Fat Chicks Rule

Good and Bad Boobs

Ironically on boobquake day, I will have two articles of interest on the boobies.  Boobquake was started when blogger Jennifer McCreight heard an Iranian Cleric proclaim that scantily clad women (among other things) caused earthquakes. She organized a day encouraging women to wear scantily clad clothes to see if would cause earthquakes.

But FOX and ABC are not Iranian clerics. Both networks refused to show an ad featuring a plus size model in her bra and insisted on it being edited. I doubt modesty has anything to do with it.  FOX is the home to such shows as The Swan, Joe Millionaire, and other shows where women demean themselves and ABC had an entire prime time special of Victoria Secret models in their undies. But Lane Bryant was different. Lane Bryant on the other hand sold bras that fit those of us with meat, muscle, and boobs.  I guess allowing this commercial to air might encourage women to perhaps not diet their way into the fantasy of Victoria's Secret.

FOX reluented only when Lane Bryant threatened to pull the ad entirely. ABC claims they never denied the ad and that Lane Bryant is making it up. (Those silly fatties!)

Unfortunately due to the fact that it is so hard to find an actress/actor on TV that even looks like the Lane Bryant model, I'm going to have to side with Lane Bryant.  In the past I have seen clothing companies choose image over cash. Being fat is the one place where money doesn't always decide everything.

But back to boobies. A good study came in (from Sweden) that said if girls are fat at seven, they have less of a chance of developing breast cancer. Shame that I didn't get fat until I was 10.

Let's hear it for the boobies!

Diet Math, HAES, and Banning the O Word for something just as stupid.

An article this week in Wall Street Journal questions the whole idea behind 3500 calories in a pound (pretty much the calories in, calories out theory of metabolism that naturally slender people often spout.)  This isn't much different from the Hollywood cookie cutter theory of body weight. This idea that everyone's body reacts the same despite genetics, environment, and diet history. If we are all the same when it comes to calories and the differences are merely cosmetic, then why did I only lose 35 pounds in the two years I was consuming about 1600 calories a day (along with going to the gym)? 

This is why I don't count calories. I prefer to listen to internal hunger cues, eat nutritiously dense foods, and move my body as best I can, instead of counting numbers.   (BTW, at quick count, I average about 2K a day). I'm smart and sensible enough to know it's probably not a good idea to regularly have a Baconator or Double Down (I haven't had either as I think they will kill me.) This is something I get not from all the diets I did but from Health at Every Size.

Two good articles appearing this week encourage this.  Ms. wants you to "Don’t Be Shamed by “The Weight Talk”

In the second article author Jill Richardson makes a passionate plea to stop focusing on weight and focus more on health.  While both articles are awesome, backing up the idea that diets don't work and HAES is a positive way to health, the comments tell a different story. Many are mean spirited, intolerant and holier than thou. I will use Marliyn Wann's comment to sum it all up:

"The hatefulness expressed toward fat people in these comments proves that people's concern has nothing to do with the actual wellbeing of a fat person like me and everything to do with enforcing and policing an ugly system of weight-based stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination."

On one hand we have HAES which encourages people to eat right, exercise and feel good about themselves regardless of their weight. On the other hand we have people who feel like they are obligated to insult someone to make themselves feel better. (Sounds rather like grade school, doesn't it?)

And to add insult to injury, Liverpool wants to ban the word obesity and replace it with unhealthy weight. Sorry, if anything that's much much worse. I hate the word obesity but it is at least a clinical term for people who have a BMI of over 30. Changing that term to Unhealthy weight, makes it no longer a clinical term but a judgment. Because will they be using this term for underweight people as well? 

Hungry

Hey, short post tonight of some prominent news stories.

 David Katz treats us as the victim, well at least fat kids.  But he's nice enough to say it isn't a question of willpower but that we lack the willpower to resist. (Yes, I'm confused as well.)  And even though he thinks us a victim, he refuses to accept that some people are just fat.

In the second article, Sherman Yeller does bring up the point that there will always be fat people. People like Benjamin Franklin were not super svelte. (And he got the ladies too!) He also mentions this pressure to turn fat people thin, especially children will create stigma.

The Senate is in the process of passing a "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010."  Yes, the law focuses on those poor fat kids but actually finally admits that CHILDREN IN AMERICA GO HUNGRY.  I have mentioned a few times on the blog that this country and through out the world we have more starvation, hunger and food insecurity than we do obesity (But they aren't always opposite). Starvation kills more people especially children than so call "obesity related diseases"

Understanding being fat

I was seeing a shrink in my late twenties which was what I call my middle diet years. I was already armed with the facts: Genetics made you fat, diets didn't work, society's expectation of body image was unnaturally thin. I knew all that, but I still dieted. I figured maybe for once I could be the exception to the rule.  Losing weight was something I discussed with my shrink. And in one session, I told him thin people really don't understand what it's like to be fat. 

I still believe that. (And no I don't believe thin people are evil or particularly tasty).  I understand that thin people can have the same self-esteem issues. Fat people's self esteem stems from being told that fat equals gross and disgusting, and thin people have fear of getting fat after they've been told that fat equals dead. As if Fat is the worst thing that can happen, or the only way to die. (I live with it every day--fat, not death. Fat discrimination is culprit, not the actual fat.)

I came across an article this week that the Tennessee government has an obesity task force with no fat people.  Sure there were chubby people, ones that might be overweight but no fatties. (At least the Rudd Center has Kelly Bronwell.)  

And this goes back to what I told me my shrink and to previous blog posts where fatties are either victims or villains.  Most obesity task forces believe us to be victims, unable to understand what vegetables were (Duh, obviously fries and ketchup) and where to obtain them.  Growing up, I loved junk food, so I ate it along with other children.  When I got fat, I graduated into victim-hood. I was obviously a kid who didn't understand how to eat vegetables. And since it's usually thin people who make this judgment, they didn't understand that (a) I knew what junk food was since I was five years old. I knew McDonalds was something you get occasionally and (b) I was still eating vegetables and bike riding, before and after I became fat.  

So obesity taskforces (or whatever you're calling yourselves), maybe talk to a fat person once and a while, or maybe do something simple. Encourage healthy eating and movement among thin people as well and ditch the destroy all fatties attitude.  Fatties have already been around and we always will.