i gave a talk at UCLA earlier this month. i was asked my thoughts on HAES (health at every size), and this is part of my response.

“HAES feels like a reformist project; it’s not committed to a destruction of the MIC so much as it is to a restructuring of the very same prison.”

i was also asked about the bodyposi movement, and this was part of my response to that. on body positivity and the connection between ableism and anti-fatness:

HAES and body positivity are two sides of the same coin. by that, i mean that they both operate with the understanding that Health is something we all have access to, and perhaps even something we should all aspire to.

i, of course, think one is better than the other. HAES attempts to advocate for fatness in a way that body positivity does not. however, this attempt to locate Health in fatness (or fatness inside of Health) is a reification of Thinness as a politic and a mode of being.

what if Health is a concept created to keep Black fat folks out? what if Health has always been an antiBlack eugenicist project? what if Black fat (and disabled) people are always already positioned outside of Health, no matter how hard we struggle to find a home in it?

what if Health is not a human right? or what if it is a Human right and some of us are never situated inside of Humanness? what if it is a metaphysical violence and not something we are mistakenly being removed from? what if it’s not individualistic?

i’m working through all of these thoughts & questions in my book. it’s time we move away from “fat people can be healthy too,” and it’s even time we move away from “health doesn’t determine your right to live.” it’s time we understand that health was only created for some.