Fat Chicks Rule

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."

 

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.

 

Hollywood Fat

Almost four years ago I chucked cable TV. I'd long since gotten my news from online papers and picked and chosen my TV  and movies from streaming sources. 

Fat women and men make up about two-thirds of the US population according to fearmongers yet you wouldn't know that from TV and movies. In most mainstream movies and TV (except for artsy, foreign, or comedy shows), the actors, usually just the women, are conventionally attractive like they cut from the same mold. They are usually slender, tall and made up. For example there is a recent movie called Seven Psychopaths that has seven people appearing on a movie poster. Five are men and two are women. The five men are gruff, not glamourous and distungished . The two women might as well be twins as they look perfectly the same. It's ironic because Gabourey Sidibe also appears (I'm not sure in what capacity, she seems like she's a dog sitter) but her name isn't headlined and she doesn't appear in the poster. 

When I was working on my book and researching movies and TV that featured fat actors,  I found roles for fat people were limited to background, side characters, or comedy only. If they were the main character they were dieting (Fried Green Tomatoes), hated themselves (Fat actress), it was a foreign or artsy film (Zuckerbaby),  poor quality (More to Love) or nuts (Misery). 

Flashforward eight years later where the NY Times has an article about female comedians who are fighting back against the pressure to lose weight. 

Self-acceptance has become a new form of defiance on television, especially among younger female comedians. Partly that’s because it’s refreshingly unusual. There’s little comic shock value left in profanity, obscenity or intolerance, but it’s still quite rare and surprising to see a woman not obsess about her waistline.

The majority of these performers are "Hollywood Fat" and the only true discrimination they might face would be lack of roles in mainstream movies and TV. They can still buy clothes at almost any store, probably won't get a lecture from doctor, or be told they are diseased. Rebel Wilson, the only one who might fall into the latter category, is a spokesperson for Jenny Craig. 

I'm glad to see actors that don't fit into the typical Hollywood cookie cutter. Mindy Kating is a very talented writer, a very funny lady and I think maybe the only Indian actress on television now that the horrible show Outsourced was cancelled.  However things still haven't changed since I first researched my book. Fat actors are still background and side characters, if they are seen at all. The movies are almost always comedies. If the fat character it is the main character it's either a comedy, or the main character is emotional disturbed. For example Precious is a wonderful movie starring two amazing actresses but both are poor and uneducated. Mo'Nique's character Mary had sexually abused her daughter and is a stereotypical welfare queen. 

Real change happens when we see a variety of actors on the screen and tube that are different sizes, different colors and from different backgrounds. One of the reasons I gave up cable was there was nothing on but the same cookie cutters. 

Speaking of movies, a good one is coming out about fat men becoming sumo wrestlers. Oh it's from Israel and a similiar movie was done in the UK 12 years ago.

So no real change to Hollywood fat.  

Weight alone won't kill you and Disney makes everyone a barbie.

Apparently another study (This one done as a study of other studies, aka a metastudy) found that "extra" weight did not cause a change of morbidity more than any other weight unless the person had hypertension or diabetes, then their risk increased 1.26 %.

However despite this proof that being fat (most likely) won't kill you, even if you are severly fat with diabetes and hypertension, the author of the study still wants to the doctor to tell you to lose weight.

Based on the study, Jerant recommends that doctors` conversations with patients who are overweight or obese, but not severely obese, focus on the known negative effects of these conditions on mental and physical functioning, rather than on an increased short-term risk of death. By contrast, Jerant added that it is important for doctors to talk with severely obese patients who also have diabetes or hypertension about their increased short-term mortality risk and treatment, including weight loss.

So let's get this straight. After analysing mortality studies, you discover that fat doesn't in fact kill (unless you are very fat and have diabetes or hypertension, then your mortality goes up a whole 1.26 percent). Otherwise you will die about the same time as everyone else. Despite this you still have to be bombarded with messages to lose weight and be thin. No one said, "Hey, it's normal for some people to be fat or thin, let's focus on disease prevention instead of weight loss instead!"

Speaking of being thin, one of my favorite movie characters is Urusla, the villain from The Little Mermaid. Sure she was a bad guy, but she was still awesome. She's not only a brilliant , magic-using, octopus, but a big fat fattie. Of course Disney villains are the only place for real body diversity. Every heroine is a Barbie, even non-white ones such as Jasmine, Mulan and Tiana.  Disney villains are fat (Ursula), have flawed faces (Scar) or disfigured (Captain Hook). Most the female villains are strong power woman (A no-no in society).

This is Ursula, she is confident and bold.

This is Ursula slimmed down to sell beauty supplies. 

And Ursula loses her confidence, her boldness, her beauiful curves, her tentacles now a pretty dress and Ursula loses everything that makes her different and original. She is now Ursula Barbie, pose pretty for the cameras. (And also so the designer could use the exact same mold for every doll, if you check out the other Disney villains they look the same). 

Stigma never works

I don't really want to give a lot of time to the HBO series Weight of the Nation, the 8o million part series (Okay, it's actually four parts) about poor stupid fat people who will only get better if they learn to put down the doughnut and run 5 miles. Looking  at their web site, it looks like the same shit different day because the first thing it does was start us off with a fat joke. As you can see we fat people are so heavy we are putting cracks into the United States. My only hope is no one will watch it. I don't want have to go into detail about it because ASDAH has given us ten reasons to be concerned about it and a viewer's guide. Plus Dr. Deah Schwartz also weighs in.

And this Jezebel article sums it up nicely:

I know this is a terribly uncool, bleeding-heart thing to say, but language like "crush the United States into oblivion" hurts people. It sets up fat people—in case you forgot, fat people are people—as not just the adversaries of our own health or some lady's airplane elbow room or your boner (the usual crimes), but as the future downfall of humanity itself.

Oh and Michele Simon won't watch it either.

How many years has it been since we got serious about the "weight" problem in this country? Yet despite pushing for dieting, removing treats from schools, taking fat kids away from their parents, victimizing the poor, and stigmatizing, we are still fat. Despite that our weight is leveling off, we are living longer (BTW living longer is the biggest drain on our health care system. It's just easier to blame fat people). The answer to every ailment has become weight loss. It's an easy out, far easier that looking at the complex issues of health including genetics, the environment (Not just food but pollution) and yo-yo dieting (I say my fatness is about 50% genetic, 40% dieting and 10% other). No matter what the issue a person has, if they are fat the answer is always weight loss. 

However weight loss doesn't work for the majority of people.  We've been dieting, doing lifesysle changes, drugs and surgery and we are still fat. We are also being made fun off a lot and it is considered perfectly acceptable. For example a NYTimes articlecovered whether plane travel is safe for fat people since the seats and safety belts aren't made for big people (Let's ignore the fact that is still safer to fly than to drive), an article in gizmodo picks up this story and instead of chastaise the lack of safety in the airline industry, makes fun of fat people. 

That's right, obese air travel could kill you. Standard seats are a legacy of old airplane design, and as people get plumper, they haven't been rethought. 

First off what is "Obese air travel." Is that a travel agency or finally our own airlines where seats are made for us? 

Second getting plumper is wrong, we've apparently been getting plump for about 30 years. Yet despite 30 years of dieting, we are still fat.

 The hysteria of Weight of the Nation will do nothing to make people healthy, it will make continue the fear mongering and stereotypes about fat people. It will make fat people the villains, the victims and will continue to marginized them. 

An article in Reuters show prejudice affects behaviors. 

The stigma also hurts the efforts of America's 73 million obese adults and 12 million obese children to get back to a healthy weight: Targets of stigma often fall into depression or withdraw socially. Both make overeating, binge eating, and a sedentary existence more likely, studies show.

It's funny because a similar article about stigma has a picture of a women's back with fat rolls who is wearing an exercise bra. 

 I don't find this unattractive but others might find this humiliating, a headless fattie with rolls of fat. To me this underhanded hatred is more dangerous than the outright stigma because it's ingrained. This woman is wearing an exercise bra. She is being healthy, she's exercising, just like her fucking doctor told her to but seeing this picture she might be embarrassed by it. Maybe even humiliated enough to not exercise anymore. 

Stigma is far worse because the often those who create stigma either don't think they are doing it or don't realize they are. The person who choose this photo, did they think they were creating stigma? Or groups like the Rudd center who always get quoted when talking abut how horrible stigma is don't think they are the cause of it. The truth is this, they can't ever end stigma until they also realize that fat people are people who exists, good or bad. Overeating or listening to body ques and that being fat is as just a normal state as being thin. 

What if a picture like this was used instead?

 

Diabetes, Autism and Pepsi oh my!

This starts with two facts,

1. Just because you are diabetic doesn't mean you are fat;

2. Just because you are fat doesn't mean you will get diabetes. 

I felt the need for these two facts to be fresh in people's minds for the two infuriating stories I am covering today. 

No one knows for sure what causes autism. It could be anything, genetics, low birth rates, later in life pregnancies and better diagnosis (autism may have been diagnosed differently in the past as retardation or bad behavior). Now comes a new study saying fat mothers are bad because they are giving their children autism. After all every single autistic child has a fat momma right? Right?  

 

As far as fat women and autism, there could a host of reasons for the increased rate including: dieting, weight loss surgery, poor prenatal care (Fat women often do not get the best of care), and the high rates at which doctors perform C-sections on fat women.

 

Or could it be that the study itself was based on fat women with metabolic disorders? Not healthy fat women. The gist is women with metabolic diseases might have a higher rate of autism but that doesn't mean fat mothers have more kids with autism (or even that MD have more autistic kids; the sample size was 1000 from California only and self reported). It is the false assumption that all fat women have or will get diabetes and hypertension. Diabetes is a complex disease. Merely simplifying it down to weight loss creates a horrific risk for thin people who have it in their family. 

 

And it is our irresponsible media that ran with "all the fat mother's fault", because in reality what they really want is fat women to stop breeding. After all fat parents are more likely to make more fat people and we wouldn't want that. 

I've spoken before on soda. It's a tax that doesn't affect me because I don't drink soda. I'm now perfectly willing to have a tax on soda as long as it's on Pepsi. Pepsico, yes the soda maker is now charging it's smoking and fat bottlers and drivers $50 more per month for health coverage. Yes,

Pepsico the makers of Pepsi, 7up, Mountain Dew, Lipton, Lays potato chips wants to charge "unhealthy" employees $50 more a month. What next? Is Marlboro going to charge more for smokers? (Also all these employees are unionized but union busting is another story for another blog.)

And when they talk about fat, they actually mean "Obesity related diseases" which at this rate is diabetes, hypertension, cancer, global warming, autism, plane crashes, stroke, car accidents, and plumber's crack. Now if you have one of these diseases, but are thin do you get $50 charge and if you are fat and healthy do you still get that charge? Targeting diseases is a horrific slippery slope that will lead to employers hiring only perceived healthy people, and firing anyone who gets a disease. It also faults diseases on those who got them. We need to learn that it's very rare that someone brings a disease on to themselves. 

So now I'm for a soda tax. $50 tax on all pepsi products to go into a fund to cover the employees forced to pay this ridiculousness. 

Opposite Land

Two recent ads featured the same fat model. The first has the caption "Did your wife scare you last night?" The other features a fat model with an x next to her and a thin model with a check. Having never heard of this company, I thought it was a gym because both models were wearing similar clothes, but then after reading an article in Jezebel, it was explained that the company is personals for people who want affairs. The fat model is supposed to be the wife and the thin model is the woman the husband is to cheat with. The fat model in real life goes by the psedonym "Jacqueline"  and runs an erotica site for people who like big women.  Her image was used without permission. (The personal ad company claimed she made money off it, so it isn't considered exploition or hatred.) 

I'm pretty sure that any man married to Jacqueline, meant to marry a sexy fat woman and not a woman with a body that doesn't even look human. No, I'm not saying being thin isn't human, I'm saying the thin woman in the ad is so poorly shopped that she looks like a worm.  So if you want to cheat on your fat sexy wife with a worm, please be careful of WTD (Worm Transmitted Diseases). And if Cheatin' Hubby knocks up the worm lady, will he support their children or sell them to a freak show? Perhaps the husband was being sympathetic to the worm woman, maybe he secretly desires her worm shaped form and this superficial society would look down on their worm/man affair.

But aside from atrocious looking ads (possibly created by The Worm People from Planet Wormatron), I'm pretty sure this ad should be the opposite. Secret fat admirers may be more interested in cheating on the trophy wife with a sexy fat woman. Going once to a forum on fat sex, the speaker mentioned her erotica site had been pulling in about million a year. I'm pretty sure Jacqueline is pulling in some decent money.

I'm pretty sure she will be around long after this personal ad company is gone.  

A movie we all need to see

I saw the premiere of America the Beautiful 2, the Thin Commandments. If it is playing in a theater near you, go see it. If it isn't, email your local theater asking to show it and spread the word. 

In his previous movie, director Daryl Roberts investigated American's obsession with beauty, and the industry that obsession supports. (That movie is available as a DVD or online purchase through Amazon etc., and Netflix has it as an instant play feature).

This film, Roberts' second, is about American's obsession with thinness and dieting. Over the course of 85 minutes Roberts shows his personal experience concerning food, eating disorders, HAES, weight related issues, politics of dieting, and his own habits. 

The movie starts with Roberts getting a doctors appointment (the first in 10 years) where he is diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, and was at risk for diabetes. After refusing medication due to his lack of health insurance and learning that possible side effects include erectile dysfunction, Daryl searches for weight loss solutions. The obvious first stop involves looking into a gimmicky diet, then raw foods. Then in a montage of shots, he tries Weight Watchers, Lean Cuisine, and the Cookie Diet. All of which cause him to lose weight and gain it back. Then instead of dieting, he starts exercising regularly.

He touches on issues of weight bias, including his sister, unable to get IVF unless she loses weight, a good friend obsessed with what she eats and how much she exercises, a woman who swings back and forth between anorexia and bulimia, Plus size model Anansa Sims (daughter of model Beverly Johnson), and dancer and blogger Ragen Chastain who explained that her doctor wanted her to "walk more" after which she had to explained she danced about 20 hours a week. Sims' journey is particularly harrowing: a big girl who desperately wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps, she lost weight consistently at the orders of her coaches. No matter how much she lost, it was never good enough for the modeling world. Her answer:  she regained all the weight and found success as a plus size model.

When Roberts returns to his doctor after taking up biking (he was at our screening and said he is still riding) he hadn't lost much weight but he had no trace of his diagonsed illnesses and had perfect blood pressure. Ragen Chastain who she claimed is at the top of the obese scale is also metabolically healthy.

While this doesn't prove anything because it is only two people who happened to be both healthy and moving regularly. I don't know what Ragen eats but Daryl still eats junk food although he supplements with more vegetables, but here are two people where exercise, not dieting, made them healthier. Shouldn't be looking more to encourage movement rather than losing weight? Shouldn't we stop labeling people by their size?

And here is a not so great picture of me with the director.

On the Outside Looking into New Jersey.

8/2 EDIT, I am guilty of skimming. Grassroots Natural Market did not in fact discriminate.  They did allow the store be used as a set for "What would you do." to see if anyone would come to the aide of a woman being discriminated against due to her weight (some one did). The woman and the manager were actors. 

However fat people still face legal discrimination, The food sustainability movement is still rifled with anti-fat rhetoric.  And if this wasn't a setup, the woman would still have no legal recource for being denied the job. 

Speaking of New Jersey, their governor Chris Christie had an asthma attack. I'm not a political fan of him, but his weight has always been mingled into criticism of him. Fat hater Bill Maher called him Governor fatty fat and a sumo wrestler and facebook haters came out in force after his hospitalization. His asthma attack has been attributed to his weight (Christie himself blamed his fat.) However asthma is not triggered by weight, but usually allergens, air quality etc. This allergy season has been so bad, it has even affected my (thin) cat. 

I am concerned that Christie's desire to lose weight has little to do with health and more to do with political ambitions. After all we can't have a fat president. (Sorry Taft.)  If he was really concerned about his health, he would get a pulmonary specialist and figure out what his trigger is. He is sending out the poor message that if you are fat and have asthma, just lose weight!

Also next week is the NAAFA convention and I will be there until Monday so most likely no blog post, just maybe some pictures.

 

A fat chick in a movie! And the world didn't end!

So I went to the movies and paid a whooping $9.50 for a matinee to see Bridesmaids. The sole reason I saw it in the theaters is Melissa McCarthy. I wanted Hollywood to know that just because a movie has a fat woman doesn't mean the world will end. (It didn't, instead the movie has so far made over 107 million.) The movie was produced by Judd Apatow who put pre-weight loss Jonah Hill and Seth Rogan in his films.  

Spoilers follow.  You have been warned.

Unfortunately although the movie seems like it's an ensemble, it's actually about the messed up life of Maid of Honor, the very skinny Kristin Wiig's Annie. Melissa's part is actually quite small. I don't know if I would characterize the character as positive. Melissa's character Megan seems nuts, food obsessed and grosser than the other girls. A perfect is example is a scene where all the women get food poisoning.  The bridal shop has only one toilet and three of the bridesmaids run there while the bride runs to the street. In the bathroom, two of the bridesmaids fight over the toilet, while Megan shits in the sink. This is considered funny.  But the thin Bride who ends up shitting in the street this is tragic.  Also Kristin Wiig who co-wrote the script has obviously never gone to a bridal boutique with a fat friend. THEY DON'T CARRY PLUS SIZES.  So really a funnier scene might have been all the women wearing their dresses except for Megan who has hers pinned to her clothes. 

Also whoever dressed Melissa in this movie should never dress a fat woman again. If they were trying to not look fat, they failed but did succeed in making her look like a potato. I don't watch Mike and Molly but I've seen pictures, Melissa McCarthy can be dressed properly. 

Look at the way Melissa is dressed here compared to her co-stars

Might as well have dressed her in a burka. 

That being said Melissa is a very funny lady and while I would like to see more fat actors in dramatic roles (one of Melissa's breakout roles was as Sookie in the drama series Gilmore Girls, although she was the comic relief), I'm hoping to see more of her on the big screen even in comedic roles. She does have an important scene in the movie where she wakes up Annie and helps her change her life. Megan finally has some character development where she reveals she grew up ostracized and instead of giving up, she worked hard on her education and became a higher up in the government and confident in herself.  In a scene on an airplane, Megan immediately knows the man sitting next to her is a sky marshall (played by Melissa's real life husband Ben Falcone). He denies it and also refused her advances. Later it is revealed that not only was she right but they eventually hook up. 

The movie also had a very underused Rebel Wilson playing Annie's strange roommate.  And at the ending Wilson Phillips performing with Carnie Wilson looking much less emaciated. 

Is Bridesmaids fat positive? Not really. Melissa McCathy's comedic talents are underused. While there are no jokes about her weight, she is obnoxious, gross, and food obsessed.  However it is nice to actually see letting a fat chick even in a supporting role. But with such limited roles to fat actors, is it worth it just to be seen?