\n<\/p>\n
I read Rose Stokes\u2019 article with great sadness (I thought we\u2019d entered the age of body positivity. Then came \u2018shrinking girl summer\u2019 \u2013 is everyone getting smaller except me?, 10 August). Once again, a healthy, intelligent woman is made to feel not good enough by society because she is larger than\u00a0a size 10.<\/p>\n
Then came anger, not with Stokes but with the media and brands that propagate a culture of skinny worship. I was born with a rare physical disability and have spent years coming to terms with the way my body is. I look disabled, I have scars from operations and a spinal curve surgeons couldn\u2019t straighten, and I use mobility aids. To me, Stokes presents as an attractive, successful, healthy woman who is non-disabled (although this is her private business) with the good fortune to have two children. I wish Stokes and others could see themselves in that vein. Granted, it took me years to be happy in my own skin and see the strengths of my body, everything I\u2019ve been through and the pleasure it can give and receive, but it\u2019s doable.<\/p>\n
We are living in dark times when non-disabled women and men are wrecking their mental health and putting their physical health in danger with fad diets and weight-loss jabs, shrinking themselves to an ever-hungry and cold status to please others\u2019 gazes and get likes on TikTok and Instagram. As a society we should be ashamed that we are engendering this, putting people at risk of eating disorders, malnutrition and mental health issues.<\/p>\n
We only have one body and if you\u2019re fortunate enough to have one that works properly, you\u2019ve won the jackpot. Self-loathing, shame, isolation and the desire for slenderness are not an intrinsic or inevitable aspect of being fat, as features such\u00a0as Rose Stokes\u2019 seem to suggest. They are caused by fatphobia. This\u00a0has been ruthlessly exploited by weight-loss industries, including the contemporary manufacturers of GLP-1 drugs. These purveyors are not called to account when their\u00a0products fail or harm their users. Instead, fat people are made\u00a0to feel responsible. We should have tried harder.<\/p>\n For a more balanced view, I\u00a0invite Guardian editors, writers and readers to consider a social movement that has been active for at least 50 years and which takes a critical view of the obesity\u2011industrial complex.<\/p>\n The scholarly field of fat studies and the public health model known as \u201chealth at every size\u201d are offshoots. There are many of us working in these areas, providing a more nuanced and hopeful understanding of fat subjectivity. Rose Stokes\u2019 article strikes a chord across the femisphere. I would add that body dysmorphia has never been confined to women whose bodies don\u2019t conform to skinny standards. The body-positivity movement liberated all women from these impossible strictures. It\u2019s no coincidence that as\u00a0soon as it arrived, and women began to take up more and powerful space, drugs were pumped out to make sure we take less. Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I read Rose Stokes\u2019 article with great sadness (I thought we\u2019d entered the age of body positivity. Then came \u2018shrinking girl summer\u2019 \u2013 is everyone getting smaller except me?, 10 August). Once again, a healthy, intelligent woman is made to feel not good enough by society because she is larger than\u00a0a size 10. Then came<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15965,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1868,2430,1935,8215,7659,3468,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-15964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-body","9":"tag-dark","10":"tag-girl","11":"tag-image","12":"tag-shrinking","13":"tag-side","14":"tag-summer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Name and address supplied<\/strong><\/p>\n
Charlotte Cooper<\/strong>
London<\/em><\/p>\n
Danuta Kean<\/strong>
Hastings, East Sussex<\/em><\/p>\n