1. No spam.
2. No trolls.
3. No hate speech
4. Absolutely no diet or weight loss talk.
5. I make the decisions on what comments get through. My blog, my rules.
I've decided to take a short break from blogging until January to work on National Novel Writing Month and a few other fiction projects. Not to mention the holidays.
I have also found my weekends have become so busy that I don't have the time or effort I can normally put into my blog posts.
I will still actively post to Twitter, so please follow my twitter feed is you don't already.
When I return to blogging, it will probably be a twice monthly blog post. Not necessarily on Mondays but anytime I see a news item I want to write about.
I have really enjoyed the last ten years of writing a weekly blog and especially interacting with the readers.
No Blog Post this week as I am very busy. But please participate in the ASDAH conference which will be in Boston Next Year (And I hope to be there).
2015 ASDAH Educational Conference Theme & Call for Proposals
With the 2015 ASDAH Educational Conference set to take place July 17-19 in the heart of downtown Boston at the Boston Park Plaza hotel, the Association for Size Diversity and Health is excited to announce its conference theme:
Difficult Conversations:
Building Relationships in the HAES® Community and Beyond
With an increasing number of challenges facing the HAES community, both internally and externally, it’s time to remove the barriers that hinder the conversations that will strengthen ASDAH’s work, resolve and mission of spreading the Health At Every Size® message. Therefore, the entire conference will be devoted to discussions around the difficult conversations ASDAH and the HAES community needs to have.
ASDAH is seeking proposals for presentations and workshops at the conference. For the first time ever, and to ensure that crucial voices are not silenced, presenters are not required to be ASDAH members.
Please visit the ASDAH website (http://bit.ly/asdah-2015) to learn about the different kinds of topics and areas that the ASDAH Conference is hoping to cover, though, remember that presentations are welcome in subjects not on the list. All presentations should include consideration of relevant elements of diversity for wider application in multiple environments – one of the difficult challenges already facing the HAES community. See the website for the different elements submissions should include.
Please email submissions to Dr. Jenny Copeland ([email protected]) for review no later than December 15, 2014. Please contact Dr. Copeland with any questions.
ASDAH looks forward to seeing you at the conference!
I've done all kinds of diets including lose weight slow and lose weight fast ones. They all ended up the same way. I'd regain all the weight plus more. Eventually I dieted myself to an extra 70 pounds.
A study in Australia showed that dieters who did crash diets (a very low calories one) not only lost more weight but stuck with it longer, compared to the ones who did plans with slow weight loss. Essentially in the race to lose 12.5% of your body weight, crash diets won!
However, the new study shows that "achieving a weight loss target of 12.5 percent is more likely, and drop-out is lower, if losing weight is done quickly," Purcell said.
12.5% is 15lbs if you weigh 200 lbs.
But before you makers of crash diets pat yourself on the back, the study found out one other thing.
People in both groups regained about 71 percent of their lost weight by the end of three years, regardless of how fast they had slimmed down, the researchers said.
The gist is a crash diet resulted in quicker weight loss than a slow and steady one but 71% of both diets caused weight regain of all their weight within three years (and I bet that percentage will be higher within five years).
Diets do not work in the long run for most people. It doesn't matter if you do it slow, fast, or on alternative Saturdays.
For 17 years I suffered from disordered eating. I wasn’t anorexic. The Diets I followed usually came to about 1200-1600 calories. Only on occasion did I starve myself but it never lasted. My body would rebel and bingeing would follow soon after. Bingeing wasn’t about eating crap food or enjoying rich food. (As I mentioned last week, fat people are allowed to have splurges). Binge eating is eating a lot of food with no enjoyment and ignoring hunger cues. No one told me any of these behaviors were bad or unhealthy. I was given kudos to any weight lost and I was chastised for my binges.
A study in Pediatrics discovered that even teenage girls with normal weight are showing signs of anorexia. Although the study was small, it found that these signs increased between 2005 and 2009.
In her study, which included 99 teens aged 12 to 19, Whitelaw found only 8 percent of the patients had EDNOS-Wt in 2005, but more than 47 percent of the patients had it in 2009.
The cause, they think, is an obsession with fatness.
The reasons for the apparent increase in these patients is less clear, but both Sim and Whitelaw said it is likely a combination of increased awareness of the problem and an increased focus on obesity.
This study was small but I bet if they looked at a larger amount of girls including girls of all sizes, they'd see the same behaviors. We’ve made obsession with fatness a national pastime and we push impossible ideals with rail thin airbrushed and photoshopped models. We tell fat kids they will die before they are 30, are diseased, and the worst thing in the world is to be fat. I’m not surprised that eating disorders are becoming more widespread.
For the first time in my adult life as a fat person, I wore a bikini top in public. I wore one before at a NAAFA (National Association to Advance FAT Acceptance) convention knowing there I wouldn’t feel body shamed but I never wore one outside a fat loving environment. Before I gave up dieting and learned to love my body I never went swimming without a t-shirt. I was terrified I would be judged as a big fat fattie and thought covering my body would magically make me look thin.
After I gave up dieting, I stopped wearing a t-shirt but I wasn’t quite ready to show my belly in public. Deep down I knew I should--that exposing my beautiful body for the world to see would be my final step for loving my body completely.
Like the letter you received from “Offended Daughter”, my arcane BMI makes me about 70 lbs overweight. Weight, I might add, which came less from overeating and more from genetics and yo-yo dieting. I love to swim more than anything. But it took an article about a brave fat (and gorgeous) woman who wore a bikini in public to inspired me to buy a bikini top from Love Your Peaches and then wear it in public. Did I need advice? No. I'm loving my body more and more everyday and I love my bikini. I continue to swim, walk, and ride my bike.
I’m here to talk about your unwarranted advice and your fat shaming.
“Offended Daughter” didn’t ask you about her doctor or her health. She asked about what to do with her fatophobic mother who couldn’t bear to see rolls of fat on her daughter. Fat people live with this alienation all the time. We are told to cover up (especially when we exercise.) We are constantly bombarded to lose weight, yet the options for weight loss include high failure diets and dangerous weight surgery and pills. You should have told “Offended Daughter” that she should wear her bikini proudly not just at her childhood home but everywhere she swims. If mom doesn’t like it, tough shit.
On Friday a train in Queens derailed. Thankfully no one was seriously injured. Unfortunately I needed that train to get to Big Fat Flea on Sunday.
That wasn't about to stop me.
I hate shopping in most stores. I procrastinate because I don't want to deal with tiny racks or trying on the small selections to maybe get two things that still didn't seem to fit right. I'd come home disappointed and frustrated because I didn't get what I needed.
I didn’t procrastinate when I came to the flea. The night before I plotted the best way to get there. Looking over subways lines, MTA advisories and even considered driving in (that was nixed due to the Five Boro Bike tour.) I wasn't about to miss the biggest fat shopping experience of the year.
I got there at about 10:20, checked in as a VIP (If you can afford it for $27 you can come in a half hour early. It's worth it to get your hands on the better selection and to avoid the lines.)
I gave myself 15 minutes to shop, 15 minutes to try on and then I would look at accessories and shoes. Something I could do while the big crowds swelled around the clothes.
Within fifteen minutes, my bag overflowed with dresses, tops and pants. Many of which still had tags on it and I headed into the fitting area.
At one point the temporary wall marking off the fitting room collapsed and many of us stood there wearing just our undergarments (I had just tried on a top) but everyone took that in good humor. The whole atmosphere was lively. The dressing room filled with loving women who would try on clothes, get honest advice, and pass around clothes that didn't fit them.
I tried on everything and put less back than I ever had at any department store. With the amazing selection, I didn't have to settle, there was plenty to choose from.
When I finally paid, my total was $61 for
1 dress with tags (originally marked as $56) Every year at the flea, I have something I call my ultimate find. This was it.
5 tops
3 pants
1 swim bottom
1 pair of shorts
1 bra
Remember I wrote that two weeks ago I spent $60 in Marshalls for two pairs of pants because out of the six I tried, these two looked "okay".
I had made a mental list of what to look for: Pants for work, shirts for different seasons, bike shorts.
Except for the bike shorts (#5 was regular shorts), I walked out with everything I wanted. The Flea gave me something other stores never could, not just selection and sizes but a big dose of self-esteem.
A recent study has said people considered “underweight” have a death rate 1.8 times higher than “normal” weight people. Us fatties were only 1.2-1.3 times higher (yippie?)
After reviewing more than 50 previous researches, researchers of a new study have found that excessive thinness is also not good for health. Clinically underweight people have a higher risk of death than obese individuals.
Are we going to break out the term: morbidly thin? Are there going to be Diet programs to help the poor, unfortunate, and stupid thin people, who can't help but not eat?
Are we going to have a national program to help the morbidly thin somehow get to magic BMI number 18.5?
No-- because a campaign like that would be ridiculous.
Or would it?
Recently, Yale student Frances Chan was forced to gain weight because the university health center Yale Health deemed her as having an eating disorder as her BMI wasn’t past the magical number of 18.5. (Yale later dropped it, I assume because they realized how ridiculous it was.) I’m not quite sure what Yale’s obsession with weight is but apparently Chan wasn’t the only student forced to gain weight or leave school. I just know when I went to college the school seemed to care about our academic achievement rather than our personal lives.
Even if she had anorexia (which she doesn’t, she’s naturally slender), forcing an anorexic to gain weight doesn’t cure the eating disorder.In order to get Yale Health off her back, she ignored her natural hunger cues, overate, and didn’t exercise.
If someone goes to the doctor, they should not get a weight lecture, especially if they aren't there to talk about weight (in Chan’s case she was having a lump checked). The only time a doctor should talk about your weight is if you lose or gain it rapidly. While Yale and other schools need to have outreach to students because eating disorders tends to hit college age women, there is outreach and then over reach. Like with many fat people, Frances Chan’s health was judged solely on her BMI.
People have different body types and BMI says nothing about their health. Being as healthy as you can trumps weight loss/gain.
...but for the people who have been losing the battle of the weight, if they can at least become fit, then they can have a very good prognosis and good overall health.
Living in New York City, I climb stairs. In my house, in the subway, at my job, and in random places you wouldn’t think would have stairs. Two months ago I climbed the Manitou incline which was like a giant staircase. I admit when I sometimes climb to the subway (I often take an elevated train), I get winded and going up the incline I thought my heart was going to explode.
Every day I take some kind of stairs, an while the exercise has done wonders for my legs, it has not made me thin. Riding my exercise bike 15-30 minutes a day has not made me thin, walking at least a mile or more a day had not made me thin, my daily stretches, my yoga, my summer swimming, my walks around the office has not made me thin.
There is a slogan: "Nothing about us, without us." which is often used among marginalized groups. It essentially means one group decides the fate/treatment of a marginalized group without their input. Fat activists see this all the time. "Obesity" organizations which decide on policy on how to make fat people thin don't seek input from actual fat people.
I have mentioned before that there is a constant assumption that if you are fat because you stuff your face and sit on the couch all day. Some organizations try to be gentle by saying “It’s not your fault you stuff your face.” Every single treatment for fatness is always the same: eat less calories than your body needs (aka a diet). It is the same treatment used in the last forty years and still hasn’t been proved to work in the long run.
If the people running this International Congress of Obesity would talk to an actual fat person (and not just try to treat them), they might figure out that taking the stairs will not make us thin.
When organizations pull stunts like this, the only thing at which they can possibly succeed is creating an environment that prevents people from, and shames people for, navigating the world in the way that’s best for them and their situation.
And shame on this Amanda Sainsbury who decided fat people must become thin or they will die and Health at Every Size is bad for encourage people to stay fat. But what can you expect from a person who writes diet books? (Even worse this quack is the editor in chief of the Journal of Eating Disorders).
While I certainly agree that it is possible to have healthy behaviours that provide health benefits at a wide variety of body sizes, I disagree that it is possible to be or to stay truly healthy at every size.
This is the second time I've seen someone add a Y to the end of health when referring to Health at Every Size. This, to me, changes the meaning. Even though HAES is more geared to fat people because of the discrimination we face in health care, HAES is meant for all body types. Healthy is an abstraction. You can't really define it because everyone has different ranges. My husband can get to the top of a mountain but put him in a lake, and I’m going to zoom past him. Are we both “Healthy” or “Unhealthy”?
It is thus not surprising that people frequently put off doing anything about excess weight until better conditions arise (e.g. when the children start school or leave home, when a better financial position or home is attained, after retirement, etcetera). The health at every size concept implies putting off doing anything about excess weight indefinitely, instead accepting a higher BMI and focusing on healthy behaviours.
Ironically here she accidently points out how HAES is better than dieting. People put off Dieting. They wait until January or when they have money. HAES you do every day, no putting off. No need for money. It's learning to be as healthy as you can in the body you have whether it be too fat, too thin, disabled, or suffering from a disease. You can do HAES if you walk the stairs, take the escalator, or jump up and down.
Fatness among 3-5 years old has dropped 43% and fat adults and kids over 5 and adults have stayed the same and have been for the past decade. Not just in the US but the world.
Paul Campos writes: As Michael Gard notes in his recent book The End of the Obesity Epidemic, data from all over the world indicate that, over the past ten to 15 years, obesity rates have leveled off or declined among adults and children.
Does this mean the epidemic is over? No, because the epidemic of fat hatred isn’t over. A few years ago I breathed a sigh of relief when multiple studies came out showing that overweight people lived the longest (longevity didn't decrease until your BMI reached 37 and even then it wasn't that bad) and the 400,000 people who died of fatness was revised to 25,814 http://www.obesitymyths.com/myth2.2.htm . For a minute I thought that we finally won. We finally proved that fat does not equal death and making fat people thin was not a cure. Maybe it was time to move to HAES(tm) and that instead of focusing on large bodies, we could focus on getting all people to eat right and find enjoyable movement.
Then the diet/medical/drug industry reared its ugly heads. We were bombarded with “studies” proving WLS cured everything; more infective diet drugs hit the market; the American Medical Association called us a disease; we are penalized for not joining “volunteer” workplace wellness. And anytime an actual study came out saying fatness is not in fact unhealthy, those studies were raked over the coals (Any study claiming fatness is bad is never questioned.) When the study came out claiming fatness among young children dropped 43% Forbes was quick to point out it went up first before going down a mere 14% (Although Paul Campos agrees with their assessment.)
Regardless of the drop, this fake war on children needs to end. There is nothing wrong with children enjoying movement and eating delicious and nutritious foods, but when you single out the fat kids, you cause eating disorders, low self-esteem and bullying. According to School obesity programs may promote worrisome eating behaviors and physical activity in kids Report:
30% of parents of children age 6-14 report worrisome eating behaviors and physical activity in their children.
7% of parents say that their children have been made to feel bad at school about what or how much they were eating.
Every once in a while, I get an email asking if I would host a guest blogger or if I would be interested in this infographic. Usually the blogger or infographic is completely inappropriate for my blog such as the evils of obesity, or has nothing to do with fatness at all. Depending on mood I will ignore or engage. When I engage, my response is usually "Have you even read my blog?" or "Why would I want your fat hating infographic?" Usually I never hear anything again and I assume this was spam. A mass email hoping that a few bloggers will post whatever product they are selling. When I got the last one (from a plastic surgeon service no less) I wrote back "Are you a spammer or an idiot?" expecting not to hear anything back.
I got a message not three hours later.
I am a spammer nor an idiot… (I think this was a Freudian slip.)
Obviously you are bitter though and not as optimistic about your disease as your blog leaves one to believe.
Best of luck with that shining attitude in the future.
The issue here is not this idiot or spammer (or both). But this damage the AMA just did to fat people by labeling all fatness as a disease. Even this moron thinks I have a disease. There is nothing wrong with getting help to fat people with diseases, but to just tell someone they have a disease when they are perfectly healthy is ridiculous.
The New York Times seems to think this is a good idea because it "supposedly" reduces body shame.
On the positive side, we found that the obesity-as-disease message increased body satisfaction among obese individuals, probably because it removed the shame of obesity as a moral failing.
However...
Suggesting that one’s weight is a fixed state — like a long-term disease — made attempts at weight management seem futile, and thus undermined the importance that obese individuals placed on health-focused dieting and concern for weight.
The gist is, calling fatness a disease meant that people felt less ashamed because they had a disease rather than a moral failing. However since the cure for this disease is the same shit they've been touting for 50 years, people give up on any kind of weight management.
I don't mean to be a conspiracy theorist but since "Obesity experts" use correlation with causality, let's try it with the diet industry. Even though the diet industry still makes a good 20 billion, that shift is moving away from commercial dieting to Do it Yourself. DIY breaks up that massive pie in to tiny pieces. Meaning the big companies are not getting the money they once did. Weight Loss Drugs have been failing miserably for the last 10 years. Weight Loss Surgery is making a lot of doctors wealthy. So calling Fatness a disease means new money comes into these "Cures". Cures that I might add don't work for most people in the long wrong and can cause more harm than good.
Health at Every Size has no real profit margin and helped try to improve quality of life. It works to help people of all sizes enjoy eating, moving, and loving their body again. Nothing in HAES calls you a disease or says you have a moral failing if you didn't get a chance to exercise.
The best thing I ever did to reduce body shame and to work on my health was to stop trying to be thin.
And if any young fat activist wants to do a guest blog, I’m okay with that. If you want to sell your “Fat is bad product”. Go fuck yourself.
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