Caroline Dooner

I have a confession: Until recently, I didn’t even know what “patriarchal society” meant. Yeah, I’m one of those feminists who grew up believing I didn’t need feminism.

We haven’t quite escaped the influence of the Puritans yet...We still tend to regard our bodies, our eating, our desires, and anything else of this earth as “bad,” “weak,” or “sinful.”

So what’s the difference between dieting and eating disorders? Not much. It all depends on how obsessive you are with it, and how much mental and emotional space it takes up in our minds. Like most things, eating disorders exist on a spectrum.

I’ve heard this so many times: “Your talk of normal eating and body love is all good and fine — but I need to lose weight.” This is what I have to say to you: You don’t.

And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people are really resistant to movements that aim to inspire people to drop the fight against weight. There are lots of fat-haters.

Our culture has decided that gaining weight is the worst thing ever. And we have gotten the message in a multitude of sneaky or super blatant ways.

So many of us try to stick to diets, only to find ourselves bingeing, then restricting more, then bingeing again, then restricting more, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. Our weight is all over the place, our sanity is all over the place, and we feel totally out of control with food.

I'm an anti-diet teacher. I teach chronic, obsessed dieters how to eat normally, trust their bodies, and fully commit to living their lives now, not 30 pounds from now.

In response to Nicole Arbour's fat shaming video. . .

So many of us are waiting until we're skinnier. We're putting off dreams, big plans, and just plain old feeling good about ourselves until an elusive, future day when we think we will finally deserve what we want. Do you do this?