One Year Anniversary Post!
Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my first post on Weight and Healthcare and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been a part of this project so far. I’m grateful for everyone who reads, comments, shares, and subscribes to support this work.
I also wanted to ask for your feedback for the coming year. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below, including everything from the types of posts that you would like to see more (or less!) of (for example: research breakdowns, interviews with experts, resources like printable cards, scripts, and letters, etc.) to ways that I can improve the subscriber experience.
Finally, I want to send a ton of gratitude to Virginia Sole-Smith. Her excellent Substack newsletter, Burnt Toast, is what inspired me to create this newsletter, and her advice and support were (and continue to be!) instrumental in getting it started and getting the word out about it. Thank you!!!!
Here’s to another year of Weight and Healthcare!
I am so grateful that your work and this community exists. Along with other writers, researchers and podcasters that I've discovered over the last year, you have really helped me reframe how I view not just health as a fat person, but my life overall.
When there is no chair for me to sit in at my doctor's office, or I'm told to eat better and exercise more without being asked about my routine, or I encounter the endless proclamations that weight loss improves health and is possible for everyone who tries hard enough...it's work like yours that I've kept hold of in those moments so I can remind myself that systemic ableism and fatphobia are not my fault.
Even the short asides that you include in your writing about how health and exercise are not inherently a moral good--they make a huge difference. As someone whose mobility has changed in the last few years, I had attached a lot of value to what I used to be capable of without even realizing it, and I've only recently started accepting my body's current limitations. Whenever you remind readers of your work that 'healthy' means different things for different people, and it's also not some North Star we're required to aim for, it truly helps me keep working on internalizing that belief.
So thank you for bringing us the facts and being a trustworthy source in a field that's still overwhelmingly biased, and thank you also for your intersectionality and for reminding us that all people have value regardless of their weight or health status.
I am very grateful for the work you are doing. Thank you. I would like to make a one time small donation for your work . I am not sure if this is still the case but previously when I clicked on the subscribe button it didn't allow for that. Could you direct me elsewhere to make a small donation?
Claudette