Ban Fat Talk Week!

From October 18-22nd, Tri Delta and their partners are introducing the "Fat Talk Free Week 2010" to raise consciousness about the dangers of 'fat talk' and the impact it has on womens body image, self confidence and self worth. The fat talk ban runs for five days and hopes to raise awareness towards the dangers of the 'thin ideal' and to get people thinking about the effects that even the 'simple' statements have on body image perception. The motto for the campaign will be: Friends Don't Let Friends Fat-Talk and can be anything from the classic: "You look great! Have you lost weight?" to not confirming our gal pals notions of acceptable/unacceptable body image perceptions by giving alternatives to the age old: "Does this make my butt look big?" We can also deny the confirmation of the thin ideal by eliminating declarations such as: "She's too big to be wearing that!" or the pseudo sympathetic "You think you're fat!? Look at me!!" (Even I admit, I do this one from time to time, but only to my super skinny sister and partner that complain they are getting a belly. To which I reply: THIS is a belly!)

The campaign has a lot of momentum: did you know that colleges give academic credit for weight loss classes, or that nearly 10 million women in the US suffer from anorexia or bulimia? The thin ideal affects us all to some degree or another, and loosing weight vs. being healthy has become the grounds for praise. Even I just went through my own battle to tip the scales of health back into my favor

From Time Magazine:

The program's philosophy is based on research by Eric Stice, a clinical psychologist at Oregon Research Institute, who found the most effective way to prevent eating disorders is to enlist the theory of cognitive dissonance. As humans, we tend to align our beliefs and our actions; helping young women speak and act against the thin ideal creates an uncomfortable psychological state that leads to a change in beliefs. In a 2008 study published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Stice reported a 60% reduction in the risk of developing eating disorders for female high school and college students who spent just three hours critiquing the thin ideal; the risk in reduction persisted over a three-year follow-up. "It's one thing to have nice ads that say, 'Feel good about yourself,' but what they're doing at Reflections is really groundbreaking," says Grefe. After participating in the program, which consists of two two-hour sessions, a Rutgers sorority removed all the scales in its bathroom so women would stop hopping from one to the next to see which scale yielded the lowest weight. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign intends to implement the program at sororities campus-wide. And Tri Delta offers the curriculum to its 138 collegiate chapters in the U.S. and Canada, plus any sorority or campus women's group that expresses interest.

I don't know about you, but I'm happy to participate!