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.