Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Seeing Through the Obesity Lies




I know people may find it harder to understand a woman that automatically can't be pidgeon holed into the right and left paradigms they now bombard us with from the boob tube. Surely the long term readers of this blog, have figured out I am neither a Republican nor Democrat nor do I fit I suppose what is the *average" way of thinking out there. Why would I think like an average person? I am not an average person by no means, even with the weight gain, I became instantly a misfit  not by choice, I would find acceptance in some circles, but that is not a life experience that leads one to shut off their brain.  Once someone is thrown outside the box, you get to look in it, and notice what is screwed up big picture wise!

I have questioned for at least a couple years, what we are being told about obesity. It seems while there are some researchers like Lustig and others trying to get the truth out there about obesity where they are telling the truth about it NOT being a failure of will-power and how the very basics of our food and life have been changed over the last thirty years to create a toxic environment, it is so hard to get the crowbar out and wrench people away from the false automatic viewpoints that lead them to ignore what HAS changed.

Even in the fat world, we got the two sides just like we have the two fake parties advancing globalism and the dismantling of the America economy when it comes to obesity we have "the good cop" side of extreme "size acceptance"--"learn to love your fat, accept your new fat reality and be happy about it" vs. the "bad cop" Diet industrial complex: "You obese people are lazy sloths and gluttons and responsible for your horrible bodies gone amuck!".

Yes, I do feel like the lone voice out there though there are some supporters and those who think the way I do, our point of view isn't getting the dominant air play. I guess well because there's no one to profit from it. And while there are some sincere researchers who make an occasional appearance who want to get to the root of the obesity problem and actually HELP people, I dare say there are many who will NEVER ALLOW this to happen. Some can cry 'conspiracy theory", but I always found that the most silliest of terms, as if conspiracies are not exposed nightly on our news, where corruption and greed rule?

What is there for someone like me to gain from either side?

NOTHING but my own demise and as I have stated NO TRUTH.

I was even thinking about the whole W.H.O. obesity thing and the way they use the obesity epidemic for other agendas and while I believe obesity rates are increasing, why do people keep turning to more answers that do not work? What do they plan to do with us fat people? I dare say things will get tougher as the indoctrinated types scream about those who do not share "their resources" properly. [see comments on this article ] Fat people will be seen as the new "anti-greens". Images of Animal Farm coupled with scenes of 1984 and LOL one commenter's phrase "Ration Czar" go streaming through my head.

I hate fat shaming as much as anyone, but then I read Marilyn Wann's response to the Weight of the Nation video, which went along side the HAES response and thought to myself -- Unbelieveable!:




"Weight of the Nation Serves Up More Fat Shame"

I attended the first, government-sponsored Weight of the Nation conference in 2009. I didn't pay or anything self-defeating like that. I just walked in (with a brave friend or two) and delivered plastic-wrapped fortune cookies to the fancy luncheon tables where major stakeholders were about to chew on the alleged "obesity" problem. If the professional food scolds took a cookie, they got messages like these:
The war on "obesity" is a war on PEOPLE!
The No. 1 threat to fat people? Your unexamined prejudice.
What's the word for science that serves bigotry? Hint: It starts with "you."
If you can't imagine fat people being healthy...that's YOUR pathology!
Tell people to lose weight if you want to endanger public health AND civil rights!
How many fat people must you starve, poison, slice up? Celebrate weight diversity now! 




As this world goes more nuts, I look at the two sides of the obesity world and think they have all lost their minds. We got the people committed to repeating previous failure over and over and then we got the Fat doesn't affect health size acceptance nuts.  I am dying from obesity, but supposedly a "war" on the adipose tissue is a war on PEOPLE. Funny that. I find it ironic how Wann brings up Orwellian anything as she states in her article




One thing about Orwell's world, is in 1984, the Ministry of Truth dealt with anything but, it was an agency to produce lies. Orwell himself, reworked the "newspeak" for the sake of Big Brother. I personally am a fan of Orwell having even read his books Down and Out in Paris and London and Shooting an Elephant. So what do I think when I see the above? Like Marilyn Wann is the obesity "minister of truth-1984 style? After all my truth isn't allowed in her worldview. Weight does affect health and anyone who claims otherwise is simply being absurd.Not all of those who want to help fat people HATE THEM.

As for things like Weight of the Nation, do not think I defend those who push the same diet industrial corporate answers that haven't worked for 40 years.

But when Marilyn Wann, asks these questions, I guess I'd take a crack at them myself...


This list doesn't include the plentiful state and local efforts to eradicate fat people. Clearly, for at least the past 60 years, fat people have not been welcome in America.

I always hate language that is manipulative.

"Eradicate fat people"?....that is a bit of hyperbole. This is how Marilyn Wann advances her agenda,  to defend the FAT rather then the people themselves. Because even if people lost weight and there was a non-maiming actual obesity cure or help that worked without harm, fat people would not be eradicated, they would still be here, but just smaller. Sheesh.


Officially. The weight blame goes either to fat people personally, to the environment, or both. Either way, two-thirds of us (and at least a fifth of our children) aren't welcome here. Though unwelcome, we're sure useful as easy targets.

Hmm Marilyn Wann makes a nod to the environment. Know that she is talking about the latest discussion and research related to the Obesogenic "environment". Discussed multiple times on this blog and in those articles about the latest obesity research. Guess that one surprised me.  Well it would seem that the newer research about the toxins in our food and world and how these things have come to work together to upset the metabolic system, that Marilyn Wann would actually be able with some logic to say "I care about fat people and want them the healthiest they can be, and if people are having their metabolisms altered by adulterated food, and toxins in the environment that is something that should be stopped". I guess I am a dreamer aren't I?  These community activist rabble rouster types do seem to lose sight of what should be their focus.
When the initial frenzy of Weight of the Nation has calmed down -- after everyone has enjoyed this round of hating fat people and there's been a healthy boost to budgets, profits, viewership, and ad revenue -- I predict we'll hit the same wall that every dieter encounters: the return to reality.
I suggest that reality is not so bad. To keep a grip, ask yourself:
Would you question the motives behind any other national PR campaign designed "for your own good" by major media, corporations, and the government?
1. I guestion the motives of PR campaigns in general. I know the diet industry wants their profits, but then I question the motives of the OTHER SIDE. Why do some seem so focused on honoring FAT itself so much above the people who are carrying it around? And that is supposed to be  the spokeswomen FOR fat people?

 I actually wonder where did Marilyn Wann COME FROM? Why did she garnish so much attention with a simplistic unchanging message? I know she went to Stanford but little else. I read her zine Fat?So! in the 90s and it seemed to be an independent enterprise, but why do so many of her thoughts seem to fit so drastically to a rigid ideological line? Why has she not grown since the 1990s and keeps repeating the same lines over and over, even ones that have been disproven?

I am the type of person who does even examine myself as to my own views. I think applying new information to your viewpoints is imperative to being a well-informed person, so how does Marilyn Wann just wipe away all the new studies about the "environment" and says "Not important"? Doesn't she realizes that such a view SERVES the very corporations she questions? After all there isn't going to anyone asking about any endocrine disrupters now is there? How about being able to purchase food at cheaper prices that isn't laden with extreme amounts of sugar or high fructose corn syrup? How about letting people demand better products? A populace that woke up about what they were buying food wise would be a healthier group of people.

if it were any topic other than weight (where you might feel vulnerable), would you be so quick to believe the numbers they cite to justify a "War on [Whatever]"? (Most egregious exaggerations: "Fat people cost 'us' billions!" "Everyone's going to be really fat!" "Our children won't live as long!")

2. One just has to look around and know that obesity rates growing. In the 1980s, finding a size 22 anything was rare, I remember, because I hit that size in high school!  There are so many people above that size now, it's not funny.  I see children who are far fatter then I was even at their age. There is usually one or two people who reach my size even now when I go out in public I come across and viewing others my size in the 1990s was far rarer but now more common. How does Marilyn Wann except me to believe that America is becoming THINNER? Are we to suspend belief even when it comes to OUR OWN EYES?

Would you rather trust your own judgment about what's good for you or get swept along by the latest fruitless panic?


3. Yes, I would rather trust my own judgment when it comes to either false side, I refuse to be joined with the fat haters and refuse to join the other "refuse to deal with reality" side. As for "panic", people know for a fact that obesity can HURT them. I am not talking mild midsized stable weights but when one gets to my size or even the 300s and 400s, there is a price to be paid. As for the obesity epidemic, their looking to the past solutions, that have failed thus far is a waste of everyone's time. Why is Marilyn Wann so busy shoving this under the carpet, basically saying, "nothing to see here"? She is crazy if she thinks anyone outside of her unthinking size acceptance fans are going to buy the obesity hasn't increased line. All people have to do is look to their own memories.

Oh when you get on the article link, check out the comments, some interesting stuff on there.....

Update on this article: In 2014, I would be diagnosed with stage 4 Lipedema, I found out what was wrong though I am still seeking more answers.

6 comments:

  1. Nice, skeptical and intelligent consideration of both Wann and the greater obesity industry.

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    1. I agree with everything you said and I really enjoy reading your blog, absolutly one of the best out there!

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  2. Peep, I recently discovered your blog and enjoy it so much. Thank you for being a compassionate voice of reason. I'm an NP and feel very strongly that before we can help anyone with any problem, we need to first, come from a loving place, and secondly, always keep learning and reading with an open mind.

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  3. Thanks anon, I am glad you have found my blog and are open to the things I write about. I hope there can be a definite change in minds regarding obesity and what is going on, and yes to come from a loving place to seek to understand and learn. :)

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  4. Whenever I see people talking about the obesity crisis or the war on obesity, they seem to talk about how fat people are causing a public health crisis with their laziness and inability to get thin. Call me oversensitive, but as a fat person (and not even the "good" kind of fat--it's from a food addiction and mental disorders that make it harder for me to take care of myself, physically. I am physically capable of losing weight; I just don't), these statements hurt. I've heard people in the autism community get outraged whenever people talk about autism as a crisis that must be eradicated--how is the war on obesity any different? I'm all for research on how to make people healthier without demonizing them, but so often, that isn't the narrative.

    Personally, I think that if you are happy with your weight and have made peace with it, you deserve respect. Likewise, if you are unhappy with your weight and do something about it (whether by diet and exercise or seeking medical help for medical conditions) even if you fail, you deserve respect. How you get your self esteem is your personal choice to make, and I wish both sides would respect both options.

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    1. I agree with making fat people healthier without the demonization. They aren't beating up on those who got lung cancer from smoking. Sorry you deal with food addiction. I am failing to lose weight except in fighting to keep it steady and from going up! Interesting you bring up the autism thing since I am an Aspie. I have thought about that correlation too. I have read writings out of the Aspie community where some defend autism. I freak out from extreme autistic therapies like ABA, which to me one could correlate with severe starvation and dieting. It seems to work for very few too. I agree about having respect for everyone.

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