This week is Fat Talk Free Week. Spread from college campuses, Fat Talk Free Week is seven days without any “Do I look…”–”I feel..”– I”m so fat”. Consider me on board. As I’ve said, the mantra of “I’m so fat” is toxic. It is a psychological rumination. It’s a self-esteem suck and all too common a self attack.

The canned response to “I’m so fat” is “no you’re not”. It’s all about assuring the person, god no, they are not fat. This isn’t the answer. But neither is “you shouldn’t say that.”

Where FTFW doesn’t go (and where I will) is that “I’m so fat” is not cool towards you and not cool to fat people. If our answer is “don’t say that” then fat remains the ultimate dis–something no one wants to be.  I know we live in a culture where it’s pretty accepted to hate fat people. But fat is not evil. Just consider that maybe fat is okay.

FTFW suggests that instead of focusing on our weight, we focus on health. This is great because weight and health are not the same thing. And “fat” people can be healthy. But something funny happens here. I have a friend obsessed with how “fat” she is. Over and over she talks about it: fat, fat, fat.  But recently she lost this old mantra.  Lost and replaced it with “I feel so unhealthy”.

Is this any different from “I’m so fat”? “I feel so unhealthy” is still fat talk. And fat talk is not really about weight or physical health. Fat talk is about psychological health: lowered self worth, self attacking. It is about a part of yourself–the I’m so voice–that has taken over.

So often the body acceptance movement and health sphere get pinned against each other, as though they cancel one and other out. But health and body acceptance do go together, just not simultaneously. In order to achieve health, psychological work (and body acceptance) must come first. That means learning to take care of ourselves emotionally, to handle self attacks, to realize the “I’m so..” voice is just a part. To get this part in harmony with self. It means learning to love our bodies as they are today.

Because if you skip this step and go straight to problem solving mode, straight to: don’t say you are fat–eat healthy and go to yoga– the problem doesn’t really go away. Skipping this is how we hurt ourselves working out. It’s why we go to the gym really hard for two weeks and then not at all. Because creating a “healthy eating” plan or working out not from self is going to be toxic.

Finding a healthy diet and healthy weight are important, but body acceptance comes first. And body acceptance is a stop most of us will have to arrive at again and again. Physical health and healthy eating comes from being in touch with self. It comes from loving your body then, now and  in the future–fat, thin or all shapes in in between.