The Fat Liberation Movement Has a New Advocate: Singer and Activist Mary Lambert
Key takeaways:
Mary Lambert is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and an activist for the fat liberation movement.
She wants society’s view of larger people as weak and undisciplined to change.
She says more people need to understand that genetics play a huge role in the success of long-term weight loss.
Mary Lambert is a large, queer woman who has bipolar disorder and is a survivor of sexual abuse. She is also a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and poet who uses her voice to help others. As a self-described fat person, her advocacy is changing attitudes about body size.
Her experience living with extra weight has led her to become a size activist and to support the fat liberation movement, which seeks to eliminate the stigma surrounding large bodies.
The language of fat
Mary doesn’t have hang-ups when it comes to words that describe being overweight.
“I’m an open book and flexible with how anyone chooses to talk about being overweight,” she says. “For me, ‘fat’ is fine.”
She knows many people in bigger bodies are uncomfortable with the word "fat."
"It is so often hurled as an insult, rather than what it is: a descriptor," she says. "We’re taught to hate our bodies."
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“I self-identify as a fat person,” Mary says, adding that it wasn’t always like that and that it’s been a journey to feel so comfortable with her body.
Her cycle of losing and gaining weight started early
Mary began dieting before she was even a teenager.
“I’ve always been a bigger person,” she says. “I was an active kid and didn’t look that different from the other kids until about fourth or fifth grade. Even then, I was slightly chubby.”
“There is this belief that there is one right way to eat food and if we all eat food the same way, we would all look the same.”
She began to feel pressure to look a certain way and lose weight.
“I started dieting when I was about 11 years old,” she says. “I would be chubbier and lose a ton of weight.”
When she would lose weight, Mary would get lots of praise and feel good about herself. But that was only temporary.
“I would gain the weight back. And people wouldn’t be as interested in me. And my parents would be disappointed in me,” she says.
That cycle of losing and gaining went on for years.
Why there’s a problem with the ‘ideal’ BMI
Traditionally, healthcare providers have used body mass index (BMI) as a tool to determine a person’s weight status. BMI is a measurement of a person’s weight in relation to their height, which estimates their percentage of body fat.
Based on their height-to-weight ratio, a person falls into one of four weight categories:
A BMI of less than 18.5 is considered underweight.
A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered to be ideal (or healthy).
A BMI of 24 to 29.9 is considered overweight.
Anything over 30 is considered obesity.
But BMI is a poor estimate of body fat, as it does not calculate it directly. Still, because it’s basically free and highly accessible, it’s commonly used by healthcare providers and people in a variety of settings.
But there’s a problem with achieving an “ideal” BMI, Mary says.
“There is this belief that there is one right way to eat food,” she says, “and if we all eat food the same way, we would all look the same. That what we look like is exactly a result of our eating habits is so antiquated.”
In fact, other factors play a huge part in the success of a person’s long-term weight loss. A 2019 Harvard study concluded that for some people genetics determine anywhere between 70% to 80% of their predisposition to being overweight, while that percentage is much lower for others.
About 10 years ago, Mary’s feelings about her body size began to change.
A brief history of fat
When she began to research the history of weight, Mary found out that being fat was not always seen as a bad thing.
Half a century ago, the ideal woman that artists sculpted and painted was not thin. She often had large breasts, fleshy thighs, and a noticeable tummy.
Ideas of beauty began to change with the invention of the corset in the 16th century. But it wasn’t until the early 20th century that most people even knew what their weight was. The bathroom scale, invented around 1918, changed that. By the 1930s, it was a common household item and Americans’ obsession with weight began.
Learning mindful habits
When Mary was about 22, she dealt with binge eating. She would eat so much that she would throw up.
“I was feeling miserable, powerless, and out of control,” she says. “I would start a diet and not eat for a whole day and then binge.”
It was a cycle that lasted for about a year, until a friend told her about Jan Chozen Bays’ book “Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food.” Mindful eating focuses on eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full.
“It sounds simple, but it’s complicated,” Mary says. ”We are raised with such inflexible eating habits.”
After reading the book, Mary started to look at food and her body differently.
“I realized how much time and energy I had spent thinking about my body and losing weight,” she says. “I felt robbed of that time.”
She also began a program of regular exercise, though she says she didn’t always see physical results: ”Even at my smallest as an adult, I was still considered 'obese,' and I was riding my bike 9 miles a day.”
Today, Mary is recovering from a knee injury and working toward returning to running.
“Earlier this year, I ran two 5Ks,” she says. “It’s not about weight loss but how to engage with exercise and activity in ways that don’t feel like punishment.”
Changing attitudes and speaking out
In 2018, Mary and her partner, Wyatt Hermansen, PhD, started what Mary describes as “a big, fat, queer, bipolar podcast”: The Manic Episodes. Every other week, Mary and Wyatt host experts to discuss a variety of topics, including weight discrimination.
In one episode, Mary shared her experience about going to get an MRI for her injured knee. The technicians tried to force her knee into a position device that was too small, only to discover the MRI machine was also too small. It was an embarrassing situation that easily could have been avoided if the person who scheduled her appointment had asked a few questions. After the ordeal, Mary was eventually able to get an MRI in a machine that could accommodate her size.
That distressing MRI experience prompted her to keep speaking out. And, in June 2021, she launched a series of online workshops called “Everybody Is a Babe,” during which participants met via Zoom for 4 weeks.
“I received messages from people affected by my advocacy,” she says. “I decided to develop a step-by-step lecture series and activities that worked for me along my journey. I love it, and it has been life-changing.”
Mary is also working on a book about body size and weight bias.
“It began as a memoir. Now, I’m trying to merge the memoir with anecdotes and workshop reflections into a tool for fat people,” she says.
Letting go of the shame
For Mary, the journey toward having a positive body image is ongoing.
“The worst thing that ever happened with me and food is the shame,” she says.
She admits there are still moments when she thinks she needs to fix her body. But she has those feelings less and less frequently. Mary is comfortable with her body and working to create a world where others feel the same way about theirs.
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