HAES UK Launch

- by Sharon Curtis and Lucy Aphramor,
with contributions from Bethan Evans and Louise Mansfield

HAES UK had a great launch in Coventry on Saturday May 9th, led by its two co-founders, Lucy Aphramor and Sharon Curtis. There was an excellent mix of academic commentary, discussion and expression of experiences of fat and practical activities demonstrating the value and excitement of challenging fat phobia and fat stigma.

The Herbert Art Gallery was a first-rate venue in a central location with good access, size-friendly seating and supportive staff. We had the use of two rooms at the back of the gallery and we set up a welcome stand near the front entrance. One room was used all day by people of all ages for body respect art activities, and the other room was used for talks and discussion.

The entrance stand was brought to life with various posters displaying body-positive messages, and there was a tall quilted banner proclaiming "HAES UK: Health At Every Size" with HAES UK's new signature logo proudly in evidence. People could sign up here for Lucy Aphramor's local "Well Now!" course, which is a HAES course run in Coventry. Volunteers who had previously completed a Well Now! course were on hand to answer questions and chat about their experiences of the course.

Then there were the fluffy bright pink YAY! scales tastefully placed on a bright green carpet. People coming specially for the event as well as staff and general visitors to the gallery stepped their way to a compliment. We can report that in Coventry that day we had hot people, sexy people, awesome people, fit people, dazzling people - and happy people.

A number of people from the fatstudiesuk list had travelled some distance to be there, and we had fun introducing ourselves to people we hadn't met in person before and saying hello to old friends. Lucy was kept busy explaining some of her HAES activities, one of which involved a spinning dial and a stick of rhubarb.

The HAES UK activities started mid-morning, with a brief address from the co-founders of HAESUK: Lucy Aphramor (dietician, Atrium Health & Coventry University) and Sharon Curtis (fat activist).

Helen Eftekhari, a cardiac nurse, spoke about the use of HAES in cardiac rehab in Coventry: the team's open-mindedness and commitment to try new approaches, rather than just doing the same thing harder, had meant that they embraced HAES once they came across it. HAES made sense to them because they already knew that the benefits of exercise didn't come from weight loss, as most of their patients improve health outcomes but don't lose significant amounts of weight. Also, patients would change their diets as recommended but still not lose weight, contrary to what the textbooks say.

Andy Turner, senior researcher from Coventry University, said a few words about his experiences with the Expert Patients programme, and the difficulty of getting an approach more widely known, which is the challenge that faces HAES UK.

Bethan Evans, a geographer at Manchester Metropolitan University, spoke about the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) which measures children's BMI in schools. It was interesting to hear that a BMI screening programme was not approved by the National Screening Committee on the basis that it could not guarantee to do more good than harm. Despite this, the government still went ahead with the measuring, because they wanted better more accurate data on child obesity, initially without returning reports to parents (so it would not be classified as a screening programme). The results from the first year of measuring showed lower rates of childhood obesity than were expected on the basis of Health Survey for England data. However, rather than letting these results challenge assumptions about the levels of obesity, this was explained on the basis of 'anecdotal evidence' that children whose parents did not consent to their involvement in the programme were bigger children. Bethan therefore questioned what the purpose of the NCMP was since the results are made to fit what is expected anyway."

After the talks, we went outside with a sledgehammer and some scales, unhealthy scales, as it turned out. Lucy had adopted the white coat and persona of "Dr Scales", an expert in diagnosing dialitis - a condition worryingly common to the vast majority of scales used in households in the UK. With the help of an oversize stethoscope made from tubing and a watering can hose, Sam Lyle (Warwick University) was subjected to some searching questions designed to discover if her scales had the unwholesome dialitis:

1. Are your scales flatish with a window or dial to read the number from?
   [if "yes", go to Question 2]
2. Does thinking about your scales cause you anxiety?
   [if "yes", go to Question 3]
3. Does actually stepping on your scales result in a change of mood?

Poor Sam. She answered "Yes" to all of these questions, pointing to a firm diagnosis of a bad case of Problem Scales requiring urgent attention. Fortunately, she was also introduced to the solution - a simple application of the sledge hammer.

And for those in the audience who suspected that they too might have sick scales, Dr Scales was able to hand out a second proven alternative remedy of a "feely". This adhesive, applied once only to the affected area (usually identifiable as the central area of the dial) as soon as possible guarantees instant results! Step back on the healthy scales and marvel in the success of this Brilliantly Manageable Intervention: 100% Complimentary Treatment.

In the meantime, we stuck the feelies on ourselves and each other and gorgeous, handsome, and amazing people trooped back into the gallery for lunch, where the cafe had reserved us a table.

After lunch there were more activities. We saw some video clips, including some footage of Steven Blair (he who does studies showing that fitness matters more to longevity than fatness), Dave Alexander (he who does triathlons), and the Chubsters! (Chub chub chub chuuuuuuuuuuub!)

Then we attempted to get a Skype connection to Canada up and running. Whilst we were waiting for a connection, we went to the Guardian website, only to find that the article "All Shapes and Sizes" written by Lucy Aphramor, Sharon Curtis (HAES UK) and Scotlyn Sabean (HAES Ireland), had appeared on the Guardian website even whilst we were launching! So we read the article together, but not the comments.

Then we did manage to achieve a Skype connection, and talked to Jacqui Gingras, a Canadian dietician who practises HAES and has recently written a book looking at dietetics. Jacqui spoke a little about her book, and then several of us took it in turns to come up to the webcam and introduce ourselves, speaking to Jacqui directly.

There were also discussions to plan where HAES UK should go from here. More on that later! Flyers for HAES UK were handed out and people encouraged to join.

Finally came the auction for Brenda's photos. We had 3 large fabulous photos of Brenda's art installation which features Brenda lying naked on top of a lot of diet books, with the odd diet book artfully placed on Brenda. We decided to auction off one of the photos, leaving the other two to be auctioned off at future occasions. The auction was won by Sharon Curtis, raising 41 pounds for HAES UK funds.

Whilst all this was going on, there was a constant stream of visitors to the art room. The workshop facilitators were kept busy showing people how to stencil bags and tea-towels and make fridge magnets and badges. The workshops were led by trained volunteers drawn from a Healthy Hearts art group at The Family Project (a small Coventry charity) and including students from a community-based OCN course and from Coventry University. Art materials were sponsored by Atrium Health Ltd. You could choose your slogan from the list suggested (how about "Body Respect: We're shaping the future"?) or go completely free hand and there was an exciting range of cool body respect art work produced. By all accounts the session was hugely successful.

All in all it was a wonderful day. Thanks to the workshop volunteers and speakers and all those who helped in various ways to make the day a success. I am very much looking forward to the next steps of HAES UK!