WHAT WE'RE ABOUT

RBI focuses on using expressive writing, design-oriented work, photography, media, research, and community input to fuel fat positive, body acceptance, discussion, and outreach. Our goal is to redefine the way we view and think about body image, size, fat, discrimination, health, fitness, wellness, mental/chronic illness, stigma, and other related topics.

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.

Some of the artwork you see here has been created by our founder or moderators, some sourced when applicable. Please be kind enough to source this blog whenever you share it's content.

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.

“
Men’s average ideal weight is up 14 pounds since Gallup first measured it in 1990 and their average actual weight is up 16 pounds. Women’s average ideal weight is up 11 pounds since 1990, and their average actual weight is up 14 pounds. These trends suggest that as Americans have grown heavier overall, their concept of what their ideal weight is has been adjusted upward as well. These results are based on Gallup’s annual Health and Healthcare survey, conducted Nov. 15-18. Gallup has asked Americans how much they weigh yearly since 2001, as well as in 1990 and 1999.
”

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Americans Continue to Adjust Their Ideal Weight Upward (Gallup)

An average gain of 14 lbs among women and 16 lbs among men, since 1990. 14 lbs. 14 FUCKING LBS. THIS is the fucking obesity epidemic? THIS what I’m getting oppressed over?

A weight gain that can likely nearly be entirely accounted for by an aging population and smoking cessation?

THIS YOUR OBESITY EPIDEMIC. You fucking liars. You fucking panic-mongers. You fucking small-minded shitwads who desperately needed someone to feel automatically better than, through no actual effort on your part, by virtue of no actual ADDED VIRTUE on your part. 

Fuck you fucking healthists who’ve been pushing this fat panic bullshit ever since the lowering of BMI thresholds. Fuck you in the government for getting rich off panic-mongering and appropriating funds for giant new bureaucracies whose stated goal is to experiment on an entire generation of children. Fuck you employers for your ‘employee wellness programs’ that cause financial hardship to fat people who are penalized for having the wrong BMI. Fuck you insurance companies for profiting off the panic by charging fat people more for their policies. Fuck you stupid fucking economists who do assumption-laced back-of-the-envelope calculations that suggest fat people are responsible for global warming. Fuck you private and public foundations for issuing giant grants to anyone who does a study that finds in the negative for ‘the obese,’ and fuck you researchers who take that money.

The ‘obesity epidemic’ isn’t real, folks. It isn’t real. It isn’t fucking real. Welcome to the Theatre of Panic, Hate, and Other Shameful Social Tendencies. They say life is a stage. Well, I want fucking OFF of this one.

(via thisisthinprivilege)

t 5 months ago
w 931 notes
t 5 months ago
w 931 notes

Every single time I see a photo in the media of a fat individual with their head cropped out of the frame…

TW: Fat-shaming bullshittery.

It makes me want to work that much harder to give a voice to all of my faceless, oppressed, beautiful fellow fatties.

There is a head attached to that fabulous corpulent bod that you’re using to represent the enemy in the war on this so-called “obesity crisis”.

There is a goddamn story, experience, and life associated with that body - an identity that is being completely eliminated for the sake of dehumanizing our existence, to make it easier on everyone to oppress and shame our bodies, our lifestyle choices, our health.

It is fucking heart-wrenching and keeps my blood boiling at a constant, raging pace.

Ugh.

t 1 year ago
w 30 notes
t 1 year ago
w 30 notes

“
Conventional wisdom tells us that obesity itself is a major cause of clogged arteries—the rationale being that more fat on the body equals more fat in the blood stream equals more fat build-up in the arteries. However, most of the studies that have looked at the relationship between body weight (or body fat) and atherosclerosis—via coronary angiography or by direct examination of artery disease at autopsy—find that fat people are no more likely to have clogged arteries than thin people (4, 11, 27). In some instances results entirely opposite to conventional wisdom are observed. For example, when researchers at the University of Tennessee (4) evaluated coronary angiograms of more than 4,500 men and women, they found that the risk of having a clogged artery actually decreased as body weight increased. In other words, it was the fat men and women who had the cleanest arteries. Although this finding is exceptional, the preponderance of angiography studies of this nature do undermine the notion that obesity inevitably results in clogged arteries.
”

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Obesity, Health and Metabolic Fitness by Glenn Gaesser, Ph.D.

Definitely read the whole article, it’s wonderful.

t 1 year ago
w 291 notes
t 1 year ago
w 291 notes

“
We have GOT to stop promoting any body size at all. We need to show, and celebrate, the diversity of the human experience and that includes all colors, shapes, sizes, sexual orientations, athletes and couch potatoes – everybody. Our diversity is what makes us strong – it’s what makes us survivors and pretending otherwise for your own profit ought to buy you a special place in hell.
”

- Dances with Fat - “The Promoting Obesity Myth”
t 1 year ago
w 164 notes
t 1 year ago
w 164 notes
^