By Isla Bell Murray
Body image has always been an issue for me. Like most young women trudging through adolescence, I was surrounded by social pressures to be pretty and thin. But growing up in El Salvador — a country fueled by gossip and obsessed with social status — has a way of magnifying these issues. My father would always say, “How are you gonna find a husband if you’re that fat?”
At age 11, I started counting calories, but even the most extreme diets didn’t work for me. Neither did the diet pills. As a young woman no one ever told me that I could be happy, confident, and love my body no matter what size I was. It was assumed that my eventual happiness depended on somehow mastering the alchemy of diet, exercise, and pharmaceuticals that would allow me to transmute myself into a thinner (and therefore better) me.
Years later, in 2006, I read an article in Marie Claire magazine titled, “Why America Hates Fat Women.” At the time I was living in SF and working as an editorial photographer, and never in all my years of devouring glossy women’s publications had I read an article admitting to fat prejudice. Not surprisingly, women all over the world suffer from fat prejudice while shopping, on airplanes, at the doctor’s office, on the job, and (most of all) in magazines.
It turns out that many Americans are just as obsessed with weight as the Salvadorians of my upbringing, just as convinced that happiness and character are interconnected with one’s BMI. Despite the fact that a whopping“95 percent of the people who lose weight on diets gain back every pound within three years,” millions of people are convinced that if they really wanted to, they could lose the weight and finally be happy and complete in the eyes of their peers. This endless diet cycle supports a $50 billion a year industry that preys on insecurities and produces no real results.
It’s not a surprise that San Francisco, a city with a history of deconstructing social conventions, was among the first cities in the country to adopt antidiscrimination laws that address the issue of weight discrimination. It’s also no surprise that the Bay Area is home to many of the most visible and vocal activists fighting for a future without weight discrimination.
Marilyn Wann, queen of the modern American fat-pride movement and author of Fat!So?, began making Yay! Scales in 2001 as a way of encouraging people to get on a scale without fear. She began by replacing numbers with compliments like “sexy,” “gorgeous,” and “cute.” For many women, stepping on a scale without fear is a novel experience, and Wann’s invention helps people step away from the judgments that we normally associate with weight.
My series of images hopes to capture the essence of these women — their bravery, courage, and excitement. Through their friendship and enthusiasm, I quickly learned no one should feel hopeless about their body. The fat-pride movement asks people to set aside the assumptions we make about people based on their weight, showing us instead a model for a happy and healthy life at any size. It’s a simple and obvious message, really, but revolutionary nonetheless.
