Ragen Chastain

Resolution season is almost upon us, and I find myself reflecting on one of the most commonly failed New Year’s Resolutions — weight loss.

In the face of funding shortages, Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has decided that patients with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or above, as well as smokers, will be barred from most surgery for up to a year. But don’t fool yourself, this isn’t about health, or healthy behaviors – this is about money, and it’s about the people in charge deciding whose blatant oppression the general citizenry will tolerate. Years of campaigns suggesting that it’s fine for people to stereotype fat people and blame us for their problems have led to a situation where people are comfortable with us being denied the same medical care that they receive. And that should horrify you.

The point of fat acceptance is to be clear that people of all sizes have the right to exist without shame, stigma, bullying, and oppression.

Suggesting that there is some weigh at which we are no longer allowed to love our bodies is fat-shaming and oppressive. Suggesting that you should have to achieve some level of “health” to love yourself is healthist and oppressive.

Ms. Whitaker is a white woman, so obviously 'Dr. Who' is still desperately behind and lacking in their Doctor diversity. But the show has finally introduced a woman as the main character and men (and a few women, because internalized oppression is a thing) are flipping out.

Slate's new job posting for Political Editor requires candidates with a fast metabolism. This is why that phrasing is fat-shaming and discriminatory.

Too often people claim that they are practicing Body Positivity when in fact they are perpetuating fatphobia and/or using healthism and ableism to justify sizeism.

Fat people on Instagram have been noticing a disturbing double standard when it comes to supposed “violations” of Instagram's guidelines.

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.

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.”