What is Fat Acceptance?

Fat Acceptance is the simple, yet somehow radical, idea that ALL bodies are good bodies, regardless of size and shape. It’s the acknowledgement that, just like height, human body weight varies according to a normal distribution. By definition, most people are average weight.  However, biological diversity dictates that some people will be heavier than average, while others will be lighter than average, to varying degrees.  While there are certainly people in the world who are heavier or lighter than their biology dictates (for medical, personal, or circumstantial reasons), most people are the size they were born to be. Fatness is NORMAL and it would be biologically impossible to eliminate it, just as it would be impossible to eliminate short people or tall people.

What is Health At Every Size?

Health At Every Size (HAES) is the simple, yet somehow radical, idea that health is a function of behavior, not body size. What dictates how healthy you are depends on what you do or don’t  do (e.g., eat well, sleep well, exercise, have loving relationships, take care of general physical and mental health), not on what you look like. Just as fat people can be unhealthy, so can thin people. Just as thin people can be healthy, so can fat people. You simply cannot determine whether someone is healthy based on their body size. Health is correlated with behavior, not aesthetics.

What is Fatshion?

Fat people + fashion = fatshion

Why are you using the word “fat”? Isn’t that offensive?

Fat Acceptance activists have reclaimed the word “fat” as a neutral descriptor of their bodies. Using euphemisms such as curvy, voluptuous, or big-boned only reinforces the idea that being fat is bad, so bad that it cannot be named! I don’t consider the word “fat” offensive. I embrace it.