Fat Chicks Rule

Row, Row, Row your Boat

Happy Belated Weight Stigma Awareness Week (It was actually last week).

Growing up I was picked last for all team sports. Even when I was thin, I had terrible coordination. Everything got even worse when I gained weight. This made me hate team sports. I would often do my best to get out of it, feigning illness as often as possible.

When I was in eighth grade, I had a great teacher who refused to let me back down from learning volleyball. I sucked it at, couldn’t serve over the net, couldn’t hit the ball back. My teachers and my classmates didn’t make fun of me. They encouraged me to keep practicing. The result, I never became a great volleyball player, but I got better. And I loved playing.

I subscribed to NPR via facebook. They recently posted an article about heavier kids losing weight when they took up rowing. Of course the focus of this program was to help fat kids lose weight.My only hope is the rowing continues when the weight loss stops.

I try to avoid reading comments but I thought about posting my annoyance that the focus was on fat kids rather than rowing for ALL kids. Then I saw this comment:

"You're going to need a bigger boat."

Even though the rowing was focused on weight loss, the article mentioned about the stigma of having fat kids finding a place to exercise

There was no comfortable place for 17-year-old Alexus Burkett in her school’s typical sports program of soccer and lacrosse and basketball.

“They don’t let heavyset girls in,” she says.

I have mentioned before that when fat people exercise we get a damned if we do and damned if we don't attitude towards us. We're told to get off the couch and go for a run and then told we run too slow or too sloppy. We're told we can't run, can't dance, can't play, or play team sports.

“I know I need to be active, but please don’t make me play school sports!” That’s what exercise physiologist Sarah Picard often hears from her young clients at the OWL.

Movement is very important to the human body. Studies have shown exercise benefits people regardless of size. But this is pointless if we shame people away from having regular exercise.

An Open Letter to Dear Abby. Re: Bikinis

Dear Abby,

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.

Lara Frater

Dr. Oz, Snake Oil Salesman

I watched exactly one episode of Dr. Oz. I found him and his show to be superficial tripe. I watched the episode solely because Dr. Glenn Gaesser (A proponent of fit and fat) happened to be on.

Recently Dr. Oz was called in front of congress and chastised for his role in pushing diet products that don’t work in the long run. He was unapologetic about it.

Oz insisted he believes in the supplements he talks about on his show as short-term crutches and even has his family try them. He said his job on the show is to be a "cheerleader" for his audience, one who offers hope even if that means looking to alternative healing traditions and any evidence that might support them.

Dr. Oz pushed a diet product Pure Green Coffee on his show which later the FTC investigated for making false diet claims.  Dr. Oz scolded Dr. Gaesser for promoting fit and fat, but there are plenty of studies showing you can be fit and fat and as far as I know no study showing green coffee working in the long run (I found one short term study of 22 weeks where 16 people lost about 18lbs).

The weight-loss industry is an area where consumers are particularly vulnerable to fraud, Mary Koelbel Engle, an associate director at the FTC, testified at the Senate hearing. She said the agency conducted a consumer survey in 2011 and found that more consumers were victims of fraudulent weight-loss products than of any of the other specific frauds covered in the survey.

I don’t think people turn to snake oil salesmen because they’re stupid,  (I was dieting including fad ones long after I got my second master’s degree) I think they do it because they are desperate. We live in a world that preaches that thin is everything and that we must fit into a magical number of BMI 18.5 to 24.5 or we will die a horrible lonely death. Something Dr. Oz’s show often conveys.

And let’s not even talk about the fat suit.

 

All Fat is Acceptable Fat.

Stacey Bias recently put out a rad comic about Fatty Archetypes. Including such fatty types as healthy fatties, rad fatties, fat athlete, work in progress (i.e dieting fatties), etc. These are fat people are “acceptable fat.” The point of the comic is to leave no one behind and communicate that we shouldn’t have to squeeze into an archetype.  

 

I talk a lot about health in my blog. Mainly because I think a lot of us fatties are denied health because we live in a fat hating world that preaches “Get thin or else”. We are penalized at the doctors where our fat is treated rather than our ailments, our insurance tries to charge us more for being fat, even at the clothing store we can’t get the sizes, styles, and quantity available to a thinner person. All  because we don’t fit into an arcane BMI number.  

This to me is more important than eating right and exercise. I believe that people of all sizes need to do their best to eat right and exercise. I believe we have the right to exercise without being harassed like Ragen Chastain was while she was running.  (I doubt something like this would happen to a thin person).

However not every fat person fits in the acceptable archetype. Some people are fat and don’t eat right or exercise. They are not a rad fattie, they don’t have a disease that makes them fat, they don’t shop at Whole Foods (Granted, no one should) or do Zumba and they’re not a fat unicorn (Which would be awesome). They are just fat. Guess what? They should have all the same rights and privileges as any other fattie.

This comes on the heels of research that I've been saying in my blog for 9 years. Long term weight loss is nearly impossible. Sure you go on a diet (or lifestyle change) and lose 20 pounds, but for most people that weight will creep back usually bringing the friend of additional weight gain.

 As incredible as it sounds, that's what the evidence is showing. For psychologist Traci Mann, who has spent 20 years running an eating lab at the University of Minnesota, the evidence is clear. "It couldn't be easier to see," she says. "Long-term weight loss happens to only the smallest minority of people."

So no matter what kind of fattie you are, there is no proof that you make it into the arcane number. 

Gather, Rather than Hunt

On Saturday morning, I decided to go shopping for pants. Being 10 am the morning before Easter, I figured I'd avoid the lines and the crowds at Marshalls, a close-out department store.

I've a hard body to buy for: a rectangle with an apple belly and large boobs, I usually have to try on many things before I can find maybe one item that fits me nicely. Most of the times pants that fit my waist make my legs look like tree trunks and pants that fit my legs make my stomach look like a giant sack. Tops are worse: clothes that fit my chest make me look pregnant or else I'm popping out of my shirt (Something my husband doesn't mind but work might.)

I don't really like to shop at Department stores. I prefer stores that stock only larger sizes (my issues with them are another story). No offense against thin folks, but at least I know the entire store is catered to large bodies including my size. However, I usually can get one or two things at Marshalls if I hunt. My local venue has gotten worse as far as plus sizes go. They used to have a large section in the middle of the floor. Now they are pushed over to the side and are limited to two large racks, and a few smaller ones. Dresses are the only sizes that are integrated.

Some days I go there and find some good pieces. Other days I don't know why I bother.

I was semi-successful on Saturday as I managed to snag Lauren pants that fit me nicely, and a pair of loose yoga pants that for $20 were good enough. Together they were $60.

Remember this is the “discount” store.

On May 4th is the Big Fat Flea in NYC. Last year I spent about the same amount at Marshalls and bought home a much cheaper and better selection. This is a flea market. Selection is based on donation, not a department store which is theory should be serving their customer’s needs. And knowing that two-thirds of the population need plus sizes, I’m surprised that Marshall’s plus size selection has shrunk.

Marshalls was a hunt. A hope that a wild pair of pants would appear and fit me properly. My hunting ground was only a few feet but still not a lot wild pants to be found.

At the Flea, it's a gather. I go through stacks and stacks of pants, dresses, shirts, jackets and miscellaneous. My size is located all in the same place, often towering because there is so much selection. I stuff things to try on in my bag which becomes heavy in my arms while my follow shoppers dig around with me, being friendly, giving advice. No one seems upset when someone grabs an Igigi dress before you can. You feel great when a person tells you, “This doesn’t look good on me, maybe it will look good on you.”

I come home exhausted but in a good way. My spirits are high as I check out my new clothes (and some are brand new with tags). And as I model my new clothes, I feel confident and happy.

I never feel this way at any department store.

 

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The Tankini

Doctors, Compassion, and size

Last week I wrote about two stories where "Obesity experts" just don’t get it. This week I'm writing about a doctor who tries but fails to get it. Dr. Edward Thompson writes about treating a 600 pound man and seems to not realize how much he marginalizes his patient.

 The patient lies trapped in his own body, like a prisoner in an enormous, fleshy castle. And though he must feel wounded by the ER personnel’s remarks, he seems to find succor in knowing that there’s no comment so cutting that it can’t be soothed by the balm of 8,000 calories per day.

I've mentioned before that fat people fear going to the doctor. I know that I hate going to a new specialist because I hate to have yet another fat talk.

In this man’s case, the ER doctors couldn’t handle his size and looked at him as if it’s his fault rather than the hospital’s lack of equipment. I don’t believe the doctor went out of his way to marginalize him but fat equaling bad, lazy, a slob, and stupid is so ingrained, he might not have realized he was making his patient less than a person.

Even though dieting does not work in the long run, because weight is fluid and can be artificially changed,  doctors assume that it's either the patients fault for being lazy or society's fault for making food so accessibility to people too stupid to know better.

I know why my colleagues and I are so glad to have this patient out of the ER and stowed away upstairs: he’s an oversize mirror, reminding us of our own excesses. It’s easier to look away and joke at his expense than it is to peer into his eyes and see our own appetites staring back.

I have mentioned before that fat people frequently change doctors. Or don't go at all because we fear the doctor will treat our size rather than the problem.

A few months later the doctor's patient died.

Though I have no way of knowing it, within a few months a crane will hoist the patient’s body through a hole cut in the side of his house, a hole that allowed EMS personnel to lower the body onto their new ultra-wide, ultra-sturdy gurney.

I have to wonder if the patient thought about seeking medical care, remembered being made fun of and marginalized, and decided against seeking treatment.

Another doctor Sayantani DasGupta, criticizes the metaphors used describe the man: infantile, slovenly, lazy, and grotesque.

Not only were they a study in the power of negative metaphors, but as a fellow physician, they felt all-too familiar. They were the way I had, on many an occasion, heard patients’ bodies talked about; ways that I, during my training, had perhaps referred to patients’ bodies. The simple words felt so easy, so unexamined, and in that very ease was embedded their violence.

 All patients of all sizes need to be able to get the medical care they need, including equipment that fits and compassion from doctors, who treat the medical issue, not the size.

 

Zero Steps Forward and Eight Steps Back

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.

 

Case in point, this:#‎ICO2014‬

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.

 

Ragen Chastain says it best:

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. 

 

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Take the stairs. Or don't.

 

Movement, the News Media, and Another Lie.

A study in the Mayo Clinic indicated that fat women only do about an hour of exercise every year. This was the headline at Time:

Obese Women Get Only One Hour Of Exercise in a Whole Year

That isn't true. The hour was only for vigorous exercise. All the headlines, in the rush to make fun of fat neglected to mention this is vigorous exercise. CBS News was the only one who remembered to add vigorous.
 
Activities that fall under this category include jogging, running, swimming laps, riding a bike fast on hills, playing singles tennis or playing basketball.
 
People can also opt to participate in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise weekly in lieu of the more vigorous activities, per the recommendations. Those activities include walking fast, doing water aerobics, riding a bike on flat ground, playing doubles tennis or pushing a lawn mower.
 
(Not sure why water aerobics is here. I found it harder to do than swimming laps.)
 
First off the data is from eight years ago. Trends change. Deb Burgard of ASDAH (Her quotes in italics) mentioned on the ASDAH email list some issues she with the study.

1. How it was measured. They used accelerometers which only can detect a subset of human body movements (and the body movements accelerometers measure are most accessible to lower-weight, younger and less disabled people)
 
2. People of other weights didn't get that much exercise either. It's true that fat women did 11-36 seconds of vigorous exercise per day compared to "normal" women who got 108 seconds which means that normal women did something like 3-10 times as much. Which means that at most normal weight women got 10 hours of vigorous exercise a year. Which is less than what I do (I'm on an exercise bike everyday 10-30 minutes and swim 30 - 60 minutes a day 5x a week in the summer). And I don't consider myself as active as I want. I think this study shows that we all need to exercise more. But of all the headlines about this study, only the Huffington Post pointed out that we all needed to exercise more, not just thin people (This goes back to the discrimination where it’s okay for a thin person not to eat right or exercise).
 
So using the same logic as the headlines, people in the "normal weight" category who are not being mentioned in this discussion would have accumulated 11 hours of vigorous activity in a year.  Running half an hour a day, that would be two weeks of running.  Is anyone seriously proposing that running for two weeks is what determines whether a person is in the "normal" weight category or the "obese" category?
 
3. Once moderate exercise was put in the mix, each body type was about equal.
 
However the lower amount of vigorous exercise among fat women does perhaps proves something. I have mentioned on this blog the stigma of being fat and getting exercise. We’re made fun of when we exercise and even rental bikes can’t support our weight. Not to mention that a lot of fat people have a lower socioeconomic status and tend to have less time for movement. (I’ve written before that I do more exercise when I have more free time.) Instead of the news media chastising fat women for not exercising enough, perhaps they should do their job and found out why they don’t.

Nope, still not a disease.

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.

This App just Made me Unhealthy

There is apparently a new fitness app that makes fun of fat people if you fail to lose weight. (If you are interested you can click on the link below but make sure your sanity points are high.) I watched exactly one minute of a Good Morning America clip before I got angry and I felt my heart rate go up. This app didn't help me get healthy, it instead brought up my blood pressure.

I'm sure the makers (Actually one skinny boy) of the app didn't think they were causing harm or being stupid. I'm fairly certain he didn't bother to read studies or think things through. I'm fairly certain that he thought he was funny and he would probably tell me that I shouldn't be so touchy. After all if I don't like it I don't have to buy it.

I have mentioned on many previous posts that stigma NEVER works. It doesn't help you lose weight or get healthy. If anything it makes health worse by stressing out the person because no matter how hard they try or listen to their mean app, the weight loss doesn't happen in the long run.

"People who are criticized for their size often engage in dangerous dieting behaviors that put them more at risk for disordered eating and, ultimately, eating disorders," said Lynn Grefe, president of NEDA, in a statement.

I don't need a mean app to be healthy. I tried everything in the past to lose weight. and Both positive and negative reinforcement didn't work (And thanks to negative reinforcement my self-esteem plummeted.) Negative reinforcement was not allowing myself to do something I enjoyed or wanted unless there was weight loss.

I have a recumbent bike that I ride every day. Some days I can only do 20 minutes, some days I can do 40 minutes. My bike doesn't yell at me for not keeping up.