WHAT WE'RE ABOUT
We are constantly redefining our own perspectives, and therefore tend to write a lot about our personal experiences. Many followers and contributors are living with anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, depression, and a variety of other body image disorders or mental illnesses, so please be respectful and remember that health applies differently to everyone. Any and all potentially triggering content will be prefaced with a trigger warning.
RBI supports all races, genders, classes, and sizes. We try our best to make this a safe space for everyone. If we are not doing our job or checking our privilege, we invite you to please inform us.
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We are not health professionals. Any and all advice provided on this blog is supported only by our own research, studies, and personal experiences; nothing more.
This blog is part of the Safe Space Network.
Thin (and able bodied) privilege is not being mocked for using an assistive device in a fitness class. Fat discrimination is assuming the device is necessary because someone is just too fat to move a limb properly, as opposed to a chronic injury or disability.
Yes, this is SUCH an important point. Fitspo tends to be ableist. It also tends to push a ideology — and it is an ideology — that the height of human achievement/perfection is a ‘fit’ body. Now, if some people want to pursue that, fine. But many of its members can’t seem to understand that theirs is a belief system not based on objective truths. There is no moral difference between someone who runs marathons, and a person who runs marathon coding sessions. Or someone who does neither. None.
-ArteToLife
rebloggable by request
This was why I had to stop using myfitnesspal—it was fucking me up mentally and I was on the fast track to EDNOS because the whole idea on that site (and other fitness sites) is that if you’re exercising and calorie-counting and not losing weight, it’s not because there’s something wrong with your body—it’s that you’re lying to yourself and not trying hard enough because you “don’t want it enough.”
I have hypothyroidism because I’m living with half a thyroid, and that half barely functions. Even when it’s being treated properly, I gain weight very easily. After years of struggling and beating myself up over not being able to lose weight, a doctor finally told me that the 20+ lbs. I gained when I was 21 was metabolic weight gain (brought on by steroids, which I had to take to treat a pretty severe bout of bronchitis) and would therefore be very difficult to lose for a totally healthy person, let alone someone with a disease that affects the metabolism.
Fuck ableism. Fuck fitspo.
It is ableist at heart in that it is based on the assumption of able bodiedness, as well as a lot of other privileges. It also trades in and lends itself to things like eugenics and other improvement of the (human) race type notions.
Yet it’s fair to say some PWD are more inclined and able to exercise than many able bodied people.
“Mental illness is a myth.”
To give you an idea of how ignorant people are, and how taboo discussion of mental illness remains, here are some screenshots I took just now.
If any of you wondered why I still continue to talk about mental illness and mental health reform…wonder no more.
Depression, anxiety, and mental illness are all 100% real. I speak from experience. For people to still think that people who suffer from mental illness are making it up, they are despicable.
Republicans add to the stigmatization of mental illness as well. Hence why I am not one.
“What’s Your Excuse?” Yet another meme that I deeply hate.
By saying that people need an “excuse” in order to have a larger body or not exercise regularly, you are diminishing their own personal goals and motivations in life. You’re saying that all other aspects of their life are completely unimportant. Any valid reasons for focusing their attention on other goals are nothing more than “excuses” that should be brushed aside.
This is a huge problem. Your body should only be one section of what makes you you. Your hopes, your dreams, your passions and your loves are also important parts of your life. If those involve fitness? Hey, then I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun weight lifting and running and attaining that dream body of your’s. But if they don’t? Then I’m sure you’ll lead an incredibly happy and fulfilling life while doing whatever it is that you enjoy most. If that means that you don’t have the time, energy, or the desire to have 6-pack abs, then that’s a perfectly valid decision that you have the right to make. It is never an “excuse.”
What’s more, the majority of these “What’s your excuse?” memes tend to exploit people with physical disabilities. 9/10 will contain a person with prosthetic limbs or birth defects that have caused them to have no arms/legs. This is then put forward as something that could have been an “excuse,” yet the person instead rose above it and pursued a fitness lifestyle. Holding them up as this prime example of fitness is just a way of ignoring all the other aspects of their lives. It’s saying that their physical accomplishments are the only ones that matter. It’s saying that they solely exist as a way of inspiring other people towards a life of thinness. That’s….twisted.
Trying to compare our lives to the lives of these strangers is a false correlation. You can’t simply say “Look! They’re exactly like you! Except their life is harder and they still managed to look better than you!” That will never, ever be the case. These memes ignore the other privileges and hardships that people have in life. Wealth, access to a variety of food, “good” genetics, medical care, an emotional support network - Not everyone has access to these, yet these are some of the most important parts of attaining that stereotypically fit body type.
Don’t do this - Don’t compare your situation to that of anyone else. I don’t care if you’re the love child of Jillian Michaels and Arnold Schwarzenegger - You are under no obligation to exercise daily or have a muscular body. You are perfectly justified in sitting on the couch all day long, if that is what you want to do. Your personal desires and goals in life are not an “excuse” for not exercising.
So if someone asks “What’s your excuse?” just reply “I don’t want to.” That’s all that they ever need to know.
tw: fat phobic, healthist ignorance
It’s been a while.
I’ve been hearing this a lot lately. This is what I think about it.
There are no if’s, and’s, or BUT’s when it comes to body positivity.
ALL bodies are good bodies.
Basically.
This is not true, at all. People who think that just can’t face the truth of the situation. It doesn’t matter if you’re overweight or super slim, if you’re unhealthy your body isn’t perfect. There are people who are slim just from smoking and abusing their metabolism, thats not a good body. There are people who are overweight and huge from doing the exact same thing, also not a good or positive body. Not ALL bodies are perfect OR acceptable. Its just the truth. People who advocate this ‘body positivity’ need to realise that in order to really have a positive body image you need to be HEALTHY, no matter your shape or size.
If you smoke, drink, overeat or under-eat, I still believe you need to be respected. There is still no need for shaming. SUPPORT is what you need to get better, NOT SHAMING.
Exactly. And “in order to have a positive body image, you need to be HEALTHY”?
Sry but I’m a mentally ill chronically skin-fucked anxiety-ridden chain-smoking fat bitch.
I have every right to claim positivity and own my body if I damn well please. My level of health does not determine my worth, nor does my size.
(TW: DISCUSSION OF THINSPO, EATING DISORDERS,DIET CULTURE)
you see thinspo. you don’t like it. you’ve believed the myth that thinspo is operated by blood sucking demons or people who are just faking it. you make fun of thinspo people. you believe that they oppress fat people. you post gore in the tags or pictures of yourself and others in the tags to rouse eating disorded people of their sin.
stop. consider some things.
- most thinspo blogs and pro-ana blogs are run by eating disordered people on a wide range of weights. 90 to 350. literally. most-to-all eating disordered or heading to one. none of them are faking it. an eating disorder. not a moral grievance. not a sin. got it?
- they are triggered, not helped, by your efforts. your photobombing, your making fun of them on your popular blogs, your bullying of them. none of that is okay.
- sometimes your actions have consequences like relapses, stomach ruptures, self harm, and dead people. not cool.
BUT WHAT DO I DO TO CURE THE PROBLEM
- fight against diet culture. the actual diet culture. not eating disordered people.
- recognize not all eating disordered people are thin.
- do not bully or perpetuate violence against eating disordered people.
- speak up when this happens! your silence is costly. and your place as an ally is shaky if you just stay silent when this happens.
I can agree with 99.9% of this, except when it claims that thinspo doesn’t oppress fat people. When you consider what thinspo is, it is usually pictures of incredibly glamorous thin models (see: VS Angels.) It is usually media based images of how we are “supposed to look.” Women who have binge-eating disorders who see those images who are already struggling with feelings of hopelessness, self-hatred, even suicide are going to feel it even more when they look at thinspo. And if you think that women and men who have binge eating disorders DON’T look at thinspo, you are wrong. I’m not saying that everyone does - but I have know some that do.
The fact of the matter is, thinspo DOES harm fat people because it perpetuates an unrealistic standard of beauty.
I’m not saying that we need to attack eating disordered people, I’m saying that we need to attack the culture that says “you are not enough, you are never enough.”
Sending my love vibes towards you, bebe. All of them. Thank you. <3<3
About “productivity”. What does it mean to be “productive”?
“The notion of productivity is rooted in capitalist (and, it follows, ableist) ideas about an individual’s value. It is important that we be “productive”, not only when we are at work, but at all times. And what does it mean to be productive? When we are hard on ourselves for not being productive enough, what do we mean? We can try to define what productivity means for ourselves on an individual level, but I don’t believe we can separate it from the aforementioned capitalist and ableist ideas. Especially for those of us struggling with disabilities, I think this is one of the biggest, most common, and frequently unchallenged ways of internalizing ableism and perpetuating it on ourselves and others.”
- vile
- illogical
- irrational
- misleading
- dishonest
- nonsense/nonsensical
- asshat
- assclown
- prickly pear
- asstrumpet
- buttnugget
- asshole
- shithead
- dustbunny
- unsubstantive
- irrelevant
- mistaken
- naive
- confused
- misled
- uninformed
- ignorant
- ignoramus
- absurd
- half-assed
- ridiculous
- ludicrous
LOL at some fool going “it’s not about you and your personal issues” when it comes to talking about the ‘obesity epidemic’.
Really now?
So when schools try to implement discriminatory curriculum, essentially saying “you have to lose weight or take an extra class or we won’t let you graduate,” can we talk?
When doctors explicitly come out and say “I will not see you if you are over 200 pounds” to women, can we talk?
When fat people suffer from discrimination in the workforce, then can we talk?
Or are we just going to sit here and listen to you talk at fat people, saying the same old bullshit folks have been spewing for the past decade?
Because folks want to talk about ‘health’ and it always ends up with the solution of ‘make the fat people go away’ in order to fix it.
Funny how we never mention how Health at Every Size is a feasible option for health maintenance that has actually IMPROVED THE MENTAL STATE of the person because they don’t fucking beat themselves up mentally for having a goddamn cookie.
Funny how there is NO body diversity in the so called ‘initiatives’ to aid in ‘combating obesity,’ no showcasing that a varying array of bodies can exist and be healthy. Nope. Errybody healthy is skinny as fuck and look like they belong on an Abercrombie and Fitch ad.
Funny how nobody seems to talk about the amount of ableism that exists rampantly in these ‘initiatives,’ giving NO consideration to those who CANNOT GET UP AND GO.
Funny how nobody talks about how they fucking FABRICATED ‘OBESITY DEATH RATES’ to the millions when it was TEN TIMES LOWER.
And I find it REAL funny how NOBODY EVER TALKS ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY FUCKING LOWERED THE BMI AND THUS THE GOVERNMENT CREATED THEIR OWN EPIDEMIC…
SO MUCH TRUTHSAUCE
Everyone needs to relax and de-stress, and everyone should take care of themselves. But I take issue with the fact that inspiration and positivism blogs take a term, which has always meant “the medical care patients are expected to provide for themselves” and now it somehow means having a chocolate or being lazy or getting a pedicure?
Due to my complete lack of brain juices, some of this writing below if from an article referring to emotional/psychological self-care(at the bottom); some is my own rambling, and some is a bit of a mini-rant, So……I’m not sorry and enjoy!
Mental health professionals pioneered the concept of emotional self-care by prescribing healthy lifestyle changes and stress management behaviors, but these are hard to stick to, and often go ignored. During the 1980s, the term self-care became popularized by the self-help craze. It is now common to hear talk (especially among women) about needing to take better care of oneself. Consequently, it became irresistibly profitable for advertisers to perpetuate the fantasy that self-care can be easy. As a result of the self-care marketing blitz, many of us think that getting pedicures, choosing hand-dipped dark chocolates, and buying 10,000-thread count bed linens equal self-care.
Self-care is not self-pampering - not that there’s anything wrong with self-pampering -pedicures, dark chocolates, and other luxuries. That is, as long as you can afford luxuries. Spending money that you don’t have is self-indulgence.
Self-care is not self-indulgence. Popularly, the terms self-care and self-indulgence are used interchangeably, as in “Oh, go ahead, indulge. You deserve it.” We tell ourselves that we are practicing self-care when, in fact, we are engaging in self-indulgence.
Self care is the medical care a patient is expected to provide for themselves. Self-care is taking care of minor ailments, long term conditions, or one’s own health after discharge from secondary and tertiary health care. Most patients who have ADL in-home care are still responsible for self-care.
Self Care IS:
- Self-catheterization
- Dressing replacement/Wound care
- Monitoring Blood Glucose/Injecting Insulin
- Adjusting, inserting, cleaning IV ports
- Nutritional education and implementation
- Monitoring and recording Pain/Moods/Food/Vital signs and keeping a detailed journal
- Use of assistive devices
- Seeking and making use of occupational therapists, pharmacists, physiotherapists and complementary therapists
- Tens Application/adjustments/Self Massage/Hot Baths
Self care is freeing and frustrating and annoying and humiliating and rote and emotionally complex and complicated. Self care is not something I would do with, or in front of friends. It’s not a responsibility I accepted lightly, and it’s not something to be trivialized. It is most certainly not eating a cupcake.
When you use the term “Self-Care” to mean self-pampering or self-indulgence, you make light of the weight of that burden. You trivialize all the medical care that people do every day.
Taking Care of Yourself means choosing behaviors that balance the effects of emotional and physical stressors: exercising, eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, practicing yoga or meditation or relaxation techniques, abstaining from substance abuse, pursuing creative outlets, engaging in psychotherapy. Also essential to Taking Care of Yourself is learning to self-soothe or calm our physical and emotional distress. Remember your mother teaching you to blow on the scrape on your knee? This was an early lesson in self-soothing but the majority of adults haven’t the foggiest notion how to constructively soothe themselves.
Please pamper yourself, please self–indulge, please self-soothe; we all need the break sometimes. But PLEASE don’t call it “Self Care” unless you’re actually doing some heavy-duty medical shit for yourself.
Wow. Seriously, I’m so happy that this blog exists. I will definitely think much more carefully about how I use the term “self care” in the future.
While I do think it is incredibly important to understand the origin of terms. There have been a lot of people who use the term without a connection to caring for ones self in lieu of medical care but to every person their situations are different. As someone who cannot afford to see a therapist or do other things I know can help me deal like ride a bike on a regular basis the difference between what someone might call pampering or self indulgence is my self care.
I’m someone who feels disassociated from my body on a regular basis this something that I am constantly challenged with from a mental health standpoint and one of the best ways I have found to feel more connected to my body is through exercise but when that is not available painting my nails has become is an easy solution to feel that connection again. Setting time out for myself to relax in this way has also improved my own depression and anxiety. This can also mean the kind of food I eat including cupcakes, “healthy” foods are not the only kind that can stimulate emotional or mental wellbeing. I think it trivializes the experience of people who do use food to emotionally cope to dismiss the aspects of how food can affect wellbeing.
I’m not sure if the OP also wrote this article but some of the sections were also found on it. This section on both articles is really important but was changed to from self care in the OPs article to taking care of yourself I think that is problematic since it is so hard to tell the different between everyone,
Self-care means choosing behaviors that balance the effects of emotional and physical stressors: exercising, eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, practicing yoga or meditation or relaxation techniques, abstaining from substance abuse, pursuing creative outlets, engaging in psychotherapy. Also essential to self-care is learning to self-soothe or calm our physical and emotional distress.
That’s why self care can mean a whole host of things to different people especially when we are talking about huge differences that can come between physical and mental disabilities.
I had originally been so struck by the origin of the term that I failed to consider these things. Thank you.
Everyone needs to relax and de-stress, and everyone should take care of themselves. But I take issue with the fact that inspiration and positivism blogs take a term, which has always meant “the medical care patients are expected to provide for themselves” and now it somehow means having a chocolate or being lazy or getting a pedicure?
Due to my complete lack of brain juices, some of this writing below if from an article referring to emotional/psychological self-care(at the bottom); some is my own rambling, and some is a bit of a mini-rant, So……I’m not sorry and enjoy!
Mental health professionals pioneered the concept of emotional self-care by prescribing healthy lifestyle changes and stress management behaviors, but these are hard to stick to, and often go ignored. During the 1980s, the term self-care became popularized by the self-help craze. It is now common to hear talk (especially among women) about needing to take better care of oneself. Consequently, it became irresistibly profitable for advertisers to perpetuate the fantasy that self-care can be easy. As a result of the self-care marketing blitz, many of us think that getting pedicures, choosing hand-dipped dark chocolates, and buying 10,000-thread count bed linens equal self-care.
Self-care is not self-pampering - not that there’s anything wrong with self-pampering -pedicures, dark chocolates, and other luxuries. That is, as long as you can afford luxuries. Spending money that you don’t have is self-indulgence.
Self-care is not self-indulgence. Popularly, the terms self-care and self-indulgence are used interchangeably, as in “Oh, go ahead, indulge. You deserve it.” We tell ourselves that we are practicing self-care when, in fact, we are engaging in self-indulgence.
Self care is the medical care a patient is expected to provide for themselves. Self-care is taking care of minor ailments, long term conditions, or one’s own health after discharge from secondary and tertiary health care. Most patients who have ADL in-home care are still responsible for self-care.
Self Care IS:
- Self-catheterization
- Dressing replacement/Wound care
- Monitoring Blood Glucose/Injecting Insulin
- Adjusting, inserting, cleaning IV ports
- Nutritional education and implementation
- Monitoring and recording Pain/Moods/Food/Vital signs and keeping a detailed journal
- Use of assistive devices
- Seeking and making use of occupational therapists, pharmacists, physiotherapists and complementary therapists
- Tens Application/adjustments/Self Massage/Hot Baths
Self care is freeing and frustrating and annoying and humiliating and rote and emotionally complex and complicated. Self care is not something I would do with, or in front of friends. It’s not a responsibility I accepted lightly, and it’s not something to be trivialized. It is most certainly not eating a cupcake.
When you use the term “Self-Care” to mean self-pampering or self-indulgence, you make light of the weight of that burden. You trivialize all the medical care that people do every day.
Taking Care of Yourself means choosing behaviors that balance the effects of emotional and physical stressors: exercising, eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep, practicing yoga or meditation or relaxation techniques, abstaining from substance abuse, pursuing creative outlets, engaging in psychotherapy. Also essential to Taking Care of Yourself is learning to self-soothe or calm our physical and emotional distress. Remember your mother teaching you to blow on the scrape on your knee? This was an early lesson in self-soothing but the majority of adults haven’t the foggiest notion how to constructively soothe themselves.
Please pamper yourself, please self–indulge, please self-soothe; we all need the break sometimes. But PLEASE don’t call it “Self Care” unless you’re actually doing some heavy-duty medical shit for yourself.
Wow. Seriously, I’m so happy that this blog exists. I will definitely think much more carefully about how I use the term “self care” in the future.
I’m getting really frustrated with fat people who throw other fat people under a bus to prove how socially acceptable they are with their fatness. You don’t get a fucking cookie when you are able to climb a set of stairs, have sex, are in a relationship, eat well, exercise, don’t suffer from body shame etc.
What you do get is a label of being ableist, reinforcing internalized fat phobia or stigma and all around feeling of annoyance from me every time you try to prove how acceptable you are while labeling others as unacceptable. Fucking stop.
We really need to stop allowing for people to even use those arguments against us and it starts by not trying to prove you are a magical fatty who has moved past all of the stereotypes. Fight the reason that those stereotype are allowed to exist or be used to shame us in the first place. Question why people feel they have the right to shame someone who is unable to walk up a flight of stairs. Question why they think people not having sex is something that is only done because they don’t have any other option or the whole idea that having sex makes someone socially acceptable.
Call those people out for being ableist, fat phobic, sexist and reinforcing social hierarchies like sexual oppression. Stop giving them a place to exist or other targets to go after.
Hello, yes.