the HAES® files: This is For the Fat Ambassadors, their Allies, and a Call Out to their Detractors (Well-Intentioned and Not)

by Linda Bacon, PhD, with Melissa A. Fabello, M.Ed.

Sarai Walker emails me, disillusioned, feeling beaten down after months of being in the public eye as a fat ambassador. Sarai is author of the recently released Dietland, a feminist manifesto wherein heroine Plum Kettle confronts her fantasy of becoming thin, the false promises of diet culture, the depths of socially sanctioned misogyny, and eventually learns to love her 300 pound body. Sarai is nervous the night before her heartfelt essay, “Yes, I’m Fat, It’s Okay. I Said It,” goes to print in the New York Times Sunday Review, where she describes the resistance – and outright hatred – she’s encountered since book release.

The fat-shaming Sarai has experienced comes not only from those who blatantly show their bigotry, but in the form of judgment (or pity) from those who profess to care, citing health concerns. Her…