Weight Stigma Con 2025 - Weight and Wisdom Transcript

[Speaker 1 - Tigress]

Hello, International Weight Sigma conference. Tigress Osborn. I'm one of the co-editors of the Weight and Wisdom anthology,  alongside my colleague, Nancy Ellis Ordway. Nancy and I so wish that we could be with you in Australia today, but both of us are still state side. We're gonna do a little bit of a virtual meeting. We're so grateful to all of the team at the international Weight Sigma Conference for giving us a little bit of time to introduce the book to you. 

[Speaker 2 - Nancy]

I contemplated the idea for this collection for several years. It took the loss of Paul Ernsberger and all of his wisdom to motivate me to start. Far too many stories have been lost to us because they're not recorded anywhere. With that in mind, Tigress and I dedicate this volume to the trailblazers, benefactors, influencers, guides, and crusaders who are no longer with us to tell their stories. The contributors to the book are invited to add to the dedication. The names are listed in the order in which they were suggested to the editors. 

[This dedication list is shown briefly on screen: Paul Ernsberger, Fall Ferguson, Linda Ramos, Claudia Clark, Joanne Ikeda, Miriam Berg, Caitlin “Cat” Pausé, Adrienne Bennett, Janet Conroy-Quirk, Mo Kalman, Elana Dykewoman, Pamela Vireday, Mara Nesbitt-Aldrich, Heather MacAllister aka Reva Lucian, Moe Lerner, Judy Freespirit,Crystal Kotow, Frances White, Amelia Mitchell, Lori Irving,Catherine O’Hara, Lew Louderback, Ann Louderback, Joyce Fabrey, Paula Dachis, Nancy Summer, Russell Williams, Louise Wolfe, Marvin Grosswirth, Ethel Weiss-Shedd, 

Sue Nyman, Susan Mason, Ruby Greenwald, Patricia Schwarz, Naomi Shadowitz, Neil Osbourne, Randi Hertz Suriano, Carla Joy DenHartog, Denise Washington, Butch Washington, Peggy Williams, Laura Hoesterey Baker, Jeri Carmichael, Roberta Stone, Darlene Cates, Elizabeth Fisher, Jerry Hoxworth, Mary Jo Hoxworth, Sandy Zitkus, Ronda Wood, Mary Frances Platt, Howard Clist, Natalie Clist, Sharon Russell Klose, Mary Ellen “Meg” Gwynne, Harvey Parker, Charles Van Dyke, Dot Nelson-Turnier, Wilma Kuns, Carl Neidershuh, Deb Albright, Margaret MacKenzie, June Bailey, Bunny Peckham, Donna Marie Ryan, Joyce Maloney, Carolyn “Carrie” Hemenway, Karen Wynn-Cohen, Kenneth Wachtel, Sherry Eckert, Michael Simpson, Lynn McAfee]

[Speaker 2 - Nancy]

Several years ago, while attending a conference, I spent the evening with several young people new graduates who were eager to learn more about eating disorders, fat activism, and weight stigma. When they realized how long I had been in the field, they peppered me with questions about the history, the influencers, attitudes, programs, ideas, theories, treatment approaches, controversies, challenges, changes, and on and on. Their curiosity was boundless. I could draw on my own limited memory, but I wanted to be able to refer them to print resources. I realized that I needed to write a book, and I needed to draw on the memories of many others to help me. I also realized that many of the people who've been in the field for a long time are aging, and their stories will not be available forever. I started calling and emailing. Luckily, many folks responded.

[Speaker 2 - Nancy]

I knew this task was larger than I could manage alone. I knew many people in the clinical world, but I needed someone with more background and contact with activists. I also needed someone who was younger and had more current experience in the field, and also somebody who could help me with technology. I was delighted when Tigress agreed to be my co-editor. We agree in many ways, and she has brought a perspective to this project that is very different from my own and has introduced me to people I would not have met otherwise. She's also kept me focused and on track while challenging me to think in ways that are new to me. So, thanks to her, this book is far better than what I had originally imagined. I'm grateful for the opportunity and this volume that we have worked to produce together. 

[Speaker 2 - Nancy]

The book you hold in your hands is an attempt to gather some of those stories told from first-person points of view. It is by no means a complete history. The number of participants was limited by publishing restraints, time, and availability. While I  set out to gather memories, I feel very fortunate that the authors have also included the wisdom that comes from the experience and have expressed compassion for our younger selves who didn’t know as much as we do now. For all of us, it's been a journey....So, what we did, was we invited a number of people, all of whom had been in this field for at least 25 years, so that we could get the historical perspective. So, if you look at it, you can be requires that so. And so, get in the book. Well, how long have they been doing this? And in another 25 years they can write their own book. 

[Speaker 1 - Tigress]

In the fall of 2021, I posted a note on Facebook telling folks that I was hoping to collect stories from people of color who had a long history in the fat liberation movement. I soon found a note from Nancy Ellis-Orway in my inbox. “I'm working on a history project, too,” she wrote. “Can we talk?” In that first call, Nancy explained that she wanted to gather stories from people who've been working in Health At Every SizeⓇ, eating disorders treatment and prevention, or fat acceptance for at least 25 years. She’d put together an ambitious list of folks she wanted to reach out to, some of whom I knew quite well, some of whom I’d admired from afar, and some of whose reputation and work I would get to know over the course of this project. And although I have many years of experience as an advocate for fat people, and way more years of lived experience as a fat Black woman, I am 10 years shy of the vintage Nancy was aiming for, or at least I was at the time we began this project. But Nancy assured me that that was precisely why we would make a good team. We have the same commitment to making the world a better place for fat people, but we have approached that commitment with different lenses based on our lived experience and professional expertise in different areas. 

[Speaker 1 - Tigress]

The history project I’d had in mind was specifically focused on identifying people of color from fat liberation’s first and second waves, especially those who'd been directly involved in NAAFA. Many of them are unnamed and under-remembered and most never racked up 25 consecutive years of participation in these spaces, in large part because these spaces are often not as warm and welcoming to us., I wasn't sure I wanted to take time away from working on my black and brown project to work on one that was likely to involve few People of Color voices. Still, I'm quite a bit of a geek when it comes to fat history, and I thought I could learn a lot from Nancy and from the many contributors to this collection. I was right about that. I also thought I could continue to give a lot of time to seeking out more about the People of Color past of body liberation work. I will always be collecting bits and pieces of that past and trying to figure out how to weave those stories into our present and into our future. I am also someone who likes to see those who have been around this movement for a long time take responsibility for the harms they caused, whether intentional or not, and help lead the way to others doing better. There were a few people on the list of contributors to the book who I already knew could and would do that as we worked on this project that was pleasantly surprised that several more owned up to the white privilege and heteronormativity they had upheld in their own work. I am thankful for this accountability, and I'm especially thankful to the people of color and clear folks in this collection, who were forthcoming and vulnerable and sharing their realities in these movements, even though doing so in the past, has often costed them dearly. 

[Speaker 1 - Tigress]

During the course of our work on this book, Health At Every SizeⓇ, eating disorders and fat Liberation fields…worlds faced many individual and collective challenges. Many of us involved lost loved ones to the pandemic, to other crises, or simply to time. During the time we worked on this project, our communities have also grappled with major disagreements and disappointments involving prominent people and organizations, including some referenced in this book. There has been stress and distress, hopelessness and anger, misunderstanding, and many…and mistrust. But there has been repair, too, if not to the specific crises, at least to some oversights and exclusions of the past. In many HAESⓇ, eating disorders, and fat liberation spaces, we've developed a deeper understanding of and commitment to intersectionality. We've made one room literally and figuratively for fat people from all identities. We've learned to better partner with other social justice movements. There's so much more to do. We have to move past, creating spaces that only pay live service to diversity and inclusivity, and instead co-create spaces that truly integrate all members of our communities. I hope we're on the right track. Look how far we've come. We still have a long, long way to go. May we find a way together. 

[Speaker 2 - Nancy]

Part of my training is a social worker is the “Person in the Environment” perspective, which includes understanding how individuals are affected by society and culture. As I learn more about eating disorders and their treatment, I became more interested in the way attitudes about body size influenced the way we all interact with food. Although we didn't yet have the term wieight stigma, I realized that the idealization of thin bodies and the devaluing of larger bodies was behind much of the dieting behavior that led to eating disorders in some and body dissatisfaction in many others. The dieting industry finding increasing profit in pushing the narratives of higher weights directly tied to poor health outcomes, and the only way to improve health was to lose weight. Various groups were pushing back against that paradigm, and I began to find them.

[Speaker 2 - Nancy]

So this goes into some of my own history, but then there's the one quote from Jeanne Courtney,  the light bulb quote. This actually came from…was quoted in a journal article that was written by one of the women who wrote “Ice Cream for Breakfast.”

[Quote]“How many weight loss experts does it take to screw in a light bulb? Three.  one stand on the ladder, and keep trying to screw a burned out bulb into a socket that doesn't fit; one to stand under the ladder and tell him he's doing a great job; and one to write a press release, declaring that the three of them have discovered a revolutionary completely safe and effective new way to screw in light bulbs. How many Health At Every SizeⓇ experts does it take to screw in a light bulb? The light bulb is fine. The socket is fine. The switch is on. The room is brightly lit, but it still takes several dozen Health At Every SizeⓇ experts with impeccable academic credentials to publish independent studies, proving that there is no need to change the bulb. And those three guys with the ladder still won't go away.” [End quote}