The Minnesota starvation experiment is one powerful account of what actually happens to the human body and mind under even ‘moderate’ (by many dieting standards) calorie reduction:

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/135/6/1347

Rather disturbingly, it seems that the WHO – whom I always thought had defined 1600 kcals/day as starvation – no longer have this kind of definition – but they do now have a lot of stuff about obesity as a growing problem. Of course, how many calories anyone requires – to live a normal healthy life, not be some arbitrary size – is individual, but it’s dangerous when no medical or social authority seems to want to say any longer ‘This number of calories is definitely too low for a human being to live on’.

Anyway, getting back on topic…My very first awakening to the idea that fat might just be OK was way back – Shelley Bovey’s Being Fat Is Not A Sin. Well out of print now, I suspect. There was a spate of such books, I seem to recall, in the early 90s, and I suspect what we’re seeing now may be at least partly a backlash. Bovey herself gave in to pressure a few years back, lost weight and wrote a book about it, which pissed me no end.

Prior to finding this site and the whole Fatosphere, Fat!So? was perhaps the best bit of recent inspiration.

I found this quote most enlightening. in a book that had nothing to do with diet, exercise, health, or anything but happiness!

Carolyn

“Wank,” huh? If you think someone who was a movement leader switching very publicly from an anti-dieting to a pro-dieting stance — and openly mocking those who did not follow in her footsteps — is worth nothing more than a shrug and a yawn, I don’t know what to tell you.

Hell, I think anyone can call themselves fat activists if they like. Anyone who wants to help out the cause, great. I’m not about to issue purity tests for anyone.

But there’s a difference between being an activist and being an activist leader. If she has other priorities right now besides being an activist leader, fine, but really, you can’t do a 180 like that and expect absolutely nobody to mind.

A little later, Hanne decided she wanted to lose a little bit of weight (not get thin, mind, just get into the lower range of her body’s set point so as to ease her joints a bit) and blogged about it, whereafter there was much wank in the Fatosphere as to whether or not Hanne should still get to call herself a fat activist or not. While I disagreed with the stance a lot of bloggers took, and some of them left a fairly bad taste in my mouth, that was how I discovered Shapely Prose and others. Since then I have found much that has re-inforced that aha moment, all of which has been mentioned above, but Big Big Love was where it got started: for the fact that it told me that fat could be sexy.

I can recommend a lot of books, most of which have already been mentioned, but I understand the need for succinctness. In that regard, I think you might find a recently published special report by the Wellness Councils of America (WELCOA) useful.

“Kids, Eating, Weight & Health: Helping Without Harming” was edited by Jon Robison, Ph.D. (author of “The Spirit & Science of Holistic Health”). It’s a 36-page issue of WELCOA’s Absolute Advantage magazine containing articles/overviews by Dr. Robison (whose doctorate is in health education/exercise physiology…he also has an MS in human nutrition), therapist Carmen Cool, and dietitian Elizabeth Jackson. Its overviews of facts and issues are applicable to all ages, IMO.

The PDF of this report can be downloaded free of charge at the WELCOA website (www.welcoa.org). I think the direct link is <>.
If that doesn’t work, click on the Free Resouces link at the top righthand corner of their website, then scroll down to click on “Free Reports” and on the subsequent page click on “Get your free report” in the section devoted to Kids, Eating, Weight & Health.

Dr. Robison did a similar (but longer — 56 pages) Absolute Advantage issue on Health At Every Size in general a couple of years ago. That issue is also available free of charge at the WELCOA Free Reports page (scroll way down) or directly at: <>.

Also, in skimming my computer files looking for the WELCOA PDFs I found the May 2007 Healthy Families packet/PDF from Eat Right Montana, which you might find useful (particularly for future family therapists :-). The 4-page packet has a Health At Every Size/non-dieting focus, with reproducible handouts on Moving Away From Diets: The Joy of Movement and Moving Away From Diets: Feeding Your Body Well. The packet/PDF is available free of charge from http://www.eatrightmontana.rg/eatrighthealthyfamilies.htm. (The packet summarizes and contains a link to the April 2007 American Psychologist Mann et al review article “Medicare’s Search for Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not the Answer” (which provides empirical evidence that diets don’t work).

Also…even if you don’t utilize/assign all of J. Eric Oliver, Ph.D.’s book “Fat Politics,” I recommend reviewing with your students his description of the Centers for Disease Control Powerpoint presentation that essentially started the (false) concept of “obesity” spreading throughout the U.S. like an epidemic/contagious disease, and his report that the term “morbid obesity” was coined by a surgeon in the 1950s as part of his efforts to market bariatric (“weight loss”) surgery. I might also introduce/define the terms/practices of “disease-mongering,” “fear-mongering,” “moral panic” and “astro-turfing” (artificial grass-roots campaigns) and note how they apply to “obesity epidemic” hysteria.

Also FYI, if any of your students are interested in a Health At Every Size friendly approach to eating disorders and/or compulsive eating, I recommend Judith Matz & Ellen Frankel’s “Beyond A Shadow of a Diet” (a handbook for therapists that among other things addresses countertransference re: therapists’ own body/fat issues) and their “The Diet Survivor’s Handbook” (self-help).

Ellen Frankel’s “Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth” deals with her eating disorder (and recovery) as well as the heightism component of sizeism. Relationship issues are also addressed — in her case, specifically, how she turned to/became involved with powerful men as a substitute for her own self-esteem/self-efficacy. (Disclaimer: I published “Beyond Measure,” as well as Pattie Thomas’s “Taking Up Space,” which I also recommend.)

Another book that hasn’t been mentioned yet, but which addresses weight/fat stigma, is Charisse Goodman’s “The Invisible Woman.”

Good luck with your class! It’s wonderful knowing some potential therapists will be exposed to size/fat acceptance.