What a fat lot of good weight shaming does – an alternative view of the plus size row

I posted my dismay at some bizarre comments made by the Loose Women team last month about whether high street fashion should be available in sizes above 14-16.  Here it is in it’s glory but be prepared to shout at the screen.

So many people were as shocked and appalled as I was that one member of the panel, Jamelia, made an apology the following day.  This carried more of the features of a backtrack than a sorry but being an ambassador for ITV’s Good Morning Britain #selfieesteem campaign I guess she had little choice.  (But do check out Natasha Devon’s part in the campaign and her bid to banish ‘fat talk’.)

“I do not think it is right to facilitate people living an unhealthy lifestyle” she smiled “I think you should be uncomfortable if you are unhealthy.”

Janet Street-Porter (no stranger to controversy) chipped in with “I don’t want to demonise these girls but at the same time I don’t want to normalise being morbidly obese.”  Rolling these two words around in her mouth, her concerns seemed to centre around mobility issues in the short term and health issues in later life.  I can only suppose she thought these were valid anchor points for her argument but she soon slipped her mooring when she implied that denying teenagers fashionable clothes would motivate them to lose weight.

So, at what weight does a girl give up the right to feel good about herself?  At what BMI does she have to hand over her red lipstick and stockings?  At what size does she no longer have the right to wear high heels and up to the minute fashion?

Size 16?  Possibly an 18 according to the Loose Women crew (the following day this was increased to 20).  Certainly not if you are a size 24 or, incidentally a size 0.

The word ‘kaftan’ was mentioned once.

Tell all of this to successful model, fashion blogger and celebrity Tess Holliday.  Sporting stunning looks, big lashy eyes and tumbling locks, her portfolio includes swimwear and lingerie shoots.  She has no shortage of va-va-voom but her gorgeous curves fall outside of what our ladies above would call ‘normal’.  Seriously though, putting her in a shapeless kaftan would be nothing short of a crime.

(Check out Tess’ blog and see also fashion bloggers Callie Thorpe, Dannielle Varnier, Bethany Rutter, Georgina Horne – find their blogs on my Links page).

L.A. based Tess along with this small group of influential and rather fabulous British plus size fashion bloggers were featured in Channel 4’s Plus Sized Wars – the subject of the Loose Women’s lunchtime chat.  (Available to view until 20/04/15 – see Channel 4’s website.)

Aired on the 21st of April this year, the programme explored the fashion industry’s awakening to a previously undertapped corner of the market.  Three companies: 80 year established high street staple Evans, Australian Taking Shape and market trader brainchild Yours are after the plus sized fashion conscious girl with an eye for style and money in her pocket.

But, it’s clear from their clumsy comments, that the intelligent media-savvy individuals sat around the Loose Women panel that day had understood little and misunderstood much from the Channel 4 programme.

This in mind, these are the things I have a problem with:

• The assumption that every girl who is a size 20 cannot run after her children or enjoy life to the full.  I regularly run 4k and cycle 10k and yes, I chase my six year old around the park and regularly run up the stairs (I mean, who really has the time to walk?).
• The assumption that feeling uncomfortable will make you lose weight.  It won’t, it will make you go eat more cake.
• The assumption that everyone who is big is greedy and lazy and therefore deserves to be.  This kind of Dickensian reasoning is just ignorant of the kind of mental and physical health problems that can be behind weight issues (and a quick bit of research will reveal the damage done by the bullshit dietary advice about fat we were spoonfed in the 1980s/1990s).
• The misleading assumption that teenage girls can be shamed into losing weight.  This is a time when a girl’s self-esteem can be at its lowest and is so easily scuppered.  If we send out the wrong messages about their self-worth then they are lost.  Punishing a girl for being overweight at this age is utterly counterproductive (regardless of what Janet Street Porter says).

What’s next?  Punish everyone with an unhealthy lifestyle?  Shall we start saying that smokers can’t have coordinating accessories or that drinkers can’t wear makeup?

Let’s separate morals and self-esteem because even bad people can have a good haircut (something to think about in the run up to the General Election).

I think a more intelligent approach is in order:

• The ‘This Girl Can’ campaign.  A friend of mine teaches teenagers with mental health issues.  Her classroom walls feature positive images of women of all sizes sweating, getting strong and feeling vital and she’s had a great response from the girls in her care.
• And how about the ‘Too fat to run’ club interviewed running the London Marathon this year?  Plus size women can’t run after a toddler?  These women run over 26 miles for fun.
• What better way to get people feeling good and feeling fit than by telling them that they have a good body, a strong body, a valid and beautiful body that’s worth training?
• Promote the message that it’s more important to be healthy than to be slim.  For some of us ‘slim’ is a dream in some far off tomorrow.  Fit is putting your trainers on or getting in the saddle right now and doing what it takes to get your heart pumping.
• Let’s remove the stigma that comes along with being overweight, from health.  The focus should be on moving and eating healthily, not on what bad, lazy people fatties are.
• Let’s think about the underlying causes of obesity, instead of reducing people to wearing shapeless, unflattering and soul-destroying clothes.
• It’s a matter of shifting perspective and opening your mind to the fact that good people sometimes make unwise choices and unwise people sometimes make good choices.  There may be an unseen story behind what is immediately apparent.
• One of the biggest concerns the NHS has at the moment is the rise in diabetes.  Will someone, somewhere please point me to the clinical research that concludes that weight shaming is the best way of tackling this.  I’d be genuinely interested in reading it.
• Hats off to the likes of Sainsbury’s TU and Mountain Warehouse for their fine ranges of sports/outdoor clothing up to a size 22 – they are the only mainstream places I’ve found stylish running gear off the peg in my size.  Shame on everyone else.  You’re not helping (but do drop me a line if you’ve found another great source).

I’m the first one to acknowledge that the young, curvy body of the beautiful women in Channel 4’s documentary will change when they get older.  Popping out a couple of kids and blowing out forty candles on a cake changes a girl and the potential sagging of the later years affects those of us of a more voluptuous nature to a greater extent than our trimmer counterparts.  This is one point on which I can agree with JSP but from what I’ve read, self loathing is rarely the first step to making life-changing decisions.  I’d say that self-belief and self-worth are probably a better starting point.

So I believe we have a responsibility towards overweight young women but we can’t assume that they’re lazy, greedy and lacking in commitment.  They want to feel good about themselves.  They want to feel powerful, sexy, valid and we have to help them to do this.

Let’s see more of the well designed fashion Tess, Callie, Danielle, Bethany and Georgina are peddling.  Let’s have a bit more body acceptance – no, body joy.  Let’s celebrate the feeling of looking good.  Us big girls are not all burger eating, couch surfing slobs who don’t give a shit about our cholesterol or heart disease.  Some of us regularly run, cycle, dance and swim despite our wobbly bits.  And for those who really need to lose weight for medical reasons, let’s make it about medical reasons.  Let’s make the journey more positive every step of the way – after all, JSP’s hypothetical size twenty 18-year old might have been a size twenty-four last year and doing up the zip on her new, crisp polka dot frock has made all the blood, sweat and tears worth while.

We just want to wear some delicious clothes and feel fantastic while we do it.

And it’s going to take a bit more than a bit of lunch time chit-chat to stop us.

 

See also The Damaging Lack of Self Control That could Sink The NHS