Fat Chicks Rule

Mommas, don’t your babies grow up to be fatties.

Sometimes I think the pharmaceutical and diet industry sit around a table ala Austin Powers and do evil laughs every time the medical community posts research that say we should worry if our babies are fat.  The diet industry needs new customers and the pharmaceutical industry needs more money for diet drugs that don't work.

According  to the Institute of Medicine, having a fat baby is no longer a good thing, it's a bad thing. It's will cause your child to be scum of the earth. No they won't become a politican, they will be fat. Oh, when they say baby what they really mean is toddler. And when they say beware of the fat baby they really mean mom is bad. Mom feeds baby too much, mom doesn’t stay home and cook because dad can’t ever cook. For he is a manchild in his man cave. (Stereotyping men as being useless  is another rant.)

 I am disturbed by encouraging toddlers to diet. I’m sure if a rep from IOM saw this, I would get the standard responses. It's a lifestyle change. They aren't dieting, they are eating less! Do you want all these babies will die (How about instead of wasting money on making fat babies thin, we work to decrease infant mortality). However I have to wonder what will happen with the parents of a child who doesn’t become slim after food monitoring; mandatory exercise, lectures from the doctors (I’m sure every child will love to have “The Talk.”) Will less food become next? Oh wait it is already here. IOM is encoraging portion control. 

Now take a look at what their panel is recommending

Pediatricians should track weight gain at every routine visit

 Cut down the time children spend watching TV or using the computer or cell phone

Encourage children in preschool and child care to get more physical activity

Make sure children get enough shut eye

Encourage mothers to stick with breastfeeding for at least six months

Make sure kids are getting the right food portions for their age

Chop off the first and last one (or change the last one to enough servings of fruits and veggies) and what do you get? You get good recommendations for everyone even adults (with the exception of breast feeding) that don’t include stigma and encourage healthy eating no matter what size the child is. 

Children are remarkable if you don’t fuck with their hunger cues. It’s okay for parents to make sure children get the right food (i.e. no you can't have more ice cream but you can have an apple) but arbitrarily deciding how much is too much may end up with it being too little. And with our fat = evil culture, I’m sure parents will end up limiting food intake. Portion control will encourage dieting at an even younger age. (See my post last week about children as young as 10 vomiting for weight loss.) 

And guess what? Some children are fat and stay fat, some children are fat and grow out of it. Some children are thin and remain thin, some children are slender and get bigger and some kids are thin and become fat. (I’m the last one not a fat baby or toddler.) Like adults accept that even children comes in all shapes and sizes. 

Let's fail again

This article in the Atlantic Post talks about criticism of the Let's Move campaign. The same criticism I have been repeating religiously in this blog.

...many experts wonder, is the Let’s Move campaign damaging the self-esteem of the very children it’s trying to help?

I believe that when you attempt to make fat kids thin you will instead find an increase in eating disorders and low self-esteem. Don't believe me? A study in Journal of Clinical Nursing of 16,000 students found that about 16% of children 10-12 were vomiting to lose weight (and it is affecting both genders as boys actually had a higher rate). We learned from Arkansas' attempts at making fat kids thin that this sort of thing is a waste of time and money. Instead, we should use money from these programs to make sure all schools can afford to have gym every day and that the cafeteria serves healthy edible food (the cafeteria in my high school served unhealthy and inedible food.)

And speaking of making fat people thin - Bariatric surgery doesn't help obese live longer, study says. (I will ignore the fact that they use "obese" as a noun.) Essentially this article is reporting about a study in JAMA where older men who had WLS did not live longer. The study was of 850 veterans, and compare to a WLS group to a non-WLS group. The WLS group did not live any longer. This was after 6 years. And WLS is also causing bulimia among some patients.

Meanwhile According to researchers from the Weight Management Services Program at the UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine study found that about 30% of fat patients they saw were considered healthy.  I have to wonder if the 70% who were considered unhealthy had a history of dieting.

I find all of this a mess: eating disorders, death, metabolically unhealthy. Why do we have to pressure fat people to be thin instead of being healthy?

Whole Foods, and whatever happened to "I respectfully disagree."

An old article from Jezebel points out that the Whole Foods healthy discount program where you get discounts based on BMI, Blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking) may not only be illegal but an invasion of privacy. Really, I don't ever want my to have any of my medical history. I've already given my two cents repeatedly on this stupid Whole Foods debacle  (for example, if you are fat but don't smoke, have normal blood pressure and and cholesterol, you get nothing.)  I'd also like to point out that Whole Foods carries genetically modified food.  So what is the point of even going to Whole foods when I can buy cheaper GMO food at my local supermarket?

Speaking of fat bullies, Pattie Thomas has come out with another wonderfully written blog post on Psychology Today and which calls out the trolls death wish on fatties, especially those who made comments about the untimely death of plus size model and actress Mia Amber Davis. (She died from a blood clot during knee surgery from a sports related injury). Pattie also uses her own blog as an example where the trolls speculated that she died when she took a leave of absence. I have my own trolls. Most of the comments I don't let through is dieting advice but occasionally I get told that I should die, will die, go to hell, get cancer and are scum (usually from people with a multitude of spelling errors). 

I don't let these comments in for my regular readers, the ones who come here and want a safe space from fat hatred. I also want to set a good example for my 13 year old autistic nephew to not let unimportant people ruin my day or control my life. Pattie brings up the term Schadenfreude to describe people who find joy in other people's deaths and she also brings up the idea that the "War on Obesity" has made fat people the enemy.  Is that the reason people feel the need to wish me dead because they see me as the enemy? I would never wish death on people I disagreed with (with some exceptions such as mass murderers although I certainly wouldn't find joy in their deaths.)

Mia Amber Davis was a lovely, talented and beautiful woman that I unfortunately never had the pleasure of meeting. I'm facebook friends with one her good friends and for weeks I heard about the pain Mia's death had caused her family and friends. Only a monster would seek joy in this. 

A fat chick in a movie! And the world didn't end!

So I went to the movies and paid a whooping $9.50 for a matinee to see Bridesmaids. The sole reason I saw it in the theaters is Melissa McCarthy. I wanted Hollywood to know that just because a movie has a fat woman doesn't mean the world will end. (It didn't, instead the movie has so far made over 107 million.) The movie was produced by Judd Apatow who put pre-weight loss Jonah Hill and Seth Rogan in his films.  

Spoilers follow.  You have been warned.

Unfortunately although the movie seems like it's an ensemble, it's actually about the messed up life of Maid of Honor, the very skinny Kristin Wiig's Annie. Melissa's part is actually quite small. I don't know if I would characterize the character as positive. Melissa's character Megan seems nuts, food obsessed and grosser than the other girls. A perfect is example is a scene where all the women get food poisoning.  The bridal shop has only one toilet and three of the bridesmaids run there while the bride runs to the street. In the bathroom, two of the bridesmaids fight over the toilet, while Megan shits in the sink. This is considered funny.  But the thin Bride who ends up shitting in the street this is tragic.  Also Kristin Wiig who co-wrote the script has obviously never gone to a bridal boutique with a fat friend. THEY DON'T CARRY PLUS SIZES.  So really a funnier scene might have been all the women wearing their dresses except for Megan who has hers pinned to her clothes. 

Also whoever dressed Melissa in this movie should never dress a fat woman again. If they were trying to not look fat, they failed but did succeed in making her look like a potato. I don't watch Mike and Molly but I've seen pictures, Melissa McCarthy can be dressed properly. 

Look at the way Melissa is dressed here compared to her co-stars

Might as well have dressed her in a burka. 

That being said Melissa is a very funny lady and while I would like to see more fat actors in dramatic roles (one of Melissa's breakout roles was as Sookie in the drama series Gilmore Girls, although she was the comic relief), I'm hoping to see more of her on the big screen even in comedic roles. She does have an important scene in the movie where she wakes up Annie and helps her change her life. Megan finally has some character development where she reveals she grew up ostracized and instead of giving up, she worked hard on her education and became a higher up in the government and confident in herself.  In a scene on an airplane, Megan immediately knows the man sitting next to her is a sky marshall (played by Melissa's real life husband Ben Falcone). He denies it and also refused her advances. Later it is revealed that not only was she right but they eventually hook up. 

The movie also had a very underused Rebel Wilson playing Annie's strange roommate.  And at the ending Wilson Phillips performing with Carnie Wilson looking much less emaciated. 

Is Bridesmaids fat positive? Not really. Melissa McCathy's comedic talents are underused. While there are no jokes about her weight, she is obnoxious, gross, and food obsessed.  However it is nice to actually see letting a fat chick even in a supporting role. But with such limited roles to fat actors, is it worth it just to be seen?