It started almost immediately as the COVID-19 pandemic hit America. Fatphobia swept the nation, not only because fat folks were at a “higher risk” of getting the virus and also having serious complications from it (how any scientist or medical professional knew this early on is beyond me, especially considering how little we knew about the virus and how it was spread in the beginning but that’s weight stigma for you) but also because one of the biggest concerns coming from a lot of people from being quarantined was weight gain. Not three weeks into it in early spring 2020 were we already seeing jokes and memes about “gaining the quarantine 15” or “gaining the COVID-19” in regards to pounds put on their bodies.
So much so that I wrote a poem about it as part of my pandemic art project.
Fast forward a year and we’d learned a lot of things about COVID-19 and ourselves by spring of 2021. And a lot about how much fatphobia continues to be so pervasive in our lives. I was contacted by a reporter for the Los Angeles Times newspaper about a story she was researching on such matters. We met for two hours over coffee and I told her all about my work with bodies and story after story I’d collected about medical weight stigma. About how often myself and my Rad Fatties, as I affectionately refer to members of my Boise Rad Fat Collective, go to the doctor for something like strep throat or a sprained ankle and leave with a prescription for a diet or a pamphlet for stomach amputation surgery. About how scary our current pandemic has been as a result and how grateful so many of us were and are for the vaccine.
I’m continually thankful mainstream media reporters are doing hard hitting research on the ugly underbelly of medicalized fatphobia. And finally addressing longstanding problems in the health & wellness fields, like those who continue to use and believe that BMI (body mass index) is the most important factor in one’s health. Like I recently drove home in an interview on these things for Idaho’s NPR station, BMI was never meant to measure individual health. It was created in the early 19th century by a Belgian mathematician to study the general population of White male Europeans. It’s a 200-year-old scientifically nonsensical hack. I mean, he wasn’t even an expert on the human body. You can hear me speak more truth to power in the full interview here, but I digress. A little.
Being my fat + fabulous self at a dusk photo shoot during harvest at Peaceful Belly Farm in 2020. My CSA farmer invited me to photograph in her pumpkin patch + corn field because these pumpkins reminded her of big beautiful bodies.
This summer Conde Nast Traveller reached out to me to help answer a question they got on the subject from a reader. It went something like this:
“My friends are all excited—the minute we got vaccinated, we jumped on booking a late summer trip together. We rented a lake house, just girls, a couple friends I haven’t seen in over a year are flying in, and our plan is to just hang out for four days, swimming, lounging, and catching up on lost time.
I gained a lot of weight during the pandemic though, and honestly sitting on the dock in my bathing suit doesn’t sound very fun. Actually it sounds terrible. That cute suit I bought two summers ago? Doesn’t fit. I’m feeling self-conscious at the thought of having every single meal together, like everyone will notice how much more I’m eating. I’ve never had a “perfect body” before, and I’ve always been bigger than most of my friends, but this feels different.. I’m feeling like I need to really cover up, like I want to hide almost, and I’m not feeling like myself. And I know if I said this to any of my friends, they’d just tell me I look great‚and try to reassure me. I think that would make me feel even worse. How do I get past this? I don’t want to lose this time with my friends, but I just don’t know how I can actually relax and enjoy myself. (Ugh and the pictures! I know we’ll be taking so many pictures...)
”
My response?
Dear Reader,
The fear of seeing people we haven't seen for a very long time, especially as we've all been hibernating a bit due to coronavirus for the last year-and-a-half, and having them notice changes in our bodies is normal. Weight fluctuations, especially, are a VERY common concern and one I've heard over and over since the beginning of the pandemic. Seriously, the "quarantine 15" or "gaining the COVID-19" jokes started within three weeks of the virus spreading across America in 2020. Diet culture is so pervasive that even a deadly pandemic can't keep us from our fear of fat. As a body image activist for the last 13 years and a promoter/practitioner of Health At Every Size and Intuitive Eating, I actually write and speak on this very thing often and give lots of tips to folks, especially women, on how to begin to move past this.
First, I suggest you immediately start following fat babes on all social media channels because the more you see folks living their best lives in the bodies they have right now the more it will empower you to do the same. Second, buy a new bathing suit. One that is cute and makes you feel good and fits your today body, not your last year body. There are SO MANY cute options out there now! In fact, it sounds like you may be due for a couple of new outfits to bring with you, like maybe a swimsuit cover up you love and a flowy sundress or two and maybe even schedule a new haircut before the trip. However, while these things are fun and can help with the practical problem of not having comfortable clothing for the main event, confidence is really an inside job and can't be fixed by a shopping spree. Honestly, I think it's okay if you're not feeling your best or most confident self and it may be something you'll want to divulge to your girlfriends cuddled up with coffee one morning on the trip. It's likely they've suffered from some self-esteem issues in the time you've been apart, too, and can relate in one way or another. True friends should always be there to lend an ear, some solace and be a soft place to land when things are hard. And they should never comment on what you're eating or not eating or how much or when. And on the note of healing your relationship with food - that's also a longer process and won't be "fixed" before your trip, but I can't recommend enough following dieticians and nutritionists on Instagram and Facebook who practice Intuitive Eating and Health At Every Size (you can usually find them through the hashtags #HAES or #intuitiveeating). Every day is another day we will never get back and we only get one body to enjoy this one life we've been given. I appreciate mine every day and hope you do, too, and are able to move past your insecurities and enjoy this vacation!
-Amy
More body love at our 2018 body positive Halloween group boudoir photo shoot with the Boise Rad Fat Collective. Photo by Rachael Chappell, wearing nothing by dollar store spider webbing.
It was such a hit with the readers of Conde Nast’s Women Who Travel column that they asked myself and Stephanie Yeboah (who was also interviewed for the full piece, which you can read here because it’s so good and she also shares some gems) to be on their podcast in September. We shared a lot about our work and body image and how we suggest having more grace and compassion for our bodies when reacting to the trauma of the pandemic. Illness and stress and life can cause our weight to fluctuate both ways and that is a natural and normal response.
Honestly - I said this to the reader and on the podcast and also in my lecture at the Weiser Public Library last week - our bodies are least interesting thing about us, including how much weight we've gained, or lost, or what our body looks like. Hopefully, we've all come to realize that as we've been through something pretty traumatic and are currently STILL going through something pretty traumatic. We are losing a lot of people, and lives, and livelihoods, and jobs, literally, to this deadly pandemic, right? And you'd think that would maybe more fine tune what really matters in our lives, which is spending time with people that you love, doing things that we're all lucky to do every day, like going to a cabin, or swimming in a lake, or putting on a bathing suit and feeling the sun, or having coffee in the morning and conversation. There are a lot more important things to talk about than the number of the tag of the bathing suit we're wearing or what our bodies look like. Instead let’s turn the conversations, and our hearts, toward what really matters.
Me and one of the 13 girls that attended my Be RAD! Be YOU! A Body Image Workshop for Girls at the Weiser Public Library last week.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: our bodies were meant to change. That’s what it means to be human. Like I love to remind the teens I talk to in my workshops and camps, like the girls aged 9-14 I had for my body image workshop at the Weiser Public Library recently, when they were born they were less than two feet tall and like seven pounds. That they grew in extraordinary ways by the time they were in kindergarten and again their bodies are going through major physical changes with puberty. They have, in fact, been growing and changing in exceptional ways since birth and this will continue through high school and in so many ways for the rest of our lifes. Through growth spurts and pregnancy and giving birth and accidents and illnesses and medical surgeries and menopause all sorts of things – including aging and getting old if we’re very lucky. We only have one body and one life and every day is another day we’ll never get back.