Fat Chicks Rule

Just say no to BMI.

I will be at the NAAFA convention this coming weekend.  I won't have a table to sell my book but if you really want one, I will take a few with me.   However, I'm mostly going there to be active in the community, have fun with friends and lobby the government on Monday.

Why the need for lobbying?  The treatment fat people get in the US (and other western countries) is appalling.  We are constantly told to lose weight, no matter what our blood tests or medical studies say.  Yet there is no proven effective method of weight loss.  We are then given fewer rights as Americans.  Less chance at jobs, bias at the doctor's office and even while clothing shopping.

All of this based on the flawed BMI, yet despite studies proving that people in the overweight category live longest, athletes are consider obese, BMI falsely puts children in a "high" risk category (And can hurt them emotionally) and the standards were changed in 1998 making more people overweight and obese overnight. (BTW, although I do believe we have gotten bigger, this BMI shift is probably the culprit of the current "epidemic," that and the massive push for dieting which causes yoyo dieting and makes people bigger)   BMI, like height/weight charting, isn't a good measure of a person's health.  In fact it's so ridiculous that a while back Kate Harding put together the BMI project which shows pictures of people and how BMI categorizes them.

Why do we still use it?  These are my theories.  The diet industry would like nothing but for the population to think they are fat (and reinforce the idea that fat is bad) and buy their products and services.  Insurance companies would like nothing better than to cover fewer people (gets too expensive if we have health care for all,) which translates into increased profits.

But really I expect them to want to maintain the status quo, as the normal state of affairs keeps business going at full bore.  But why do doctors keep to this principle?  In fact I often see the antiquated Height/ Weight Chart in doctor's offices.  Is it just easier to accept things as is? 

See you at the convention.  Also be sure to sign NAAFA's petition against the CDC's program LeanWorks which I blogged about two weeks ago.

The Fat Studies Reader vs. the New Yorker. (Guess Who wins?)

I had planned to plug the Fat Studies Reader when it got closer to the publication date.  However, this week it was mentioned in the New Yorker. 

I am proud to be part of this project. (My essay is about Chick-lit)  And I will write more about the Reader in a couple of months.  For those who can't wait (pun intended) to read about Fat Studies, check out Fat Studies in the UK which I will review once my copy shows up in the mail.

I am actually blogging about the New Yorker article which is filed under "any publicity is good publicity."  I kind of have to wonder if they actually read the book because the author seemed to be in the assumption class of "If you are fat then you must be eating McDonalds 3x a day and sitting on the couch eating bon-bons."  All we really want to do is gain more weight and force feed kids chicken mcnuggets. (Duh!)

I was particularly disturbed by this statement: 

It effectively allies itself with McDonald’s and the rest of the processed-food industry, while opposing the sorts of groups that advocate better school-lunch programs and more public parks. To claim that some people are just meant to be fat is not quite the same as arguing that some people are just meant to be poor, but it comes uncomfortably close.

I don't even know where to start in this mindboggling statement. I mean literately I am at a loss for words.  I can't even organize my thoughts on this one because it's just too much fat hatred at once.

So let's start with allying ourselves McDonalds and like. Most size acceptance group mottos aren't "Hooray for McDonalds!  Bulldoze that Park!" (I guess that's similar to NAAFA's motto of "We Come In All Sizes." Both mottos have letters in them.) This all goes back to the false belief that all fat people must be fat because they overeat bad food and don't move at all and therefore would be against healthy food and movement.  It's a stereotype and getting older by the second.  Most size acceptance groups embrace Health at Every Size which encourages a healthy relationship with food and movement and turning away from weight-based health.

Now personally I believe school food needs to be unprocessed, organic and have no GMO's.  That being said, fascist food policy will result in eating disorders. (Michael Pollan has already written extensively on the fact that it's our national food policy that is pushing crappy food into school lunch programs, not the other way around.) 

The reporter's comparison to the ideas "some people are fat they way some people are meant to be poor" is shall we say, stupid. It is the stupidest comparison I've read yet. I'm sorry too because I heard that the author is normally a decent writer.

And I'm not alone in my criticism.  Fillyjonk from Shapely Prose comments that the author doesn't seem to know what a Reader is; Pattie Thomas, author of Taking up Space posts the letter she plans to send about how diet foods are often highly processed; Big Fat Blog not only criticizes the article but the stereotypical graphic of a fat woman (who isn't white) carrying a double armload of food.  

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.

Lifestyle changes? ORLY?

Just a quick note, all posts have to be approved by me and I will be away from Wednesday to Sunday, so if you submit a comment then, it will be approved (or rejected) when I get back.

Slow news at the New York Times that has an article stating you *can* lose weight without paying so much money.  You can do it on your own if you just do that ditto sheet from the doctor's office or buy a cheap book or check out Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, or a hospital diet (that is encouraged if you're diabetic, Hospital diets are usually very low calorie liquid diets).  But our favorite (Fat) doctor from the Rudd center says it's all about motivation. From the ditto sheet to the hospital diet.  We only have to be motivated and we can lose weight.

As someone who has bought about 15 books (including both fad diets and "lifestyle changes"), did Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, Atkins, Carbohydrate Addicts, Slim-Fast, Ultra Slim-Fast and tried to lose weight on my own.  Was I motivated? Hell yes.  Did it last? No.  Why didn't it last?  Was I lazy? Lacking motivation? Or was it just because I was hungry and stopped losing weight?  Ding, Ding, kewpie doll.   I had no motivation to continue because I've stopped losing weight and I was thinking of food all the time.  I had done no actual life style changes.  I continued on the dieting/bingeing roller coaster.  

Yes this is an anecdote, but pick up a number of fat positive non-fiction and you will see similar stories. 

Lifestyle changes only really occurred once I made peace with food and my body.  I had to learn to love it as is. I accepted that I was fat only only a horrible disease could make me thin. I had to learn to treat foods equally and eat good wholesome food.  Since I stopped dieting, I instead judge food by how it makes me feel.  Movement the same way.  I walk every day whether I had a cookie or not.