Fighting the Battle for Fat Liberation

The soldiers of the fat liberation movement took to the streets Sunday, though not all of them are quite so liberated as to embrace the word fat. In any case, the media didn’t show. And so two days later the protest signs were stacked against a wall, awaiting another battle.

“Living Large and Healthy.” “Stop Negative Body Thoughts.” “I Disagree With You, Rosemary Green!” (Who, I wondered, is Rosemary Green?)

Josie Rodriguez, who carries 240 pounds on her 5-foot, 1-inch frame, pointed out her favorite, inspired by “Forrest Gump.” The words barely fit the placard: “Mama always said people were like gifts under a Christmas tree! All shapes & sizes.”

How ironic. The night before, David Letterman, hosting the Academy Awards, took Gumpian inspiration in a different direction.

“Life is like a box of chocolates,” he said. “You never know what you’re going to get.” Unless, he added, you’re sitting next to Roger Ebert. Then you get nothing.

The beautiful people just laughed and laughed.

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“Ha ha.”

Sally Smith, executive director of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance, doesn’t much care for such humor. On TV talk shows and in legal briefs, Smith expresses dismay that a society that frowns on racism and sexism takes such delight indulging in “sizeism.” Josie Rodriguez, meanwhile, fights for fat liberation on another front--as an exercise instructor.

Given her size, Rodriguez says, people often think she’s joking when she divulges her line of work. Seven months ago, this Richard Simmons disciple teamed with Elva Lee, a trainer of similar build, to establish the Whole Self Express exercise studio in Northridge. It is one of a small number of health clubs that offer, as Rodriguez puts it, “a special focus on the larger individual.”

NAAFA, a 26-year-old advocacy group based in Sacramento, may preach that fat is simply an adjective, like short, tall, thin or blond . But Rodriguez, as an entrepreneur, knows the word won’t sell. Even her partner Lee doesn’t like it, because she’s heard the word used as an insult so often.

Whatever the favored terminology, these crusaders have long argued that human heftiness does not necessarily signify poor health, laziness, sloppiness or anything else. Lately, their arguments have been buoyed by medical studies that suggest that avoirdupois is more a matter of biological destiny than a failure of will. The New York Obesity Research Center at Rockefeller University, for example, recently completed a 10-year study that found why dieters often complain they can’t keep off lost weight. The body, researchers conclude, slows its metabolism, seeking a return to the weight it had at the start of dieting.

It is argued, therefore, that most of the billions of dollars spent on weight loss every year only benefit the weight-loss industry. Instead of focusing on “being skinny,” on trying to achieve the physique celebrated on, say, “Baywatch,” people should be more concerned with being healthy, Rodriguez says.

And health problems routinely attributed to size, Smith further argues, may often be the result of “yo-yo dieting,” in which weight goes down and up, down and up. Eating disorders are also associated with weight loss. And the popularity of smoking as a means to control weight, particularly among teen-age girls and young women, suggests that many people would rather risk cancer than fat.

There are splinters in this crusade. Smith, who weighs 330 pounds and stands 5 feet, 5 inches, disdains the terms overweight and obese. Overweight, she argues, is a misguided value judgment, and obesity is defined medically as a disease. Rodriguez, on the other hand, seems more comfortable accepting the notion that a person can be too fat.

“I used to weigh 370, with a size 50 waist. . . . I had a lack of energy,” she explains. “Now, at 240, I’m absolutely in love with life.”

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Smith and Rodriguez, however, are in full agreement about Rosemary Green. I’ve since learned that Green is the author of “Diary of a Fat Housewife,” a chronicle of how she shed 185 pounds, leaving a lean 135 on her 5-foot, 9-inch frame. Calling herself “the last honest fat person in America,” Green suggests that heavyweights who preach acceptance are in a state of denial.

“Big is not beautiful,” Green has been quoted as saying. “It’s ugly and disgusting. I cannot describe in gross enough terms the ugliness of a body that has big globules, fat rolls of ugly, jiggly fat.”

All considered, Sally Smith much prefers David Letterman.

“I was on the ‘Leeza’ show with Rosemary Green,” Smith grumbled. “It’s the closest I’ve come to killing a talk show guest.”