My name is Melanee. I am a Certified Nutrition Specialist (CNS), and owner of Integrative Functional Nutrition (IFN). I am also fat.
Yesterday evening I went to a networking party with other women entrepreneurs. The venue was fun, the decorations were lovely, the prizes were awesome, and the women were all strangers to me.
I struggle to go to events like this. As a person who needs a little time to warm up in large groups, these events cause me to have a little anxiety. In addition, I, like nearly every woman I know, sometimes have bad body image days. Yesterday was one of those.
I have spent days and months diving into the science of why our focus on weight is flawed and sets us up for worse health outcomes. I understand that my body does not define me, and certainly does not affect my ability to be a good nutritionist. In fact, I think my experiences living in a body that has “been through some things” makes me a better nutritionist.
I know all this. And yet, I have days where I struggle to admit to people what I do because I don’t want to deal with their wandering eyes that look me up and down as if my body is my resume on display.
I am a firm believer that size does not determine our worth. Yet, we live in a culture that has placed appearance as the unattainable destination we must all achieve to prove that we are loveable, worthy, and healthy. This standard keeps shifting. A moving target we have to spend a lifetime trying to achieve.
Want to know what happens to 95-98% of the people who diet? They gain all the weight back within a few years. Often gaining a little extra as well. What do we automatically do when this happens? Assume we have failed. We assume that we are the only person who cannot achieve lasting weight loss. We are inferior and broken in some way. We have committed the cardinal sin of not looking healthy.
I did this for years. My body has been many sizes over my lifetime, but because I was never drastically underweight the eating disorder I had developed as a direct result of dieting and trying to be healthy went undetected for decades. My body was doing everything it could to just keep me alive.
The first time I was introduced to Health at Every Size (HAES) and Intuitive Eating (IE) I was not able to accept it. I loved the message, but I believed that I could only live like that AFTER I had reached a weight that kept getting further and further away. Seems ironic in hindsight, but eating disorders have a way of distorting things.
Years passed. I weight cycled more. My health declined with every effort I made to get healthy. My second introduction to HAES and IE went much differently. I finally realized that learning to trust my body and stop this endless punishment was not just a relief from the never-ending shame cycle, but was more likely to lead to better long-term health.
I spent a long time mourning the years that I had wasted. I spent even longer mourning the body society told me I needed to have, but would not achieve. I mourned the damage that dieting had done to my body. I spent time healing and learning to accept that body changes are normal and that all I can do is care for my “today” body. Then I got angry.
I strongly believe that being a fat person in a field that is dominated by straight-sized** people is exactly where I need to be. My size does not limit me. My size does not make me any less than my colleagues.
My fellow CNSs who are HAES aligned cheerlead me and the work I am able to accomplish because I have a different perspective and experience. My clients appreciate that I understand their struggles with diet culture from this perspective.
To be clear: I am not a perfect spokesperson. While I am in a fat body, I still possess an incredible amount of privilege as a white, cis, able-bodied, well-educated, middle-class person. I am also not subject to the stigma of people who are fatter than me. I am sharing a bit of my own personal journey, but want to acknowledge that my experience with weight stigma and so-called bad body image days is vastly different from the thousands of fat people who not only face the cruelty we issue out to people in large bodies but have multiple marginalized identities and economic challenges that I have never had to experience.
On most days doing this work is something I lean into, however imperfectly. Most days I fight against the stigma of fat people and seek to educate and advocate in my little corner. Then there are days like yesterday.
It can be unbelievably exhausting to be the person swimming up the stream of the cultural norm. The same fire that drives me to speak out and to continue in a career where I do not look the part can also leave me feeling burnt out from time to time. I am fortunate that I can sometimes retreat for a while: so many others cannot.
People were kind at the party. I met incredible women doing incredible things. Inevitably when a new acquaintance found out what I do she would disparage her own appearance and say, “Oh, I really need to come see you.” On the surface that seems positive for business, but lurking just below is the assumption that we all have the same common goal: lose weight at all costs.
This is the typical response I get from most people. The other response is a polite sort of disregard after the aforementioned body scan. I have learned not to waste my breath explaining why I do things differently in my clinic in these moments. The speaker is often not interested in that setting, or maybe in general. I’ve also learned that on those bad body image days, if I try to respond, it quickly becomes an excuse for my body size which later leaves me feeling gross and conflicted. My body does not require explaining. It just is.
And perhaps that’s what this post has become. A justification to remain in a profession looking the way I do. I believe my intention was to explain that I am human and complex, dealing with complex social issues in sometimes graceful and sometimes sloppy ways.
I passionately love what I do. I find it stimulating and challenging. I love the connection with my clients. I love helping people navigate how to nourish their today bodies. I am far from perfect, but I now understand that my body never needed to change. It is now and has always been, fine.
* The use of the word fat here and throughout this post is not meant as a slur, but as a neutral descriptor as reclaimed by fat activists.
** Straight-sized refers to people who can buy clothing in nearly any store they enter. Something that larger-sized people cannot do.
Warmly,
Melanee
she/her/hers
