LIVING with JOY
This Baltimore group is rejecting diet culture and embracing body diversity
For almost two years, in a small corner of the internet, a kind of revolt has been brewing.
Members of Body Liberation Baltimore, a community organization run through a private Facebook page, reject the notion that thin bodies are the only good bodies. Through virtual support groups and in-person gatherings for people who have been harmed by antifat bias, they spread what co-founder Emma Kaufman jokingly calls the “Good News”: Weight loss and diet culture don’t have to rule your life.
While moderators of the online community make clear they are pro-body autonomy and won’t criticize anyone for trying to lose weight, they don’t allow diet talk in support groups or on the Facebook page. They screen out posts that include calorie counts, macro-grams, pounds or other information that could be triggering for people recovering from eating disorders — which includes many of the group’s more than 200 members.
Followers of body liberation, a movement that sprang from activism in the late 1960s and ‘70s against weight-based discrimination and bias, believe all bodies are worthy of respect and dignity. Body Liberation Baltimore strives to provide community to people who believe that body liberation is for everyone, said Alicia Castaneda Hatfield, a member of group’s leadership team.
“That doesn’t just mean folks in bigger bodies, but folks who have different abilities, folks with eating disorder histories,” she said. “We want people to feel really unashamed and joyful within the bodies that they get to live this life through.”
In recent years — amplified by popular podcasts like Maintenance Phase and books like Sabrina Strings’ “Fearing The Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia” — there’s been a growing understanding of weight-based discrimination and the harm it can cause.
People who are fat (a term many prefer over medicalized descriptions like “overweight” or euphemisms such as “curvy” or “plus-sized”) face bias in every area of their lives. They’re hired less, promoted less and paid less — and no federal laws bar weight discrimination in the workplace. Doctors spend less time with their fat patients, and many people report being misdiagnosed, with their symptoms attributed to their weight without the consideration of other possible causes.
There have been some recent wins for the body acceptance movement. In May, after months of lobbying from the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) and other advocates, New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed into law a ban on weight-based discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation. Lawmakers in New Jersey and Massachusetts are considering similar measures, and weight discrimination is prohibited in Michigan and Washington state, along with some cities.
A “Health At Every Size” medical framework — one in which doctors accept and respect the inherent diversity of body shapes and sizes, and encourage intuitive eating, a nondieting approach that includes listening to one’s body when deciding when and what to eat — also is growing in popularity, including in Baltimore.
Health Care for the Homeless, a nonprofit that provides medical and behavioral health services to people experiencing housing instability, aims to eventually train all of its staff on the approach, said Arie Hayre-Somuah, the organization’s
racial equity and inclusion health specialist.
In June, the American Medical Association recognized the limitations of doctors using the body mass index, although it didn’t throw the measure out entirely. The index, a calculation based on a person’s weight and height, has faced criticism for not being relevant to the bodies of women and people of color and for not taking into account muscle mass, lifestyle or other health-related factors. It was designed in the 1830s using a sample of white, European men.
However, even as awareness of anti-fat bias increases, so does the size of the diet industry. The global weight loss and weight
management market, valued at an estimated $175.4 billion in 2022, is expected to grow to $282.5 billion by 2028. Ozempic, a drug from manufacturer Novo Nordisk that helps people with diabetes control their blood sugar levels, has dominated headlines this year as people scramble to obtain it for weight loss.
The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated challenges faced by people at risk for developing eating disorders and those already struggling with one. As stress, isolation and body shaming soared, so too did hospital stays and emergency department visits for eating disorders.
But a year into the outbreak,
Kaufman’s recovery from a severe eating disorder was starting to finally stick after 13 years of struggling and going in and out of treatment. She’d recently had an epiphany: She could either embrace the body she had, or eventually die from her eating disorder.
The choice was easy, she said. Immediately, she began inundating herself with podcasts, books and YouTube videos hosted by fat activists and people who had found body liberation as a way out of their own eating disorders.
“Having justice be the throughline for my recovery has been a really sustainable way for me to stay on track,” Kaufman said. “I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy. And if there’s any way I can save someone their time, their money, their life — I lost 13 years. So I’m trying to make sure everyone has as much of their life that they can live with joy as possible.”
While searching for a community of like-minded people, Kaufman came across a body positivity Facebook page that Dundalk resident Destiny DiMattei created before the pandemic.
By the time DiMattei met with Kaufman at a Starbucks in September 2021, that group had fizzled out. But DiMattei, who uses they/ them and she/her pronouns, was ready to try again. Nearly two years later, they said they’ve found as much comfort in Body Liberation Baltimore as they’ve provided as a support group leader.
“I’ve gotten so much support from this group,” DiMattei said.
Body Liberation Baltimore hosts two virtual support groups per month — one for everyone and one just for people in larger bodies. The group also hosts support groups on holidays, like Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving, when people might need extra encouragement or a way to vent. Members also meet in person once per month at a restaurant, a market or, most recently, a pool party.
The number of fat activism and body acceptance groups around the country has grown in recent years, said Tigress Osborn, board chair for NAAFA, the fat acceptance group that pushed for New York to pass its ban on weight discrimination.
On Facebook, there’s the 1,000member DMV Fat-Positive Community, which Jay McCrossin — who helps lead Body Liberation Baltimore — runs with their partner, Mycroft Masada Holmes. Erin Foxworthy, another leader with Body Liberation Baltimore, helps run the local chapter of Fat Girls Hiking, which organizes outdoor meet-ups for people in larger bodies and gives tips on where to find plus-size hiking and other athletic gear.
While NAAFA used to have local chapters, it now focuses on providing virtual support to people who don’t have a community group near them, Osborn said. The national organization has existed since 1969, but even before that, Osborn said, fat people were gathering around kitchen tables and other informal settings to talk body liberation.
“As long as people have been shaming bodies, there have been fat people who were sort of, ‘Middle fingers up to your body shaming. I’m going to live my life,’” she said.
The body acceptance movement has evolved over the years, becoming more inclusive of people with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Activists point to studies that show most diets fail and that weight is a poor proxy for health.
Now there’s a better understanding that everyone — regardless of how healthy they are — deserves dignity and respect, said Rosie Young, another Body Liberation Baltimore leader.
Similar to Kaufman, Young started learning about body liberation while recovering from an eating disorder. But she continued to struggle, even after discovering the movement. The missing ingredient, she learned, was community, which she found first while living in California, and later in Body Liberation Baltimore, after moving to Maryland.
“When you’re going against the mainstream culture of diet culture, it’s really swimming upstream,” she said. “You need other people around you to give you strength.”