First off, I would like to let readers know that I will still be blogging every Monday, but I may occasionally post a twitterish comment on other days.
Last Friday I attended a Nightline forum at Cooper Union in Manhattan. Panelists were Crystal Renn, Marianne Kirby, MeMe Roth and Kim Bensen. The panel was run by Good Morning America's Juju Chang.
The audience wasn't that big (No pun intented), maybe only filling half the auditorium. A good potion of the audience was made of size acceptance activists, so we stacked the deck.
Of course I'm biased but Marianne and Crystal came off as awesome, MeMe came off as crazy, Kim might as well have been wearing a "Lose weight, ask me how" button. Crystal (who is incredibly beautiful) dicussed her book and her eating disorders and how she is happy now leveling out at size 12. Also in the audience was former CDC head Dr. Richard Besser who, while concerned with obesity, had a much more open opinion on what constitutes health and said plainly that everyone regardless of size needs to eat well and move. (Wow, I've only said that in my blog about a million times).
When they asked for questions, I raised my hand but I wasn't picked. Maybe because I was wearing Marilyn Wann's Fat! So? T-shirt. (I say this because they picked Katie LeBesco who was next to me and someone behind me.)
Had I a chance to ask questions, I probably would have asked too many. I would probably have talked about the Flegal Studies and the three other international studies that said overweight people live the longest. I would have probably pointed out to Kim Bensen that she is the exception not the rule in losing weight and keeping it off (She apparently lost 200 lbs with Weight Watchers). I would have also mentioned that most of our health care costs go to take care of the aging population. The longer we live the more medical care we will need. And we are living longer, despite this ramapaging murdering obesity epidemic. So perhaps we should cut off health insurance for those over 60. We know they are going to get sick, so why not let them die off?
I wouldn't have any questions for MeMe Roth, she hates fat people, end of story. My problem is with her convoluted views on food--I just don't think that she should be respresenting "Healthy living" or be treated as an expert on obesity or anything else except maybe eating disorders, which I firmly believe she has. (She eats 1800 calories a day only if she runs 4 miles. 1800 calories is a low calorie diet. I've eaten that little on diets and I was miserable and hungry all the time.)
After the filming was over, we were invited to stay and chat. Unfortunately I couldn't, but apparently I missed some fireworks between MeMe Roth and a NYC blogger, who afterwards was harassed by a diet saleswoman working the room.
What a good example of what fat folks have to go through.
We loved "Is it OK to be fat?" Read our thoughts in The Ladies Lounge at http://www.lhj.com/blogs/ladieslounge/2010/02/24/is-it-okay-to-be-fat/
Posted by: LHJ | February 24, 2010 at 02:14 PM