Weight a Minute?! What's the BIG deal?

Here is my final project, my educational video about breaking down the stigmas associated with fat.  Please enjoy! It's about 20 minutes long.  I'd appreciate any feedback that anyone has (just post comments).  I hope everyone can learn something from it...I know I did.- Stephanie

Women as victims of medical experimentation

Axelson's article reveals the poor state that African American women have historically recieved from American doctors. Black women were treated like animals because others thought of them as animals. Then to emphasize this, they were regarded as heroes for putting up with the surgeries as if they had a choice (as if they were technically forced to comply anyway) and as if they wanted the surgeries. It seems it would have profited them more to just deal with the uncomfortable illness.
Later on in the article, Axelson notes how the norm is being a European male. They said that everyone is equal in the constitution, but they still justified racism by claiming that anyone other than white males were lower level beings. In fact, women was considered a monstrous error. It makes you wonder how they could say such a thing when, without women there would be no men. Procreation would also be frustrating to figure out. This sentiment against women is also pretty amusing now that we know that being a boy is a deviation from how all babies start out. Females also seem the more sturdy sex between the two seeing as how more girls are born than boys (it is more likely that a couple will have a girl than a boy)and women tend to live longer than men in spite of the way paternalism negatively affects our health and wellness. If anything it would seem we are the ones with the biological advantages.
It is also interesting how they made it a point to ensure that the theories they were coming up with supported their biases. Such things go on today still as The Biology and Gender Group discovered. Science professional write books that support this male domination idea. For example, biology books often depict the fertilization process as a passive female and active male process. The male counterpart (the sperm) is depicted as a courageous soldier and it is inferred that the egg is a village, or even a woman, waiting to be surrendering to it.
The race issue is still big today as well I found out in class and as part of my activist practicum. Minority women are more likely to be targeted and pressured toward contraceptives. I also found out that minority women are more likely to be offered (and expected to accept) epidurals. While the Feminist Women’s Health Center exposed that, in general, the birth process is made convenient for the doctors (if a woman doesn’t dilate or deliver by a certain time, they give her drugs to do so just so they can get her out of the delivery room and free up the bed for other pregnant women) as opposed to the naturally varying process that it is for women.

Toxic Bodies

Berila makes many important observations here. She brings up the issue of clout… people with clout (money, power, authority, connections) are never the ones seen as toxic. It is the poor, the minorities, the homosexuals, the homeless, the ill (i.e. AIDS) that are seen as toxic. This article does forget to mention that the disabled and the overweight however. There are so many cultural and social institutions that continue to objectify women and make them second class citizens simply because they are women. This is regardless of social, political, and economic clout she has. In this case women have little social clout. This article is a good summary of the beef that America has had with second class citizens (listed above). This comes up in the end of the semester with reference to the Inuit people. Because they have no social or “insignificant” (in the eyes of American companies) economic clout, the plight of their mothers and babies is being pushed to the wayside.
Berile states that it is difficult to distinguish the out-group from the in-group sometimes. For example ACT UP members easily infiltrated a few sessions where they were not welcome. But then again they were middle- to upper-class white men. The qualities that qualified them for second-class-citizen-hood were not obvious. If a teenage, Latino or African American boy in baggy jeans and a jersey tried to do the same he would not have gotten past security.
One statement that Berila made was to show your patriotism by consuming. I am not sure what that means….

I Can Fix It!

Though this article may have been a bit harsh for some people, the reality that many people must face as minorities is harsh in itself. When I was first interviewing for jobs, I was nervous that many employers would first see my skin color before the saw my credentials. What many people of the majority race don't realize is that you can never fully understand the plight of a people unless you walk a mile in their shoes. One can try to get a sense of what that person may have to go through on a daily basis, but you can never completely sympathize unless you are in fact in that situation. The same idea goes for the disable. As an able-bodied person, I see the disabled and can only imagine the troubles that they may have but I can never know struggles because I am able-bodied. I feel that the article takes a very direct approach in getting people to understand that racism still exists and that these are the things minorities would like Whites to do so that they could understand our frustrations.

There have been many instances in my life when I wanted to tell a person of the majority race that somethings that they assume about my race are insensitive and that become racism doesn't exist for them doesn't mean that racism does not exist. Therefore, I understood where the author was coming from when she constructed this piece. Walking into a room and being first noticed as black and woman in a society where those two factors can count against me is an uncomfortable feeling, but I love my gender and my race. With the appreciation of other cultures comes understanding and that is what I think I gained most from this class.

power vs prosthesis

In Lorde’s article “Power vs. Prosthesis,” she brings up the very valuable idea of mastectomy as a cosmetic surgeries rather than a life or death surgery. Many women refuse the surgery because they don’t want t lose their “femininity” or “womanhood” because they, themselves, connect such ideas to their breasts. Others feel pressured by society or even their loved ones to refuse the surgery because society encourages such thinking. I had two personal experiences with this. My mother’s late boss lost a daughter to breast cancer because her husband didn’t want her to have a mastectomy. He didn’t want her to lose her woman-hood and her beauty. I also have an aunt right now hasn’t had herself checked for breast cancer in years and has had a painful lump (with other unpleasant and abnormal symptoms) for almost the same amount of time. She was afraid doctors might want to cut off her breast because of a little lump, and as a result, she might very well be dying from breast cancer.
In the video in class, a nurse said “What we are aiming for is to allow women to look decent in clothes…. The aim is for the patient to look normal and natural when she has clothes on her body.” WOW. Normal and natural according to who??? And even if you do look normal and natural with clothes on, what are you supposed to look like (and feel about how you look) when you take them off. This mindset encourages these courageous women feel ashamed even though they survived this life threatening disease. This goes back to what I said before about women’s issues having to be a private battle. Guy with eye patch, vs her with no prosthesis. Idea of invisibility and silence… is it a lie (to yourself) to wear prosthesis?
This is a good example of what Showalter called managing women’s minds. Although she is referring to how women with mental illness are treated, the same amount of control is put on women who are “sane.” Because the women in Showalter’s article were “deviant” (sexually open and honest, had children out of wedlock, didn’t have a Victorian zip on their lip) they were deemed crazy and thrown in an asylum. The breast cancer survivors are treated similarly when they disclose that they do not want prosthesis. Although these women are not thrown in an asylum, doctors and nurses eye them with apprehension and wonder if they are crazy. They are stigmatized, mistreated and pressured into getting one. The class issue is also similar here to. If a lower class woman were to go without prosthesis, she would be deemed ignorant and strange/crazy (not literally… or is it?). If an upper class woman were to go without a prosthesis, she would be more likely to be called courageous although they would still think her strange (and maybe crazy too).
In issues as sensitive as breast cancer, however, doctors should be extra sensitive to the patient's wishes. They should ask patients what they want and support it. Doctors are supposed to be liaisons and partners not commanders . As Alice Walker calls it, it should be seen as a warrior mark, not a deformity.

Selective abortion

I see a dilemma in Saxon’s article. Selective abortion is controversial in that actualizes eugenics. But then again how do you care for a child if you cannot guarantee it the most comfortable life possible. Suppose you do not have enough money and/or adequate access to other resources necessary to care for a disabled child? It is a difficult decision to make. I suppose my personal feelings on abortion are slightly contradictory as well. I don’t believe anyone should be deprived of the right to life. However, I do believe that people should not be born unless you can guarantee a certain amount of comfort for the child. This is not to say that any one child should be aborted because of one reason over another though. All children are extremely expensive and with the price of living going up, they are only becoming more so. Therefore, if a couple know that they cannot afford a differently abled child, they might want to fully assess if they can afford any child at all. I believe having a child is a privilege and an honor that people should carefully plan to ensure the greatest possible amount of comfort. I realize the controversy that can arise and that this can bring up questions like the following: Should people in the bottom of the socio-economic class have children. I am not suggesting that there should be a guideline detailing who should have children; I am only encouraging people to plan their children better to avoid bringing children up environments that will most likely be emotionally and or psychologically damaging. I realize that utopia is possible, but I am always an advocate for striving towards it…. Perhaps I am a bit naïve and/or idealistic that way…. Children deserve the greatest amount of love and support possible. And while people have to right to have children, I think people should also regard it as a privilege and an honor. That way, women, especially those who do not see or have abortion as an option, would take more precautions to avoid accidental pregnancies.
Similar to the discussion on eugenics in Puerto Rico mentioned in the video La Operacion. I mentioned a “proper environment” and circumstance to have kids. I admit, this is along the lines of the thought processes that caused the large number of women to be sterilized without their full informed consent. Americans claimed that they wanted to create a better living environment for the natives; however, as the documentary revealed, Americans wanted to control the population growth in order to make the island more comfortable and profitable for themselves. This is the big difference between what I believe and what Americans did. I think my beliefs are closer to planned parenthood while America exercised eugenics.
I AM NOT COMPLETELY convinced by this article. As I said before I feel like all the situational factors need to be considered. I still feel like it is a good idea to screen for these disabilities, especially if people feel like they would not be able to adequately care for the child.

No Remedy for the Inuit

I was very touched by the article and video we watched about the Inuit and the toxins that were unknowingly placed in their bodies. The passage at the beginning of the article that states "As we put our baby to our breasts, we feed them a noxious chemical cocktail that foreshadows neurological disorders, cancer, kidney failure, reproductive dysfunction" speaks clearly the frustrations of the Inuit people. Dioxins store in the fat of animals and humans, and because the Inuit have a diet that consists of animal fat they are more susceptible to the toxin. It is almost like a never ending cycle and that is why the title is so appropriate for the situation. Mothers must breast feed their babies and the Inuit must eat from the land, so the dioxins will continue to be passed down from generation to generation.

This reminded me so much of the Tuskegee experiment and our talks about the environment. Unlike the Tuskegee experiment, these people weren't tricked into their dangerous fates; however, in both cases a responsible party knew the consequences of their actions but did not take into account the pain and suffering they causes these people. We live in a society that cares so much about technology and advancement that we don't take the time to see if they will be harmful to both the environment and people. These Inuit people were not in direct contact with the pollutants but the choices that wer made by these companies to produce them has changed the lives of many people forever.

Reproductive Justice

The lecture with Mia Mingus and Cara Page was an eye-opening experience. From the talk about eugenics to the media's role in placing underlying messages of intolerance for certain groups, I learned a great deal about women and the environment. I never noticed how much blame is placed upon women for environmental issues and overpopulation. We as women as givers of life so we are blamed for environmental degradation, food shortages, and water shortages. The picture of the two girls getting water from the well highlighted the media bias against minorities and the blame that they place on them for things that they are not the cause of. The girls were only getting small gourds of water but were made to look like they were over consuming the water. Like one classmate pointed out, the article forgot to mention that large companies uses millions of gallons of water to produce their goods.

Up until that lecture, I had never heard about eugenics. I was fascinated to see that the government and many groups have take steps to ensure that dominant groups procreate more than non-dominant groups. It is there way of making sure that a certain group stays in power and that other groups are marginalized. The list that we made of who should or should not be reproduced depended on several factors: race, class, ability, education, sexuality, aesthetics, and gender. The are populations that some people want to control based on the aforementioned factors. The treatment of those who are considered by society as "inferior" continues to be a reoccurring theme in this class. We have seen that women, minorities, refugees, the intersexed, and the disabled have an unfair advantage.

My Activist Practicum and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

When working on my Activist Practicum about Refugee Family Services, I was constantly reminded of the Lee family's constant struggles in this country. I think of all the women and children that I have met as a volunteer at RFS and you can sense their fear but at the same time you can see that they want to learn and be considered American. However, they also want to hold on to their culture while learning more about American culture. The many things that we as American citizens take for granted such as our ability to speak English, our ability to easily find a job, etc. are things that these people aren't able to do as soon as they land on American soil. I remember that the Lee family didn't have access to an organization such as RFS, but I wonder if the outcome would have been different for Lia if an organization like RFS was in their community.

The biggest problem that refugees face are their concerns about whether are not the will be accepted into America society. Without fluency in English , they are left to either find low wage, low skill jobs or be employed. Like Foua Lee, many immigrants feel that they are stupid or unskilled because they don't know English. They are not able to communicate their thoughts with English speakers so they feel inadequate and alone. What I am most proud of about RFS, is that it provides free ESL classes and also provided childcare services to mothers who attend the classes. Language barriers are potentially the biggest barriers that hold people back from their full potential or from communicating important messages. The language barrier between the Lee family and their American doctors left a young girl without the ability to lead a normal life.

Poverty fuels medical crisis

The healthcare crisis among the poor in the United States is startling, especially since we live in the richest country in the world. This article really shed light on the problems that many poor people face in the US regarding their health and the way they view their situations. I was extremely disheartened by Jim Neely's pessimistic view of his life. It is sad that the only way these people see themselves being freed from their health and financial problems is by death. These people do not have access to great healthcare or even to healthy food choices because of their low incomes. This article completely falls in line with a lot of what we have talked about in class. These people in Kentucky are marginalized and completely ignored by the government because they aren't considered "human capital." Those in power clearly do not see these individuals' plight as important and something that needs to be addressed immediately. The poor in our country may be helped quite often by non-profit or community organizations, but these organizations can only do so much. It is up to our government to make sure that these people receive the health care they deserve.

There are many people in the United States who do not have health insurance, and without it many are left to suffer or even die because they could not receive treatment. With the upcoming election, many people are wondering if the next administration will make insurance accessible to ALL people regardless of their socioeconomic status. I do agree that every person is entitled to excellent health care at little or no cost. I feel that with all of the money that are government wastes on frivolous things, it should take on the responsibility of making sure that its citizens are healthy and not left to suffer because they can't afford their blood pressure medicine, etc.

Sexuality vs. Politics

Hey - another little tid bit of information for everyone. Since we discussed the binary categories of sexuality and gender in class in such depth, I thought it might be interesting for some of our feminist scientists to see how these categories are clashing with the political system. As we all know, same-sex marriages are illegal in the States everywhere except Massachusetts. However in Sunday's New York Times, there's an article entitled "Through Sickness, Health, and Sex Change" which describes how a couple, one half of which is transgendered, is challenging New Jersey marriage laws. Since I'm writing my final paper on Thomas Beatie, the transgendered pregnant man from Oregon, my ear has been finely tuned to these stories. I think the firmly established two-gender system that dominant society chooses to uphold is causing a lot of confusion where legal regulation of rights for couples are concerned.
Just an example from the article: "The New Jersey reference stems from a 1976 case in which an appellate court ruled that a man needed to pay support to his ex-wife, who was born male, essentially saying that sex is determined by current status, not DNA. But a 2004 Florida case took the opposite tack: a female-to-male transsexual who married a woman and then divorced lost custody of the children, as the marriage was declared invalid since both were born the same sex."
In any case, if anyone wants to check this out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/fashion/27trans.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

More activities

Hey everyone - I hope you are all doing well as the semester winds down. I just wanted to inform you all of another wonderful event taking place at Charis Books, the bookstore where I did my activist practicum. Since this class has prepared us all to become more socially aware and active, it might also be of use to do go about this activism in a healthy and balanced way. Again, like Jackie in her post below, I know everyone has a lot on their minds with finals and everything, but I really do recommend a visit to the bookstore to take a look at the type of community it fosters and I think the event held there on May 1st seems like the perfect opportunity to do so. Here is a description of the event from the website:
7:30-9:00pm. Sonali Sadequee, founder of Sustainable Wellness, will facilitate a free interactive workshop for activists needing tools for regaining health and balance while experiencing "wholistic justice". As we go about the work of making the world a better place, we must be able to sustain and renew ourselves and promote wellness in each other as a community, according to Sonali's teachings. Come learn about the Sustainable Wellness philosophy, nutrition, and lifestyle practices that will make your own wellness a REAL ACTION ITEM for the long haul!
I think a lot of the types of activities we've all been involved in can take their toll on us, so this could be a really fascinating activity.

House of Integritea

Hey all-

I know I told you about it with my practicum, but I just got a call saying the open mic night at House of Integritea's last get-together is going to be tonight, unfortunately since I'm a poor time-management person, I'm working on three papers for tomorrow and won't be able to go. If anyone else is interested, just go down to the Inman Park station and make a left from Hurt onto Euclid, then a right onto Elizabeth and go past the traffic light, up the hill a bit; the HoI is on the right and its fenced, but the gate should be open. Keep in mind the performances start at 7 and end around 9, and I hope a least one person has the time to go and experience the atmosphere there, it's wonderful!

A Visit with Mrs. Carter

I thought I'd post a re-cap/reflection about the Carter Center since many people couldn't attend. We arrived at the center and met Mrs. Carter who told us about her work in the mental health field in which she works with people to improve mental health awareness and treatment globally. She told us about her recent travels to MANY countries (many of us almost had our mouths open because we couldn't believe she visited so many places in such a short period of time) in which she met people living with mental illnesses and learned about other systems throughout the world. One of the topics that came up was the use of language when discussing people with mental illnesses. It seems like there is a shifting now away from the "mentally ill" into people "experiencing" a mental illness. I thought that was interesting as it relates to our discussions about language and race, disability, and even weight (something that Marilyn Wann, a fat activists, strives to do is bring back the word "fat" into something positive as opposed to negative...she openly calls herself fat).

Mrs. Carter also told us a few stories that displayed the exact kind of negative stigma associated with having a mental illness and how we need to work on being more conscious about it and aware of what we can do to help.

For more info about the issue you can visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness:

http://www.nami.org/

Feminist Women Health Care Center

I really enjoyed our Tuesday's presentations, but I was interested to learn more about Women's Health Care Center. The opportunities which this organization provides to the women are great. From the statistics which we have there are more than 10,000 women and girls every year who receive their respectful health care services, community education and outreach education. This huge number of patients which entrust the services provided by their doctors shows the connection between doctor and patient. I think that this kind of relationship among people should be established in every medical center. For example, in "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down", the attitude which the Hmong people received from the doctors was unsatisfactory. They did not have an appropriate attitude to the family in general and may be that was the main problem why they could not heal Lia. That is why I am glad that the Women's Health Center in Atlanta makes their patients comfortable with the medical atmosphere giving them their best support.

I was also impressed by the fact that the Women Health Center serves those who have difficulties in obtaining care and information due to economics, race, ethnicity, and many other conditions. Their services are available to all kinds of women whether they are white, black, able, or disable. Through their work, people from the center strive to achieve reproductive justice for women everywhere, which can be made a reality through our generous support. I am glad that there are such organizations which provide the right medical quality of treatment which every women deserve.

Idea of personhood

While I was reading Mary's post on her last thoughts about "The Spirit...", one sentence caught my eyes especially. She mentioned that in Western medicine, the idea of "personhood" is still developing. I see it as completely opposite. The idea and the value of personhood is deteriorating in western culture and medicine. When we started to break continuum of human life into before and after birth, different price tag has been put on between the unborn and the born. When we start to make arbitrary distinction on human life, then what stops us from defining personhood by social and economic status, ethnicity and race, intelligence and any other thing that people put values on? As medical science advances, value of human being seems to diminish further and further. advancement of science along with deeply ingrained consumerism puts value on people according to their ability to spend. Therefore people who have no economic power becomes marginalized group with no proper health care and toxic waste that large company or rich countries through away. Also the fast pace of life, which have been brought up several times in class discussion, drive us to leave behind those who cannot follow the pace as quickly due to mental or physical illness. We in Western world, and any other parts of the world that are employing the western consumerism in their economy, are forgetting what personhood is and what are the things that used to make anyone a worthy human being.

Activism On Emory's Campus

I'm really glad Professor Bailey asked us the question in class today about activism on Emory's campus. Many of us had a lot to say about the issue, mainly expressing our concerns with our generation Q (as I believe Aimi called it).
It's certainly true. We are a quiet group. While I do feel that we have issues on our minds, we aren't the best, as a whole, at using those ideas to create much social change. There are though, people who do feel the need to get involved and help our communities, large or small.
I am not sure what the problem is with Emory specifically...why we are apathetic or inactive, or why we seem to hide our activism if we do, in fact, participate. Does it have something to do with our class? Gender? Race? Does activism vary between these groups? Or are we really a product of our internet and electronic generation that led us to this quiet/apathetic nature?
I am not sure of the cause, but I do know that Emory has a lot of opportunity that I KNOW many people on campus aren't aware of...
Let's take Volunteer Emory for example. I happen to work closely with VE, supervising all of the special events, service trips, and every staff member we have. Community service opportunities are probably the more widely known opportunities through campus. Someone mentioned the stress we place on community service (and I think it's an important one, but sometimes stressed for the wrong reasons), but there is a difference between volunteering and activism in many cases.
Right now we are in the middle of VE's Earth Week. We are trying to promote sustainable service and environmental habits through various activities (in fact I saw Diogo at 'Green on the Screen'...just thought I'd give her a shout out). People seem to sign up for the volunteering events, but don't want to write letters to Governor Perdue about decreasing the amount of coal-fired power plants in Georgia. I don't know if this is the best example, but it does show something about our behavior relating to activism.

Anyone have anymore thoughts about this?

I frequently get upset with Emory students for not caring, but as cheesy as it sounds, if I can convince just one person to do something...

The Food Crisis and Overpopulation

I want to refer to the two guest lecturers we had last Tuesday who related fertility to the environment. Recently, I was on the BBC website and and there was an article talking about the food crisis. The discussion last week related perfectly with what I found on the BBC site in that many of the comments on there seemed to relate the food crisis with rising population. I was extremely disappointed to find that the majority of comments to the article blamed the food crisis and rising food prices solely on overpopulation from the developing nations such as China and India. These comments seemed to stem from ignorance and racism. How can overpopulation be blamed when it is the industrialized nations with the highest energy and food consumption? Thinking about the comments on that site reminded me of the pictures the two guest lecturers showed us. While overpopulation does play a role in many of the issues that have been popping up recently, it is not the reason behind them.
I've recently become more aware of this global environmentalism, so reading the rest of the comments provided me with more insight into the issue. One of the commentators was from New Zealand:

"The prices of dairy products have doubled in the last nine months. The cost of bread, poultry and meat have also increased. Many households are experiencing difficulties in providing good and healthy food for the family table due to the increases in prices of fruit and vegetables. Finally fuel prices are spiralling adding to the already heavy burden. I think bad times are coming and it's up to ourselves to grow food in our gardens and learn to live in a more environmentally friendly way."
Robert Busnac, Waihi, New Zealand

The food and energy crisis and global warming all seemed to be the concern of many of the commentators on the website. I also related this to the "Story of Stuff" video and the main concern that we are producing and wasting as though we live on an infinitely available planet. Our wasteful economy needs to be curbed and we need to stop putting the blame on those outside the U.S. We talked about this in class and related it to the whole pace of life argument a couple weeks ago. In order to assuage today's problems, we need to completely revolutionize the current way we are living.

Yesterday's presentation about body image

I was impressed by our yesterday's presentation which touched one of the most important problems the world faces today-people's appearance. The points which were retouched in this particular presentation explained the main proof why our society suffers of this "invisible desease". I was glad to receive more information about this issue which is the main reason why people are changing their viewpoints about their bodies.

The first major argument which was presented to us in support of the whole idea about the appearance was the power of the mass media among the population. For example, all the newspapers. I think that we are forced to read them every day for one way or another and we are given a sinful view about our bodies. With all these super models presented on the magazines' covers and on TV shows, the mass media is trying to change our thoughts about how we should look like and what we have to refer as "perfect appearance". I think that a big percentage of the people do not think about one of the most significant question as a result of media's work:"Are these models real?", "Are the diets which they are put on healthy for them?", and etc. If we ask for an advice some of the medical specialists, they all will recommend us to forget about any diets, because the consequences which we will experience after that will damage our health and especially our inner organs. I think that if people stop thinking of the manipulations of the mass media or even forget about them, the cases of anorexia and the death-rates caused by it will decrease. In order to live healthy lives, we have to feel comfortable with our bodies instead of torturing them with unwholesome diets.

Fat on the Inside, Body Image, and Walt Whitman

Stephanie's clips assignment article, "Fat on the Inside" was really enlightening. I had no idea that skinny people could be so unhealthy. It's true that we normally assume that a good weight or good BMI means good health. The article says, "Without a clear warning signal -- like a rounder middle -- doctors worry that thin people may be lulled into falsely assuming that because they're not overweight, they're healthy." The problem is greater than this though. It isn't just thin people being lulled into believing that they are healthy, but others being lulled into believing that thin people are healthy. This concept is an issue as well when it comes to eating disorders. Someone at a normal weight or even overweight can have a severe case of bulimia. But because no one can see a difference in the person's size, others assume that they're alright. Meanwhile, their digestive systems are falling apart in addition to their mental and emotional well being. Outer images are much more deceiving than we realize in so very many ways. 

Body Acceptance Week at Emory is a great way to improve our acceptance of our bodies and others' bodies. Acceptance leads to understanding and respect. Through this reconciliation we can approach improved health in a healthier way. One of the ways that I become more accepting of myself, body and all is through poetry. 

I am an English major with a focus in poetry. One of the themes that we discuss is the authority of the poet in his message. I see enough authority in any poet to talk about body image because I feel like it is something that all of us deal with at one time or another. It takes a good poet though to convey his thoughts and views on something like body image in a way powerful enough to change how you approach life. Certain works of Walt Whitman do a great job at celebrating and accepting all bodies and people. The book "Whitman's Poetry of the Body: Sexuality, Politics and the Text" explores what Whitman has to say about the body and body image in his poetry. M. Jimmie quotes Whitman's line from "Enfans d'Adam 15", "Be not afraid of my body." He continues to say, "the poet urged women and men to accept their own bodies and to find in that acceptance an avenue by which to admit others into communion with them." Through poetry and open discourse we can urge each other to accept ourselves, thus improving the relationships we have.