or effective yet ironically is looked at with inexplicable forgiveness when it comes to side effects and complications.
8. Exercising for fun and eating normally — NOT for weight loss — makes me feel good.

Weight is not a choice

This post has been sitting as a draft for a while, but a recent comments discussion at BABble made me decide to dust it off. I can see both sides of this issue. Of course on a personal level, the fat acceptance journey IS a process, but I can see where diet-friendliness at prominent FA blogs could be taken as potentially harmful to the movement. I can see it that way because sometimes I feel that way.

I’m not even trying to shun any blog/blogger or hate on them or shut them up. Far from it. But I’m offering this post as a way of explaining perhaps where the so-called “militant FAers” are coming from. Talking about weight like it’s a choice — by either having gained too much or by being able to lose some to a desired goal — makes the FA struggle harder. Maybe not on an individual level (although it does for me personally), but on a “change the world” level. This is all just my opinion. Of course, other FAers may see the movement succeeding in other ways. For me, the crux of changing people’s minds about fat people is convincing them that weight is not a choice. When FAers themselves believe weight is a choice, changing the status quo beliefs that fat people aren’t lazy gluttons seems practically impossible, IMO. I don’t think subtle nuances are going to work when dealing with the “radical” notion that fat people aren’t fat by choice.

There’s debate about this, but I just wanted to go on record about where I stand. Of course fat people deserve to be treated with basic human dignity, regardless of how they became fat. All people deserve to be treated with respect. However, I don’t think arguing this will ultimately further our cause.

For me, change will happen when we’ve finally convinced the world at large that fat is not a choice. I have heard fat hater after fat hater claim to “excuse” the fat people who became fat through no fault of their own: medication, disease, medical conditions, etc. Where could their hate focus if it turned out all fat people are fat through no fault of their own?

I know some in the movement disagree with the use of the comparison, but my mind returns time and again to the growing acceptance of gay people. While I do think my generation (Gen X) grew up more open-minded and tends to be more tolerant in all sorts of things (maybe because we were raised by baby boomers) — and I feel this was serendipity, in a sense — it seems to me that older folks or more close-minded people have come to be more accepting of gays as the word gets out that sexual orientation isn’t a choice, but a birthright. So I can’t help but believe the same would hold true for the acceptance of fat people.

Do I think gays deserve acceptance, equal rights, and kindness even if they chose to be gay? You bet. Fat people, too. But even though I tend to Pollyanna-ism at times, I don’t see it as realistic that the haters will wake up one day — or be convinced by reason, passion, or compassion — and understand that people are people and all are deserving of basic human rights no matter their “choices/preferences.” Just to be clear, though, being fat or gay or Asian or female is not a choice. It just is.

[Also for the record, since I’ve brought up the GLBT community and this is my blog and I can talk about whatever I want (^_^), I just wanted to say not all Christians are anti-gay or even hate-the-sin-not-the-sinner. I’m Catholic, and I believe that since Jesus was all about love and God made us how we are, whatever way that may be, the sexual/physical expression of any (adult) love — including love between non-heteros — is not a sin. It never could be.]

Subway’s Jared

Setting aside for a moment Subway Restaurants’ more recent disturbingly eating disordered commercials (one serving of fries makes you gain 20 pounds?!?), remember Jared and his “Subway Diet”? I just caught a commercial where they celebrate Jared’s 10 years of maintaining his weight loss.

So I decided to do some digging and see if Jared fits my pet theory about the 2 to 5 percent of dieters that maintain their weight loss after five years: basically by engaging in eating disordered behavior.

What I’ve found so far — and I’m probably going to keep looking — comes from an old version of the Wikipedia article on Jared. It states that he ate 1000 calories a day to lose the weight and now maintains at 2400 calories a day. Maintains a weight loss of 240 pounds. Yeah. Right. If this is true, what’s Jared piddling around with Subway for? He’s clearly solved the obesity problem and therefore should be crowned King of the World.

This story flies in the face of everything I’ve learned about dieting since beginning to raise my fat consciousness. If anyone can help me make sense of these claims, I’d be grateful. Sadly, I smell a six-inch rat sub on wheat and think there may be some stretching of the truth happening in this case.

Functional M&M’s

After an exchange I had in the comments to Lindsay’s great post at BABble, I realized I needed a reminder not to be seduced into using the HAES philosophy as an excuse for orthorexia and over-exercising. Especially because this current culture views both as paragons of healthy behavior.

I find it difficult sometimes to distinguish “healthy eating” attempts from dieting. At first, it felt like dieting, and dieting feels frickin’ awful. But a choice chunk of text from Laura Fraser’s book Losing It helped me get a grip. Here she quotes Ellyn Satter:

Normal eating is being able to eat when you are hungry and continue eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it — not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to use some moderate constraint on your food selection to get the right food, but not being so restrictive that you miss out on pleasurable foods. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad, or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times; feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. It is also undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food, and your feelings.

Awesome, isn’t it? What a revelation. Healthy eating is but one part of what Satter calls normal eating. I choose to think of it as functional eating (as opposed to dysfunctional eating). So if I hanker for a bag of M&M’s at the supermarket checkout, that can be a functional choice. When deciding on a side dish for dinner, opting for a small salad over the French fries can be quite functional, too — especially if the salad appeals and I know, hey, veggies are good for you (just like Mom says ;)).

I especially relate to the part where Satter talks of trusting your body. I recently stopped keeping count of the calories I consumed (I haven’t restricted the amount in almost a year), and it’s liberating and even pleasant to trust my body to keep track of the calories I need and don’t need and adjust accordingly. That’s one of its functions, no?

So I may be following HAES, but in my mind I call it FFAES: Functional and Flexible at Every Size. As has so importantly been pointed out before, mental health is a vital part of overall health. Functional eating can go a long way towards good mental — and physical — health.

Lady with the long neck

I’ve always wanted a long neck. I don’t have one. Short-ish necks tend to run in my family … who would’ve thought? LOL

Now, what to do about this desire? Admire paintings like Parmigianino’s Madonna with Long Neck (detail above). Draw sketches of myself with an impossibly long, giraffe-like neck. Grow my hair long. Wear V-neck tops or those with plunging necklines. I’ve done all of these things.

Then I learned about a practice of the Padung tribe of Thailand. I’m sure you know about it. Padung females wear rings around their necks in order to elongate them. They start at a very young age and add rings as the years pass.

I got very excited. (I was a teenager.) Maybe I could realize my dream of a long neck after all! But I found out that neck stretching is often painful and is actually deforming the collarbone and ribs to give the appearance of a longer neck. Sounded dangerous to me, and so while I sometimes catch myself wishing for a longer neck, it’s easy to dismiss because it’s not in the cards for me. Never was.

I’m also short LOL — I notice that it seems tall women’s height mostly comes from their necks. I’m about five foot three, five foot three and a half. Take a look at a tall woman’s neck sometime. They look to be about six inches long (about the length of a dollar bill). Give me my wished-for long neck, and I’d have height, too! I’d be around five foot nine.

Naturally, I’ve often wished I were taller. (“I wish I was little bit taller, I wish I was a baller” — anyone?) But really, aside from platform shoes à la Japanese Spice Girls, what can I do about it? Bupkis. And it doesn’t really bother me. In fact, I think short can be darn cute in its own right. I love Princess Leia all short and spunky barking orders while stomping between Chewbacca and Han Solo.

Being short doesn’t bother me anymore really. Any of the stuff on offer to “gain height” seems very scary and sketchy. So that sort of thing is pretty much off my radar. Mess around with supplements that stimulate the release of human growth hormone? Uh, no thank you. Bet it doesn’t work anyway.

I sometimes wish I weren’t fat. But the ways proffered to get unfat are just as dangerous, scary, painful, and unproven as neck rings and HGH-stimulating supplements. With that in mind, it’s much easier for me to quickly drop that “wish I weren’t fat” thought and move on. It makes it hard to obsess over my weight. It’s actually helping me to accept myself and my body on this come-as-you-are basis. As others in the fatosphere have noted, it’s hard to resist the urge and the imperative to diet. Looking at weight-loss efforts this way — on par with other willful deformation and tinkering with hormones — makes it all too clear what the sane and healthy path is … or the right path for me anyway.