The first day of Fall...the beginning of visible changes in many of the trees and foliage around us. What about the unseen changes within--not only in nature but within our being? I am hopeful that there is a seed of doubt growing within each of us around the diet-driven promises of "happily ever after" once physical appearance is transformed (magically?) from "fat" to "thin"--a truly harmful binary perspective. During this week of Weight Stigma Awareness let's open to the knowing of our unique beauty contained within the body we have right now.
The Binge Eating Disorder Association (BEDA) chose the perfect time of year for their week of looking at change around the topic of weight stigma. BEDA's focus today is on "Transgender Challenges." Each article illustrates the need for us to go beyond binary definitions of not only gender, but of race, body size, and all other descriptors that occur within a broad spectrum of "this too" rather than a black and white "either or" construct. One of today's contributors, Ivy Hill, explains the idea beautifully in this TEDx Talk.
In the last stanza of a poem Andrea wrote six months before her death she declared:
I can eat, I can laugh, I can dance
It is no longer either/or
I can cry, and play, and Love
I can Live without condemnation, without reprimand
without regret
The Incredible Dichotomy of Being
I am a plethora of ands
We are all "a plethora of ands" and deserve a life "without condemnation" ... without weight stigma.
