Overcoming Fear of Fat PDF
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Overcoming Fear of Fat Overcoming Fear of Fat Laura S. Brown, PhD Esther D. Rothblum, PhD Editors Overcoming Fear of Fat, edited by Laura S. Brown and Esther D. Rothblum, was simul taneously issued by The Haworth Press, Inc., under the title Fat Oppression and Psycho therapy: A Feminist Perspective, a special issue of Women & Therapy, Volume 8, Num ber 3 1989, Ellen Cole and Esther D. Rothblum, Editors. First published 1989 by Haworth Press, Inc. 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, Ny 13904-1580 This edition published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Overcoming Fear of Fat was originally published as Women & Therapy, Volume 8, Number 3 1989. © 1989 by Harrington Park Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be repro duced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover design by Marshall Andrews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fat oppression and psychotherapy. Overcoming fear of fat / Laura S. Brown, Esther D. Rothblum, editors, p cm. Reprint. Originally published: Fat oppression and psychotherapy: a feminist perspective. New York: Haworth Press. ©1989. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-918393-71-X 1. Overweight women —Mental health. 2. Obesity —Social aspects. 3. Discrimination against overweight persons. 4. Self—acceptance. 5. Feminist therapy. I. Brown, Laura S. II. Rothblum, Esther D. III. Title. [DNLM: 1. Discrimination (Psychology) 2. Obesity— psychology. 3. Obesity —therapy. 4. Psychotherapy. 5. Women —psychology. WD 210 F252] RC552.025F36 1989 616.3'98'0082 —dc20 DNLM/DLC for Library of Congress 89-19865 CIP ISBN 978-0-918393-71-5 (pbk) CONTENTS EDITORIAL STATEMENT 1 whoever i am, i'm a fat woman 5 Sharonah Robinson Metamorphosis 11 Kelly Kay Goodman Fat-Oppressive Attitudes and the Feminist Therapist: Directions for Change 19 Laura S. Brown Should Feminist Therapists Do Weight Loss Counseling? 31 Joan C. Chrisler Fat Acceptance Therapy (F.A.T.): A Non-Dieting Group Approach to Physical Wellness, Insight and Self-Acceptance 39 Susan Tenzer The Role of Stigmatization in Fat People's Avoidance of Physical Exercise 49 Jaclyn Packer Fitness, Feminism and the Health of Fat Women 65 Pat Lyons Ample Opportunity for Fat Women 79 Nancy Barron Barbara Hollingsworth Lear Fat Is Generous, Nurturing, Warm ... 93 Angela Barron McBride ABOUT THE EDITORS Laura S. Brown, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private prac tice and Clinical Associate Professor of psychology at the Univer sity of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Brown has published a number of papers on the topic of fat oppression in psychotherapy, in addition to her work in the fields of feminist therapy theory, assessment and diagnosis, and ethics. Her paper on feminist therapy with post-trau matic stress disorder won the 1987 Distinguished Publication Award of the Association for Women in Psychology. Dr. Brown is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Pro fessional Psychology, and was recently appointed Book Review Editor of the journal Women & Therapy. Esther D. Rothblum, PhD, is Assistant Professor of psychology at the University of Vermont, where she chairs the Women's Studies Program. She is formerly Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Wom en's Studies, University of Minnesota, Duluth. She is planning a trip to the Antarctic to study gender differences in stress and cop ing. Currently a Kellogg Fellow, Dr. Rothblum will be traveling to Africa to study women's mental health. In addition, she co-edited the books The Stereotyping of Women: Its Effects on Mental Health and Another Silenced Trauma, which received a 1987 Distin guished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology. Dr. Rothblum is a co-editor of the journal Women & Therapy. EDITORIAL STATEMENT It is with great pleasure that we introduce to our readers this collection of articles on the topic of fat oppression in psychother apy. We believe that this is a unique work in the professional psy chotherapy literature; one that approaches the question of women's experiences with fatness from an anti-fat-oppressive perspective. Although fat activists have been raising the issues that our authors review here for more than a decade, their accumulated wisdom has never been embraced by the practitioners who work with fat women. Therapists, including feminist therapists, have been col luding with their clients in pathologizing fat, celebrating weight loss, and failing to adequately challenge cultural stereotypes of at tractiveness for women. In creating this special issue, we hope to take the first step in reversing that trend. Fat oppression is hatred and discrimination against fat people, primarily fat women, solely because of their body size. It is the stigmatization of being fat, the terror of fat, the rationale for a thou sand diets and an equal number of compulsive exercise programs. It is the equation of fat with being out-of-control, with laziness, with deeply-rooted pathology, with ugliness. It is, like physical and sex ual violence against women, sexism in action. Internalized fat op pression, which exists in almost all women raised in white North American culture, is a catalyst for energy-draining self-hatred. It © 1989 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. I
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