When Help is not needed.

I recently got an e-mail from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity that they were offering an online course to help people in the medical field treat fat patients with less bias and stigma.  Sound great doesn't it?  Fat people often have problems with doctors who blame every ailment on their being fat.  I actually think a lot of "weight related" illnesses have to do with doctors blaming the fat and not doing a thorough medical exam (as they probably would if a thin person made the same complaint).   Not to mention stigma will keep people away from the doctor's office.

That being said, the Rudd center is not fat friendly.  They encourage weight loss. Instead of targeting everyone for healthy eating they really focus on fat people.  You have to ask the question, would they exist if there were no fat people?

Speaking of fat abuse, Kaiser was nice enough to encourage violence against fat people with a California billboard that reads "Beat Obesity with a Stick." Of course they mean a celery stick which I guess is better than getting hit by an actual stick.  Under pressure Kaiser said they would take it down. However as far as I know the billboard is still up. 

So until either Rudd or Kaiser tosses weight based health initiatives and instead focus on health for people of all sizes, they aren't helping anyone.

Here's a picture of Billboard (taken by the fab Marilyn Wann).

Comments

[JeanC]

I got one of those emails from Rudd asking me to pass along the info about their course. I just let it sit, tho I was half tempted to email back exactly what I thought of their programs. Decided it wasn't worth my time then.

[gwen]

While it is true that being heavy does put more stress on the body, and I'll give them that many of the weight based illnesses are legit, stress kills more people every year that obesity, infact stress often causes obesity.
So maybe if the medical community got behind stress reduction there would be fewer obese people for them to worry so much about.
* years of a bush economy people have to work themselves into the grave to make ends meet, and it has been proven that stress causes people to store more fat.

[John]

Fuck that elephant Marilyn Wann. There's nothing wrong with that billboard. Obese fucks!

[Laura]

While I realize it's generally bad form to feed the trolls lest we encourage their efforts, I must say that John there is as charming as he is eloquent. Dear heart, if you find us "obese fucks," as you so delightfully phrased it, to be so offensive, why don't you find your own little corner of the internet to play in and leave us alone?

[wriggles]

Elephants are extraordinarily, graceful and powerful creatures, they really are the kings and queens of the jungle.

[Peggy]

Lara, thanks for bringing attention to the problems we face as our society continues to wage war on fat people. I find it difficult to understand how people who are saavy enough to find your blog aren't intelligent enough to pay attention to the other information that is out there, like recent articles in the NY Times. Here's one for example: http://tinyurl.com/3ef8n2

John is a prime example of the kind of attitude encouraged by mis-information like that being spread by Kaiser. How do we beat ignorance?

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[Fat Bastard]

At WWW.BiggerFatterBlog.blogspot.com we are not anti-diet BUT we do explain the high failure rate.

We are the new fat acceptance. NAAFA style FA put the whole movement on a very slippery slope. We don't cling to the tired and wrong arguments of fat by nature, fat and fit and the notion that we have low self esteem.

We are proud by nature and fat by choice. In fact studies show that we are mentally healthier than the general population and have higher self esteem.