Graceann Sep 13, 2014

it was amazing bookshelves: memoir, advice

Recommended for: Everyone 's review

I realize that I'm often prone to hyperbole, but for reasons that will become clear I find that it's justified here. This book is life-changing. Ragen Chastain takes 193 pages to help me look at my life in a whole new way, and I feel that in the days, months and years to come, I will have reason to thank her over and over again.



She takes the revolutionary approach that we are entitled to respect in the bodies that we have right now, simply because we are human beings who live in the World. Fat, thin, anywhere in between or beyond those parameters. She also takes the completely "out there" stance that, if there are people in the World who don't like her choice, that would be their problem and not hers. For this, she gets death threats. Apparently, not hating yourself leads to others hating you in a big, big way.



Ragen Chastain is an athlete, a championship dancer, and a fat person. She places in this book the results of the research that the rest of us (and I include myself here) are too busy or non-detail-oriented or just plain bored to do - she reviews, researches and reveals the pseudo-science (paid for by weight loss product manufacturers) that pushes us to be thin (at all costs) and, as a result, supposedly, healthy. And don't get her started on the abomination/abuse-fest that is The Biggest Loser. I've always agreed that this was a scarily dangerous show (no show where a contestant loses 34 lbs in ONE WEEK is promoting health). She then explains why weight and health are separate issues, and why she has chosen, for herself, an approach of living her life using healthy behaviors, and not bothering with numbers on the scale.



Did you know that BMI was created as a statistical tool and was never intended to assess a person's health? Since height and weight only tell you how tall you are and how much you weigh, and using a mathematical formula based on those two numbers only gives you a third number, this should be a no-brainer, but no, I thought that BMI had a basis in medical science. I was wrong.



Did you know that three diet-drug pharmaceutical companies and a high-up in Weight Watchers were four of the "experts" who determined that the BMI valuation should change, thus making 25 million Americans overweight, literally overnight?



Did you know that it's a perfectly valid choice to love yourself as you are, right at this very moment, and not accept the stigma and shaming that outsiders want to throw on you? This is huge to me. I have spent quite literally my entire life seeing people in magazines who just don't look like me. Being told that my injury-inducing workouts and starvation diets would work for me if I just "tried harder." Never hearing from anyone, including myself, that I was beautiful, just as I was, but that I *would be* beautiful if I just lost 50 lbs.



Nobody has ever suggested to me that it might be a good idea to eat a balanced diet, find movement that I enjoy and engage in that movement, and love myself as I am, without waiting for some magical "later" that would come when I joined the elusive 5% of dieters who succeed in their weight loss goals. Instead, no matter what I'm eating, there are food police right there who are more than willing to invade my space in order to tell me that those choices are wrong. No matter how I'm moving, there's always some dimwit who wants to shout "encouragement" like "we all have to start somewhere!" when I'm on the 9th mile of a 10-mile power walk.



Ragen tries to shine her light, hard-won through years of difficult work. She tries to give those of us who have been stigmatized (and educate those with privilege) the information we need to navigate this life.



There are practical and very helpful discussions of how to handle Flying While Fat, how to engage (or not) in useful discussions/teachable moments when someone, either well-intentioned or not, invades our space, and describes how her journey is going and what she faces on a daily basis.



I am keeping this book. I will use this book as a reference and a tool in my own journey. I will recommend this book to everyone I love. If you have body issues, you need to read it because it could help you love your life, learn how to choose what you need for health and happiness, and retain your lunch money when dealing with bullies. For those with privilege and with minds and hearts open to the experience of the 67% of us who have been classed as overweight or obese, this will be an education in what we deal with every day of the week, as shared by someone with wit, intelligence and a no-BS style of writing. I wish this book, and Ragen, had been around when my mother was suffering for being born with a large body, and I wish it had been written and given to me when I was a teen. I might have avoided an enormous amount of pain and heartache, and my mother might still be alive.



Paste my face on Ragen's as you read her words, and you'll know the negative experiences I receive on a daily basis. Unfortunately, at least not right this moment, you can't paste my face on Ragen's as you read about how she's succeeded in her life. I'm not there. Yet. At this moment, however, I know that I am worthy of respect, and even love, just because I am. I will always be grateful to this book and to Ragen Chastain for helping me see this.