Fat Chicks Rule

In search of a mythical suit

For almost a year, I’ve been trying to buy a nice suit. I don’t like to buy online because I don’t fit the cookie cutter body of even plus size wear and going to the post office to return anything is one of my levels of hell.

I've pretty much given up on department stores ever having plus size business wear, not to mention the poor quality of materials, or the fact Macy limits which malls have plus size wear other than sweat pants (they should just stain it with chocolate ice cream to complete the stereotype). Plus size stores have sizes but not the selection. It's disturbing that a person size 12 and under can find a variety of styles. I bet it would be easier to find a business suit in maternity wear that in regular plus size. 

 My solution will most likely have to be to go to an expensive boutique. The good thing is I have the finances to purchase something from them without breaking the bank.

But I have to wonder about my poorer sisters who don’t money to buy a nice suit and have to hope the outfit they pick from the internet fits or hope for a lucky find at a department or close out store. I have to wonder when I hear about fat people in poverty. Is it because it’s so hard to find affordable, nice clothes that they look like a joke at an interview? There’s a reason why the only time I was somewhat fashionable (or at least wearing clothes other than jeans and a tee-shirt as I considered myself a fashion misfit who refuses to wear trendy clothes) was when I had access to the plus size consignment store Re/Dress and the Fat Girl’s Flea Market. The loss of Re/Dress (which BTW is reopening as a Fab online store and maybe even a brick and mortar one) left me to really only have the Fat Girl’s Flea Market (Now called to the Big Fat Flea for so fatties of all genders can have clothes.)

I love the Big Fat Flea. Even as someone who hates crowds and last year because it was on Mother’s day I had to go in the mad rush beginning, I went home with a decent amount of clothes, but no suit. While they have lots of clothes and I always come home with a variety of clothes, finding exactly what I need is again luck. Still it’s sad that I have to get the majority of clothes from them because the department stores and most plus size stores have failed me.

The Big Fat Flea is coming back to New York City on June 9^th in a new Venue at New York University Law School. (BTW NYU Press is the publisher of the fabulous Fat Studies Reader). If you live in the area, get yourself there. Buy entire new wardrobes for next to nothing and tell the department stores to suck it. 

The Perception of Health

If you gave any doctor a copy of my blood test results, how much and what I ate most days,  and how much exercise I did,  without actually seeing me, they would correctly assume that I am metabolically healthy. If my weight, BMI or waist circumference were added, all bets would be off. I might be told I will get diabetes, heart disease and cancer any minute. 

Lately there has been in influx of articles about companies penalizing employees for "Perceived health issues." Two weeks ago it was CVS, now it is Michelin tires. Other companies according to the Wall Street Journal are joining the bandwagon. 

This is a terrifying and disturbing trend for many reasons:

1. It removes genetics completely and pressures people to do dangerous dieting and take medications or get procedures they may not need. Many diseases can respond to lifesyle changes but not all do. 

2. It assumes you're are unhealthy based on often arbitrary numbers.

3. It gives your employer way too much access to your private life outside of work. 

4. It's a slippery slope. Many people have diseases that no matter what they do that don't go away. Before you know it it won't just been the smoker or those with a fat belly but those with autoimmune diseases or cancer (or has the genes to get it.)  

5. It gives the impression that fat people are deliberately trying to be unhealthy. I spent 17 years trying to be thin (as I thought that meant healthy). I only started making real strides in improving my health when I stopped dieting. 

6. Companies who do this do not care at all for their workers. Their workers are chattle and all they care about is how much money they make. For example Alternet posted an article that CVS has the highest prices for generic prescriptions. Costco has the lowest. Why the difference? Maybe because Costco pays a fair wage, decent benefits and still makes a nice profit. 

In the meantime there is another petition this time against Michelin I urge you to sign it. 

 

Focusing on one thing

On Saturday I attended the Just Foodconference. It was a two day event Friday and Saturday. I couldn't go Friday because I had to work. Just Food's mission is to promote sustainability in regards to food and water as well as usage of local and organic foods. Just Food does a lot of work with CSA, Community Gardens, farm schools etc. 

I joked with my husband that I hoped that I wouldn't hear the O word during the conference. He responded the first person who mentioned it I should go up and punch them. 

It didn't take long (Not to punch someone, I had not intention of hitting anyone).

I discovered that I had missed a panel on Friday from the NYC Obesity Taskforce. Had I known about it previously I might have taken the day off and gone both days. This is how the panel is described in the program: 

Curious about the New York City Obesity Task Force plan to prevent and control obesity? The plan includes the identification of 15 municipal sites suitable for urban agriculture projects throughout the City’s five boroughs, which will be made available through GreenThumb for the participatory installation of new community gardens. Come participate in design charrette of an example site and discuss design elements and site development challenges.

Then came keynote speaker filmmaker Bryon Hurt who directed Soul Food Junkies. I will make a disclaimer that I haven't see the movie yet (I intend to). The movie examines the director's father refusing to change his eating habits despite a diagnosis of aggressive cancer,  the history of Soul Food, and access to healthy foods, particularly in minority neighborhoods. In his talk, something the director wanted to do was a movie like Food Inc, King Corn, Supersize me, The Future of Food, and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead but with a focus on the black community. The director did make a point that he tries not to be judgemental in the movie. 

But the real question is this: what happens when we remove the subject of fatness from both events? The first one no longer becomes a program of making fat people thin but creating community gardens. The second becomes a talk about getting people better access to health foods. (BTW one of the clips Mr. Hurt showed during his talk is of a woman complaining that the vegetables in her local market are "pathetic." She complained, she met resistance, the quality of the produce improved.) 

Community gardens, healthy eating, access to health food is the focus of any coherent health plan for the country, or it should be. Once you remove that idea and limit your focus to making fat people thin, we lose everything. 

Even Michelle Obama is realizing that we need to focus on health not weight.

According to The Huffington Post, Mrs. Obama told her hangout audience, "I have two young daughters. We never talk about weight. I make it a point. I don't want our children to be weight-obsessed. I want them to be focused on: What do I have to do, in this body --because everybody is different, every person's body is different-- what do I have to do to be the healthiest that I can be."

 

Fighting fat is fighting fat people.

I have mentioned before that soda bans and taxes don’t affect me, since except for the rare root beer, I don't drink soda, diet or regular, large or small. I pretty much drink only water and tea. The only time I buy soda is the two parties I give every year. (And yes, because I love my friends, I even buy diet soda if they want it.) You wouldn't know that from some of the comments on my blog. According to the trolls, I don't exercise and I eat only chips, pizza and burgers. The issue is this. I often hear the statement "Fight fat, not fat people" by “well meaning” people who think that by saying hate the sin, not the sinner it absolves them from the pressure they put on fat people to become thin. However, since fat is genetic and losing it in the long run is near impossible for most people, how do you think fat people feel when they change habits, improve health outcomes and don't get thin? Do you still want to fight their fat? A recent study done by Harvard shows that while the majority of people want interventions in childhood “obesity”, they don't believe fat people should pay a surcharge for health insurance (that's a relief. That makes only food the villain and not health care.) Respondents were much more likely to support less-intrusive measures to curb obesity: 80 percent of those surveyed said the government should require calorie counts to be posted, 75 percent said they'd like the government to prevent the use of food stamps for soda and other sugary beverages, and 88 percent said they'd support requiring public school students to get at least 45 minutes of exercise daily. By contrast, more drastic measures were less widely supported: Nearly two-thirds said they'd oppose a $50 annual surcharge on health insurance premiums for obese people, 80 percent opposed making soda or junk food possession a punishable offense in schools... The issue here isn't healthy eating, the issue is that this is done solely because people are fat. It's our fault that you can't get a pitcher of soda with lunch; or your kids can't have pizza at school, or cupcakes for someone's birthday party. Even if the whole world benefits in the long run, it's done because of us. It's our fault.  The problem is now that the meme of fatness equaling anti-health has been repeated so universally and so often, it might be impossible to separate them. That's not actually the case, though. While "the obesity epidemic" may be a convenient catch-all for the illnesses and health problems related to our food chain, it's a lazy term and an inaccurate one. Are we actually worried about public health? Or are we offended by fat bodies that don't meet our thin ideals? If the issue was that people in this country had horrendous eating and exercise habits but no one was fat, you wouldn’t see this. This is has nothing to do with ill health and everything to do with people being fat. This is why we need to stop associating health with thinness. We need to stop fighting fat and accept that people come in all sizes and that when they eat healthy and exercise they may not become thin.

Massachusetts wastes our time and money

Almost two years ago, I wrote about the absolute failure in Arkansas of BMI report cards. The program ended up wasting taxpayer money and it not only did not make fat kids thin, but there was no increase of healthy behaviors and even an increase in junk food.

So you would think that other states would learn the lesson of Arkansas, right? Wrong. Turns out Andover, Massachusetts is sending home "fat letters" to children:

They're being called "fat letters"-- notes mailed home from schools in North Andover, Mass., to alert parents that their child qualifies as obese.

"Honestly, I laughed," Tracy Watson, the mother of a fourth-grader who was the subject of one such letter, told the North Andover Patch.

Watson's son Cam is an active member on wrestling and football teams. But a screening by the school revealed that Cam's body mass index -- an indicator of body fat in relation to height and weight -- put him in the category of obese. The letter subsequently advised the Watsons to talk to their pediatrician.

It turns out the same kid mentioned in the above article just won the state championship:

Cameron, 10, now holds the state title in his weight class at 94 lbs. He went 3-0 and won the state title in Salem on Saturday by pinning his opponent in just under 30 seconds.

Andover, I am looking into my magic fat crystal ball. I'm seeing this as another waste of time and money AND I see it increasing eating disorders and dieting among your students.

The good news is the State is attempting to pass a law that prohibits the collection of children's BMI's. Mostly because they don't really tell you anything as for the kid who won the wrestling title.

NAAFA has put out a press release for his. If you live in MA especially Andover, please contact the people below.

Foster City, CA - NAAFA supports the passing of Massachusetts House Bill H.2024, legislation to prohibit the Department of Public Health from collecting data on students relative to height, weight and body mass indexes.

In 2009, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health adopted a "BMI initiative" requiring public schools to calculate the BMI of children and teens of certain ages and to send the results to the children's parents along with advice for parents on how to deal with the child's weight issues.

H.2024 seeks to amend Section 1, Chapter 71 of the General Laws by inserting the following language: "(h): No language in this section shall authorize the Department of Public Health to collect data on height, weight, or calculate a student's Body Mass Index."

Children whose parents were told they were overweight were no more likely to have lost weight than children whose parents were not notified according to the School-Based Body Mass Index Screening and Parent Notification study. The findings were based on data from nearly 7 million children.

The focus on overweight and obesity has led to increases in body dissatisfaction in children as young as six years of age. Lower body satisfaction does not serve as a motivator for engaging in healthy weight management behaviors, but rather predicts the use of behaviors that may place adolescents at risk for weight gain and poorer overall health according to the study, Does body satisfaction matter?

CALL TO ACTION:

NAAFA encourages its members and all concerned residents of Massachusetts to write to or call Governor Deval Patrick as well as committee heads, State Senator John Keenan and State Representative Jeffrey Sanchez, and the Department of Public Health in support of the passing of H.2024. Letters and phone calls of support should be directed to:

Governor Deval Patrick
Massachusetts State House
Room 280
Boston, MA 02133
617-725-4005

Lauren Smith, MD, MPH
Interim Commissioner
Massachusetts Department of Public Health
250 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02108
617-624-6000

State Senator John Keenan
Senate Committee on Public Health Chair
Massachusetts State House
Room 504
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-1494

State Representative Jeffrey Sanchez
House Committee on Public Health Chair
Massachusetts State House
Room 130
Boston, MA 02133
617-722-2130

Finding blame and paying more

At one of my physicals, the nurse taking my vitals wanted to weigh me. I don't get weighed at the doctor's office and told her so.  (If the doctor really wants to know my weight, I'll be willing to be weighed by him in private as long as the number doesn't go into the chart. That hasn't happened.) She said that some insurance companies want the number. I told her that that was one of the reasons I didn't want to get weighed.

I get my insurance through my job and at the moment there are no extra charges for perceived health issues. There are discounts to diet programs and gyms. I worry constantly that this will change. Other places already are looking to hit people while they're down.

For the past few years, companies have experimented with tying health insurance premiums to people's health. Here's how it works: Employees go through medical and biometric testing as part of their health insurance open-enrollment process. They are weighed, their height and blood pressure are measured, and their blood is drawn. Those with high scores on cholesterol, glucose and blood pressure -- or with chronic conditions like diabetes -- are told they will have to pay higher premiums unless they actively try to address any risky conditions.

One of the reasons I am very pro-universal health care is that when we have for-profit system of health care, people who tend to be genetically prone to certain diseases will be charged more or denied coverage. It's a slippery slope that this will condemn all fat people regardless of their health.

Meanwhile UCLA Professor Abigal Saguy points out in her op-ed about fat prejudice.

Despite the fact that body weight is largely determined by an individual’s biology, genetics and social environment, medical providers often blame patients for their weight and blame their weight for any health problems they have. 

Health insurance isn't like car insurance. Driving a car isn't a right: you need to demonstrate your competency through your actions. Health insurance means that you don't go broke for an illness, acute or chronic. I don't get the logic of telling people they need to get healthy before being allowed access to health care. 

The good news (for the US) is that in 2014 you cannot be denied health insurance based on health status. It also means there are affordable health care options. This is good news for fat people who often are either denied health insurance or given outrageously high priced options.

Health insurance companies offering coverage to individuals and small employers will only be allowed to vary premiums based on age, tobacco use, family size, and geography.  Basing premiums on other factors will be illegal.

 

New England Journal of Medicine - Don't help.

Recently the New England Journal of Medicine came out with a "Study" showing seven myths and six assumptions about "obesity" Although not a single one is a myth or presumption about fatness, say how the obesity epidemic is overblown, how being fat doesn't affect your mortality except for the supersized, or how everyone ignores the rise of dieting came with the rise in fatness. Instead every single one is about weight loss/ dieting. Some of it is fairly harmless like sex only burns about 14 calories compared to 300, or that breast feeding doesn't make your kids thin. Please don't stop having sex or breastfeeding because of this study as both have health benefits. Others aren't as helpful, that gym classes don't make you thin. That's right they don't, regular exercise for most people despite their size makes them healthy, not neccessarily thin. 

Normally I would say this is a positive article because it shows that healthy habits don't actually mean weight loss. 

Until I got to one of the myths.

Within weight-loss trials, more rapid and greater initial weight loss has been associated with lower body weight at the end of long-term follow-up

Essentially the "Myth busted" is that rapid weight loss works better than steady weight loss. The authors point out that some people have been successful at it. Depends how you define success. In 1999-2000, I was a success. I lost 35-40 pounds (I was still fat) in about 6 months and while I never got to a goal weight, I kept the weight loss for another year. But a year after that I was back to my original weight. A number that I've hovered within 10 pounds of for the last 10 years. I never said people can't lose weight, I said they can't keep it off in the long run. Whether they lose it slowly or quickly. 

Rapid weight loss can lead to gallstones, and loss of vitamins and minerals.  Most rapid weight loss comes from very low calorie diets either liquid diets or weight loss surgery which means you aren't eating enough for your body to function properly. 

I think Marion Nestle hits the nail on the head on the reason for this "study".

"I think it’s weird.  I don’t get it," said Marion Nestle of New York University. "I can’t understand the point of the paper unless it’s to say that the only things that work are drugs, bariatric surgery, and meal replacements, all of which are made by companies with financial ties to the authors. " She noted that the researchers who signed the paper also provided a long list of companies they have been paid to work with. 

If you read the affliations, you get big food, big pharma, and the diet industry. As mentioned last week, the diet industry is expected to make 66 billion in 2013.

Not surprising that they want you to not eat healthy food and exercise (To be honest they don't actually say that) and instead to take drugs, get surgery, and go on crash diets. 

 

Guess what still doesn't work? Stigma!

I have mentioned repeatedly that stigma  not only does not make you thin but can cause health issues due to stress, fear of exercising and binging. 

I'm not a lone crazy for saying this, even groups that encourage weight loss such as the Rudd Center believe that stigma does not work and is harmful.

Of course you can't tell that to the Hastings Center Daniel Callahan who writes in his article:

It will be no less necessary to find ways to bring strong social pressure to bear on individuals, going beyond anodyne education and low-key ex- hortation. It will be imperative, first, to persuade them that they ought to want a good diet and exercise for themselves and for their neighbor and, second, that excessive weight and outright obesity are not socially acceptable any longer. 

He then continues that more stigma not less will help fat people become super thin. He essentially wants to make being fat unpopular like smoking but being fat isn't a habit. 

It won't work. It won't work because diets, "lifestyle changes", stigma, financial incentives, penalties, and eating less calories than your body needs  does not work for most people in the long run. With 20 million dieters, I'm sure you're going to find some who succeeded but most won't. With almost 40 years of yo-yo dieting, we're aren't getting thinner and dieting is causing a lot of the weight gain. (As I have mentioned before, I estimate about 50 pounds of my weight is from dieting)  And what happens to people who despite Daniel Callahan's whipping and screaming at them to lose weight,  still fail to do so? (Hint: tough shit.)

He says that fat people don't think they are fat. Here's the lowdown, Mr. Callahan, we know we are fat. We know we are fat when people scream at us "Fat Bitch" while trying to exercise, or when we try to find fashionable, affordable, well fitted clothes, or a comfortable seat on the bus, train or plane or we are told for every ailment we have is weight related (Even when thin people get the same fucking diseases) or we are told we are too fat to keep the same job we had for ten years or we are denied health or life insurance because we weight too much. We know when we see billboards that say "Obesity Kills" "Beat Obesity with a stick." or "Save the whales, lose the blubber, go vegetarian." 

That is what it's like to be fat. No amount of stigma, pressure, or flat out hatred will change that. Every fucking morning both and after I accepted my body I knew I was fat. Fat people aren't in denial we just don't want a lecture when we mention our weight.  

In the end the intense pressure to be thin comes from one really place, a 66 billion dollar incentive to make people hate their bodies. 

The biggest future eating disorders and yoyo dieting show!

As I sit here writing this I have never seen an episode of the Biggest Loser. I suppose one day I'll have to sit through one episode just to say I did. However, every time I go to Hulu (I don't have a TV or cable), I can't bring myself to watch even a clip. 

I've read enough stories to realize it's not only a terrible show but could be dangerous to your health and self esteem. And like most reality shows, it's a race to the bottom. 

Each week contestants face various challenges, overexercising, under eating, temptations. The show does not teach you how to follow your natural body cues. Weight loss challenges are the biggest part of the show. Contestants who lose a lot of weight can win big money at the end. 

The thing is that the Biggest Loser even contradicts sensible weight loss which isn't to lose as much as possible but to take off 1-2 pounds a week slowly. Nutition.gov's weight loss plan involves setting a reasonable and realistic weight loss goal. Six hours on the treadmill just ain't going to cut it for the majority of anyone.   

But the contestants on the Biggest Losers are adults and they can do what they want with their bodies and hey perhaps this fad diet will be better than the other ones?

The problem is now the Biggest Loser is adding three teenage contestants. While they are not actually competing with the adults, or will be eliminated or be starving themselves or overexercising yet. But let's show them they'll be treated as fat adults. And hey! Let's all gawk at the fat kids because thin kids don't have to undereat and overexercise because all thin children are healthy and eat right. No matter how "sensitive" they plan to be to the three kids, this will only be encouraging them to go to the lifetime diet train.  

Meanwhile Eating disorders tend to hit teens and young adults the most. 

Ragan Chastain has petitioned the Biggest Loser's producers to keep kids off the Biggest Loser

Besides which, there’s no proof that this will be good for the kids anyway. Studies clearly show that the techniques used by the show produce ratings-friendly short term weight loss but long-term weight regain in most people. 

I urge you to sign the petition, contact NBC and the most important part tell your friends and your family to stop watching. 

Fat, Happy and Fly like the Wind!

Scientists in Canada have discovered that those with the dreaded horrible obesity gene have yet another added benefit of being protected from depression.

But the genetic findings challenge that thinking, Meyre said, since those with the genetic mutation predisposing to obesity were protected from depression.

I don't like to be called a mutant. Just because a gene makes you undesirable from the mainstream doesn't mean it's a mutation.  On the other hand, without genetic mutations, we'd still be unicellar beasties living in slime pools, so I guess I can live with it.

Here is yet another benefit of being fat. Of course if you're depressed don't gain weight. This just means that if you have genetic disposition to be fat, you may also have protection against depression. 

Speaking of depression, exercise has also been proved to help with depression. It release happy fun endorphins. Just because you are fat does not mean you don't deserve it.  

In Denmark, a racer is doing a 132 mile trek. Jarmo Pitkanen also happens to be fat and he wanted to do the race to show a he can be fat and finish it. 

But by completing the multiple-day competitions as an obese athlete, he is doing a small part in changing the perception of overweight athletes, doctors said, although most physicians have long warned that obesity can lead to an array of health problems, including diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.

One thing mentioned in the article is that Pitkanen tries to gain weight before doing competitions so he'll be fat when he finishes. I don't agree with that, because I've always been an advocate of eat well and move and let your weight fall where it should. However, it show that body size shouldn't matter when it comes to fitness. 

“Fat doesn’t play as much of a role in fitness as people think,” said Dr. Linda Bacon, a physiologist and member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. “Some people who are really fat exercise regularly. We see top athletes perform well in fat bodies. Times are changing. The population has gotten bigger, so we’re going to see more fat athletes out there.”

Not everyone can do a 132 mile trek or in my case the mile swim race I hope to do in the summer, the most important thing is we listen to our genes and be as happy as we can.