Ragen Chastain

Ragen Chastain

Bio

Ragen Chastain is a professional speaker, writer, and real live fat person.  She has spoken everywhere from friend's living rooms to Google Headquarters to Cal Tech and Dartmouth.  She will not stop until we live in a world where the full diversity of body sizes is respected, and fat people are able to live in fat bodies without shame, stigma, bullying, and harrasment, regardless of why they are fat, what being fat means, and if they could (or even want to) become thin. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner Julianne and their adorable rescue dogs, and is training for her first (and hopefully only!) IRONMAN triathlon. If you can't get enough of her on Ravishly, you can check out her blog www.danceswithfat.org

Ragen Chastain Articles

Image Credit: Netflix Insatiable

Alyssa Milano Needs To Stop Telling Fat People How To Feel About Fat Suits

Alyssa Milano take note - if a fat person has to become thin to find acceptance, that’s fat-shaming. If it requires a fat suit, it’s fat-shaming.

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It's not our bodies that are the problem. Image: Thinkstock.

WTF Is Going On In Plus-Size Fashion?

You know what’s more “ostracizing” than being called plus-size? Actually BEING plus-size and unable to find clothes that fit you and that you like.
Plus-size people do not have the same choices as those who wear straight sizes — not in style, quality, price point, or availability. THAT'S ostracizing.

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LuLaRoe has found themselves under siege recently.

LuLaRoe Founder Profits From Sending Consultants To Mexico For Weight Loss Surgery

The founder of LuLaRoe is not just encouraging, but profiting from, pushing her workforce to go to a questionable weight loss surgery clinic.

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Even if moving to business models that include clothes for people of all sizes might take a while, the issues with models could be solved immediately. (Image Credit: Instagram/forever21)

Forever 21 & The 'All Shapes And Sizes' Lie

So this new line by Forever 21 goes up to “3X” which they’ve defined as a size 18. Forever 21 may be better than some in terms of carrying larger sizes, and they may want to “celebrate fashion for all sizes,” but let’s be clear that they aren’t even close to creating fashion for all sizes.

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Fat shaming doesn’t have any positive outcomes, but it has plenty of negative ones. A study found that fat shaming leads to eating disorders for some girls.

How Fat Shaming Leads To Eating Disorders

Fat shaming doesn’t have any positive outcomes, but it has plenty of negative ones. A study found that fat shaming leads to eating disorders for some girls.

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They aren’t thin, they are dead, and that’s nothing to shrug off. (Image Credit: Instagram/california_smartlipo)

Swallowing Balloons Is Killing Fat People

As long as the medical community is allowed to make a profit from the promise of thinness, fat people cannot trust them to have our best interests (or even just our continuing to be alive) as a priority. I know exactly where to stick these balloons, and it’s not in the stomachs of fat people.

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Sean Spicer. Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr.

Steve Bannon's Fat Shaming Comment On Sean Spicer Is More Than "A Joke"

Fat shaming is wrong in any guise, and people who are trying to be funny (and/or trying to cover for a woefully incompetent press secretary) will just have to do better than relying on cheap stereotypes, shaming, and bigotry.

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"I’ve heard too many of my fat friends talk about being kept out of the club by “policies” that didn’t seem to apply to thin people."

The Thin Velvet Rope

"My beautiful, kind, big-hearted daughter was denied entry to a popular club in NYC called One Oak last night because, as they put it ,'they don't like girls with love handles.' They only allow a particular type of girl into this place."

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If WW really wants to do something to increase health and wellness, they should just shut it down.

We All Know What WW Stands For: Why The Weight Watchers Rebrand Is BS

Weight Watchers announced on Monday that they are changing their name to WW to reflect their focus on wellness and health. This is BS.

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I have seen “clean eating” designed as everything from a cock-full-o-meat paleo diet, to a vegan diet and plenty of eating plans in between. I’m “good” if I eat some broccoli, but “bad” if I eat it with cheese sauce? (Image Credit: Instagram/goop)

Celebrity Diet Culture: Just Stop Already

With celebrities suggesting that people eliminate entire food groups in the name of “cleansing” and/or “eating clean," Dr. Jessen comments: “I’ve had many, many patients, so many of them teenagers, convinced that their healthy lifestyle and their clean-eating regime was really helping them when actually all it was doing was helping them hide their increasingly disordered eating and to cover up an underlying eating disorder.”

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