Dana Falsetti: A Yogini Dismantles Fatphobia

Don't Change A Thing

Dana Falsetti, speaker, writer, yoga teacher of larger bodies, and body positive insta-warrior visionary on a mission to make the world a more accessible place, talks about how her yoga practice was born out of a need to prove herself but quickly grew into something much bigger than that, even steering her away from the legal profession path she was on. We discuss the double-edged sword of social media commodification and why Dana felt the need to take a break from Instagram, and how perilous fat-phobia is in the medical world where people are told to “just lose weight” as a cure-all rather than looking beyond the body to find an accurate diagnosis. Dana also reveals to us how her teenage body was both shamed and desired:

“My body changed very quickly when I was young. So by the time I was 12, I literally looked like I was 19 or 20, and I had a very adult kind of curvy body. I had full breasts and hips and everything. And while I'm getting fat-shamed by every person in my life, the only people giving me attention were men. So it just very quickly became the path for like, "Oh, you see me, so I'm going to you." But all the while, still insecure about the body, still feeling that same shame but seeking that route. Of course, it never filled me in any way and actually, I'd feel worse after every single time. But I never saw that I was in that pattern until I started my [yoga] practice and had that mirror and I was like, "Wait a minute, what am I doing?" And I just stopped. I was like, "No more of this until I understand why I'm having sex with people at all. Like, why am I doing this?" And that's the question for everything that I do now, is just the WHY.”

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