Fat Chicks Rule

Lying to create an epidemic

As of now, there has never been a diet drug that has worked in the long run. Many have dangerous side effects (including death). That being said, apparently the drug industry feels that they may give up on obesity drugs if the FDA would stop being so rigid on them.

They point to obesity drugs, where Arena Pharmaceuticals, Orexigen Therapeutics and Vivus have hit roadblocks in gaining approval for their diet pills because of potential safety concerns.

I say the FDA isn't rigid enough. Diet pills don't work, and have dangerous side effects. This is something the drug industry needs to give up on. Diabetes is slightly different. A pill that would cure diabetes would be wonderful, but according to Consumer reports, current diabetes medications are no better or safer than the ones they replaced. 

On to (or should I say back to) other liars, my favorite topic of the last three posts, namely fat hating Children's Health Care of Atlanta (CHOA). They are under more fire this week for using healthy fat actors to portray poor disease ridden obese children.  (There is also a story about NYC diabetes ad that photoshopped off a healthy person's leg.) Perhaps because they couldn't find any fat actors who had these diseases. 

Bioethicists and health communicators say untruthful testimonials in public health campaigns are wrong, even if their messages are, in a broad sense, advertisements. Falseness in these ads loses the public's trust, which is critical in public health initiatives, experts say.

Even pro-weight loss groups such as the Rudd Center disapproves of the ads.

Georgia’s “Strong4Life” campaign to address childhood obesity is a well-meaning but likely counterproductive attempt to address one of the most important public health priorities in our country. It is critical to address childhood obesity, but the Strong4Life campaign takes a misguided approach that may inadvertently worsen obesity and harm the very people who are most in need of help.

This highly visible and well-financed campaign ($50 million) intends to motivate parents and children to take action on childhood obesity by using images and testimonials of obese youth (hired actors) who are portrayed with “warning” messages...

I also want to thank them for pointing out the 50 million dollar price tag. In 2009, it was estimated that 11 percent of Georgia's children had no health insurance. I'm pretty sure that 50 mil would help cover that gap. Of give the money to me and I'll start a non-for-profit insurance company called FatCo whose sole purpose would be to give health insurance to people deemed "not healthy enough for insurance".

They have also come under major fire by the  Size acceptance community who have taken them on with a campaign called "I stand" Stand4kids, which I mentioned it briefly last week when the Tumblr site was only a handful of photos. SInce then, it has grown by leaps and bounds to over a hundred photos and more are being added each day. 

And in other news about liars, fat hating Whole Foods who claims you can be thin, healthy, and beautiful if you only eat from their store has said the mean nasty government (and yes the USDA needs to be more forceful on GMO crops) is forcing them to carry GMO foods. 

And I stand for my fat! Because fat is part of my body, it is a part of me. To hate it is to hate myself.

*Disclaimer the b/w image and background were photoshopped. However the fat people in the ads are fat and the thin people are thin. Quotes underneath are 100% truth. 

 

Paula Deen, the fear of food and CHOA's lies.

I happen to like Paula Deen ever since I heard her on Wait Wait Don't Tell me (She nailed all three of her questions about Tofu). Where she had some good advice about her Krispie Creme burger. Only one serving per lifetime. (I have yet to do my one time.) I am saddened to hear that she has diabetes and even more saddened to hear about attacks on her by another chef (Anthony Bourdain) for her high fat diet (Bourdain's only qualification toward being "healthy" is that he is thin; this former drug addict is also  an unapologetic drinker and smoker, also Bourdain's recipes are filled with fat as well. Both chefs make their foods from scratch.)

She was vilified in Salon that her own cooking caused her diabetes. Paul Campos has written a good essay why that probably isn't true. 

What also saddens me is the increased fear of food. Comfort food, soul food, celebratory food, all food considered bad for us has become of limits, even in moderation. If you eat comfort food, you are psychologically damaged. Kids can't touch any cupcakes at school party because if they are fat they are bad for eating it, if they thin they might become fat.  Even cheese has been vilified (warning on the link, it's filled with fat hatred.) We have made food the enemy. Unless you have a food allergy, food is nothing to fear. Food can be amazing, even the stuff that you can only have once per lifetime, even the stuff no one in their right mind should be eating. Learning to enjoy food takes away any sinful associations, allows your body and your mind the freedom to analyze what they need.

Dieting takes that decision away. 10 years after my last diet, I still haven't fully returned to eating normally, I still can't enjoy good food the way I want. I still can't savor it without guilt, and I still have trouble slowing my eating out of fear the food will be gone.

Now to the people that hate fat children about who I wrote previously.  First off, every single child in the ad campaign are actors. Surprised? I'm not. (It's an advert, people!)

One of the children, an articulate, sixth-grader named Chloe McSwain, from Sandy Springs, Ga., is portrayed as “Maritza.” At the beginning of a black-and-white 30-second spot, she stares right into the camera.

“My doctor says I have something called hypertension,” she says. “I’m really scared.” In white block letters, “SOME DISEASES AREN’T JUST FOR ADULTS ANYMORE,” flashes across a black screen.  In real life, Chloe, 11, actually doesn’t have hypertension, according to her mother.

 Meanwhile Doug Hertz a trustee (Not a doctor or medical profession but the local beer guy) of Children's health care of Atlanta. (CHOA) has defending their ads claiming that everyone is ignoring the issue. Except I've been reporting stories since this blog's inception how weight loss is constantly pushed on children. Hertz claimed It is not about a child’s weight; it is about increased risk of illnesses once seen only in adults. These include hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and liver problems, to name a few.

If it isn't about weight, why are the ads filled with fat kids, disturbed that they are fat?

Oh and CHOA, take note, Georgia has to two biggest polluters in the Country, the worst one is 60 miles from Atlanta. Maybe CHOA would like to focus on other health issues, say Asthma? But I suppose it's easier to pick on fat kids that take on a dirty plant.

I leave you with a far more beautiful and positive image

 

 

Healthy Weight Week

Press Release

By the third week in January, New Year diets are dumped, the rebound binge is over and people are looking for balance to get their lives back on track. They can find it in the 19^th annual Healthy Weight Week that begins Sunday, promoting lifestyle habits of wellness for people of all sizes and shapes.

“It’s a time to say ‘I’m okay and so are you.’ Let’s stop dieting and get on with living in normal healthy ways,” says Francie M. Berg, MS, licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine, who chairs the event.

Healthy Weight Week features two sets of awards. Adele, the young British singer, topped the Women’s Healthy Body Image Awards. The Slim Chance Awards for worst diets of 2011 went to a 23-year-old self-made millionaire, HCG hormone treatment, Sensa weight-loss crystals, and a plastic bracelet set with hologram discs.

During Healthy Weight Week, people are encouraged to improve habits in lasting ways by eating well, living actively and feeling good about themselves and others. For more information see www.healthyweight.net/hww.htm
##

CONTACT:
Ronda Irwin or Francie M. Berg
701-567-2646
Healthy Weight Network
402 South 14th Street
Hettinger, ND 58639
www.healthyweight.net

Take action today against SOPA & PIPA https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

Off to the woods

On vacation today, so no blog post. I will be snowshoeing in Vermont in highs expected to be 10.  Glad to have the extra padding. 

 

Georgia becomes a school yard bully & another study for HAES.

Early last year, I criticized a "Health" organization in Atlanta, Georgia for ads that both victimized and vilifies fat children. I've have bought up before that fat people are either victimized for not knowing any better or vilification for deliberately becoming fat. Most health care agencies tend to use the victimization mentality. If only those poor stupid fat people would understand healthy eating and exercise they would be healthy and slender!

However this organization seems to have decided to keep the negative ads and it seems they have now taken a step further into full scale bullying of fat kids.  Ads such as this one (I have used a cut version from the Huffington post as I don't want to show the full ad):

For some reason, this caption disturbed me the most. 

I have been fat since I was 10 years old. I am now forty, still fat, happily married, in a good job and independent.

I am still my parents little girl. 

What I do know is the worst diet in the world wasn't Weight Watchers or Atkins or Slim Fast or Nutrisystem or (I got a bunch more) but the stigma diet. Playing devil's advocate here for a moment.  I wouldn't start another diet unless I was motivated. So I never started one when I felt ashamed. Feeling shame made me not want to bother dieting, or lose weight or do anything because I was a monster and not worthy.

I'm not the only one who thinks of this as outright bullying. Paul Campos pointed out in his Daily Beast article: 

Oh heavens no: we certainly don’t want to shame anyone!  After all, we value, and indeed treasure, human “diversity” in all its forms—except, apparently, body diversity...

...Even if we put aside the difficult question of how you can avoid shaming and stigmatizing people if at the same time you’re claiming that their bodies are diseased as a consequence of behavior that’s within their (or at least their parents’) control, there are other problems with the theory that it’s useful to inform fat children that in this culture it’s not considered desirable to be fat.

Harriet Brown points out

Efforts like this one emphasize the idea that weight loss is a matter of personal responsibility, and they demonize fat children and teens in the name of helping them. How do kids feel when they see kids who look like them being targeted as not OK? They already know it’s bad to be fat; in one recent study, children as young as three showed a strong preference for thinness over fat, and made comments like “I hate her because she has a fat stomach” and “She’s fat and ugly.”

I firmly believe to the creators of these ad campaigns don't care about children, they hate fat people. There is a change.org petition against these ads, if you haven't signed it, please do.  And it's a waste of 50 million dollars when I would much rather it be used to, say, take care of Georgia's children. 

And studies have shown these "inventions" do not cause weight loss. 

 Waters' group aimed to update a 2005 review that found many pediatric obesity interventions were not able to reduce weight gain but were successful in promoting a healthy diet and an increased level of physical activity.

So an "intervention" causes healthy habits but no weight loss, is it a failure.

Meanwhile if they really really wanted to help the children, they might look at some research. For example check this study out, look at that conclusion:

Conclusions: Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index.

Is anyone here tired of my comparing HAES to weight based health? Because I have one more.

Strong4life = shame, eating disorders, stigmatization, humilation, marginalization and stress.

HAES = Eating right, movement, healthy ingrained habits, body love, oh and significant decreased mortality.

From Radical to Realism! ReVolution Time!

It’s a new year. And many are pledging the same boring resolutions of 2011, to lose weight! To become thin! (or thinner!), to use that treadmill covered with cobwebs! To fork over money to my old gym! To refill the seats at Weight Watchers! Cut those carbs, count those calories! Lower those fats! 2012 will be the year of a whole new me! There is a reason now you are bombarded with diet ads. They know one of the biggest resolution is to lose weight. Weight Watcher's current slogan is "Believe because it works."  The New York Times begs to differ. 

A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. 

Instead of those same tired resolutions we make each years (and yes, you should call your mother more often), let’s try something radical and different, reVolution. Let’s make changes at any time for the good of yourself and others. Dieting and intentional weight loss doesn't work for most of us in the long run. So why keep repeating these failures?

Revolution comes from real change. The only real change you might get from a diet is eating disordered.  Although critic often say the fat acceptance movement are just fat people "giving up" but we aren't. What we are giving up that the thin cookie cutter ideal is a lie. We are giving up that food and movement is the enemy. 

Health at Every size shouldn't be as radical as it is and it shouldn't be dismissed. The idea of eating healthy and normal foods and doing movement you enjoy and letting your weight fall 8777745wherever it is supposed to be isn't radical, it should be normal. Diets are the ones that are abnormal. They teach us healthy is only when you diet.  Associations of health with dieting means if I'm off the diet, I shouldn't do anything healthy.

HAES shouldn't have to be a revolution, because it is something we can do, everyday.