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.
Asked breatheoutandin
The caloric needs of people who are exercising as much as those people are, not to mention the fact that they are all adults trying to build muscle mass - they needed more than 2000 calories a day.
I am a 5’9”, 120 lbs female who lives a fairly active lifestyle and I need more than 2500 a day.
Basically unless you’re comatose you need more than 2000 a day.
Hugh Jackman lost 15 pounds, then rapidly gained 30 pounds for his role as Jean Valjean.
No one cares. No one’s asking him how he did it. No one’s worried that he might be setting a bad example for younger fans. There’s no controversy.
This is a really interesting observation and one that can be applied to multiple circumstances. Another one being Christian Bale, who has bulked down and lost extreme amounts of weight in quick succession on multiple occasions. For Machinist (2003) he last over 60 pounds to look positively emaciated. By 2004 he had bulked up to 200+ pounds for his role as Batman in Batman Begins (2005). No to mention his weight loss for The Fighter (2010) and his semi-bulk down from The Dark Knight (2008) to Terminator Salvation (2009), which were all filmed back to back. His weight loss is often featured in articles praising the actor for his method acting and you seldom see any “concern” or “intrigue” about his dieting. Actually, most often it is met with awe and zero confusion that it was done for acting and he was trying to look emaciated. Note that Anne Hathaway has had to repeatedly remind people that she wasn’t losing weight to “look better”.
Asked morganjoyce
Oh thank you so much for asking! This is a lovely thing to be aware of.
I’d say that it’s best not to make any comment unless the person in question is quite visibly upset or putting themselves down. In that case, some variation of one of the following things may be nice to hear:
- It’s just a number, it doesn’t define how lovely you are
- In the overall scheme of things, your weight really says nothing about you or your health
- You’re much more important than a number, try not to be so hard on yourself - you don’t deserve it!
- I know we’re taught to think that weight is important, but I promise you it isn’t!
Just gauge the situation and try to be as supportive as possible. Focus on other positive aspects of their character, if you happen to know them. Just being mindful is a perfect first step! <3
I’ve gained another 6 pounds this year. My head hurts too much right now to articulate how I feel about it. I hate that I can’t keep myself from looking at the scale when they weigh me at the doctor’s office, but at least my doc isn’t a fat-shaming butthead. GODDAMNIT WHY DO SCALES EXIST.
Empathy/solidarity internet fist bump. I think this is a pretty good moment for some story-swappin’.
I get anxious even looking at a scale, even one that I have no intention of climbing on. My mother has one in her bathroom — always has, probably always will — and I can’t take a shower in her house without thinking “I should weigh myself,” which is something I did every day for most of high school, and something that inevitably triggers my eating disordered behavior, then and now.
It’s fucking TOUGH. Like, my housemate brought one to the apartment we rent together, and she had it out in the bathroom for like a day and not only myself but another of my housemates were really, really unhappy with it being there. It feels to me like a constant reminder of the pressure that a number is supposed to define us as women and that we, as fat women, fail every time.
They’re tools of shame in the worst way, because never have I gotten on a scale and been like, “Oh, damn, I’ve suddenly lost 35lbs and had no idea, guess I’d better get to a doctor!” That’s the reason they’re supposed to exist, right? In case you go to the doctor and you’ve had a dramatic weight fluctuation, as if you wouldn’t otherwise notice? But fun fact! I had dramatic weight fluctuations in high school, when I was studiously ignoring that a medication I’d been put on to treat my Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome was essentially forcing me to purge one or twice a day. I would lose 3-5lbs a week (mind you, healthy weight loss is 1-2lbs, tops) and my doctor never batted an eye. She as like, “Oh, you’re losing weight! Great!” Everyone was telling me that I should be so proud of myself, and I looked so good, and wasn’t I happier?
To say I wasn’t happier was a lie. But I didn’t like my body any more than I used to. I was happier because I was finally getting pseudo-positive feedback about my body, instead of overwhelmingly negative. And everyone was telling me that I should be happier, and that I was so much prettier and better this way, so I figured… what’s a little chronic dehydration and fainting spells and heart problems compared to being thinner?
That was seriously my thought process. How fucked up is that?
Let me just emphasize: I got really sick. I started fainting, like, once a week, and getting dizzy/blackouts on a pretty regular basis. I was chronically dehydrated and probably malnourished. I wasn’t gaining any muscle whatsoever. I found myself unable to do things I’d previously been able to, like lift heavy objects (I’ve always been strong) or jog up a couple of flights of stairs. I would break into a sweat, get dizzy, and have to sit down after even a quarter of a mile jog. It was really bad.
And I did not tell a damn soul. I still haven’t told anyone the whole thing, until uh, right now.
No one noticed, either! Except my stepmother and my father, who expressed gentle concern about the rate at which I was losing weight — and my dad wouldn’t have noticed on his own, except that my stepmother was severely anorexic as an adolescent and recognized that something was wrong, even if I was eating as I always had. My endocrinologist asked if I had problems and sent me to a cardiologist when I complained of dizziness and fainting, and nothing. But I was losing weight, so it’s like nothing else mattered.
A scale is intrinsically linked to all of that for me, because the relief I felt getting on a scale and realizing I’d lost another chunk of weight and that not getting told I was disgusting was going to continue is impossible to put into words. I lived in fear of going back to the place where the only time I was noticed for my body was when I was being ridiculed for it. Absolutely nothing else mattered.
Eventually I realized how fucked up this was and told my endocrinologist how the medication was affecting me. She was horrified, immediately took me off of it, and told me that I should have told her at the outset. And I slowly gained the weight back.
That’s okay. Or, I guess it became okay, because it wasn’t for a little bit, but I’d kind of realized that what I was doing was incredibly detrimental and damaging, and that stopping it would result in weight gain. I just stopped getting on a scale. I’d kick it under the cabinets whenever I went into the bathroom. Hell, I still do my best not to even look at a scale when one appears in my life. And all that is why.
Literally no woman I know can interact with a scale without a ridiculous amount of anxiety and guilt. And I’m not entirely sure what to do about that, except to never ever ever buy one myself and to suggest that if you don’t need one to monitor health things for yourself or whatever, don’t use one. They’re the worst.
Thank you so much for sharing, I’m so glad you realized the destructive path you were heading towards and stopped. It really is a massive struggle for so many people. I’ve done such a good job at not giving a fuck that when the number is magically in front of me for the first time in ages, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT.
Oh well. I’m kind of ill right now so I don’t have the energy to even feel anything about it and I’m pretty much over it.
Stupid scales.
I’ve gained another 6 pounds this year. My head hurts too much right now to articulate how I feel about it. I hate that I can’t keep myself from looking at the scale when they weigh me at the doctor’s office, but at least my doc isn’t a fat-shaming butthead. GODDAMNIT WHY DO SCALES EXIST.
I’ve not weighed myself in about a year. My mom has a scale in her kitchen. I won’t be able to throw it out or get rid of it, but I can deny it - and I should - for the following reasons:
- Whether I’ve gained or lost weight is immaterial and it’s best not to know either way.
- How I feel is more important than the number on the scale.
- I would rather spend the holidays loving on the people around me than obsessing about every single little thing I put into my mouth.
- I know my body well enough already - I do not have to put it on a scale to determine its strength.
- A scale will not tell me how much progress I’ve made with my mental health, nor will it validate my worth.
The urge to step onto a scale is already itching and it is insane that I have to prepare myself like this but I refuse to fucking give in. I will enjoy everything and I refuse to give myself a chance to spiral down into a pit of internalized body shame and guilt. I deserve better, and so do you.
I’ve said it plenty, and I’m perfectly happy fat. I actually think I’m sexier fat, though most people would wildly disagree. I love my body, in spite of everything that’s wrong with it.
Still, I have a history of seriously disordered eating. My weight has been used as a weapon against me by my abusers for roughly the last twenty years. There were times when I’ve weigh myself twenty times a day, analyzing fluctuations to the tenth of a pound, and drawing my sense of self-worth from those numbers. Since becoming fat, and accepting my fatness, I’ve avoided scales entirely. I turn my back when I’m weighed, and tell the doctors and nurses very specifically that I don’t want to know my weight, that it’s triggering and dangerous for me.
So, naturally, today I got handed a piece of paper today at the doc’s with my weight, BMI, and weight class, circled, in bold print. I…was not pleased.
I think I’m handling it pretty well, but it’s still a blow to all the fat-positivity I’ve been embracing these last several months. And yeah, I know BMI is medically unsound bullshit, and I even already knew that by those debunked, useless standards, I was probably considered obese. But it still upset me to see it in print, not so much because it’s a reality, but because I’m furious that I’m being judged like this. My fat ass has nothing to do with what I’m suffering; I was suffering this shit when I was skinny, too. So it’s got no damn reason to be there, it’s just fucking judging me. And I’m so tired of judgment.
I just wanted to say that I completely and utterly relate to everything you’re experiencing. I actually make it a point to look away from the scale when I’m weighed at the doctor and they thankfully don’t read it out loud, but the temptation to look and to know is so overwhelming. The last time I weighed myself, it’s like all the things I learned about BMI and my own personal health left my head to be replaced by my former self…The self that obsessed, hated, and punished without care.
Others will impose judgement, but hold onto that strength you have in yourself to know better. You are not punishing yourself anymore and that in itself is monumental to good health, especially when thinness or striving for thinness is so detrimental to it. Stay tuff <3
[Image: Pink duotone design with large, deep pink typography overlapping a silhouetted fat body. The text simply states: “There is no obesity epidemic. - Redefining Body Image”]
Just an update: This is part one of a new poster series I’m working on that focuses on using blunt and unapologetic messaging to incite thought and reaction (hopefully of a positive or inquisitive nature) regarding fat discrimination, health, obesity hysteria, etc.
[Part Two: Fat ≠ Death]
Actually there is an obesity epidemic. I don’t discriminate based on weight, but there is a problem here.
Whenever I get people reblogging my work just to dismiss it or “correct” it, I wonder why they waste the effort of doing so when they can put that same effort towards actually looking into it and learning something new.
Suppose it must be heaps easier to just reblog and refute rather than challenge your own ways of thinking and do a little research, but I promise it’s worth looking into. Hell, just Googling “There is no obesity epidemic” comes up with a few interesting results to get you started.
I’m in the mood to break this down.
Epidemiologically speaking, an epidemic is defined as when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience.
Obesity pathologizes people who are at the high end of the normal range in human body weight. Weight is complicated and multifaceted, but the assumption that all weights past a certain point are indicative of disease is problematic at best and dangerous at worst. Body weight is not, in and of itself, a disease. So defining obesity as an epidemic is a misnomer in the first place.
Furthermore, assuming obesity is a disease (I’ll suspend my disbelief temporarily), rates would have to significantly increase over a specified period of time. Given the fear mongering in the government and medical community, the implication is that rates of obesity must currently be increasing at an alarming rate. But they aren’t. According to a study by Katherine Flegal, et. al., published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2010, rates of obesity were nearly flat between 1999 and 2008. A second article, also published in 2010, looked at rates of obesity in children from 1999 through 2006 and also found a plateau. While the article itself still assumes that obesity is itself a health risk, this piece from the Wall Street Journal indicates that rates of “overweight” and obesity have stayed the same between 1999-2000 and 2007-2008.
If you want to argue that higher weights are inherently a risk factor for morbidity and mortality, that’s a different issue. I’ll still argue that you’re wrong and that lifestyle is more indicative of future health outcomes than weight, but there is, in fact, no obesity epidemic.
Awesome breakdown, thank you for all the resources!
submitted by ammoncrisom:
I’m sure I’m probably going to get hate after for asking this as I am on the other side of the spectrum; thin and recovering from anorexia. But please do note I am asking this because I want to learn. I have nothing against people who are fat, I believe any weight is acceptable and people should love who they are no matter what size.
Anyways with that out of the way. I was curious on your and your fellow F.A. buddies position on people who in a sense are extremely fat. When I say extremely fat I’m not talking about society/media stupid take on fat. What I mean is when ones body can no longer support their weight. People who are confined to a bed, where they have to rely on someone to take care of them since they can’t on their own. Where it’s possibly emotionally and physically unhealthy as they can not do anything. Just completely helpless because of their weight. For example I’ve seen shows on people who are over 1 ton in weight that shows their every day struggles and how much it emotionally effects the people who care about them.
——
I don’t know that I can form a “position” on a group of people that are so misunderstood and berated. I mean, I don’t really HAVE a position other than knowing that these people exist and are worthy of love and respect just like anyone else. They don’t ask to exist in the bodies they were born with, they’re doing the best with what they’ve got. Everyone has their own story and set of issues, health risks, etc. associated with their lifestyle, regardless of weight. I refuse to judge.
I am not a medical professional, so this is all speculation or learned through experience/personal research, but for some - excessive weight gain of this caliber comes as the result of chronic health issues. Sometimes these issues are genetic, sometimes not.
Many cases where weight negatively impacts mobility and quality of life are a result of binge eating disorders or extremely complex relationships with food, self esteem, mental health, and body image. At least, these are the cases most showcased on the types of programs you’re referencing. I equate these kinds of cases with that of any other kind of person suffering from an eating disorder in that they are obviously ill and in need of help.
Fat people just happen to be at a disadvantage in that society can pick out their bodies from a line-up and imply that their health ought to be scrutinized and speculated over based on weight alone. But you can’t tell what a person’s story is by looking at them - and their story is none of anyone’s goddamn business. Who knows why they look or live or act the way they do. Who knows why ANYONE looks or lives or acts the way they do.
Why is it so important to form an opinion or speculate health in regards to weight? Because we’ve been taught that it’s visible? Health isn’t visible, it isn’t black and white. What about all of the shit people deal with that’s invisible, or hidden, or not as obvious? What about people born with disabilities? Is it not as important or detrimental when it isn’t related to weight gain?
I don’t know.
Regardless of my weight, regardless of my health, regardless of how I look……
I deserve
- to love my body
- to feel comfortable in my skin
- to be taken seriously
- to be given basic respect
- to not be given insults and abuse
And if you don’t agree you are the smelliest piece of shit in the toilet.
TW: eating disorder (bulemia)
Anonymous response to this message:
I am 5’9” and 150lbs, a very “healthy” weight for my height.
However, I have battled bulimia for 5 years. I am sick almost all the time, my teeth are full of cavities and my mental health fucking sucks.
I do not consider myself “healthy” by any means but nobody questions my health because I am neither overweight or under and don’t look sick.
This is just another side of the spectrum. Weight doesn’t determine one’s health (if it did I would be healthy right?) but health also doesn’t determine one’s worth. I may be sick but I am VERY loved and I deserve every bit of it(also deserve to heal).
I’m sorry if you’re struggling with weight related health issues and I hope you are able to overcome that… but that’s your own shit and your personal experience doesn’t give you the right to make assumptions regarding anybody’s body/health.