About Weighting

Why Would a Confident Fat Feminist
Restrict Her Calories and Keep a Diet Journal?

In the fat acceptance community, DIET is a “four letter word.” In the weight loss and eating disorder community, it is fat that is the enemy.

Heather Bartlett, who once suffered from a self-diagnosed eating disorder but later joined in the voices of the fat acceptance community, is embarking on a new project to challenge some of the tenets of each community—to acknowledge the concepts that make her feel healthier and expose those that make her feel flawed.

On her path to self discovery she felt both validation and the pressure to change by the dogmas of each community. Her desires to accept her body and feel beautiful as well as to be healthy were viewed from different angles by these communities, sometimes in ways which she felt were unrealistic and even damaging, either to her health or self-esteem.

Heather’s intent is to explore her own feelings about her body and the reactions of those who seem to judge and label her. She wonders if the very process of embarking on a weight loss diet is damaging to self esteem and if certain beliefs of the fat acceptance community, which she once embraced, hold true for her.

What new labels will emerge on this journey?

This project will begin May 29, 2009, the opening day of Artomatic 2009, and will end on May 29, 2010. Heather will follow a calorie-reduced diet and track her physical activity and weight shifts. She will record this data and the changes, if any, in her appearance, health, and mental state in her online journal:

http://weighting.HeatherBartlettArt.com.

There is no weight-loss goal—the point of this project will be to see if acceptance and love for your body can be maintained once you attempt to alter your natural appearance, and how those around you react to you as you follow that path.