Thursday, June 14, 2012
Debate The Weight of the Nation
Well they mean well being against discrimination of fat people, but many here know where I stand regarding weight and health. Most of the women in this video look more midsized at the size where they are still healthy and active. Hey I do not begrudge them that, but there are those who lay outside this system. In other words, I think it probably is best for a young or middle-aged mid-sized woman, to try and follow such advice that HAES provides. Of course I would warn them to watch out for any weight gain, so they do not end up in my category.
What if you aren't healthy?
See:
Health At Every Size? And Healthism in the Size Acceptance Movement
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I am healthy myself, but, yeah, viewed through the lens of your blog this video was really irritating. Smug and condescending. I think it is a mistake to mix HAES with the idea that "fat people are healthy and anyone who says otherwise is a despicable liar".
ReplyDeleteSurely HAES is applicable to unhealthy people, with a message like " we can't help you with your health problems at all but we think they would be easier to deal with if you were as healthy as possible while were facing them. So try to eat well and exercise as much as you can even though that won't affect your weight or cure anything".
I was surprised by your statement "Of course I would warn them to watch out for any weight gain, so they do not end up in my category". Were you just irritated at them or did you mean that? Because I thought you viewed becoming super fat as a mysterious thing and were frustrated that scientists have no answers. I recently saw an awful show where a super fat woman warned some medium fat woman that if they didn't improve their lifestyle they would end up like her. I thought that was weird because if a better lifestyle would fix things then why didn't the super fat woman adopt the better lifestyle and lose weight? Do you think that being fat is one of those states where it is much easier not to fall into the state than to recover from the state? Do you think you could have done something to prevent yourself from being so fat? Because your descriptions of your weight gain in your previous posts made it seem impossible to prevent.
"I think it is a mistake to mix HAES with the idea that "fat people are healthy and anyone who says otherwise is a despicable liar". "
ReplyDeleteI don't know I have dealt with HAES people and maybe some are more fair then others but in the size acceptance world, to talk the real deal about fat related health problems is not accepted. When I was in the real life size acceptance world. I was a pariah, even from the lung problems. I will admit I was so out of gourd from even severe health problems, having no thyroid hormone in your body and testosterone and adrenal hormones running on high does bad things to your psyche, but that was a world of absolutely no MERCY and where they wanted you to just SHUT YOUR MOUTH.
I feel like there is a lot of pie in the sky stuff here. Like HAES gives the powers that be a carte blanche to give up on even dealing with obesity. IE WHY NOT FIND THINGS THAT WORK OR DEAL WITH THE INHERENT PROBLEMS BEHIND THE OBESITY? Why do I have to smile and nod and eat that poo sandwich?
"Surely HAES is applicable to unhealthy people, with a message like " we can't help you with your health problems at all but we think they would be easier to deal with if you were as healthy as possible while were facing them."
And right there is the problem. What does "healthy as possible" mean?
It sounds like a cop-out. Healthy as possible at 500lbs doesn't exist. Everyday is a battle. I am lucky I can still walk and go places having husband drive me if weather is good when I can breath. But I know what my house call doctors tell me, most people my size are completely bedridden. I have been close and only some luck have kept me from being bedridden. That is the reality of obesity. NAAFA, HAES and the rest of them can ignore this human fall out, because our numbers are supposedly so small to be minuscule, but that is a lie. I am seeing more people near my size out in public. I wonder how many are hidden.
I am facing facts I may only have a short time left, and some here may have been in that boat.
I have NOT given up.
but It is a GIVING UP on THEIR PART.
I mean they will continue to pour toxins on us, and adulterate the food and demand unhealthy lifestyles that destroy people and their health and then say WHOOPS YOURE FAT, but hey you just go accept it and "do your best" pats on the head....
ReplyDeleteRemember what I have said about the Obesity Hegelian Dialectic?
The "GIVE UPPERS" who say we CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT OBESITY you MUST ACCEPT YOUR FAT are the inverse to the diet industrial complex, and the fattening up of the population.
To be frank, see any kidney or cancer patients putting up with being told, well youll just have to accept your illness nothing can be done and accepting this? There would be outrage. But fat people are told this by their supposed "defenders" give me a break!
Don't get me wrong, This DOES WORK FOR THE MIDSIZED AND LOW LEVEL FAT PEOPLE... I don't mind it for the midsized folks, they are healthy, they are living life, sure there are levels of fatness where its BETTER to just say ok I am this way but I can function and rest and will just live life and be OKAY. If I was even 300lbs right now, I'd be happy as a clam.
It leaves people in the trap, chasing after the treadmill, having to bear all the burdens with the hyper responsiblity gospel never questioned. HAES as I wrote has that undergird of HEALTHISM with it. Even socio-economic class wise, I feel out of touch with the HAES crowd, who assume one can afford the accourtements of GOOD HEALTH TM, such as gym membership, vacations, decent food--I am fighting even on the decent food front--I travel 15 miles to buy special health food, have removed processed food because basically it means IMMEDIATE ILLNESS--I learned the hard way MALDOXTRIN is another marker for MSG. When I see those HAES women in that video, it occured to me most seemed to be upper middle class, and above, comfortable and midsized.
"I was surprised by your statement "Of course I would warn them to watch out for any weight gain, so they do not end up in my category". Were you just irritated at them or did you mean that? "
Yeah I will admit some irritation.
I meant it in this way: WEIGHT PREVENTION. I should have been hospitalized at the FIRST 75lb weight gain mark. Immediate hospitalization to find out what was wrong, instead of being patted on the head and told to go home and diet. I should have been believed when I told doctors, "I gained 60lbs within a month off prednisone without any extra eating". I remember in fact that year, as my hands and feet swelled up, and my hair started its falling out and remember going to doctors and getting NO HELP. Just looked down on. I think about how I almost died, and it still scares me to this day. I would fathom I had PSTD from all this. It was an incredible trauma and I was only 26-28 years old when this happened; the 400lb weight gain.
IF I had been diagnosed EARLIER, and even GIVEN THYROID PILLS, when I needed them, instead of having my heart destroyed via cardiomyopathy, it is doubtful my weight would have gotten as high as it did. In 1998, they told me they thought I had cardiomyopathy damage from the thyroid disease and later this was cemented later on. I often wonder how much of the swelling is tied to the heart damage. I still would have dealt with some but not to the degree it got. I also still believe I have some adrenal or pituitary problem ungirding maybe the whole system failure.
As you can tell my opinion about the amount of "control" people have over their weight is not what we are told to believe, that it's 100%.
ReplyDeleteI can see superfat people slipping up and saying such things, the programming out there is immense. "Don't end up like me." That is the saddest thing about this type of problem. The cancer patient may regale themselves for smoking cigarrettes, or not eating enough fruits and vegetables, but with the fat, we do not cut a break, because everyone thinks we can automatically FIX it all. They think it is all our fault. Even if you have endocrine problems they think if you are disciplined enough, you can fix it all! If people want to hear my most honest opinion, "I am tired".
However I look back and think what could I have done different?
Sports was out given all the bad breathing.Yeah I tried, golf team in high school, other activities. Remember seeing girls 50lbs fatter then me more able to walk and do things.
I walked 3-5 miles FOR FUN, even as late as 1994, so I was MOVING obviously.
The bad breathing kicked that down when the lungs said we are out of here.
The only thing I think I could have done to prevent being so fat, is
1. Being born to different parents. I worry I am following fathers track now, he died of undiagnosed problems, calcium deposits through out the body causing the severe heart failure in his case, with multiple auto-immune problems though in his case, his weight just got up to the high 300s.
2. Fighting the doctors HARDER.An Earlier diagnosis would have changed the game plan. I was showing serious signs of even the insulin resistance by age 13 only to have it ignored. They almost let me die, and I was sick by age 21 but got no answers until age 30. What that caused me me health wise is immeasurable. I went to MULTIPLE doctors including a 'center for advanced medicine" in a Midwestern city where they missed even the PCOS, with a PCOS office down the hall and refused to believe what I was eating even when one exclaimed "My God you doubled your body weight in less then 18 months"{i had photographs} Later They estimate even my time of undiagnosed/untreated hypothyroidism was around 10 years. If I had gotten both the PCOS and hypothyroidism diagnosed correctly EARLIER, then while I believe I would have definitely been midsized I do not think I would have ended up being near 700lbs.
3. I should have refused ALL STEROIDS. PREDNISONE especially. THis one is complex to me though, as the lung problems were so bad, that could have cost me my life at least 5 times. So it was a Faustian deal. Later for less severe lung problems I did refuse them for around 6 years. [time after diagnosis where there was the 160lb weight loss] I am on inhaled steroids now for COPD even.
4. I believe very high stress levels, severe poverty[ironically leading to going without food on many occasions or only one-two meals a day] also impacted the downfall of my health. The last few years of severe financial problems probably dropkicked down my health and that includes some of the latest bad news. I am really pondering myself things about life and how I can fix some of these things but hitting dead ends. I know struggling with feelings of being "unsafe" in this world does not help keep one's cortisol production down.
http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2012/01/poverty-wolf-at-door-trying-to-gobble.html
If I was 20 again and knew what I know now, I would have left the modern American lifestyle. Some of us with our own implicit limitations being dropped kicked out into the world without a community, help or any foundations leads to bad ends. The modern move for the career life, was NOT for me. I was a person that had major limitations, but had incredible demands made upon me even comparative to my health. 70 hour work weeks with violent clients, double degrees, endless discrimination, no health insurance.
ReplyDeleteOne can have endless nutritional information, knowledge etc...I probably could out test the nutritionists, and still.....
if the body never cooperates...and the money isn't there....
It just doesn't seem to work. I have thin friends who tell me I eat better then them. I have a size 12 best friend who visits me and our eating patterns match, which is kind of ironic, of course I do not get any prejudice from her or others I have lived with.
IE I have always tried to exercise but hit a point where I just swell up more...I actually became much more active, not this month due to heat, but last two, and then found out all this did was increase the heart failure...:( and probably contributed to the two falls as well. Having to slow down because everything is tilting is not fun since my balance is even affecting my walking now, where I am having to stick to hallways and canes to keep from falling. It is mighty troubling.
The hunger is higher for people like us, and there is only a certain point you can drop kick the food, without having it be endless torture. I still keep to my food rules.
I've lost 75lbs or so over last 6 years. Still kept most of that 100+lb plus weight loss off, from the near 700lb point. [I am somewhere around 500lbs now I believe, it was 540 around some months ago]
ReplyDeleteYeah I ask myself everyday what could I have done different? I knew by age 14, my body was not working like other people's. I often have thought to myself, what could I have done different?, in the land of regrets. Trust me on that one.
I think being fat is DEFINITELY one of those STATES, where getting out of it is worse. Though falling in, I do not think there is as much control as they think. I think maybe if I had caught things sooner, and gotten HELP when I NEEDED it, age 12-13 when the severe PCOS symptons started, maybe my life could have come out very different.
The parathyroid developments tell me I was more then right from the start. Even now I am scared I am going to have a rerun of 1998 when I was on the edge of the abyss. I know some of the doctors mean well,but how do you tell them, you are tired, and wish they had better options then drugs with scary and horrible side affects? That you haven't seen anything work thus far and you are working hard to even keep everything in balance and out of the hospital. I went from having multiple infections a year to having zero this year. But I know that balance can be thrown off. I research a lot of natural health stuff, to even stay alive, and trying to make sense of it all.
Maybe I blame myself too much even now knowing what I know. Even my husband says, "You got sick, you did what you could".
The HAES stuff to me feels like an "abandonment" frankly. I've had to deal with early mortality from around age 28. They are SHOCKED I have lived this long, but I can only control so much and the heart could be going into worse failure. Course I have the theory the high bnp could be from sleep apnea problems, because I do not feel shorter of breathe and have had worse stamina before with lower bnp scores. I'm having to almost go to medical school myself. I need to figure out why my body has no vit D in it lately.
I really wonder how many people can prevent obesity. Probably very few. Obviously it is a battle being LOST, and well HAES to me is the WHITE FLAG.
I think obesity for most outside of the eating addicted [like that guy who lost 270lbs who lose weight when they return to NORMAL eating] means something is BROKEN. Only problem is there definitely is something in the enviromnent adding to our problems even beyond the more access to food and more sedenatary lifestyles. Just like that Dr. Lustiger said, "there are now fat 6 months olds" and well babies, aren't falling off diets, or refusing to exercise.
HAES to me, says GIVE UP FAT PEOPLE, this is the way it is and going to be, we have no answers for you.
They are the inverse coin to the diet industrial complex which wants to PROFIT OFF OUR MISERY!
{LOL I know I wrote alot, sorry response got so long}
Thanks for replying at such great length to my comment. Everything you said was really interesting.
ReplyDeleteYou talked about a lot of things, but I've been trying in particular to deal with what you say about HAES. Other blogs I read are very positive about HAES, and what they say sounds really good to me when I am reading them, so your different viewpoint is interesting. One thing is that I thought HAES-- we have nothing to say about weight loss but look for ways to be as healthy as possible at whatever weight we are-- would be weight loss neutral. Why shouldn't both no-diet-talk people and trying-to-lose-weight people be interested in eating well, exercising, and getting doctors to treat their health problems? You seem to be saying that instead the HAES message is: fat people are healthy the way they are. So someone who is not healthy is ostracized. Someone who wants to lose weight is ostracized. Someone who is unhealthy because of their weight is beyond the pale. People in wheel chairs don't get to appear in their videos.
You seem to be doing the HAES thing as well as anybody. You've talked about getting food that is good for you. You've said that you've struggled to exercise because you hope exercise will help stop you from being bedridden. You're trying to get good medical care. You don't have that loathsome self-image problem where you blame everything that happens on the fact that you don't have enough willpower.
I'm sorry, I was thinking about what I just said and I rewatched the video and I realize I have no idea how healthy the people in the video are. For all I know, they might all be physically disabled. I was wrong to sneer that "people in wheelchairs" were excluded. I think I was remembering a blog post I read a long time back where someone spoke about going to a Fat Acceptance sort of convention and finding that the organizers had chosen a venue unsuited to the physically disabled and projecting that here. That does not change the fact that I agree with you that the video makes it sound as everybody's problems are due solely to not accepting their size.
ReplyDeleteThere is a distant possibility someone in that group could have been cane or wheelchair dependent, we did not see it. There could be acouple who WERE disabled, but I did not see any evidence of anyone in the great weight ranges unless they hold a lot of their weight on the bottom and are thinner on top.
ReplyDeleteI went to a NAAFA convention YEARS and years ago, and they actually choose a hotel I could not traverse in, the walking they expected was so far to go from room to room for events was so far and it had a giant center area as large as a mall. They couldn't have chosen a bigger hotel if they had tried, or one more unsuitable to anyone with mobility issues. [the numbers of people at the conference did not necessitate a hotel like that]
I could walk then but the distances expected were as great as a huge metro city hospital so far beyond me. I actually sat down and burst into tears, I remember that day, and was in disbelief that they could be so out of touch with fat people's needs. There were no scooters available for rent or to be had. I did not own a scooter yet. Today I own a scooter but we cannot afford a lift on the car, and my husband is no longer healthy enough. From what I can tell NAAFA choose these giant mega-metro hotels that are not easy for someone with mobility issues to use. I still am incredulous about that day. I had to not attend some events because of it.
The video ,yes makes it seem like if you "accept your size" everything will be fine and dandy!
One thing with NAAFA, POOR and disabled people were very rare. They just happened to have an event near where I used to live, there was no way I could afforded a room at that hotel. I got the feeling these were people who functioned on a whole other socio-economic level then me. Having to figure out the deal for a scooter and wait for months for one, was not on the roster. I miss events now, because I can't afford a scooter lift, nor do I have the place to store the scooter. Who could get it out of the van? So I just do not use it like I used to. It really was a problem. They do not talk about these issues when it comes to fat people. Thankfully I can walk, but it's only short distances, and the places too far to walk unless they have a scooter like a large grocery store or other, then I just do not get to go.
ReplyDeleteHappy Spider, Im answering your first comment, above is to the second.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird with HAES very few seem to question any of it. You are right it is positive across the board. I have seen that too. You know one thing I am noticing about size acceptance with a few exceptions, there seems to be more young people pushing the HAEs and rest? Did those who are older like myself deal with too much reality? I don't know what is the use of looking for ways to be healthy if one doesn't accept that weight can be a SYMPTON of ill health. I would have died if I followed that formula and even when I was near 700lbs I had people in NAAFA and related groups I was dealing with telling me I was obsessed with finding a reason for being so fat. They wouldn't care even when I described to them the life I had loss and my disabilities. There was great pressure to hide ill health in those circles. In fact I did remember complaining about the hotel being so spread out, and had this one 600lb lady yell at me, "I have no problem" as she gasped for air. OK maybe she could push things farther then me but I could not with the breathing problems. It was a strange world that is for sure. Some even seemed angry at me when I told them how fast I gained the weight and other issues. It was strange.
LOL good question you ask here...
"Why shouldn't both no-diet-talk people and trying-to-lose-weight people be interested in eating well, exercising, and getting doctors to treat their health problems?"
Isn't there some inverse shame and blame assigned via HAES in almost saying that FAT people ARE NOT DOING THOSE THINGS?
Sure I am not perfect. I am worried that I took a bite or two of my husband pieces of cake, thinking you did not need them. I never eat my own, way too much sugar. So I am constantly having to be careful. Did I eat too much bread today? Did I eat too few vegetables? Ah those things always went through my mind. What is the assumption of HAES that us fat people threw it ALL to the wind? Remember that opposite side of the coin stuff, Ive talked about
HAES to me almost reads like YOU FAT PEOPLE ARE A-OK if ou are SUPER-RESPONSIBLE and "don't do anything *wrong". Of course *wrong* for someone as fat as me, could be someone in judgement over me eating some rotisserie chicken and pasta with homemade pesto. I had a friend give me pesto [without DAIRY, THANK YOU]to eat.
The healthism stuff gets on my nerves.
Here is the question no one in this society deals with..
ReplyDeleteWhat if you are doing everything "right" and still get FAT
or even better said...
What if you are doing everything "right" and still GET SICK?
We have cancer levels shooting through the roof. We have autoimmune problems going like gangbusters. Sometimes I am in shock I've made this far, let me add it up, a 20 something acquaintance with stomach cancer, a SIL at age of 40 with breast cancer, another friend with a tumor growing inside her, in her 30s, FOUR-no make the FIVE college friends with THYROID disease, and so forth and so on. I sometimes wonder how far the delusions will go, the very idea that human beings will be HEALTHY as long as they follow all these steps. We can hope to HELP our odds, but I think HAES is false even on these premises. By the way the people above, were all average weight to moderate large, the heaviest was around 240
I knew in the NAAFA and size acceptance circles I was seen beyond the pale.
I almost wish I had the funds to show up at the HAES conference of last year, huffing and puffing wtih my four point cane, or my walker I have on order. I need the walker because the Meniere's is destroying my balance. And say HEY LOOK PEOPLE!
With all given reasons, I AM following some of the HAES PRECEPTS. I try to live life as best I can, I try to eat as healthy as I can. etc.
But and it's a big BUT,
the difference between me and HAES...
I want a cure that works for obesity.
I feel betrayed at those who want fat people to give up at having a real workable cure that does not harm or maim.
I KNOW obesity can bring disability or be a sympton of disease.