Late last year, I was interviewed for a magazine article about the demise of dieting. It was a great discussion; I love spreading the word that life can get exponentially better when you make peace with food and your body. Of course, I added, self-acceptance takes practice, especially when you live in a culture that says all bodies need fixing (large bodies especially). My brain is used to waking up every day with the goal of getting thinner, and I still work hard to unlearn that mental habit. Weeks later, the writer forwarded me a follow-up question from his editor, asking, “is it fair to say Kelsey sometimes wishes she weighed less?”Well, no, I thought. But the rest of the world sure does, and I have to live here. So...Often I am asked — confronted, rather — with questions and comments about the fat acceptance movement. Because I am a woman with a body many would categorise as fat, and because some of my work as a writer puts that body front and centre, I am assumed to be an Official Fat Acceptance Activist. Really, I just thought I was doing my own thing. I didn’t start out seeking an alliance to join — a selfish attitude perhaps, because I surely benefited from their activism. The truth is, while I admired the work of the fat acceptance movement, I didn’t really know what it was. Until I faced that question — does Kelsey sometimes wish she weighed less? — I didn’t really understand that I was very much a part of it. And I think you should be, too.Many date fat acceptance as a movement to the late 1960s, when groups began to organise and protest anti-fat bias. Though a separate entity, it’s inextricably linked with the feminist movement, both being rooted in the concept of equality and primarily driven by women. There are far more educated voices who can speak to the history of this movement, and I won’t minimise their work into a soundbite, but it is very much worth researching . The point is that today, fat acceptance is still just as radical as it was back then. While equal rights and treatment for women is now embraced by the mainstream as a vital mission (not yet accomplished, to be sure), few are willing to demand those same rights for fat people. While size is reported as one of the most prevalent forms of discrimination — up there with gender, race, and age — more people are fighting against fat people than for them. That’s why many in the movement say “acceptance” is not enough. We need to be active.“A person in fat acceptance believes that bodies come in all shapes and sizes, and that all bodies have equal value,” says Sarai Walker, PhD , a contributor to Our Bodies, Ourselves and author of the bestselling novel Dietland (Sarai herself is fat, as is her heroine). “Fat activism is a political movement that advocates for the rights and dignity of fat people,” Walker continues, adding that personal acceptance is often the first step toward activism.Walker doesn’t claim any expertise or leadership in this fight, yet she inadvertently spent the past year and a half on the front lines, while on an international book tour. “What I've learned is that it's virtually impossible to have any discussion about fat acceptance with the general public, because any such discussion is derailed instantly by alleged concerns about health, if not outright abuse,” she says. At each publicity appearance she was either asked to justify the acceptability of her fat body (and therefore herself) or else listen as others railed against it. Her health and intelligence were questioned, her image disparaged; one fellow novelist with whom she appeared on a radio show even cited the Holocaust as some sort of evidence about the link between food, exercise, and body size: “You never saw anybody fat come out of Auschwitz.”This is the shark-jumping level this argument has reached, and that’s why it’s so important that everyone of all sizes gets clear on what the issues are — and what they very much aren’t. “One misconception I've heard repeatedly is that people in fat acceptance want fat to become the ideal body shape, which will mean that thin people will be considered unattractive and face abuse,” says Walker. Absurd as it sounds, it makes horrifying sense in light of other backlashes: Men’s Rights Activists believe feminists are out to destroy men. Black people demand the value of their lives and white people jump in, frantically insisting that hey, wait, we all matter, right? When our privilege is threatened, we don’t act rationally. Of course, none of these movements are against anyone or any one privilege. They are against privilege, period.One of the reasons many see this movement differently is yet another misconception: Fat people decide to be fat. Either they’ve deliberately gained the weight, or they’re too lazy, undisciplined, uninformed, and/or stupid to lose it. I don’t know who first said the phrase, “glorifying obesity” but I see it almost once a week. Every time I publish or read a story illustrated with photos of a woman above a certain size, some commenter will jump in, outraged: “Why are you promoting this?!” and then follow up with a diatribe about the loathsome creature in the photo, a product of America’s junk-food addiction, raising everyone’s insurance premiums just because she refuses to put down the doughnuts and go for a walk.This argument, of course, is just as ridiculous and just as entrenched in fear and prejudice as those that say feminism means stripping men of all their human rights. If you think fat people just haven’t tried hard enough, just don’t know what to eat, or are just too unmotivated, you are simply, categorically wrong. There is no shortage of motivating factors to be thin, and no lack of people to remind fat people of them. But if you are hurling the health argument, you are missing the point.