Fat Chicks Rule

Alabama, get away! Get Away!

Please excuse me if my blog post seems a little incoherent today.  I'm babysitting my nephew very early and I've had caffeine yet.

Another great article from Paul Campos comparing two separate bodies at the Olympics: namely very large Cheryl Haworth and very small Nastia Liukin and how standards distort both these women's bodies.  Nastia is consider underweight, Cheryl morbidly obese.  Besides what Campos writes, I will take it a step further.  I think Nastia would never be pressured to gain weight as much as Cheryl would be to lose weight. 

Stereotypes have fueled a stupidity in the south.  As Alabama is now threatening to charge fat workers an extra $25 a month if they don't get thin.  Not fit. Workers have to get below a BMI of 35 regardless of how fit they are.  For example I don't have diabetes, I got my Atkin's diet induced elevated cholesterol under control but I haven't lost any weight doing it.  Yet I would be charged $25 a month purely because my BMI is 37.   So the logic here is "Let's make it so the people who supposedly have the worst health problem in world have a harder time getting proper health care."

I don't think Alabama should stop there, how about this?

$15 a month for diabetics who don't watch their blood sugar.

$10 for those with a cancer gene

$5 for those who ride their bikes without helmets.

$50 for those who are HIV+, have cancer or heart disease (somehow it's all their fault!) 

$1 for those cross the street. 

$5 for those who refuse to get 8 hours of sleep despite what the experts say.

$30 for people who have one night stands.

$20 for people who don't wear a heavy enough coat in winter. ($5 extra penalty if you don't wear a hat, scarf and mittens). 

Sheesh...

Doublespeak

About half of fat people are heart healthy according to a new study.  The experts are still toting to watch your weight.  This despite that half of thin people have heart problems as well.  What a concept! You mean fat people and thin people equally have heart disease? You don't say!

Despite evidence that fat is not the bogeyman, the Japanese have gone out of their minds with a draconian law towards fat people.  If you are bigger than 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women (and older than 40), you too can have "Re-Education" if they can't lose weight.  I guess Sumo wrestlers should be slimmed down?  I was thinking about visiting Japan in 2009 but I'm not sure as long as the Ministry of Love... err... I mean Health is doing this to their citizens.  And hello it is NORMAL to put on weight in later years.  This law is not only anti-fat but anti-elderly. 

Marilyn Wann seeks to protest this inane law by sending 1000 fat cranes to Japan.  For more info go here.

Oh no! Fatties out of control!

We are destroying the environment, we are the reason gas prices are so high!  The movie Wall-e is totally true and will come to pass! In the future we will all be TOO FAT!  We will destroy human kind because we will be too fat to be pregnant!  We will cause the apocalypse!

Or perhaps this is all hysterical fiction created by the pharmaceutical industry as this blog post by Paul Campos suggests.  The target of course is kids.  Now that the adults hate their bodies and are messed up from the dieting they have done, it's time to focus on the kids. Meanwhile the "Great Childhood Obesity Epidemic" probably is according to the book "Underage and overweight" 3 in 30 kids now as opposed to 20 years ago when it was 1 in 30.  Meanwhile it is common for kids especially girls to be chubby in their preteen and early teen years and grow and become thinner as they get older.  This doesn't mean kids shouldn't have nutritious meals (including ones that skip lunch because they think they are fat) or movement, but we need to see a more HAES approach then mass hysteria and we definitely shouldn't be pumping more drugs into kids that they need.

This all reminds me when I was 12 and was taking over the counter diet drugs (which were know to contain a dangerous drug phenylpropanolamine.)  No one stopped me from the dangerous dieting I did because at the time if you were fat you dieted and that was okay.  I always felt awful and sick and in the end I gained a lot of weight.  We need to stop this hysteria.  No kid should feel like I did growing up and feeling like a second class human being.

Probably no blog post next week as I will be on vacation.