Fat Chicks Rule

Stigma is not the new black

Lately it seems that despite studies that say weight stigma can cause health issues, it is still acceptable to use. As of now, no study has prove stigma works in long term weight loss. If anything stigma probably causes weight gain and "obesity" related diseases. I wrote a few months ago how being fat can be a symptom of stress. 

It seems that there are two methods of fat stigma and three ways to carry it out. The first method is victimization which we see in the CHOA's Strong for Life campaign that I and several other bloggers have been covering the last few weeks. In the CHOA's ads, fat children are victimized. Their lifes are pathetic. They are overeaters, suffer deadly diseases, will die at any moment, and are forced to be adults not children. A new video now shows a fat kid dying at 32 after a long life of drinking soda, beer, or urine. Now if only their stupid parents would realize their kids were tubs of lard and put them on diets they wouldn't die so young. (I'm sure CHOA's doesn't want the kids to diet, merely embrace lifestyle changes and when those lifestyle changes don't make those children thin, what's next? I'm thinking eating disorders.) 

The second method is vilification. And this comes in two forms, the first is the vilification of fat on your body. i.e. Being fat is bad, but fat people are okay. The Rudd center is a perfect example of this. They are against obesity AND weight based-stigma. I see this as an oxymoron, they don't.  You can't hate fat and love fat people. (One reader compared this to hating cancer but loving someone with cancer. I call BS.)

New York City has ads that stigmatize fat by making it gross. They have an ad where a person is drinking fat. Fat is automatically assumed to be bad. You want to stop drinking soda because ew look at all that gross fat. 

The other way fat people are portrayed as villains is through dubious moral reasoning. Fatties are immoral because they are delibrately lazy and don't eat right. 

And then there is Disney who just made fat people villains and I'm not talking about Ursula or the Queen of Hearts. I'm talking about their new interactive childhood obesity exibit at Epcot Center and it is horrifying. I had planned to go into details about this disturbing attraction, but I found out on Saturday that the site is down and rumor has it so is the attraction. The blog Red No 3 does a good job explaining the details. Please sign this petition to let Disney know that if they retool this attraction, it should be free of fat hatred (There is absolutely nothing wrong with an attraction that encourages healthy eating and movement). 

Think about bullying. Does bullying improve quality of life.

What do you do with Bullies?

You stand up to them.

The good, the bad and the obnoxious.

The good.

The billboard project and We Stand! has been creating not a flurry of action, but a feel good environment among fat activists. A post on Big Fat Blog talks about how the Billboard project has helped with dealing with growing up being bullied. I for one love to look at these beautiful positve imges as much as possible. Here's anther one to enjoy:

And starting tonight, you can vote for your favorite billboard. 

The Bad

Wired Magazine has an entire article devoted to selling strategies of Weight Watchers, which is changing their diet plan, again. The article starts by humiliating a current WW poster child with the same old stereotypes.

Things aren’t so bad that he would get the Kevin Smith treatment from Southwest Airlines, but it’s easy to imagine him breaking into a sweat carrying a pint of Ben & Jerry’s up a flight of stairs. He’ll soon be diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol. His doctor suggests a statin.

Now the After, more than a decade later: close-cropped blond hair, 34-inch waist, and 15 percent body fat on his 6′ 3″ frame. In a form-fitting suit, the 45-year-old father of two cuts the figure of a Marine sergeant 20 years his junior. This is a picture of a man in control.

The author of the article manages to use every single fat stereotype there is. The fat man eats too much, exercises too little, and will have a 100% chance of being metabolically unfit and out of control.  The thin man has no health issues and is completely in control. Here fat people are villianized. If only those fatties would learn some fucking control, they would be thin. The author mentioned several factors for weight gain but leaves out the genetic component. 

The irony here is between this man and me. He put on 75 pounds since he was young. I put on 75 pounds as well but from yo-yo dieting. 

And who is he now, this humailted poster child? He is the current CEO of Weight Watchers, David Kirchhoff. He has to keep his weight off, restraining his eating because it would look bad if he were to gain the weight back, wouldn't it?

Weight Watchers changes its program based on what's popular. The low carb craze had led to a low gylcemic craze, and a hatred of bread. I'm gluten intolerant. My stomach doesn't like it. But you going to find people give up gluten in hopes of losing weight (Gluten free products aren't always low calorie). 

As part of her job, Miller-Kovach and her team constantly follow the latest trends in nutritional science. A few years before the meeting, for example, they had explored a concept called the glycemic index, or GI, which establishes a hierarchy of carbohydrates based on their effect on blood glucose. 

Weight watchers follows trends for one reason: they want your money. They don't care if you are healthy.  They are a not a lifestyle change, they are a diet, they encourage restricted eating.

The obnoxious.

My husband has traveled more than I have and I've been waiting to visit more places around the world. He mentioned we might want to wait for retirement, but I told him I wanted to go now before the airline industry implodes.

Case in point...

Apparently the UK court of Appeals have decided that fat people can't sue if they are humilated on a flight and because of this decision, airlines in the country are pushing for a "Obese tax" to pretty much force fat people to buy a second seat. This ruling goes beyond fatness, it means that if anyone is humilated on a flight, they have no recource to the law.

"The ruling confirms that disabled passengers have no right to dignity once the wheels leave the runway,” said Mr Barnett. “It also means that airlines are immune if they choose to embarrass overweight passengers by demanding a fat tax.”

The implosion begins. 

Is being fat the governments business and of course more on Georgia.

Last Tuesday I attended a live debate "Is Obesity the Government's Business" that featured Paul Campos and John Strossel as against the motion and for the motion was Dr. David Satcher and Pamela Peeke.

You can watch it here, so I don't have to summarize. (And see if you can spot me in the audience) I will talk about different points the debate bought up.

Dr. Satcher bought up the issue that sometimes government is good for you and sometimes it's not. He used lead poisoning prevention as an example. Here lies the problem. First off, there are still issues with lead poisoning in paint, and the fight to get lead out of paint was based in grassroots political action. The business of obesity is A) corporate driven and B) worth around $60 billion. If the government were to help fill the industry's coffers, I'm sure their shareholders won't mind. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they encouraged it. I covered this in a November post that the at least eight of the National Institute of Health Obesity board's 18 members have ties to the dieting industry. Kind of like letting the paint industry set up the government lead prevention program.

Another was a point that Dr. Satcher and Dr. "I want to be Dr. Oz" Peeke.  Dr. Peeke especially kept pushing the idea that they aren't for making people thin but making them healthy, even though a quick Google search of Dr. Peeke returned nothing except articles on weight loss. Dr. Satcher mentioned a group of men who had improved their health outcomes and diabetes by changing their habits but did not have significant weight loss. They kept going back and forth. That fat was bad but we aren't trying to make fat people thin. 

The idea is this, I don't think the government has any role in fixing "obesity" because the government's stated intenton is to make fat people thin. Now, if the government wants to create safe parks, ensure that all schools have gym classes and that cafeteria food is healthy and edible, (As a standard I don't think school cafeteria food is healthy or edible) I'm fine with that , but not on the idea of thin=health. Plenty of fat people change their habits that result in little or no weight loss (myself included). But there isn't a lot of money in that. How much would Dr. Peeke sell if she didn't have a weight loss compenent. 

My questions--which I didn't get to ask but Paul addressed near the end--is this: if, say, we increase physical activity and create healthy edible lunches the kids eat, but kids don't get thinner as a result ("obesity" rates haven't dropped but they haven't risen), is it still a success? 

Meanwhile, in Georgia, the wonderful Ragen Chastain has not only hit the second monetary goal of 15K but unlocked the 5k donation from More of Me to Love. That means over 1000 people donated to this project. I hope Atlanta enjoys the positive billboards.

This project has been covered by the Ms. Magazine, Adios Barbie and hey look, BBC News have covered this wonderful campaign.

CHOA meanwhile still defends it. 

The time for "warm and fuzzies", he says, was over. So instead, his hospital created an aggressive campaign, based in part off a previously successful anti-methamphetamine campaign. (BBC News article)

Yes, because fat children, meth-heads, what's the difference? 

Food Crisis and more on Georgia.

By now many of have heard the story of a British teen who ate almost nothing but chicken mc nuggets and suffered health issues because of it. Amanda Hess, editor of the website GOOD points out:

It's also inspired timely commentary from health "experts." Last week, a PR agency pitched me a story pegged to Irvine's collapse. A "weight loss specialist" could be made available to "comment on the dangers of Stacey's addiction" and "speak to the dangers of childhood obesity." The doctor in question has "specialized in the study and treatment of Bariatric Medicine" and has "directed the operation of multiple Weight Loss Centers."

The teen was thin. 

If you say something long enough it will become accepted as truth even if it's not.

Her health problems are not related to obesity, and they won't be solved by stapling her stomach. Yet we're so culturally hardwired to believe that unhealthy equals fat and vice versa that even photographic evidence...

An article from a foodie website was shocked that the girl isn't obese.

As I have mentioned before I believe that people should eat as best they can and move as much as they need. This doesn't just mean fat people. This oppressive moral crusade against fat people also damages the health of thin people. When thin equals healthy, thin people will assume they are healthy. I have to wonder if the teen figured she was healthy because she was thin.

Being fat is not the worst thing in life especially when there have been several studies which show that eating poorly and not fat is the cause of certain diseases. I'm not against campaigns for people to cut sugar, cigarettes, trans-fats and processed foods. (Although I question that they might be far more instustive than they should be). What am against is victimization of fat people by stigmatizing us, not for health but for moral reasons.

Meanwhile several projects against the ads in Altanta has grown by leaps and bounds. The first one the "I stand" or stand for kids campaign spearheaded by Marilyn Wann and Atchka Fatty of Fierce Thinking Fatties. There are hundreds of I Stand pictures, Pattie Thomas has done a short video here and Jennifer Jonassen created a much longer (both worth the watch) video. 

And as mentioned on Saturday, Ragen Chastian is raising money to billboards and a media campaign against the CHOA ads. She is almost to the 15K goal but needs more donations to unlock to the 5k match. Here is information how to donate either through Paypal (where you can go as low as $1) or the fundraising website (minimum is $5). I've donated three times to help get the match, so please just send $1.

 

 

Fatties fat back

The magnificent dancer Ragen Chastain is raising money for a billboard in Atlanta Georgia (Preferably near CHOA). The original goal was 10k which was passed, now it is up to 15K and it's getting there.

More of me to love has pledged 5k if Ragen can get 5k (done) and 1000 donors. (More than halfway there) Please donate. You can go as low as $1 or as high as you want. See Ragen's blog post for more info.