by Kimberly Smith - New York NAAFA Member
Fat activism, like fat activists, comes in all shapes and sizes. Some people are vocal and fearless, shaking their pompoms at demonstrations, or writing letters to their local paper. Others deal with fat discrimination on a more personal level, educating their friends and family when those special "teaching moments" arise. But one of my
favorite forms of activism is guerilla activism - getting out the message where people areleast likely to expect it, in unique and creative ways.
Last year, New York NAAFA president Sandy Schaffer brought a great idea back from the annual NAAFA conference.
Bookmarks.
Sounds simple. Sounds boring. But what if those bookmarks have fabulous size positive slogans, and facts about the failure of diets? And what if those bookmarks tell to find out more information by Googling "size acceptance"? And how about if those bookmarks turn up in every book in the diet section of the local library, or bookstore. Now we're talking!
NY NAAFA members spent an evening making a batch of these bookmarks with our favorite slogans: "Fat and Fit and Proud of it", "Body Liberation!", "98% of Diets Fail, Don't Be a Failure", you get the idea. Each book mark had the tagline "Google 'size acceptance' for more information", rather than just posting a link to NAAFA, so that no one could be blamed if a store happened to take offense.
Next was the bookstore infiltration! On a cold January evening, NAAFA members descended on Barnes and Noble. The process is pretty easy . . . pick up the latest diet craze book, browse, and then stick in a bookmark as you replace it on the shelf. We found that plain old copy paper works best, because it makes the bookmarks hard to fall out or be found in the book until someone is actually reading it.
But don't just hit the diet section! There are plenty of other great targets . . . fashion magazines, diet and fitness magazines, diet related cookbooks, anything with Oprah or Dr. Phil on the cover, Star Jones' biography . . . the possibilities are endless.
It gives me a lot of satisfaction to know that maybe, just maybe, someone who is contemplating their umpteenth diet, and feeling badly about themselves, might run across one of our little pleas for sanity in a fat-hating world as they peruse "The Rice Diet". And instead of buying the book, they take the bookmark home to learn about the wonderful world of fat liberation! This is really easy and cheap to do. So why don't you become a guerilla activist?
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