Fat Chicks Rule

Workplace "Wellness"?

I spent my vacation in Vermont.  Five days of essentially doing nothing.  Not really nothing more like swimming, walking, hiking, reading, writing, eating and watching movies.  For the first time ever I had time for all.  I exercised a few hours day, read 4 books, watched 4 movies, worked on a short story and ate mostly organic meals.  Not to mention significant alone time with my DH. 

What allowed me to have enough energy to do all this and allowed my stress levels to decrease?

I didn't have to go to work. It was the lack of not having to go to my job that allowed me to do all these healthy things.  Workplace wellness happened merely because I didn't have to go to work.

This is a call to change the state of workplace wellness.   Because the problem isn't fat people.  The problem isn't your workforce knowing the difference between good nutrition or bad. The problem isn't motivation to move.  The problem is this constant harping to lose weight regardless of your health. 

But that seems completely oblivious to the CDC which is now promoting LeanWorks!  LeanWorks, brought to you by the same organization that did TWO studies that showed overweight people lived the longest, is a program to help your workforce lose weight.  Fine, it's not much different than the other stupid programs that choose weight loss over health, until I came across the Obesity Calculator.  The calculator will tell you how much money you will save if only the fatties who work for you lose weight. Which to me crosses the line from trying to make people "healthy" to right out discrimination.  It labels people unhealthy based on the flawed BMI. Meanwhile more studies are stating obesity is not a death sentence.

This new program is wrong on some many levels.
1. It's discriminatory.  Are jobs going to weigh people or demand intimate information from their personal life?   Programs like this don't encourage healthiness, they encourage companies to fire fat employees regardless of their health.
2. It's filled with factual errors as well as lack of information.  Many "Facts" have footnote numbers next to them, but I have yet to find those notes in the materials.  The $117 billion "obesity" cost has always been a shaky number.
3. It encourages disordered eating.  Healthy fat people may take it upon themselves to lose weight when they don't really need too.

You really want to make a healthy workforce, try this: decrease stress on the job. Fewer hours in a work week allows people have time to go home, make a healthy meal, exercise and have some leisure time.  Stop making people do jobs of two people, value good work, give great benefits, decent amount of vacation, personal, child care, and sick time.

In the end, LeanWorks will create hostile work environments for fat people, increase eat disorders and like most programs that focus on weight loss as indicator of health, won't make people healthier.

The Cookie Cutter

Remember last week about the Japanese study that overweight people lived longer that those who weren't?  Well another study came out from Canada stated the same thing. 

How many studies do we need before it's okay to have meat on our bones or understand that being fat isn't evil.  Another study from last year said that being fat didn't necessarily mean being unhealthy, and thin doesn't always mean healthy.

To me a dangerous message is sent when fat is associated with unhealthy and thin is associated with health.  A fat person might resort to dangerous diets and surgery just to lose weight (say the author of this blog), even if that fat person has no health issues.  A thin person may think "It's okay, I'm thin" to not engage in healthy habits.  

However that being said.  If you are 'normal' or 'underweight please don't try to gain.   We live in a world (especially America) that says we must all come out of the same flawless cookie cutter.  No one is flawless.  Beauty is what society makes it.  For example another fat "venus" statue was found. She is about 35000 years ago.  She was the image of beauty back then.

So beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Health as well.  I don't want thin to be the image of health and beauty. However I don't want fat to be that, either.  I want us to stop looking at a person and judging them.

Another edition of the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good.

The Fat Girl's Flea Market returns! Saturday April 4th. Donate your clothes and your time!   And be sure to actually come.  This is the best shopping experience you will ever have.

Starting on March 29th, HBO presents the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency based on popular series by Alexander McCall Smith. Beautiful Jill Scott plays Mma Ramotswe who is the only female detective in all of Botswanna.  She is also fat, so it was nice to see a fat actress in the role instead of a fat suit.

John McCain's daughter Meghan sticks it to talk show host Laura Ingraham who insults Meghan's weight instead of her politics.

The Bad

Apparently school programs to stop rampant fatness aren't enough, they'll now be offering free eating disorder lessons.  There are also no fat dancers.  Okay they aren't giving ED lessons, but you keep pressuring kids to be thin that's going to happen.  The writer Dorene Internicola (who's email address I have yet to find) was nice to mention that "There are very few fat dancers" (At the very end of the article.)

Correction: there are very few fat dancers in the mainstream.  Yeah you see one or two on Dancing with the Stars, but we have yet to have the Big Moves/ The Glamazons power hour. You claim to be a reporter, perhaps you should learn how to be one.

The Ugly

When plus size Samantha Scafe contacted airline Jetstar on whether she would have to buy a second seat, they told her no. The story changed as the flight got closer.  She was forced to buy a second seat, except the two seats weren't together and they did the same thing on the way home. It isn't just Jetstar, this is a common practice of Southwest to tell fat people they only have to buy one seat until they get to the airport or have to get a connecting flight or have to fly home. I believe in one person, one fare.   And if you are forced to buy two seats, perhaps they should be together.

Fat suits don't help Pt. 11 million.

So I got this article in my mailbox.  I was initially excited.  The title read "What happened when we sent a 'fattie' to London Fashion Week? Kate Faithfull reports back on her week on the fatwalk".  I thought 'did someone actually put a model more than size 2 on the catwalk?'  I remember when Gaultier put stunning plus size model Velvet  in his show.

Nope, just another person in a fat suit who thinks she is trying to help but instead insults us.  Not to mention she looks ridiculous.  Honey, green and red is for Christmas. 

Please we don't need any more help from thin people in fat suits.  You want to help, start pressuring the fashion industry to have models of all sizes, with clothes for all sizes.   Instead of that hideous monstrosity she is wearing, why not have a FAT model wear a similar dress that Thin Kate is wearing.  Just as Velvet was stunning, clothes with the right fit can look great on anyone.

Help comes from bold people coming forward to say discrimination is not right and try their best to fight it-- with out a fat suit.

Fat positive news

I'm sick today so I'm posting some fat positive stories that have been in the news lately.

Hudson News reviews FatLand, Frannie Zellman's first novel takes place in the future where fat people have created their own country to get away from draconian health policies of the US. I've haven't read the book yet (just ordered it on Amazon) but I've heard some good things.  

HAES is promoted at Diet.com.  The sky is falling!  It's worth reading, but be warned, you will be assaulted by diet ads. 

And a size positive article from the Lantern, the Ohio State University.