Body Image has a LOT to do with DV — men use women’s “fear of fat” or, as in my case — PCOS related weight (I have only been ‘fat’ about 10 of my 51 years on the planet – NONE of it from being out of control with food! All of it from medication for my disability). Many abusers are porn addicts and porn feeds the perfect women’s body mindset along with TV, advertising, and the rise of the cosmetic surgery industry. Here’s an internet note I personally recieved from an ex who was stalking me online and has continued to play victim (a typical abuser move – called “Projection”) when his wife found out he was cheating or trying to cheat with a number of other women. (Don’t worry I had said NO to him! probably why he was angry…;) )

…”You got him to agree to meet up with you.

“When he did meet up with you, to his horror, he saw that his ex-girlfriend from college had ballooned into a 275 lb fat pig with poor hygiene and he didn’t want to bang you. He politely excused himself by saying he couldn’t do this to his wife.

You then began stalking him and his family, driving by his house, sending letters to his wife, his parents, his in-laws, his rabbi, the police, anyone with whom you thought you could slander his good name. His poor wife was left with no choice but to report you to the police after you threatened to harm her children.

Sound familiar porkchop?”

Of course, being disabled there was no way I could have done any of these things I was accused of doing here. Don’t worry, I have a C&D out on this person and the police are well informed of his stalking and outright threats made against me… but its just an example of how abusive persons try to hurt women like me by throwing their weight in their faces like a weapon.

For example, in the U.K. they rarely want to treat the “morbidly obese” for anything but a gastric bypass. “Better dead than fat” is the watch-phrase. (no thought to maybe your weight being something that has ZERO to do with food!)

Of course the stress & cortisol of the severe trauma & PTSD caused by ANY abuse (verbal, emotional, mental, financial, spiritual – and physical) causes weight gain too. I personally had a marriage counselor say to me that my husband would “love me again” if I “just lost some weight.” Despite reems of reports telling this ‘counselor’ that my weight was medically caused it was all she could see. She looked right past my exes BLATANT verbal, emotional & sexual abuse. All she saw was my extra 60 lbs.

This is one of the best articles I have seen on the subject:

http://wrcdv.blogspot.com/2008/07/fat-acceptance-and-domestic-violence.html

Other than that there are scant resources for body image & domestic violence issues though I continue to look!

Regarding comments made about “fat” women having lower self esteems and skinny people having image delusions of being “fat” I don’t know if this can be asserted as fact. I know plenty of fuller figure women with healthy self esteems, just like I know skinny women who are constantly ridiculed for being thin. From what I have found thus far, many of these women actually resent being small and wish they were larger. This is most likely due to the fact that female sexual characteristics, or femininity, is often associated with women who have more meat on their bones.

Most people have still never heard of Fat Acceptance, and it’s almost impossible to grow up in American society, at least, without absorbing the messagethat fat makes you bad, bad, bad.

Agreed. The FA / BA message is good for everyone to hear.

And when we’re talking about fat women who already see themselves as basically worthless, who have had the message that they are worthless pounded into their heads by abusers — in some cases since childhood — it’s really not unreasonable to assume that those women probably aren’t happy with their bodies.

Kate, my original unease was with the statement:
‘I don’t think it is any coincidence that 80% (my estimate) of our clientele is fat’. Not a coincidence? Why exactly?

Which, I am sure you will agree, is an entirely different kettle of fish to Amber’s clarification a little later on:
We have women of all sizes seeking our services, but it is noteworthy for us that a majority of the women residing in our safehouse are fat.

You can see the difference, yes?

Slightly off topic, I understand that for someone who hasn’t lived through domestic violence, it is incomprehensible why women stay as long as they do. Nevertheless, women who have been in violent relationships have serious fucking survival skills, developed out of necessity. They deserve respect for that fact alone.

While abuse causes self-doubt and PTS, the fact that these women have extracted themselves from the abuse, that they were able to draw the line, say the final ‘no more’ and LEAVE shows that they had a core sense of their own worth (‘I am worth saving, I am worth more than this’).

Gah. Like I said. Taking it personally.

Since then I’ve realised I’m a lesbian, and this have given me some additional perspectives on this. One thing is that a woman has come to believe that she is undesirable, another thing is that she feels she has to be physically (sp?) attractive no matter the cost to her life and her mental self. It’s not only her body-image that is taken hostage in abusive relationships; it’s the very idea of her worth as a human being. The lesson is that if she’s not in relationship with a man, she practically a waste and disposable. Therefore she will stay with a man who is hurting be, because she is too afraid to be a ‘failure’.

Maybe it would be interesting to take a look in the abused womans socio-economic position in society. My experience is that a lot of upper-middle class women can choose the ‘single life’ while this is not an opportunity for a lot of financialluy poor women. And we all know that obesity rates is closely linked to poverty rates.

Just a thought.

I also really enjoy a series of mysteries about The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, which is set in Botswana and has a “traditionally built” heroine, who is clever, kind, and generous; but no fool. They are some of my favorite feel-good books to read because they are basically optimistic and present a fat woman as competent and successful.

And, since the LW is fat and confident and in a loving relationship; I suspect that she is a good example herself. Give the women a reason to identify with her and they’ll believe they too are just as worthwhile.

Exposing people to the idea of HAES is a good thing, along with critiquing society’s messages that thin is good. Simply giving these women some information about how fat is not a moral failing, and that they can trust their own bodies would seem to me to be empowering and possibly help them realize their own value. Being able to trust that your body knows it needs food is parallel to trusting your own heart that you need comfort, not abuse. I’m not stating this quite clearly, I hope it’s understandable.

I’ve heard of a couple studies that help verify that HAES is a good thing, but I don’t know the links offhand. There’s one that shows that people who are divided into a dieting group versus a HAES group has the HAES group having better medical outcomes and better stick-with-it-ness than the dieting group. The other was only partly HAES, but studied teens taught that exercise was a good thing and how to critique the skinny images in fashion mags compared to teens left alone. The ones taught HAES as a group ended up thinner (less dieting), fewer eating disorders(less dieting), and better self-esteem. Good science is showing that HAES has positive outcomes, where dieting is pretty useless. I think these could be useful.

Best of luck, abuse and its consequences are awful things.