User Profile

For many of us, culturally dominant definitions of "happy and healthy" are out of reach. for people with mental illnesses, happiness can be more a battle than a point of arrival. For chronically ill people, health may feel forever out of reach, all stick and no carrot. Hapiness and health are never static states. all of us fall ill, all of us experience emotions beyond some point of arrival called "happiness." And when those things happen, when we get sick, when we get sad, they shouldn't impinge on our right to embrace and care for our bodies. Ultimately, "as long as you're happy and healthy" just move the goalposts from a beauty standard to an equally finicky and unattainable standard of health and happiness. All of us deserve peaceful relationships with our own bodies regardless of whether or not others perceive us as happy or healthy.

— You Just Need to Lose Weight by Aubrey Gordon (38%)

Like many current, and past community organizers, I struggle with the strategy behind myth busting. Debunking myths starts with repeating those myths. Doing so can seem like uncritically accepting an opponent's premise. Depending on the myth in question, it can also mean quietly assenting to debating the humanity of the community being discussed. And political researchers have long known that facts don't change our positions on social issues--human stories do. Most of us don't make up our minds on key social issues because we've reviewed all available research, looked at crosstabs, written executive summaries for ourselves. We make decisions about when and whether to support social issues based on their human impact, as it's presented to us. Those of us who aren't directly, personally impacted by those social issues are much less fact-driven than we like to think. Why, then, give these myths more airtime?

— You Just Need to Lose Weight by Aubrey Gordon (1%)