Fat Chicks Rule

The good, the bad and the nutty.

The good

This awesome billboard has gone up in Atlanta until the end of may. 

 

The California weight loss clinics I wrote about last September that push lapband surgery as an easy and simple way to lose weight are being investigated. 

The ubiquitous ad campaign and the surgeons affiliated with it are under intense scrutiny. At least three wrongful death lawsuits have been filed, and the Los Angeles County Coroner is investigating one of the deaths. And according to a spokesman at the California Department of Insurance, the agency has initiated an investigation into allegations of insurance fraud.

The Bad

The April issue of Vogue has a story about a mother, Dara-Lynn Weiss, who put her 7 year old daughter on a diet because *gasp* her daughter was fat. Her response wasn't to get her daughter to eat healthier and move more, but an actual diet that included skipping meals  (she didn't allow her daughter to have dinner because she had a big lunch), moralization of food (foods became 'good' and' bad'), and no attempts at moderation. (Her daughter is not allowed pizza at the weekly school pizza day because she ate a corn salad.) The mother herself clearly has issues with food.  Projection, anyone?

I'm not a fortune teller but I think I see anoxeria or bulimia in her future or she might actually be *gasp* fat.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, Australia, Amy Smith the CEO of Jenny Craig Australasia, will be speaking at the  conference for educators for girls. It is igniting a storm of protest. 

On May 25 Amy Smith, the CEO of Jenny Craig, will present to a conference of educators for the Alliance of Girls' Schools (AGSA). Described as a "champion of women's health" by Catherine Misson, Principal of Melbourne Girls Grammar School, Jenny Craig's CEO will be enlisted to "inspire" attendees: what they learn will impact on what they bring back to the classroom.

Already letters from health professionals have begun flooding in, with some voicing their protests from as far as the US and Middle East. They all agree on one thing: Global giant Jenny Craig, which profits from the billion-dollar diet industry, is not an appropriate 'leader' for educators of young girls.

Sign the petition here against it.

The nutty.

From my neck of the woods, New York City Mayor Bloomberg has decided that certain foods can't be donated to the poor and homeless because *gasp* they can't tell if the how much salt, fat and fiber the food has.

Glenn Richter arrived at a West Side synagogue on Monday to collect surplus bagels — fresh nutritious bagels — to donate to the poor. However, under a new edict from Bloomberg’s food police he can no longer donate the food to city homeless shelters. 

So if you're homeless, hungry and poor in New York, make sure you dumpster dive for some carrots instead of getting some fresh bagels. The bagels might make you fat and we can't have that happening. 

Real Habit Heroes

An article from the Vancover Sun asked these questions:

What's more important to your health: eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, or sporting a healthy waist-line? What about an active lifestyle vs. an optimal body mass index (or BMI, a measure of height vs. weight)?

Most medical professionals and organizations seem to think being in that arcane 18.5 to 24.9 BMI range is the most important thing you can do for your health. Even if never in your adult life you have been in that range and all attempts end up making you fatter.  My healthy weight using that standard would put me at 154 lbs. A number I've never been at even at the best of my dieting days. 

Going back the past few weeks about the scare monger campaign of CHOA and the Disney portrayal of fat people as villains, an article in CNN points out the increase of fat hatred and fear of fat in young children.

Children pick up on stated and unstated messages from their parents and media starting from the time they can open their eyes, quickly learning what the ideal person for their gender looks like. When parents are more concerned with weight, the children are more likely to have the same concerns. 

It's bad enough that children have to deal with teasing from their peers but they don't need it from adults as well. CHOA thought they were helping children by being scary.  All these scare tactics do is create a fear of fat. Kids make fun of you and adults tell you will get horrible diseases and die early if you aren't thin. 

Linda Bacon's article in the Huffington Post points out 

In other words, as long as we're focused on changing our bodies -- which the data shows isn't going to happen for most people, anyway -- we are missing the real benefits that come from caring for our bodies.

We need to break the dieting habit and learn the most important one, really caring for your body. Listen to it, give it foods and movement it likes. Don't starve it, don't hurt it. Just accept we all don't come from the same cookie cutter. 

 

 

Fat, Happy and HAES.

A study at Warwick university indicated that you remain happy in your old age regardless of your weight. 

The researchers also found that being overweight or obese did not have a significant impact on mental well-being levels, with people with a BMI of more than 30 showing similar mental quality of life levels to those considered to be a healthy weight...

...We suggest that this could be due to better coping abilities, an interpretation supported by previous research showing older people tend to have internal mechanisms to deal better with hardship or negative circumstances than those who are younger.

The good news is being fat or thin in your old age should not effect your well being. As I grow older conformist appearence doesn't bother me as much. I no longer care if I'm fat, have cooties, sport a stylish haircut or wear this season's fashion.  Coming to terms with being fat has given me a tremedous sense of wellbeing.  I think as you get older, stigma about your appearence doesn't effect you as much. Such as the scene in Fried Green Tomatoes where Kathy Bates' character hits the car of the younger and "prettier" girls who had previously mocked her due to her middle age.

Speaking of feeling good, Yahoo Shine has an article about health rules you can break including one surprising HAES rule. One which I have mentioned here about a zillion times (okay, maybe only a hundred million). Eat healthy and move and let your body decide what your normal weight is. 

(Joanne) Ikeda advises her patients to stop obsessing over their BMI, eat a nutritious diet, and log 150 minutes of exercise per week. "A healthy lifestyle results in a healthy weight." 

A New York Times blog points out the importance of exercise for disease prevention. 

To avoid that fate, he says, keep moving, even if in small doses. “When I’m really busy, I make sure to get up and walk around the office or jog in place every hour or so,” he says. Wear a pedometer if it will nudge you to move more. “You don’t have to run marathons,” he says. “But the evidence is clear that you do need to move.”

I've mentioned several times on this blog, the importance of movement and that you move to the best of your abilties (which may mean anything from a short walk around the block to running a marathon.)

So eat right, exercise and be happy!

Will Power

Last week I mentioned that Disney had put up an exhibit at Epcot about the evils of being fat. As soon as the negative press hit, the exhibit went down for retooling. In the meantime please email [email protected]. Let them know that you were offended by the exhibit, glad to hear they took it down and whatever suggestions you might have when or if they bring it back. 

My biggest issue has least to do with the villains (I actually like the Snacker. She can use her spatula wand to make food therefore solving hunger). Maybe they are villains because they are tired of people picking on them. My biggest issue has to do with the hero Will Power.  It puts forth the old assumption that fat people are fat because we lack will power, that we are either stupid or lazy for being unable to stick to their diet. Something that simply isn't true. Most fat people have done things with their lives that require will power and discipline. Fat Studies is an academic field that has people from all types of professional backgrounds including people who have advanced degrees. How do you think they got this far? Does the snacker also have a wand that grants degrees? No, we all worked hard for it (I have two master's degree, when I did my thesis for my second one, I had to forfeit weekends for three months). So to say fat people don't have will power is a misnomer. We have plenty of will power. What we don't have are bodies meant to be thin and all the willpower in the world won't change that. 

When it comes to will power you may find that fat and thin people are willing to change bad habits without pressure or stigma. (I personally changed more bad habits since I stopped dieting then when I was in my 17 year dieting/binging cycle). 

And I can't end a blog post without an update from CHOA. Over at Fierce Free-Thinking Fatties (Oh btw, keeping this blog up while working a 9-5 job, being active, having  a social life, writing and research takes a lot of will power. Other bloggers write long wonderful masterpieces that I only wish I had the discipline to do) reports that CHOA's billboard campaign will be ending sometime in March. They claim that it has nothing do with the pressure from about everyone.

 I would like to share in the jubilation of the announcement, but I’m still not satisfied with the response. Strong4Life is trying to save face by saying that they had planned all along to end the campaign in March (you would think that if this were the case, they would have made this clear up front so that all the concerned parties would know what kind of timeline they had).

Personally, I think this is a slap in the face.

After being called out by, among others, the National Institutes of Health and Jillian Michaels, S4L has essentially said, “Don’t get your panties in a wad, we were leaving anyway.”

it was part 1 the billboard phase was supposed to end in March and they did not bow to pressure. I'm wondering what Phase 2 will be, perhaps the encouragement of teasing at school, fat camps for all, or mandatory dieting?