Fat Chicks Rule

FatLand

Just to remind people in the NYC metro area to come to the Fat Girl's Flea Market. I will be there selling my book from about 1pm until I sell out, the event ends or I collapse from exhaustion.  But don't come for me.  Come for the fabulous clothes and the amazing atmosphere.

So I finished FatLand, a novel by Frannie Zellman, put out by Pearlsong press (not to be confused by the fat hating book by the same name).  In FatLand, it is about 30 years in the future and laws regulate food and fat people.   These oppressive laws drove a group of fat people to form their own country which is located near Colorado.   Life seems idyllic in FatLand where being fat is okay, people are happier and healthier.  However there are outside and inside forces who want to cause upheaval in this utopia.   Meanwhile the US (called "The other side" in the book) is a dystopian nightmare as people have to pay enormous taxes to eat "sinful" foods, forced on diets and placed in "re-education camps" if they don't follow the rules.

Frannie's novel is beautifully fat positive.  It's a boost to self-esteem and encouragement to help pass size discrimination laws (such as what they are pushing now in Nevada).  While I am not sure fat people would form their own country, the US Pro-health laws of the novel are rooted in things like forcing fat people to pay more for insurance (regardless of their health) or not allowing fat people eat in restaurants if they are "too fat".  The main characters are proud to be their size.  My only issue was the character Mira who feels compelled to leave FatLand because she is thin and doesn't feel comfortable.  She is even pressured by her mother, a founder of FatLand, to gain weight.  I find it odd that a country founded on the principles that biology dictates size would pressure her to gain weight.  I can understand maybe her peers might be snide having grown up where fat is beautiful, but Mira's mother should at least understand.   Even if she didn't, this is something that needed to be addressed more. 

And as a sci-fi reader/writer, I certainly would like to see more of the creation of FatLand.  How is it that FatLand was formed without firing a shot?  I can't imagine to US annexing land or allowing part of Colorado to secede. 

We need to see more novels about FatLand and especially need to see more media including books, movies, and TV showing people of *all sizes* not just ones that look like Jennifer Aniston.  In the meantime we need to support media that does have positive fat characters.

Who is right? Who is wrong? Who cares.

You think that maybe the obesity naysayers would have calm down by now.  After all three major studies (including two by the CDC) have proved overweight people live the longest and that even being in the obesity range doesn't cut your lifespan that much or that doctors don't know what causes you be fat, it isn't just about eating and moving.

Or that scientist have proved that diets consist of reducing caloric intake. It doesn't matter if you cut the carbs, the fats or the protein, short-term weight loss comes by reducing calories.

You think they would stop: diets don't work, no one knows why some people are fat while some are thin, diets are the same thing just in different packages. 

Lancet has a study that "proves" that fatties live a shorter life.   I'm not a doctor or scientist, I have read the study and admit that I didn't quite understand all of it.  I did understand that there wasn't one large test group, that the scientists took the information from 57 other studies, that dieting was never looked at, that 35% of the study were smokers, at least 3 of the studies were self-reported and the study tried wave away people dying with BMI under 22 because more of them smoked.

Do I have a point?  It's pretty simple.  No one really knows anything.  No one is sure is fat causes or helps fight diseases or if fat is a symptom not a cause of heart disease or diabetes.  That is the issue, that is my problem.  I'm sick of seeing articles that automatically assume fat causes X,Y,Z when there is research out there that states otherwise.

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.

HAES should be a way of life.

I'm fat.  Being fat doesn't automatically mean you are unhealthy, nor does it mean you must eat well and exercise or you'll die.  To me it feels as if fat people are often pressured to "eat right and exercise” just to prove they are as healthy as the thin people who don't. 

Okay, but let's say you want to eat better and move around more or you’re a chronic dieter, who wants to eat normally and avoid old dieting habits.  Good luck finding a book or a program that doesn't mention weight loss as a cure for everything. It seems that every ailment can be cured if you lose weight.  Looking for more energy, lose weight, trying to do something about carpal tunnel syndrome, lose weight, want your hair to curl the right way, lose weight. (How much weight and how quickly? Nobody seems to know. Go figure.)

I refuse to allow weight loss to be an indicator of my health. I've done that. It didn't work. I spent my adolescence and early adulthood losing hundreds of pounds and feeling like absolute shit every minute of every day. I finally opted for a holistic program called Health at Every Size.  Health at Every Size (HAES) removed weight as an indicator of health (the only time you should be concerned about your weight is if you gain or lose weight rapidly for no apparent reason).  Diets or "lifestyle changes" (whatever those are) which focus on weight loss will end in failure once you stop losing weight.  It's simple: you diet, you lose 10, 20 or 30 pounds in three months, you feel better about yourself, then you stop losing, and you start getting frustrated, then you get depressed, then you stop the diet and you gain everything back plus ten more pounds.. Shift your focus instead to eating well (meaning "food" in the organic sense instead of "weight loss supplements" or "health products") and learning to enjoy moving your body.

So HAES now has a book to guide you.  It's by Linda Bacon, a PhD who put

out a peer reviewed study in 2005 that compared dieters to people doing HAES.  (Dieters had a high drop out rate where HAES users maintain healthy habits.)  Linda's book is magnificent and seems to be written especially for chronic dieters. (How I wished I had this book during my dieting days).   Linda's book helps you learn to listen to your own hunger cues, ignore external ones (such as good foods vs. bad foods) and discovering the importance of consistently eating well.

My only qualm has to do with the audience.   Some fat people do have disordered eating due to dieting (myself included.) The other whole idea of internal clues has to do with not thinking about food.  I've often said that some days we eat more, some days less.  So why I found this book to be helpful to someone like myself with restrained eating it might not be to people who eat without issues. (Of course these days, who doesn't have food issues of some sort?)

That being said, the majority of the book was exceptional.  It not only trashes myths on obesity, dieting and fat, it always helps you feel better about yourself.   I just know that after I read it, I felt better.

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.