Rad Fatty: Max Airborne

As one of the founding collective members of FaT GiRL, the zine for fat dykes and the women who want them, which came out of the Bay Area's queer SM punk scene in the mid-90s, Max Airborne's influence on a generation of fat people, including me, is beyond my ability to articulate. She's also a musician, a mover, shaker, artist, thinker and pickler. None of these descriptors come close to explaining what it's like to spend time with her, but hopefully this little interview will give you a clue. There's a tribe of us for whom Max is a keystone, I can't imagine my life without her.

You seem so at home in your freakhood, you never seem to care what the straight world thinks, you really "make your own kind of music and sing your own special song," as Mama Cass would say. Is this true? If so, how do you do it?

Thank you for the fabulous theme song!

I often forget what the straight world thinks, because I've built up a life that's so far outside of it. I'm so deeply immersed in a community of queer, fat and freaky people. A lot of my art and activism has been about building a culture in which we are the norm, rather than bothering to try and make space for ourselves in the straight world. It's an alternative society in which we can start healing from the pain, fear and oppression of growing up not fitting into the mould. It’s a world where we can learn to value and love ourselves as we are, we can blossom and thrive. It’s partly made possible by living in a metropolis that's a hub for queers, fat activists, and a variety of other freaky people, but I feel like it isn’t bound by location – it has members all over the world.

Over time I have come to appreciate that this kind of separatist approach has different sides. It can give us the space to blossom in ways we never could otherwise. And in some ways it makes us more vulnerable when we do have to be in the straight world – we're not prepared, we've forgotten how to repress ourselves in order to stay safe. Also, we’ve ceased to benefit from the good parts of cross-cultural exchange, like staying open to folks who are different from us and seeing the ways in which we are all human, with hearts and pains that maybe aren’t so different after all. There's a balance that needs to happen – ultimately I feel like society really needs a diversity that includes us, so while I'd like us to nurture ourselves in our alternative society, I still hope that we will somehow share our freakiness with the larger culture. I don't want us to close our hearts to people who are different from us. I think real, lasting, liberating change is made by people with open hearts. Working consciously to love ourselves puts us in a position to model that love to others.

And following on from that question, who influences and supports you?

My heroes are explorers who keep asking questions, who are doing their own inner work and trying to integrate it with their activism. My heroes are the artists whose lives are their medium. I am supported every day by many people, both in my life and in the world, who don’t stop trying to walk their talk. I have a wonderful family who keeps loving me through the hard stuff.

What were FaT GiRL's greatest achievements?

A dozen years later, people still write to me to say that FaT GiRL saved their lives. I have literally received hundreds of these messages, and every time it makes me cry. Saving a life is a tall order! We really helped somebody! And these are people who are making amazing contributions to life, to art and activism. Is it possible to be both proud and humbled? That's kind of how it feels to me. FaT GiRL became so much bigger than us, and its reverberations were/are magnificent for such a small thing!

FaT GiRL spread the word among a certain generation of freaky fatties that we can have an alternative society where we are valued, we can have community, sexuality, joy, and full lives as fat queers – without dieting or assimilation or apology. I think we had some influence on fat awareness and acceptance in the larger queer culture, and possibly elsewhere too, but that's hard to measure. FaT GiRL was unique, but it was also part of a movement that included the lives and work of Nomy Lamm, Marilyn Wann, Charlotte Cooper (that's you!), Allyson Mitchell and so many others.

What does fat activism feel like?

That's a hard question!

Lately I've been doing the kind of fat activism where I am the only fat person among thin people who've never heard of fat activism. It can be really draining! It's in the context of a social justice organisation I'm really committed to, and the people want to be fat allies, and are more open to it than most, so I press on, but sometimes I really need a break!

There's also a kind of fat activism that takes place amongst fat people, in the process of connecting and becoming allies, and then maintaining the relationships. Sometimes fat people are really scared of other fat people – they look at you and see what they don't want to be: FAT. Sometimes a fat person who's been a proud fat activist for years will get scared about getting older and more disabled, and their fears get pinned on being fat, so the fat activism gets chucked out the window. People will trade fatness (via surgery and other extreme measures) for horrible, painful health problems. It's really challenging to know how to keep being good to ourselves and each other through that stuff. It's painful for the whole fat activist community, really.

I feel like the struggles we have as a community call upon us to do our own internal fat activism. We need to be deeply aware of all our beliefs and fears. We need to let it all come out and look at it, and decide what parts of ourselves we want to nurture and what parts we don't. It's got to be a conscious effort. If I'm harbouring fears and rejections of parts of myself, and not letting myself see or admit them, those are going to come out later in my behaviour. I must not hide from myself. This is part of fat activism for me – full acceptance of my body and my experience, and making very conscious decisions about how I want to treat myself. It's a constant process, and not easy. But without it I'd be dead, pure and simple. It's the constant questioning of both the external world and the internal world that has kept me from jumping ship on life. Society lies to us, and the internal critic – the bit of society that lives within us – lies to us too. We need to question all the external and internal messages we hear, open our hearts and decide for ourselves what is true.

Could you say a bit about your journey into meditation?

Several years ago I noticed myself getting increasingly bitter about life. I was miserable – hating just about everything and everyone. I was truly scared about who I was becoming. I felt like I had become dead – totally shut down to life. It was clear to me that I needed to do something to change the direction of my life. I ended up at a local meditation centre taking a class that involved cultivating qualities like generosity and gratitude. Definitely an antidote to bitterness! I went every week to that class and cried and cried as I started uncovering my heart. The class was only six weeks long, but it really helped me begin to redirect my approach to life. After that I started going to a weekly queer meditation group, and going on occasional day- or week-long silent meditation retreats.

I try to keep a schedule that gives me space to sit in silence for 45 minutes almost every day, just trying to be fully present in the moment with myself. It’s a vital component of being fully alive for me. It’s easier for me to go through my daily life and see what state of mind I’m in at a given moment, and make better choices about how I want to act or what I want to say. It’s easier for me to handle the bumps in the road of life. It increases my ability to have compassion for myself and others in the face of shame, bitterness, anger, and all the other hard stuff.

My main practice happens at East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, the city where I live. I have a very special love for EBMC because their whole mission is rooted in aligning the forces of mindfulness practice and social justice. I'm very active there, not just meditating, but also organising and other work that helps keep the centre going. It's a great opportunity to bring my meditation practice into the other work I feel passionate about, and it's such incredible teaching for me to be doing active work with folks who have been doing meditation for decades. They really bring it with them into the work, and inspire me to pay attention and bring patience and compassion into all aspects of life.

You seem to be someone who's often at the centre of things, others have noted how great you are at creating community, yet you are so laid back, sometimes even quite shy it seems. I often think all the activity is because you're really good at asking questions, but what do you think is going on?

I think there actually might be a genetic component, which sounds a little ridiculous, but my sister and parents also tend to be at the hub of things, too.

One thing that comes to mind is that I’m very enthusiastic when it comes to starting projects that feel important to me, and when I’m in that state, I tend to get very focused and driven, so I initially work really hard to get a project together, and in a way it becomes part of my identity. It’s a mixed blessing, because after a while I just can’t sustain that amount of energy output, and it gets harder to keep following through. It’s true that I’m a bit shy – a lot of being so public and social produces a certain amount of anxiety for me and at some point I need to withdraw and recover a bit, which is also more difficult when a project becomes part of your identity. It's challenging, and something I'm working on.

Please tell me about your household's pickling projects.

A few years ago I started developing an interest in making my own sauerkraut. I’m interested in learning something about the culture of my ancestors. As a European-American whose grandparents and great grandparents came to America and assimilated into the generic privileged construct of Whiteness, I was raised with absolutely no clue about my ethnic heritage, even though, for example, my dad was the first generation on his dad’s side (from Friesland) to be born in America. One of the aspects of culture that’s easiest to access is food. I love pickled foods, and they’re common among several of my ancestral cultures, hence the interest in sauerkraut.

My housemates were sceptical when I first broached the subject, and they begged me not to do it in the house because they imagined rotting cabbage would stink up the place. I thought maybe I’d set it up in the garage, but that seemed like a pain, so my drive was thwarted.

Then I got my hands on a book about pickling called Wild Fermentation, which happened to be written by a freaky queer guy named Sandor Katz, and even included a discussion of gender pronoun choices. My interest was renewed, and so I started pushing the issue again with my housemates. Around that time my housemates and I went to a party where someone happened to have brought their very own homemade sauerkraut. It tasted incredibly good, and we spent quite a long time grilling the maker with questions about it. Satisfied that it would not make our kitchen smell like a port-a-potty, my housemates gave me the go-ahead. That was over a year ago now, and pickling has become a constant activity in our kitchen. We’ve pickled cabbage, garlic, carrots, celery, ginger, squash, cucumbers, peaches, green beans, beets, radishes, onions, lemons, limes, turnips, cauliflower, peppers, and probably a dozen other things I’m forgetting. And of course pickling is common to many cultures around the world, so while it is a delicious and fun way to eat what my ancestors ate, it’s also become a geekiness unto itself to discover what different cultures do with pickling. And my girlfriend, who is a total dynamo in the kitchen, is at least as into pickling as I am, perhaps even more so. I call her 'Kraut Papa.'

What else would you like to say?

Well, I’d really like to take this opportunity to say how much I appreciate you, Charlotte. I am hugely grateful for you, how alive you are, how you strive to be awake and honest, asking hard questions, generating lots of fun and laughter and freedom along the way. You help me remember who I want to be in this life. (Charlotte: blub! I love you Maxie!)

Max's Comics
FaT GiRL back issues for sale
East Bay Meditation Center

Talking at the Weekend

I'm speaking on a panel this Sunday with Sharon Curtis and Kathryn Szrodecki. It's being convened by Lucy Aphramor. There's going to be a screening of a DVD from The Body Positive, a Health At Every Size project from the US, and then a discussion.

Come along eh? It's in Coventry, city of The Specials, and host to the annual Peace Festival, which is currently running. Right on!

Sunday 8 November
12.30-3pm
The Herbert
Jordan Well, Coventry, CV1 5QP

Shapewear

Shapewear
Charlotte Cooper and Kay Hyatt
1 November 2009
10 mins 11 secs

Shapewear is what happens when two badass fat dykes take over the changing room at a shopping centre.

When the only clothes available for a fat mannish lady are made for girly-girls, Kay Hyatt decides to try and feminise her body using body-sculpting underwear, with eye-popping results. Her girlfriend, Charlotte Cooper, lends a not-so helping hand.

Filmed guerrilla-style on Charlotte's mobile phone, this film features shameless nudity and a big belly.

Watch Shapewear.

Pissing on Pity: fat media representation following Kathryn Srodecki

Kathryn Szrodecki's piece for the BBC about discrimination against fat people has sparked a flurry of UK media interest that is making me want to bang my head against the wall.

In theory you'd think that more recognition for fatphobia would be a good thing. Some fat activists are glad that these stories are appearing, and whilst I agree that it's probably better they're out in the world, I'm not pathetically grateful for this representation. Accounts such as the attack on Marsha Coupe are being presented through the prism of a fatphobic media whose only language for fat is steeped in prurience and tragedy, they bring to mind the disability activist slogan: Piss on Pity.

This BBC news web's magazine article is one such related piece. It makes me want to scream, and not just because of the preposterous headless fatty measuring his tummy that they've chosen to illustrate it. Why this picture, picture editors? Why? Why?

Firstly, the promo link (the little link with the picture that leads to the main article) features the text: "Why do some of us hate fat people so much?" What does this text say about the assumed reader of the piece? Who is this "us"? The subtle language in this tiny little link normalises hatred as just one of those things that some of us project.

Secondly, the fat people in the article have their weights listed, but nobody else does, especially not the professionals quoted. I don't understand this. Is it to assure the reader that these people are really, properly fat? Their weights are helpfully given in imperial and metric measures too, what's with that?

Thirdly, there's the reliance on The Expert to explain things for us. Unfortunately Obesity Experts have little expertise in my life, especially not the 'specialist' at a 'university hospital' and 'honorary medical director' Dr Ian Campbell of Weight Concern, who is trotted out once again to give his moronic and ill-informed comments. Whilst hand-wringing about stigma (which has nothing to do with his work in 'Obesity' apparently) he is quoted here as suggesting that hatred is innate. "The result is the people who need the most help don't seek it. They are left feeling guilty and undeserving." This seems compassionate at first sight but the kind of help he's talking about is very limited because his only frame of reference for fat people is as medical management projects. Nowhere is the suggestion that help could involve getting some rad fatty politics, for example, or finding fat community that isn't tied to weight loss in some way. And I don't feel guilty or undeserving of Weight Concern's attention, they can sod off, they're part of the problem but are unable to see it. (The BBC links to Weight Concern too, imagine the traffic they must get, lovely free publicity).

Lastly, this article is loaded with clichés. 'Some people are fat and happy,' 'people who hate fat people do so because they hate themselves'. Fatness, bodies, embodiment, hatred, stigma, these are all ferociously complicated parts of human experience. This kind of journalistic simplification reduces the complexity into meaninglessness.

Snarking on the media has become the main focus of much fat activism, usually without any knowledge of how media is produced. I find this tiresome, a dead end that rarely translates into action, and an activity that makes me feel shitty and powerless. Anyone can bitch about the abundance of crappy representations of fat people, it's so easy to do, but how can the situation be made better? What would it take to improve fat representation? Is such a thing even possible given the vast spread of media today?

Creating media toolkits and training for journalists might be an option, but these too are problematic in terms of whose interests they represent, or their relationship to censorship. Having our own Experts might also help, but the activism that is meaningful to me supports the democratisation of expertise, The Expert is a paradigm that doesn't work for me, which means that having a handful of representatives is also going to be a sensitive issue. Taking control of media and making our own media makes sense to me, though this will likely always be a small-scale endeavour.

Is it possible for mainstream media to get it right? Just so you know, Jezebel.com has been producing some righteous fat-related content lately, thanks possibly to an alliance with Kate Harding, they even have a fatpanic tag, though as usual don't bother reading the comments.

Rad Fatty: Erin Remick

Her best friends are a dinosaur and a cat, and when she looks in the mirror she sees a demented panda. Welcome to Erin Remick's all-singing all-dancing world o' fat activism. Fat Dinosty, her beautiful video series, has enjoyed screenings to appreciative audiences in the US, UK and Germany, and her longer work, Embodied Revolution, explores the intersections between bodies, difference, identity and more. I wanted to know more about this gal and her projects, so I sent her an email and asked her some questions. Luckily she replied, and this is what she said.

How did you get into fat stuff?

My lovely friend Nora Bee got me into fat activism. I’m not sure if she realises this but she totally nudged me into my first moments of body consciousness. I like using the word conscious because I feel like it implies deep personal reflection and work versus limiting our thoughts about bodies to what the surrounding culture and media has to say. I’ve always been sceptical of beauty ideals, and have probably been a feminist since I understood what the word equality meant, but I never realised how much all the negative crap* had infiltrated my body until I met Nora.

Growing up, I kept myself above self-hate by using the phrase, "it’s what is on the inside that counts" as my personal mantra. It only took me 20 years to figure out that ignoring my body so I could focus on my spirituality and brains was detrimental to my personal growth (I was a really religious and nerdy kid). Nora really helped me with that by being my friend and one of the first people who ever talked candidly to me about their body without hesitation, question, or insecurity.

My second nudge, which was more like a punch in the gut, came from Gloria Anzaldúa. In high school I had read This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga. It was probably the first feminist book I ever read and it completely shaped my activism and feminist identity. A few years later it was reading Interviews/Entrevistas, a compilation of interviews with Anzaldúa, which drastically shifted the way I thought about my body and all bodies.

Anzaldúa is often noted for her writings about the borderlands but much of her work focusing on bodies and spiritual activism has been overlooked. At a very young age Anzaldúa began to separate herself from her body due to a rare hormonal dysfunction that left her in immense pain starting in early childhood, much of her writing about bodies entails the personal journey of remembering her own.

Her pain and separation felt very real to me and pushed me to go back into my life and essentially remember my own body’s history. A lot of the writing I’ve done for myself and in my zine tends to focus on that concept of remembering. I guess you can say that Anzaldúa reminded me that I exist on this planet in a body. It’s a bit strange when I put it that way, but I think that’s the truth. Everything I do for body activism is because of and for Gloria Anzaldúa and her life’s work. I get kind of choked up thinking about it sometimes because I truly do not know where I would be without her words in my life.

*that’s my eloquent term for fatphobia, queerphobia, sexism, etc etc

How do you explain Fat Dinosty to people who have never seen it?

It’s about a fat girl, me, and a dinosaur, Sebastian, who have lots of fun while deconstructing fatphobia and other bad stuff. Oh, and there is an androgynous kitty too!

Hmmm.. maybe it’s just one of those things you have to see to understand.

What are your plans for Fat Dinosty?

Well, I’m currently writing the next episode and planning to shoot at the end of November if all goes well. I’m actually going to school right now for a video production certificate, so I’m hoping to take advantage of the fancy equipment while I can and maybe even work on Fat Dinosty for a class project, now wouldn’t that be awesome?

I definitely want to keep the series going. My sweetheart is helping me a lot with the writing and that’s a lot of fun. I think we’re a good team.

It’s been so amazing to see the response to the project. That definitely keeps me motivated and upbeat about it all as well. I’m all about bringing more fat positivity into the video realm, and it’s pretty clear that Sebastian is needed in the world!

I'm interested in how you use cuteness in Fat Dinosty, these films are amazingly cute, so cute, insanely cute! Is cuteness a conscious decision, or an activist strategy for you? Tell me about the cuteness!

This question is really funny to me because a few years ago I wrote an alarming amount about cuteness and its relation to fat.

I’ve been called 'cute' all my life but rarely anything else like 'sexy,' 'attractive,' 'hot,' 'beautiful,' etc. In my contemplating, I linked this phenomenon to the idea that my fatness somehow made people think I looked childish and therefore 'cute.' Part of my deconstructing involved a lot of consideration about my chubby hands and how they remind me of little kid hands. I still feel a lot of truth in this theory and often believe I’m not taken seriously because I’m fat, or like someone would like to pat me on the head when I do something good. It’s weird but I totally feel it. For a lot of us fat folks, growing up we are told we will 'grow out of' our 'baby fat.' So, in some weird way, it’s like the world thinks I haven’t grown up when they have because I still have baby fat and therefore haven’t acted enough like an adult to grow out of it.

Maybe Fat Dinosty is my subconscious attempt to debunk this by being ridiculous and grotesquely cute. I like to think of it that way. Plus I really like to draw people in with cute shiny things and then make them learn something or think differently about an issue without realizing it until they’ve been brainwashed. Yes!

Embodied Revolution brings together gender and body activism. What is it that makes these such crucial intersections? How can activist alliances be built around gender and body stuff? I think it can be hard to create bridges between communities where there may already be fat- and/or transphobia.

My own activism greatly focuses on the intersection of oppressions and understanding the importance of this when creating movements for social change. When I originally set out to film Embodied Revolution I intended to focus on interviewing people involved in gender activism but that shifted into something much more inclusive as the project progressed. I learned so much just by talking with people and found within these stories a very simple connection, the body. Over and over it became clear that most of this work focused on healing communities that had experienced discrimination based on physical appearance.

One of the most enlightening comments for me came from Amanda Piasecki, a fat activist who considers herself a body autonomist. She said that fat bodies are generally considered public property and can be commented upon without question or consequence. This concept of bodies being public property can also be applied to folks who fall somewhere outside of the 'appropriate' gender roles set by our culture. The more and more I started to consider this idea, the more I realised how much it applied to a great deal of 'isms.' Our bodies are constantly being judged for one reason or another; skin tone, shape, ability, fat content, sex, symmetry, gender presentation, etc. It seems simple to me that the fight for equality often begins with the body. We all fight, every day, for the right to live in this body we’re given without being questioned, judged, discriminated against, or attacked. That message should ring true to nearly every social justice movement. Although it’s a simple concept it can be a powerful way to connect all these issues on an incredibly tangible and for some, even a spiritual level.

I definitely feel you when you say it’s hard to create bridges within communities when there may be fatphobia/transphobia. I think a lot of this goes back to the idea that bodies are considered public property. We’ve kind of learned from the media, our families, and peers, what bodily things are okay to judge people for. Fat and gender both generally exist in the 'it’s okay to comment and place judgment' category, which can make it incredibly difficult to go into a situation where you know this to be true. Sometimes all I have to do to deal with something like that is to remember how far I’ve come within my own self-acceptance and to remember that no matter what a person might appear to look like, pretty much everyone has experienced body hatred at some point. I think it’s valuable to focus on how our issues are similar and create a common bond with that, then open up about what our needs are as a fat community, or genderqueer community, or what have you.

What needs to happen for people to be able to see this film?

Sadly, I haven’t done a showing in over a year but I’m definitely open to it. I’ve also considered having copies made to sell for a good while but financially I have just not been able to do it. Originally I thought that I would be travelling and showing the film more, but life happens I guess. Part of me thinks that I stopped focusing so much on that simply because I still consider the film a work in progress. It was for my senior thesis and initially I was planning on creating a 20 minute piece but, as things like this often do, it sort of took a life of its own and decided to be much more than that. Because it was for my thesis I ended up having to edit a 90 minute documentary in 6 months, hello stressful and challenging! There are a lot of voices that got left out in the rush and lots of ideas I’d like to revisit in the future. Aside from that, I do believe it’s important that people have access to the film to be able to hear about the social justice work that the amazing interviewees are involved in. I try to keep in touch with anyone who wants copies and figure out a way to get one to them. So yeah, if you want one just email me and I’ll try to work something out!

What kind of films would you like to make in the future?

I really want to make a young adult fantasy movie with queer leading roles. I’m still embarrassingly obsessed with fantasy movies like Return to Oz and The Neverending Story from my childhood. I think working on something like that would be the most magical and thrilling thing.

Other than that, I would love to film more documentaries. Working on Embodied Revolution was so empowering for me and just felt good. Making documentaries completely validates people and what they do/who they are. I read this book once called The Feminine Face of God where this woman interviewed women from a wide range of religions and spiritual practices who were considered spiritual leaders in their communities. In the intro, the author talked about how some of the women cried when she asked them to participate in the book because no one had ever asked them to talk about that part of their lives before. I thought about that a lot when shooting and editing Embodied Revolution. So much passion and work goes unrecognised. I can’t believe the stories and inspiration that exists around me, sometimes it’s too much to even think about!

People fascinate me and making documentaries lets me ask questions that I normally would not or could not ask in a regular setting. I’m a really introverted person but if I have an excuse, like making a documentary, to get to know someone and hear their story then it’s the perfect way to get over my shyness.

I think I am a sociologist at heart so it makes sense that I have such an interest in documentaries. I’d like to go to grad school for sociology at some point and find a way to link my video skills with this study. My main interest is social justice movements, it’s super fascinating to me how they are created and sustained. I can see myself interviewing hundreds of people about their activism and some day making a series about it all. It is very important to me that the stories and personalities involved in creating social change are not lost or forgotten. I definitely feel like documenting the people involved in these movements is going to be a huge part of my life’s work.

What's next for you?

Right now I’m pretty focused on getting through this certificate programme and getting my foot into a door, any door, in the industry. Up until now I’ve mostly been a self-taught filmmaker. It’s been really great learning all of the little details that make video go from being good to amazing. I’m really starting to feel more like an artist in the editing room and that’s a great place to be.

Other than that, my sweetheart and I are working quite diligently on a week-long body image workshop for a conference this summer. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and it’s wonderful to be working on. We would both like to bring it to even more communities in the future. One of our other collective future hopes in life is that we can buy some land and start a fat positive camp for youth. I’m all about people accepting and loving their bodies from an early age!

What else would you like to say?

Bodies are amazing things, don’t forget to treat yours well and appreciate it every day!

Dirty Love
Erin's YouTube Channel
Embodied Revolution

Chubsters Gang Meeting in Hamburg

Back in March the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival at the British Film Institute hosted an event called Invasion of the Chubsters. Ines Voigt and Gesine Claus from Hamburg's Lesbisch Schwule Filmtage were there. Ines had the idea of doing something similar in Germany, she emailed me and eventually we worked something out and it all pulled together.

So last week we all held a Chubster Gang Meeting in Hamburg, at a beautiful cinema called B-Movie, as part of the film festival. The event was supported and documented by Bildwechsel, an incredible feminist-queer-trans-etc archive and arts organisation. The screening sold out, some people sat in the aisles, and the atmosphere was warm and friendly and good.

We showed our miniature Chubster video, and some footage from the Fat of the Land. I talked about some film clips of Divine and Marianne Sägebrecht, and showed off a lot. There were some short films by and about fat queer themes, and time for questions and answers afterwards.

There were some subsidiary events too: Butch Husky, Weasel and I were interviewed on the red sofa at the Nachtbar, an amazing semi-squatted after-hours club and hangout that exists for the duration of the festival. It was a hoot. I got interviewed for the super-duper Hugs and Kisses magazine, here's the English version (.pdf, 56kb). The photographs on this post are the ones that Christiane Stephan took of us.

It was a big thrill to attend the festival. I dream of queer-fat culture that isn't in English. I wonder if at last I can start to look east into Europe and beyond, rather than west to the US, for rad fat community and activism. I hope so. The festival hosted some impressive work, and I feel excited by the possibilities for building links in Germany and beyond.

I want to give gigantic and grateful thanks and love to Ines and Gesine for welcoming me and my fellow Chubsters to Hamburg. Thanks also to the excellent Bildwechsel, Hugs and Kisses, and the sexy Filmtage organisers for making our stay a complete delight.

Anti-discrimination rally in London

There's been a bunch of typically annoying news stories today about a rally outside City Hall in London calling for anti-discrimination laws for fat people. This has been spearheaded by Kathryn Szrodecki. I met Kathryn briefly at The Fat of the Land, but don't really know about what she's doing. I'm not sure if this rally is purely a media stunt, I think there's a BBC TV programme in production that Kathryn may or may not be involved with, or if it is something that is likely to generate more substance. Whatever the outcome, hopefully something good, I just wanted to note here that this is happening.

Revisiting What's Eating Gilbert Grape

I watched What's Eating Gilbert Grape again last night for the first time since it came out in 1993. There are spoilers here, don't read any more if that kind of thing bothers you, or go and read a synopsis if you're unfamiliar with it. Anyway, it's a film that gets name-checked because of its cast, made up of people who have gone on to conquer Hollywood, but it's extraordinary to me because of its depiction of a superfat woman in a dramatic role. This is something that never happens, and today I can imagine that same role might easily be cast to a thin actor wearing a fatsuit, for whatever stupid fatphobe war on obesity reason.

I'll get the bits I'm not so keen on out of the way first. Yes, Bonnie Grape is a downbeat character, she's dependent, a sad couch potato, tragic, and has to die, though I'm glad to see that actor Darlene Cates is still going strong at 61. The film is a right old schmaltz-fest, and the incidental music is really annoying. I won't go into the representational stuff about Leonardo DiCaprio's portrayal of a learning disabled person, but that's there too.

But here's what I like: Bonnie is complicated, she can be fierce, she is loving and loved, and just as flawed as any of the other characters. I like the depiction of people's reactions to Bonnie and how they affect her, not just the cruel stares, but also her family's love. I love the authenticity that Cates brings to the role. I think it's amazing that she's neither depicted as virtuous or villainous, and I love the way that her heft and bulk is shown, that seems very real and quite daring to me. The director, Lasse Hallström, picks up on her screen children's shame (and guilt about their shame) about their mother really sensitively. He's not suggesting that all families where there is a fat person experience this, it's localised to the family in the film, and well-observed, I think.

Most of all, I like to think about the Hollywood pretty people in the film, that they act together with Cates. It's appalling to think that they all went on to have amazing acting careers, and hers was more modest in comparison. Yet in this film, here they are, all together, in each others' worlds as equals. A really fat woman is shown as having space and presence in the world, she's not absent or abstract, and she's played by a real fatty. It's a great mix-up, though also a reminder of how little similar representation there is of characters like Bonnie Grape.

The war on obesity as a conflict map

I've been working on a paper about the war on obesity, using conflict analysis models to explore the war a bit, and thinking about the material reality of this metaphorical war. A little while back I wrote a piece about Foresight and their Obesity Maps, which I think are baloney (yeah, that's the official term). But clearly I am just as obsessed as they are in trying to create graphic interpretations of systems and processes.

Anyway, I wanted to share a conflict map I made and would welcome feedback and suggestions. The difference between my work and theirs is that I am able to recognise that there are critical voices in this system, and I don't base my analysis on the idea that fat people are fat because of problems with energy balance. Oh, and I haven't been funded millions of pounds of public money to produce this, which shows, of course, I did it in Word. I'm DIY all the way, baby!

The map shows people, organisations and entities that I think are central to the war on obesity. I've tried to draw the blobs in sizes relative to how I see their power. The stuff that I find myself critical of, as a fat activist, probably don't think of themselves as a unified entity, hence they are grouped within a dotted line. Other lines and arrows indicate relationships, which may or may not be mutual. Lightning bolts indicate a conflict, and these too are directional. The stuff in the bottom left-hand corner are 'shadow organisations', ie things that influence the war but are not chief antagonists. I've put media there because I think that the war on obesity is not their reason for existing, even though they enflame that war in profound ways. Also, hehehe, my word processor does not recognise Bariatric.

What have I missed? How could it be better laid-out? I tried to keep it to A4 but it's a bit of a crush and some of the edges got lost when I pdf-ed it. Any fat-friendly graphic designers in the house want to have a go at it? Tell me what you think. Also, is this an indication that I'm losing my marbles and should get out more often? Hey, don't cross the road, I'm talking to you!

The war on obesity, a conflict map by Charlotte Cooper, Oct 09 (.pdf, 40kb)

Do you think she will answer?

Dear Ms McKeith,

I am writing on behalf of the organising committee of a recent community harvest festival that was held at St Anne's Church on Dean Street, W1.

The purpose of the festival was to come together to celebrate good, seasonal food; to build community, and to have some fun. There was a political element to the event, most of us organising it are gay, and we wanted to make a statement against body fascism in the LGBT community, as well as critique the greed of the diet industry.

Ours was a non-profit event and, as is customary, we wanted our harvest festival to be a time of giving. We set up a collection box so that people could donate items they felt that they no longer had a use for. We wanted to encourage people to stop dieting and worrying about their weight, and to embrace wellness instead. People donated old diet books and weight loss paraphernalia.

Over 200 people attended the harvest festival. We held a vote to see who should be the recipient of the collection box and it was decided collectively that you would be an appropriate beneficiary because you are a key figurehead for the diet industry in the UK.

I have tried to find a mailing address for you, so that I can send you the collection, but you appear to be somewhat elusive!* Please could you let me know which is the best address for you. Better still, it would be wonderful if we could arrange a handing-over ceremony. Are you game?

Yours sincerely,

Charlotte Cooper
Co-organiser of The Fat of the Land: A Queer Chub Harvest Festival

* She has two addresses registered for McKeith Research Ltd, one is a commercial mailbox, the other is in a gated road in Hampstead (posh area of London, for non-Londoners reading this). I sent this letter to both, and her agent too.

The Chubsters are hosting a gang meeting in Hamburg

Are you likely to be in Northern Germany at the end of the month? Yes? Well come to our Chubsters Gang Meeting at the Hamburg lesbian and gay film festival. It's going to be a hoot.

Chubster stonemasonry

Yes, it is real. It was made by Thomas Appleton, and he is available for commissions. Get in touch if you'd like his details.

The Fat of the Land, mixed spaces, intersections and revolution

The Fat of the Land: A Queer Chub Harvest Festival is an event I co-organised, which happened in London at the weekend.

The Fat of the Land is a secular queerifying of a traditional harvest festival, with food and gratitude, but we used this format to promote fat politics amongst London's queer and trans communities, and created intersections between various entities, such as DIY culture, riot grrrl, fat studies, Health At Every Size, radical gardeners, slow food proponents, punk, craftivism, and more. We had minimal resources to pull it together, but plenty of enthusiasm and help from people. Around 200 people came to the event. It was a massive success.

You can find out more about The Fat of the Land, and the build-up to it, over on the dedicated blog, http://queerchub.blogspot.com (and you'll understand why it has been somewhat quiet over here recently).

My co-organisers and I come from different disciplines and communities, although there is a lot of overlap between us. We all had different ideas concerning what the Fat of the Land was about. This is usually the kind of thing that causes a lot of friction, and I have seen identity politics destroy organisations, time and time again. But instead of trying to force it into one kind of shape, that suited only a limited number of people, we had the luxury of being able to go with what we wanted (for me, it was about building community, sparking ideas, expressing queer-fat culture, and having some fun). This meant that the event was multi-dimensional and expansive, and it showed.

I think that it is good to mix things up, it makes things strong. There were people at the Fat of the Land who I doubt would ever show their faces at more orthodox gatherings of rad fatties. This is partly because they would not be welcomed, they might have the 'wrong' gender, or body size, or history, for example; but also because they might feel that such spaces are irrelevant to them. But the Fat of the Land had many intersecting points and ended up being a dynamic place where there could be a positive meeting of cultures and viewpoints. It ended up being bigger than any one group could have created by themselves. I was delighted to see, for example, a venerable activist from one sphere engaged in a long conversation with an up and coming fat activist; such a meeting would be unlikely elsewhere, and is sure to have sparked new ideas and relationships. It was like the Studio 54 of fat liberation!

These are some of the reasons why I do not support closed spaces, or segregated space. I think that mixing things up can be risky, but that with mutual respect it can be amazingly powerful. I believe that many people must have an investment in fat stuff for extensive positive social change to occur, and that making things welcoming and fun is part of the work of generating people's interest in the issues.

I accept that there are fears of 'the message' being watered down or lost by people who 'don't get it', but I think these fears are overstated. Being fat itself tells you nothing about how a person is, attitude is what counts. Nobody can own or control what people think about fat or any of its intersections, we should accept that people are going to come to this stuff with their own histories and ideas, which we might think about working with, rather than fighting against. I think that there is room in the movement for everyone, we can come to it with our quirks and idiosyncrasies, and that we don't all have to be reading from the same page.

Eat Me! QueerFoodPorn: Call For Stuff!

Eat Me! is Rad Fatty Corinna Tomrley's new QueerFoodPorn zine project. Alright!

Here's the call for stuff:

We are looking for saucy and scrumptious submissions for a new queer zine on the topic of eating, seduction and beyond. Our remit is pretty flexible within these topics so feel free to play fast and loose with those themes!

This zine has an insatiable appetite and will be made to make your mouth water!

We want sticky-fingered fiction, non-fiction, poetry and any other text pieces, plus art cartoons, illustration – all the usual zine goodies!

Max 650 words
B&W A5 or smaller
Photocopyable

Submissions should be high in calories and steaminess and naughtiness and queerfoodfun! NB – sweet or savoury are equally welcome. We’re not adverse to a little salty treat…

Submit all queries & finished pieces to: eatmezine@rocketmail.com

Deadline: 30 November '09

We look forward to getting our sugary paws on your stuff! Don’t be shy... Come on and butter our muffins ♥

Thanks in advance, with a cherry on top xxx

http://eatmezine.blogspot.com/

'The Obese': Abstracting and Absenting Fat People

I was mooching around the library at Coventry University recently, I came across Fat Economics: nutrition, health, and economic policy by Mario Mazzocchi, W. Bruce Traill, and Jason F. Shogren (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), and gave it a flick. It made my hair stand on end.

Call me weird but I'm strangely fascinated by high level theory books and reports about obesity policy. I think what fascinates me is how far an idea can go, how rarefied the discourse can become, how unselfconscious people are when they write or opine pretentiously and pompously about fat. Adding to my fascination with accounts such as Mazzocchi et al's is this kind of Emperor's New Clothes effect, that all this stuff sounds reasonable, although overblown, but then you realise it is based on a really wobbly foundation, that is: fat = energy balance, fat = dangerous dysfunction, and fatness = problem to be managed and eradicated. The minute you question these fundaments is the minute that works like Mazzocchi's, or Foresight, lose credibility because they don't critique their basic premise.

Unfortunately the authors of these works do not question those beliefs. Even more unfortunately, they get to be published by extremely well-regarded academic publishing houses, or by official government channels. This is one of the processes that keeps problematic ideas about what it is to be fat in circulation, almost beyond criticism.

The main thing that I want to talk about here though is about how works like Fat Economics make fat people abstract. These are works that do not include accounts by fat people, they are not written by fat people, and fat people have absolutely no voice in these works. It's like the literary equivalent of the headless fatty. Such works refer to fat people as 'the obese', a term which treats fat people, like me, as a nebulous blob of Otherness, with no power or thoughts of our own. Research like this contributes to the notion of fat people as passive and stupid, people whose lives need mediating and explaining by thin 'experts' who arrogantly eye us as interesting scum in a petri dish.

Standpoint Theory takes the position that the best people to talk about a subject are the people directly affected by it. As a general rule of thumb I think this is pretty good, although it's worth bearing in mind that many fat people have internalised cultural messages about the awfulness of obesity, and that fat people are a diverse group rather than one with a generic perspective. It also needs stating that body size is not a good measure of where someone is coming from, attitude counts for a lot and, certainly, there are some very articulate and sound thin people who are currently producing excellent work around fatness. So it's complicated, as ever, just adding some 'voices of the obese' to the mix might not be what is really needed here, a fundamental paradigm shift is what is actually required.

Fat Economics makes universalist claims but only tells part of the story because it does not recognise fat people as having agency or a legitimate voice, and it doesn't seem to take a critically reflexive view of its own claims (I only skimmed the book, so maybe there's a sentence somewhere, but I didn't see it). Imagine how differently it would read if it did take critical perspectives of obesity into account, or was able to own and name its own limited perspective rather than assuming it to be universally true.

What if the authors of Fat Economics had actually talked to some fat activists, or were Fat Studies scholars themselves? What kind of questions would they have been able to ask? What economic questions would you like to ask? Here are some of mine: How much does body hatred cost? What is the financial impact of fatphobia and discrimination against fat people? What is the cost of a Health At Every Size programme compared to a weight loss programme? How much is spent on promoting fatphobia? And on it goes, useful questions that may never be answered because of the limitations of the academy, the wilful ignorance of its researchers, and the lack of political impetus for funding such work.

What to do when a Facebook Friend posts something fatphobic

Here's something you can use when one of your Facebook (or other online social network) Friends posts something fatphobic that gets on your tits. Responding to such posts can often feel risky. Perhaps having something like this can help us feel more brave in speaking out about things that offend us, especially when it's said by someone who's supposed to be a friend. Feel free to cut and paste it to your own Notes, edit it if you want to, and pass it on as a resource for other people to use when writing Comments.

Dear Facebook Friend,

I noticed that you posted something about fat people and I need to tell you that what you posted is not okay with me, in fact I feel insulted by it.

It may be that you are not aware that what you posted might be construed as offensive. Perhaps to you it is interesting, funny, strange, sad, silly, disgusting, or something else. You might be surprised that we could see the same thing so differently.

It would be great if you could take a moment to try and imagine what it might be like for me when I read your post. Maybe bear this in mind when you're thinking of posting things in the future. Even better would be if we could talk about our differences of opinion, and try and work out a way of getting on together without offending each other.

Thanks for reading,

Your Friend

Call for Papers: Pop Culture Association 2010 - Fat Studies Panels

Hey everybody, check out this call for papers. It's from the PCA conference, which has the largest number of Fat Studies panels that I've ever seen and is friendly and accessible. I went to the 2009 gathering in New Orleans (I've linked to my posts about that at the end) and it was really great. You should think about submitting something if you have any way of getting to St Louis in 2010. Bear in mind that the PCA can offer some financial assistance if you apply early. They awarded me a $500 grant for overseas travel, which didn't pay for all my gumbo-related expenses in New Orleans, but still helped a lot.

2010 PCA/ACA Conference
Fat Studies Area
Call for Papers

Fat Studies is becoming an interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary field of study that confronts and critiques cultural constraints against notions of 'fatness' and 'the fat body'; explores fat bodies as they live in, are shaped by, and remake the world; and creates paradigms for the development of fat acceptance or celebration within mass culture. Fat Studies uses body size as the starting part for a wide-ranging theorization and explication of how societies and cultures, past and present, have conceptualized all bodies and the political/cultural meanings ascribed to every body. Fat Studies reminds us that all bodies are inscribed with the fears and hopes of the particular culture they reside in, and these emotions often are mislabeled as objective 'facts' of health and biology. More importantly, perhaps, Fat Studies insists on the recognition that fat identity can be as fundamental and world-shaping as other identity constructs analysed within the academy and represented in media.

Proposals in the area of Fat Studies are being accepted for the 2010 PCA /ACA (Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association) National Conference in St. Louis, MO (March 31 through April 3, 2010 at the Renaissance Grand Hotel St. Louis). We welcome papers and performances from academics, researchers, intellectuals, activists, and artists, in any field of study, and at any stage in their career.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

· representations of fat people in literature, film, music, nonfiction, and the visual arts
· cross-cultural or global constructions of fatness and fat bodies
· cultural, historical, or philosophical meanings of fat and fat bodies
· portrayals of fat individuals and groups in news, media, magazines
· fatness as a social or political identity
· fat acceptance, activism, and/or pride movements and tactics
· approaches to fat and body image in philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology
· fat children in literature, media, and/or pedagogy
· fat as it intersects with race, ethnicity, class, religion, ability, gender, and/or sexuality
· history and/or critique of diet books and scams
· functions of fatphobia or fat oppression in economic and political systems

By December 1, 2009, please send an abstract of 100 - 250 words or a completed paper to Fat Studies Area Co-Chairs Julia McCrossin (jmccross@gwmail.gwu.edu) and Lesleigh Owen (goddess_les@yahoo.com).

Please include your complete contact information and a CV and/or 50 word bio, along with anticipated A/V needs. All submissions are welcome, but please use the information above to ensure your paper fits within the academic and political scopes of Fat Studies. Please also be mindful that Fat Studies is a political project and not merely an umbrella term for all discussions of larger bodies. Also, we encourage submitters to rethink using words like 'obesity' and 'overweight' in their presentations unless they are used ironically, within quotes, or accompanied by a political analysis.

Presenters must become members of the Popular Culture Association. Find more information on the conference and organisation at: http://pcaaca.org/conference/national.php.

Here's my report-back from PCA Fat Studies Panels 2009:

Fat Studies I: Reading the Fat Text: Fatness in Popular Media
Fat Studies II: Fatness as It Informs Other Identities
Fat Studies III: Encountering and Coping with Anti-Fat Bias
Fat Studies IV: Tight Fit: The Mental and Physical Experiences of Being Fat Session
Fat Studies V: Examining Visual Representations of Fatness
Fat Studies VI: Making a Big, Fat Difference: Fat Activism

Obesity News Reporting is a Load of Crap! Here's More Proof!

Today is a day of smugness and glee for me because no sooner do I publish my beginner's guide to reading obesity research than the BBC publish a story which perfectly illustrates my case.

Turning a blind eye to obesity, by Clare Murphy, BBC News health reporter.

Shall we count the ways in which this report is a load of crap and further stigmatises fat people? Anyone else care to have a crack at it?

1. It starts with a dehumanised headless fatty.

2. It's based on an online survey, which is methodologically problematic, even more so given that there's no indication of sample size, sampling strategy or the demographic make-up of the sample.

3. It's not quite silly season, but it's not long until pre-Xmas and New Year, both busy times for diet organisations.

4. It's a survey that was commissioned for a weight loss company and reflects their interests, yet the interpretation is presented as hard scientific fact.

5. It makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims:

"Apparently we do not know what's normal any more."

"Meanwhile pictures of children too fat to toddle or the adults so large they need to be hoisted from his house have transformed obesity into a freak show rather than a shared problem."
"Many have found solace in the suggestion that Marilyn Monroe was apparently a size 16: sadly dress sizes have changed dramatically down the decades as our bodies have grown, and those who can squeeze into a size 8 today would not have been able to do so in 1940."

"Everybody knows..."

"Worrying," "potential harm": using unsubstantiated fear and threats which support the taken-for-granted belief that fat is a major problem that is going to get worse.

6. It quotes allegedly impartial medicalised obesity experts from organisations directly funded by weight loss companies and who therefore reflect the values of such companies. All the people here are members or former members of ASO or National Obesity Forum, and Dr Susan Jebb is also a 'health expert' for Rosemary Conley, the hip and thigh diet lady.

7. No fat people consulted, fatties are absent and abstracted here, we are a nebulous and dangerous problem - raaargh.

8. No alternative 'balancing' viewpoints, yeah, like that's ever going to happen.

9. No critical view of BMI, though such critiques exist and are easily accessible. This story even provides a tool to help you calculate your BMI.

10. There are other ways of interpreting the data:

No wonder no one wants to think of themselves as obese in a climate where companies like Slimming World and government policy is doing everything to turn fat people into social pariahs. This is part of the process of dehumanising and Othering fat people.

Goes to show the stupidity in basing health claims on body size. Clearly people feel perfectly okay despite being classified as too fat.

Trying to develop body anxiety and thus new Slimming World consumers in the pre-Xmas period.

Trying to consolidate Slimming World as a reliable provider of obesity data.

The solution to the problem of discrimination against fat people is not weight loss but a change in social attitudes.

Your turn!

Surgical Solutions? An obesity surgery workshop

Karen Throsby, at the University of Warwick, is hosting this event about Obesity Surgery.

I asked Karen if she made a distinction between Weight Loss Surgery and Obesity Surgery and she said: "I'm doing some work on this at the moment. It reminds me of IVF, which gets called fertility treatment and infertility treatment (i.e. is it a treatment that treats a particular 'disorder,' or that aims to produce a particular result). I've been calling it 'obesity surgery' because it doesn't always produce weight loss, and it is completely inseparable (in my view) from the medicalised concept of 'obesity'."

Interesting, eh?

Karen is also looking for other social scientists working in this field, get in touch with her if you are.

Anyway, here are the details. Please note that although critical views of weight loss/obesity surgery will be welcome at this event, some of the presenters may not share such critical views. Come prepared for a debate!

Surgical Solutions? An obesity surgery workshop
Friday 23 October, 2009 (10-4pm)
University of Warwick

This workshop marks the conclusion of an ESRC-funded project entitled 'Obesity Surgery: a Clinical Ethnography'. The aim of the workshop is to bring together scholars, practitioners, patients and others with an interest in obesity and its surgical management for a day of presentations, debate and discussion about obesity surgery. Participants from a variety of disciplinary and political perspectives will be attending, and we will be discussing what work is being done, what the key points of debate are, what the future research priorities might be, and how social scientific research in this area can be usefully fed back to different users.

Confirmed speakers include:

Ken Clare (patient and founder of Weight Loss Surgery Info and Support): title tbc
Jane Ogden (Department of Psychology, University of Surrey): 'The psychology of successful and failed surgery'
Jordi Sanzaporra (Department of Sociology, Lancaster University); 'In-gestion: eating with a gastric bypass'
Dianne Tetley (School of Medicine, Leeds University): 'Eating Behaviour and Adjustment Post Weight Loss Surgery: A Patient Perspective'
Karen Throsby (Department of Sociology, University of Warwick): '"I'm so ashamed of myself": surgery, the clinical encounter and the management of excess'

Attendance is free and open to anyone, but places are limited, so if you would like to attend, please contact Karen Throsby at k.throsby@warwick.ac.uk to reserve a spot. Some funding is also available for travel costs for postgraduates or others who have no alternative funding source. I look forward to welcoming you to Warwick for what promises to be an exciting day of discussion and debate.

A Beginner's Guide to Reading Obesity Research

I've been reading quite a bit of obesity research recently and I want to share some of my thoughts about how fat people might read such research with a critical eye.

I know the idea of reading material that is intensely fatphobic is not everyone's idea of fun, but I think it is important that we dip in to this stuff from time to time so that we can: keep up with what they are saying about us; develop better research models for fat; develop a critical eye in order to distinguish between research that provides useful information, and research that makes things a lot worse for fat people.

You don't have to read heavy research reports to get a flavour of current obesity research. This is the stuff that also crops up in news report after news report. You know the type of thing, it starts with a sensationalist headline making some kind of preposterous claim about fatness, there's invariably a picture of a headless fatty, some quote from an obesity expert, and the reiteration that being fat is a very bad thing. What I'm going to say below applies to this kind of report as much as it does to the more formal scholarly publication.

Think of what follows as a mental check-list to help you read material that claims to be obesity science, it's like reading a food label to check for dodgy ingredients. Maybe approach this kind of material in the same way that you might do if you were lifting a rock to have a look at the worms and insects wriggling away underneath, all that stuff is interesting to look at but you're really glad that you don't have to live down there.

1. Check the date, is it silly season? This is the time of year when people are likely to be away on holiday and the media is increasingly desperate to find material to fill its dead air. More stories, especially salacious fat panic reports, get through that would otherwise flounder under quality control guidance.

2. Google any experts that are quoted. Find out their interests, especially how they make a living. It is common for such experts to be paid employees or directors of weight loss companies, or organisations directly sponsored by the weight loss industry, such as the International Obesity Task Force, the Association for the Study of Obesity, the National Obesity Forum, and others. Decide for yourself how neutral or trustworthy an expert you think they are. Also, anyone who refers to themselves as an obesity expert is likely to be a bit of a dick, especially if they are not at all fat.

3. Think about how the news story came to be made. Journalists and editors may twist research findings for the sake of an exciting story (I have done this!). Think of the media as a distorting mirror for research, bear in mind that it has its own vernacular and pressures, that it is likely to simplify, reduce and mis-quote complex research findings, or that stories are often cobbled together quickly from a press release without much quality control.

4. Think about why the research is being done. What kind of starting out assumptions does it make about fat people? Does it begin with a paragraph or two about the perils of the obesity epidemic? Does it appear to question such an epidemic? What is it supporting? Do the researchers use Body Mass Index as a measure of health without any critical understanding of it? Do you think BMI is an accurate representation of heath? What does this tell you about the values implicit in the research? Do the research findings support these values?

5. Where are they coming from? Try and imagine how the researchers might answer if you asked them: do you think being fat is a problem? This can help you work out what kind of perspective they are bringing to their research, which is important but not always stated clearly. You could also ask: do you think fatphobia is a problem?

6. Think about what claims are being made by the research in terms of its scientific purity. Is it claiming to present truth or facts? If so, go back and reconsider the perspectives being put forward by the authors. Remember that 'truth' and 'facts' depend on what people think and believe; 'facts' made by the weight loss industry about fatness vary a great deal from 'facts' that I know about my own fat body, for example. Looking at the research findings, what other versions of the truth could be made?

7. Try and find out who is funding the research. Don Kulick writes in Fat Studies in the UK that all research about pet obesity is produced by pet food companies, for example. I know pets are different to humans, but it illustrates how funding can affect the scope of the research and its findings, which then get reported as facts. Sometimes you may have to dig a little for this information.

8. Think about the process by which the researchers got their hands on the funding. Try to imagine what they might have had to say in order to get the money. Might they have had to downplay any interest in fat politics, for example, or play up their support for the treatment and prevention of obesity? You can't know the answer to this for sure, but who gets the funding and why they get it, and what gets left out, is part of the context for obesity research. Also, what happens to researchers who have no funding?

9. How big is the research sample? By sample I mean the people who are being studied. One of the National Health Service Care Pathways for dieticians in the UK is based on research on a group of nine people. Do you think a study of nine people can make conclusive claims about all fat people? No! So size makes a difference in the outcome of the study.

10. What does the sample look like? If it's a sample of fat people, are they suffering from any prior ailments? This affects research claims made about fat people and health. Is there any acknowledgement or accommodation in the research of social influences on health, for example discrimination? How might discrimination or stigma impact on the sample or affect the findings? How representative is the sample of all the rad fatties you know?

11. How are variables defined and interpreted? Variables are the things that the research is studying, for example weight loss, ethnicity, activity. The way the research is set up means that although variables appear to be neutral, the way they are defined and interpreted is not neutral at all. Here's an example: Jane Ogden, a well-respected obesity expert, presented a paper about weight loss surgery at the Size Matters? conference earlier this year. She defined 'success' as someone who had lost weight after surgery. This means that cases could be defined as 'successful' where the person who had had surgery was suffering terrible surgery-induced health problems, as long as they had lost weight. That doesn't sound like a 'successful' surgery to me, quite the opposite.

12. Have a look at the source material cited in meta-studies about obesity. Such big studies are basically studies of studies, and they sometimes make pompous claims about being very reliable. But if they are based on source material that is not particularly reliable, for any of the reasons I've mentioned here, then their reliability too is questionable. It's also a good idea to see what meta-studies include and exclude, for example do they include material that is critical of taken-for-granted claims about fat? If they don't then they're missing out a lot of important stuff.

13. Ask to see the original data and report, if you can.

14. Think about where the research has been published. Peer-reviewed publications are seen as the gold standard for reliable research, but there have been reports recently about fake journals, people being paid to put their names to dodgy research, and in-house publishers owned by the businesses benefiting from the research. Do some homework and decide on the reliability for yourself.

15. Become a fan of Bad Science and make sure you read this post.

16. Make time for self care after immersing yourself in the strange world of obesity research. Blog or share your findings, do something fun to get any residual fatphobia out of your system. Keep breathing.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention a few more things...

Health. Most obesity research is about fat and health because this is the agenda that most interests upholders of fat panic. Much of my comments here refer to health research. The fact that, aside from researching weight loss, other kinds of obesity research are sidelined also says a lot about what gets funded and what does not, and what is deemed important. If I was the boss of all research funds I would fund a far broader range of stuff, it would be interesting and useful, for example, to know more about the effects of fatphobia on people of all sizes.

Sampling strategies. How researchers find samples also affects the research outcomes. There are books about this, go and have a look at one if you can tolerate this level of geekiness. What I will also say, however, is that the sample is really important, so check for possible bias in it. For example, a study about people's attitudes to fatness based on a sample of fat women who go to Weight Watchers is going to have a different outcome to a study of fat women who go to NOLOSE.

Stats. There's some stuff I could say about statistical maths too, which I won't because I barely understand it myself. Suffice to say that there are different ways of manipulating statistical/quantitative data to provide different research outcomes.

One final thing, a really important thing. Studies may find a correlation, or a relationship, between a number of variables. So a study could find that there's a relationship between fatness and unhappiness, for example. But this doesn't mean that being fat necessarily makes you unhappy. A statistical relationship is just that, not a cause or an explanation.