Body as Power: An Experiment in Body Liberation and Health At Every Size
From May to July of 2020, twelve participants went through the latest iteration of Body as Power, a project that aims to shift how we think about and experience our own bodies. The driving question here is, how do we shift from viewing the body as a problem to experiencing the body as a site of power, wisdom, and infinite possibility?
Last summer, the Body as Power project held two in-person workshops in Boston, centering fat queer and trans folks. This summer, the offering went virtual spurred by widespread weight and body size panic that (while already an ever-present part of many communities) has intensified during COVID-19 quarantining. I was compelled to offer (and also needed) a space where people could step away from weight, size, and food panic and into curiosity, community, and shared learning of frameworks and practices for making peace with food and the body.
The Invitation
I put out an invitation on Facebook. Those who indicated interest received an email invitation that opened with:
“Body as knowledge
Body as ally
Body as altar
Body as home
Body as Power”
The broad idea: Together, we will practice being in a fat-positive, health at every size, non-dieting container where we will learn about and reflect on things like building trust with the body, treating the body with kindness, and intuitive eating*. The calls will center fat folks, and are a space for those familiar with or very aligned with the health at every size framework.”
*Intuitive eating is a body-based practice of reconnecting with the hunger, fullness, and nutrition cues we were all born with.
The Collective Experience
While the group experience was crafted specifically for those looking for community around intuitive eating, body kindness, and/or fat positivity, the goals of the project are larger and more universal: to look at how we collectively struggle with the ways our bodies are policed (in whatever ways they are), to come together to share our stories, to build critical awareness and lessen our shame, and to imagine and practice new worlds of dignity for all people.
Participants from the first Body as Power cohort. Photo taken and shared publicly with permission.
During our five gatherings, we reflected on the challenges, particular advantages, and potent power of communities working to uproot fatphobia and diet culture and cultivate embodied liberation for all. We learned about (You can find sources and learn more about the following in the resources section at the end of this post.):
the anti-Black origins of fatphobia and racist science behind the BMI
weight-neutral, evidence-based paradigms for health and wellness that instill trust in the Self, such as Health at Every Size and Intuitive Eating
radical self-love and the intersections of fatphobia with class, gender, and ability
grieving diet culture and the thin ideal, which includes unlearning characteristics of Whiteness, such as perfectionism and rigidity
tactics to increase shame resilience, including sharing our stories and building critical awareness of the financial interests and racist practices of diet and medical industries
paths and practices for somatic transformation, such as committing to the body as a site of compassionate transformation and intuitive eating
We closed the experience with a poetry and visual art filled celebration of fat bodies, led by Alexandra Thomas, a participant and collaborator of Body as Power.
Nature Self-Portrait #2, 1996, Laura Aguilar. Gelatin silver print, 14 x 19 1/16 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Purchased with funds provided by the Photographs Council, 2019.19.2. © Laura Aguilar Trust of 2016. / Laura Aguilar is among the artists whose work we looked at.
The F-Word
The term fat can bring up discomfort. The word has long been used in mass media and in everyday life as an insult, a joke, a feeling of embodied shame, disgust, and moral wrongness. Now, fat has has been reclaimed as a neutral descriptor by those in larger bodies. In “Fat Is Not a Bad Word” (a piece from the Teen Vogue series “The F Word”), Ashleigh Shackelford, a self-described fat, Black, queer activist and writer shares:
“No matter how people use it, fat is not a bad word. Fat is not an indication of value, health, beauty, or performance. Fat is a descriptor in the same way that black and queer are descriptors… How fat is weaponized, and the reclamation of the word, goes beyond size. Fat stigma is also tied to anti-blackness, in that being black is the abundance that white supremacy seeks to shrink. Blackness and its cultural markers are historically viewed through a lens of gluttony, abundance, and savagery, stereotypes that linger and impact us today.”
By the end of our final call, the Body as Power cohort wrote a collective poem describing what fatness is to us.
Fatness is power, freedom, beauty.
Fatness is sacred protection
Fatness is taking up space to remind them that we are here.
– an excerpt from “Fatness Is”, our collective poem
Beyond the Individual
Sites of Shaping from Generative Somatics
If we step one, two, or three concentric circles outward from the individual experience, we can see how much energy families, communities, and institutions like doctor’s offices and public schools put into often well-intentioned, though ultimately shame-inducing and psychologically harmful weight control. I invite us to step back and wonder, if folks felt comfortable in their bodies and knew their size or weight was–in itself–not a problem, how might they choose to spend their energy instead of constant food and weight surveillance? How might they instead intuit their wellness, their dignity, and their ability to self-determine? How might they put their energy towards more socially beneficial and courageous uses, given the many ecological crises of our time?
The Body as Power project is a result of my many years of studying the embodied shame in our communities and seeing an opening for how I might clear a path for some of us towards more powerful and pleasurable shores. I believe our power (and our pleasure) lies just beyond our shame, and that any cultural shifts for liberation must live in the body.
Learn more
If you’re interested in learning more about what I’ve explore above, here are some places to start:
Sabrina Strings, Fearing the Black Blody: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
Sonalee Rashatwar,: @The Fat Sex Therapist
Food Psych Podcast, recent episodes of note:
Intuitive Eating
For resources on body-based transformation and shame resilience, check out:
Basically any of Brené Brown’s work, including her new podcast Unlocking Us
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
