Fat Chicks Rule

Loser's Club

While researching my book, I did some reviews of national stores on the local level. This included dragging my friends to many mall trips. Mostly I looked at the bigger department stores and the smaller plus size stores. I already knew that most of the smaller stores especially the trendy/chic ones didn’t carry plus sizes or like H&M carried had them in microscopic ghettos. One place I went into, I looked at the high prices and the tiny sweaters and walked out without a word.

On one mall trip, my friend dragged me over to the very good looking male model in front of Abercrombie and Fitch (A&F). The model was a sweet young man who was nice to me the fat girl and my friend with a thin body and nerdy glasses.

I didn’t go into A&F because I didn't have to ask if they had plus sizes. The buff men and thin women adored on the store made me realize this store was for thin people only especially thin women. I’ve many times been dragged into thin people only stores where I noticed women’s clothes rarely go to large and men can go to XXL meaning these stores cater to fat men by accident because they really want muscular ones.

The CEO of A&F has said they don’t make clothes for fat people because they make clothes for cool people and fat people are not cool. “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."



Believe it or not I admire his honesty. Almost all of these stores aimed at the young and trendy carry small sizes and I don’t mean just Junior Miss sizes, I mean small sizes. Even stores with sizes up to 16, such as the Gap are a rare animal with an abundant amount of extra smalls. These stores fear that if fat people wore their clothes it would no longer be considered trendy except forgetting that 2/3 of the people of the US are considered fat. I assume the inflated prices marketed to niche stereotypes is enough to keep them afloat.  

But I was talking about A&F. I could point out all the terrible things they have done : the sweatshops, Discrimination, the Sexualization of pre-teens  and their refusal to donate excess clothes to poor people. 

Instead I will talk about not being in the cool club. At no time in my life was I ever in the "cool" club. I don't have styled hair, do my eye brows, get regularly mani-pedis, I barely shave, I don't wear trendy clothes (I wear clothes because I like them), only occasionally wearing some freakier outfits because I need a change. My worst offense is refusing to try to lose weight.

You see, being trendy, the fitting in into a tiny cookie cutter, is something I have always refused to do. I refused to be told what to like or wear. Sure clothing shopping has become a disaster and I'm certain I've lost getting a job being a hairy fat-ass, but I despise the idea of being someone I'm not. I've gotten several troll comments that I play sour grapes, that I really want to be thin but it isn't true.

Not only A&F is labeling the "uncool" kids but the people who wear their clothes as vapid, mean bullies which I am sure they are not. I don’t believe it of the nice male model outside the store. He is not vapid, I am not a label.

Of course just because this fool has no power over me, doesn't mean he can say mean things without consequences.

But (Robin, author of the A&F book the quote comes from ) Lewis says it's a model that may not fit the future. Plus-sized shoppers now make up 67 percent of consumers.

"I think the young people today want cool, but as they define it themselves," Lewis said.

From Dove's "Real Beauty" campaign - highlighting real women - to H&M's inclusion of plus-sized swimsuit model Jennie Runk, many other brands are embracing that individualism and making their clothes more accessible. For example, rival retailers H&M and American Eagle both carry sizes up to 16 and 18. The largest at Abercrombie & Fitch is a 10.

I urge people of all sizes not to buy anything from Abercrombie and Fitch, no clothes, no accessories, nothing. And if you have A&F clothes, be sure to donate them to the poor or a fat chick. I might wear one of these tiny tee shirts as a tank tube.  

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. 

 

Roger Ebert and WTF Samoa Air.

Roger Ebert, best known as a film critic for the show At the Movies has died of cancer at age 70. Roger Ebert wasn't a size acceptance activist, he tended to respond to criticsim. In one review he refereed to the different between plus size women and fat women were plus size women knew how to dress well and carry themselves where fat women did not. Activist Lesley Kinzel called him out on this and was surprised to get a response:

The shocking part happened when Ebert tweeted about my post, and then emailed me directly to assure me he had meant well, and to compliment and thank me for my “thoughtful and honest” writing. ROGER EBERT WAS THANKING ME. FOR CRITICIZING HIM. 

Despite his long career as a film critic, his Pulitzer price, his creation (along with Gene Siskel) of the thumbs up/down, he was constantly ridiculed about his weight. Anything from the ribbing by Gene Siskel (Roger would zing him back) to outright insults.

He took it all with a lot of class.

Speaking of class. Samoa airlines has decided to treat fat people as second class citizens by forcing them to pay by how much they weigh.

Like many Pacific island nations, Samoa has a serious obesity problem and is often included in the top 10 countries for obesity levels. As such, Mr Langton believes his airline's new payment policy will also help promote health and obesity awareness.

As I mentioned many many many times on this blog, stigma doesn't work. Stigma doesn't cause weight loss and instead makes fat people more miserable and less likely to undertake healthy habits. Samoa is a country that is the perfect example of how Health at Every Size is better than any weight loss program. The people of Samoa have always been big but it was not until they imported the western diet that they faced a steady decline in positive health outcomes.

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.

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.

 

Not a Glutton

The fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) Version 5 will be out in the Spring of 2013.  In it Binge Eating Disorder (BED) will be added for the first time, defined as this: 

• Criteria include frequent overeating—at least once a week for three months— combined with lack of control, marked feelings of distress, and are associated with three or more of the following:
• eating much more rapidly than normal
• eating until feeling uncomfortably full
• eating large amounts of food when not feeling physically hungry
• eating alone because of feeling embarrassed by how much one is eating.

Dr. Allen Frances of Psychology Today lists the 10 worst issues in DSM 5 and one of those issues includes BED: 

Excessive eating 12 times in 3 months is no longer just a manifestation of gluttony and the easy availability of really great tasting food. DSM 5 has instead turned it into a psychiatric illness called Binge Eating Disorder.

For an MD, Dr. Frances appears to know very little about eating disorders and more about giving moral judgements upon overeaters, essentially calling them gluttons. 

BED isn't overeating at a fine restaurant or at a great meal, it's compulsive overeating past the point of fullness, without taste or enjoyment. It's similar to bulimia but without vomiting. 

Now as far as BED being listed in the DSM, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, having suffered from BED, it's nice to see it acknowledge as something real instead of "Stop eating so much, fattie." However I am wary that its being added opens up a psychological issue to diet drugs. Something I have repeatedly mentioned never work.  And I worry because the American Psychiatric Association which is not known to be fat positive is adding not adding BED because how it affects the self esteem and well being of the person, but because the worst case scenario is they might become fat. 

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. 

New diet drug: Bulimia.

No blog post next week as I will be away.

Here on the market is new device to make your fat issues go away. It’s called the SuckIt 3000. In order to you use this device you have to have one criterion: be fat (it doesn't matter if you are healthy or not). If you are slender the SuckIt3000 is not for you. It is socially unacceptable for a thin person to have bulimia (thin people with bulimia get interventions and Lifetime TV specials). It is however social acceptable for fat people to have bulimia. (Fat people don’t worry, instead of a Lifetime special, you get the hit TV show The Biggest Loser!)

What the SuckIt3000 does is stick a tube into your stomach (either through magic or a surgical incision) and after you eat, the tube will suck all the food vaccum cleaner and into your handy dandy vomit purse.

Then all you have to dump those contents in the toilet or nearest trash receptacle. Don't worry you won't feel humiliated. Fat people love to be shamed! 

Think I'm joking? Well last year this very device was approved for use in some EU countries and they are also looking for an approval in the US. No it’s not called the SuckIt3000 but it is in fact a surgical incision into your stomach where a tube is place. That tube sucks up food into a container which you then dump into a toilet.

Rebecca Jane Weinstein covers this horrible device in an article in XOJane. 

I imagine that this aspiration port will be a sexy new accessory with my bikini on the beach, and intimacy will be greatly enhanced by the hole in my stomach where food pours out (what a chuckle we’ll get during a romance accident). I will feel nothing but pride in my new appearance when I have to get up from the table in 20 minutes to aspirate, and everyone will be so enamored by my hot new bod that no one will blink an eye when I carry my aspiration bucket to that new trendy joint while I am wearing the perfect little black dress (which I guess I will have to remove for aspiration purposes –- but who knows, the latest runway fashions may include an aspiration-port-cut-out).  

In the end this means one thing, it's okay to be anorexic or bulimic, tortured with crazy surgeries, but only if you're fat. 

 

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. 

Knees please

Fat and thin people can get knee issues that require surgery, either repairs or total replacement. Many fat people have been turned down for knee surgery. Fat activist Nancy Goddess had to have gastric bypass surgery in order to fix her knee. 

A recent study from New York's Hospital For Special Surgery has said that fat people have the same outcomes as thin people when it comes to knee surgery. 

"As long as they are medically appropriate for surgery, even obese people can have excellent results from joint replacement. Obesity, in and of itself, should not be viewed as an absolute contraindication to joint replacement," said Lisa Mandl, M.D., M.P.H.., a rheumatologist at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), in New York City, who was involved with the study.

I find it very disturbing to be denied a quality of life surgery. And guess what? Even fat people need their knees because the majority of us exercise and have to walk around day to day.

Her finding: 29% had been exercising for six months, 39% regularly exercised and 25% thought about exercising. Only 12% said they had no intention to work out. (Yes, those numbers add up to 105%. We're assuming they rounded up.)

I don't know how doctors think that fat people will lose weight if they don't have working knees.