"Fat Talk Free Week"

In many ways, I've been very lucky.

Throughout my life I've been surrounded by family who have taught me that I am beautiful inside and out--and that it's the inside that's more important, anyway. Still, I have strong arms and hands that have enabled 14 years of playing the piano, legs that have sustained 4 summers of volunteer work projects in Appalachia, and an entire body's worth of ability and blessings.

And yet, our culture's endorsement of the "thin ideal" has still managed to manipulate my image of myself. Until this moment I've silenced myself about body image issues over the past 10 years, unable to identify with the language of the conversation--mostly because the thin ideal had such a tight hold on it:

• Since I heard it in junior high for the first time, "You look great! Have you lost weight?" has never felt like a compliment--especially when I heard it from my 13-year-old friends...and their mothers.
  
• I've been consistently upset by TV spots like The Biggest Loser--both the competitive concept and the tongue-in-cheek derogatory name of the show.
• Hearing other women in my life talk about how they need to lose weight (often women who weighed far less than I did) felt like a personal attack and judgment against me.
  

Tri Delta, the fraternity for women of which I'm a proud alumna, is sponsoring "Fat Talk Free Week" this week, to reject the hold that the thin ideal has on our culture and the people in our lives that we love.

Fat Talk Free® Week 2009 (Oct 19 – 23) is an international, 5- day body activism campaign to draw attention to body image issues and the damaging impact of the ‘thin ideal’ on women in society. This 2nd annual public awareness effort was borne from Tri Delta’s award-winning body image education and eating disorders prevention program, Reflections.

Finally there is a campaign against the damaging rhetoric of "fat talk"--rhetoric that has led to 81% of 10-year-olds being afraid of being "fat." Another statistic with which I can personally identify is that 1 in 4 women have avoided engaging in a physical activity or sport because they feel badly about the way they look. "Fat talk" is corrosive; 10 million people nationwide suffer from eating disorders (http://www.endfattalk.org/stats.html).

The campaign's message, "Friends Don’t Let Friends Fat Talk" challenges us to be proactive, not silent. Challenge those you hear who qualify their self-worth by a size or number. With love, offer alternative paradigms for self-esteem. We can prevent eating disorders through "body activism," shifting the way we see, think about, and talk about our bodies.

Consider: Who is overhearing what you say, and how is it affecting that person today, tomorrow, and throughout her life?

So this week, change your language. Change the minds of those in your life. Change your own mind. Reclaim and celebrate your whole self--including your body!

I reclaim my body as a beautiful gift that enables me...
to serve others, to play volleyball, to dance the Cupid Shuffle at wedding receptions, to move in and out of 9 temporary homes in the past 5 years, to travel to visit friends and family, to hug my aging grandmothers, to roll around in piles of leaves on my walk into the office (okay, I haven't done that one yet, but I've been tempted these days)...

How can you reclaim and celebrate who you are?
I'm starting with this.

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For more information, visit:
http://www.endfattalk.com/
http://www.bodyimageprogram.org/
http://www.tridelta.org

The Sound of Silence

I have lived the past 10 weeks of my life in more silence than ever. And, for an extrovert, that's been one heck of an loud statement about what I'm trying to value.

I should have seen this coming back in February, when I experienced a little prong trouble. My ol' faithful laptop of 4.5 years lost its middle electrical outlet prong when it became stuck in the dining hall wall socket--during the middle of rushing (unsuccessfully) to meet a senior project deadline over a plate of ranch dressing and tater tots. Overall, it was a fairly unpleasant situation.

At the risk of being electrocuted, I pried out the prong with my size 9 fingertips and carried it in my pocket for the next 4 months, always having to line it up exactly in the hole so that the charge would pass through it (in case you're wondering...). It worked until May, when my pesky middle prong became lodged in an especially snug outlet, never again to see the light of day or of an electric charge. So, I made a promise to myself: For the summer, I'd experiment with not having a computer at home. Though I could access my favorite networking sites from the office, I'd have to find ways other than facebook, Twitter, Flash Player, Bookworm, etc. to occupy my free time in the evenings. And, with more outdoor reading, exercising, and journaling than ever, I was grateful for my summer of relative silence.

Similarly, when I moved into a new apartment later in the summer, there was a debate about who would pay for cable, and I opted not to fight for it. So, I've been television-less at home (and computer-less) for about the past 6 weeks. Though I've watched dvds and sometime hooked up my mp3 player to my speakers for some Girl Talk, Ingrid Michaelson or DJ Felli Fel, I've had to grow accustomed to being in silence.

Which is scary, I always say, because I'm never sure what I'll hear when I'm in the midst of it.

Contemplation is a scary word for a woman who knows she has much introspection and personal development to do. I've always been drawn to contemplative lifestyles--especially when they're coupled with action--and committing myself to such praxis has been my goal for years. There's something so beautiful about making a commitment to living more intentionally.

But, no matter how hard I try, I find myself sleeping in before work rather than waking up, leisurely reading the paper and praying in the space of my bedroom which I've specifically committed (and not yet used) for this very ritual. I want so much to balance my loud and involved lifestyle with some centering silence every day, and yet something holds me back. Whether its the fear of routine or the practice of being silent itself, it's a struggle I've been trying to embrace.

Three weeks ago, a new computer cord came to me in the mail. Last week, the cable company surprised me and came to my apartment, and I'm now hooked up with 70 channels. To be honest, I'm missing the silence, even though I don't take advantage of it as much as I should.

But who knows: Maybe it will be more of a statement if I choose silence--even if I don't know what to do with it--rather than forcing myself into it.

"Coming out" of class identity

Mother/daughter shopping trips can be exhilarating. Regardless of how old you are, when your mom says "Why don't I take you shopping?" that implies that she's probably going to be the one to pay. Not one to argue with her maternal instincts (well, at least not in this case) I took her up on the offer--even though I knew her picking up the tab was conditional on me buying "conservative clothes for work, not for the bar." Overall, a great trade--not to mention that the older I get, the more I value one-on-one time with the truly important people in my life, so it seemed like this shopping trip truly was going to be worth my flying overnight trip home.

I'm grateful to have my mother's gene of only buying expensive things when they prove to be sufficiently practical and useful--and even then, not to spend more than $30 or $40 on any one item, save the occasional winter coat (this was our incredible deal today, complete with %25 off). And, our middle class identity (hard-earned by parents who worked and went to college full-time for the first 2 years of their marriage when I was born, wow) influences both how we shop and how others expect us to shop.

As we went to ring up our purchases, my generous mom, compassionate to my current financial situation, was stunned when the computer refused to accept her check. We were told it was a security measure, because she had already written one other check that morning, so it appeared that she could be scamming checks. Instead of feeling secure, though, my mom was disempowered; her well-earned buying power was stripped of her because the people at the check insurance company didn't believe she was who she said she was over the phone.

But the most embarrassing part, I was told, was that the nearby customers overhearing her politely plead her case to the insurance company over the phone didn't believe that she actually had an entire paycheck in her checking account. We looked like people who insisted we had money when we didn't, and, my mom told the sales associate, "That is humiliating."

I couldn't help but wonder, Why is it embarrassing to look like we don't have buying power? Wouldn't it be more empowering to deconstruct class structures by being unafraid to appear/be underclass--even in front of a crowd of fellow bargain shoppers at an upper-end department store?

I'm reminded of what I learned in a guided diversity dialogue about sexual identity. One of the best ways for straight people to be allies of the queer community is to be unafraid to be presumed to be queer themselves. If a person doesn't see identities other than their own as negative, then to be mistaken for something else isn't threatening.

And yet, maybe my mom's frustration wasn't that she was presumed to be someone negatively viewed; maybe it was that she was presumed to be anybody other than who she actually is.

As we approach Coming Out Day this year, I hope that people everywhere can find the courage and the safety to be and to say proudly who they are. Identity isn't zero-sum; there's always room for flexibility and clarification. So, if there's someone in your life who is making inappropriate assumptions about you, do what you can to find your voice...or at least an alternative means of payment.