Here's my offering for you this week: I'm about to add some intriguing new rewards for my supporters over on Patreon. Come tell me which reward you want to get (or reply to this email)!

 

Hi friend,

 

You can assign points to food

 

and you can talk about calories in calories out
and you can talk about willpower
and you can talk about diets
and you can talk about fat
and you can talk about loss

 

but until you start talking about the way human bodies actually work in the real world

 

you’re not going to be talking about reality

 

and I’m not here for misstatements

 

or insinuations
or shaming
or lies.

 

I don’t care if when your doctor told you you were going to get diabetes because of your weight
they thought they were telling you the truth

 

it’s
not
true.

 

I don’t care if your mother told you you needed to lose weight to find love.
It’s not true.

 

I don’t care if your friends thought they were genuinely trying to help when they pushed you into dieting.
It’s not true.

 

I am so angry on my own behalf and on your behalf
for the lies that we were told
and the shame we were given

 

that was placed on our bodies for no other reason than to net some companies a whole lot of money.

 

We have built up this culture and told these lies to ourselves and to each other and to our children for generations and “everyone knows” they’re true, except

 

they’re not.

 

None of it is true.

 

None of the anguish and pain and shame and hunger and health problems and trying to erase our bodies was worth anything except to generate money for the diet industry.

 

And it makes me so angry for all the time lost
for our wasted years

 

trying to meet a standard that everybody knew was just right
and true
and good

 

and none of it meant anything at all.

 

Except profit. Profit. Are you not angry too?

 

Or are you still lying to yourself? Are you still telling yourself the stories? Because otherwise you’ll have to face that they’re just stories and you wasted so much time?

Warmly,
Lindley

 

P.S. If you'd like to share this week's thought, it exists in blog form here.

My favorite photo this week:

 

The Conversation

 

Quick Resources: On Body Image + Gender + Race

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August Free Stock Images

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Hi! I'm Lindley.

- she/her

- photographer

- author

 

Hi! I'm Lindley.

 

I'm a professional photographer (she/her, pronounced LIN-lee) who celebrates the unique beauty of bodies that fall outside conventional "beauty" standards. I live outside Seattle, WA. 

 

I talk about and photograph fat folks because representation of large bodies in the world is vital to our body liberation.

 

 

People come to me for:

  • Body-safe portrait, boudoir and small business photography sessions
  • Diverse, body-positive stock photos
  • Fat fine art photographic prints
  • Health at Every Size (HAES)-aligned consulting, writing and editing
  • The Body Love Shop, a curated resource for body-positive and fat-positive art and products

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