This Week In Heresy

This week our guest is Ragen Chastain of the Dances with Fat blog. In this episode, we talk about how body policing and body shaming in a religious setting can do spiritual damage. Where does the religious body shaming come from? What is the responsibility of clergy when it comes to the health of their members? What are clergy telling people when they have “Biggest Loser” type contests in their churches? This episode coincides with the online Fat Activism Conference. The conference is completely online and has a sliding scale. Ragen Chastain is a trained researcher, three-time National Champion dancer and marathoner who writes and speaks full-time about self-esteem, body image, and health.  Ragen is the author of the blog DancesWithFat and the book Fat: The Owner's Manual, and her writing has been published in forums including the Huffington Post, Jezebel.com and The Frisky.com.  She has been a guest on programs including Fox News, Alberta Primetime, HuffPost Live, NPR, BBC,  and NBC News, and has been featur