Our culture often conflates "fat" with unhealthy. I feel a lot of pressure from people to push my body to meet an ideal size/image by dieting and exercising. Even though I definitely am a curvy woman, I am not unhealthy. I get very, very tired of this pressure, seemingly from every possible direction, that my body does not "fit".
Even if I was totally sedentary, non-vegetarian, "overweight" or whatever, what gives people the right to police my body and what I put into it? This is not just about body-size and food consumption, this reflects a larger cultural trend of marginalizing non-normative others. Yet, sizeism continues to exist on the margins of feminist scholarship and activism. Size issues are inherently interrelated with other social issues. Ignoring one issue because it's "not personally relevant" or "too hard to understand" are excuses to ignore the effects of sizeism in our culture. What stops sizeist practices from policing what medications you choose to take (i.e.: contraceptives)? Whether or not you are allowed to have custody of your children (i.e.: the court case where a "fat" woman was putting her child "in danger" after feeding them a burger)?
Advocating around specific issues is good; however, it needs to go farther than that for effective social transformation. We have to see all issues of marginalization as inherently interrelated and of concern to feminists, womanists, and social justice activists. Otherwise, what stops us from perpetuating the same forces we are trying to fight?
(Image courtesy of "Fat Bitch Zine" by Aimee Fleck: http://aimeefleck.blogspot.com/2011/05/fat-bitch-1-zine-update.html)
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