Video:Are Your Food Allergies Making You Fat?

I found this video interesting...

considering this blog article...

"Food Allergies Related to Obesity? My Food Allergies are Extreme"

I found this video very interesting....

I took his test Is Inflammation Wrecking Your Metabolism?
Thank you for completing the quiz!

Results:

You scored a: 15
You have a relatively high inflammation problem that requires your immediate attention. Do the basic UltraMetabolism program, but customize it using the specific recommendations in the chapter on inflammation. If you score high (7 and above) you would benefit from taking the additional tests noted in that chapter. In addition to further testing, I strongly recommend that you seek professional medical assistance.

Strong4Life: Beating Up On The Fat Kids

"Child Obesity Ads Draw Controversy"

They told me I would die when I was a fat kid, life was one exercise in fat trauma programming, with the same hideous messages repeated over and over. What is scary as a child, I had only a few severely fat times, never was supersized and remember hearing this stuff, when I was maybe 20-40lbs overweight. 


 All the shame, blame, fear mongering did NOT work on me either 35 years ago. So why do these social programming "geniuses" think this stuff is going to work 40 years later?

Poverty: The Wolf At The Door Trying To Gobble The Fat Lady Up

link to cartoon


I am lucky to be online.  Who can afford an Internet hook up, when there is food to buy and rent to pay? The only reason I am online, is the Internet is a necessary work-based tool for one family member and a marketplace on occasion even for myself to sell things. One generous friend also helped with the computer some time ago. I have had the blessing of some education and a way around a computer, but it can feel lonely out there.

Nothing against you well-meaning people out there getting the 'treat the fat people fairly" message out there too, but sometimes when I read the blogs about the vacations, jobs, NAAFA conferences, fancy fashions, I know I am living in a different socio-economic universe. People like me who slide through the cracks usually are not blessed with Internet access. Most disabled fat people are living on very small fixed incomes, that preclude computer ownership and Internet access, in other words, people in my boat, on the web are probably rarer in number though I have met a few.

Trust me, I appreciate it, as I take nothing for granted, once living without a phone, a car, a working stove, and almost the apartment itself. Homeless has loomed over me a few times in life. Today I have good friends who would not let me hit the streets but those things stay with you. I'm one of those people who is thankful to God if there are groceries in the fridge and money to pay the rent.

I have thought more about how poverty has influenced me as a fat person.  I believe the poverty and severe weight problems have had an interesting relationship and are connected to one another. The other day, I was talking to a newer friend about my past, and realized to my horror, that I was telling her, how I was going HUNGRY in my early 20s, and how there was no money for groceries, and realized that too was part of the picture, that the feast and famine stuff, did no wonders for my metabolism either. It was quite strange remembering those days of actual hunger and having no food, and one time having nothing but a carton of eggs in my refrigerator, box of spaghetti and a loaf of bread for a week's worth of food. Spaghetti mixed with hardboiled eggs and mayonnaise probably was not a healthy dinner. That young and naive', it would take me years to figure out how to seek help if needed.

I have written about some of these things in previous articles:

"The Sesame Street's Puppet of Hunger"

Obesity Risk May Be Lowered By Moving Into A Better Neighborhood

"The Bus is No Fun"

Squeezed Out of the Job Market For Your Body

Poor People And Fat

The Conflation of Poor and Fat

Poverty and Fat: Food is So Expensive Now.

and a few others even.....

How does one even dare to talk about these things? I know even admitting these things is enough to get the rocks thrown, but I figure this long down life's road, what does it matter anymore what any of my detractors think? I am no one's victim and have survived things, that probably would have left many flattened. Even to survive being near 700lbs, I had to throw out what I was being told, and demand real answers. Trust me at this size, you either buck up and learn to stand up against your haters, or you end up totally flattened.

The Poor are left silent. Think about how the working class, and other poor people have been disenfranchised even in our own media, I laughed watching Laverne and Shirley on TV the other day thinking, wow they used to show REAL people or actors who were as real average people, you know 80% of the populace instead of just the ultra rich. Outside of the TV show "Roseanne", poorer people [well except ones they showed being arrested like on Cops] disappeared from our TVs and Roseanne the show was ruined when they all won the Lotto, and left the rest of us "poor saps" behind. Supposedly the star of Roseanne is bringing back a sitcom about poorer working class people living in a trailer park. 

That said, the same applies to FATDOM, frankly I see a navel gazing, upper class, academic world, on some of these fat websites and places. Where they tell me to care about things, I could care less about? Why are they so pretentious?  Do any of these types ever deal with what is real, or are the fancy terms meant to cover up lives they really know very little about. It didn't escape my attention that "class" was left off the "fat intersection" list. What is fat intersection? LOL  Hey most of these academics aren't dealing honestly at least publically with the college bubble or the failing American economy either. Maybe they will when it all finally hits home. 

I know the class divisions are even there in the size acceptance world, the people able to afford $500-$1,000 bucks for travel and hotel rooms for the latest NAAFA conference or other size acceptance social event live in a different universe then I do.  I sometimes wonder to myself how can people not see how the country is on economic life support or where things are going in a wide variety of areas? Sad to say I see some as living in delusional bubbles. Can one really "celebrate fat" in a country where 1 out of 7 people are now on food stamps? What does that mean when there are people struggling to feed their families? How many normal average Fat Joe Sixpacks and Janes even know about NAAFA? I find myself having to explain what they are to the majority out there STILL.

One thing I know this fat blog lacks the perkiness of many others out there. Most of the fat acceptance blogs, not ALL thankfully, are focused on trying to sell how great it is to be fat. I know I haven't done that. The things that are great in my life, are IN SPITE of the fat. Sorry there is no salesman of fat here. Forget accepting FAT, how about accepting and treating people right?

 I take refuge in my hobbies, spend time with my husband, do volunteer work, call up my friends and try to focus on happy things, but sometimes when sitting down to write, I want to give myself a break from my 'social face' and talk about what is REAL. In other words, I don't want to have to be fake on my own blog especially a blog that deals with being so hugely fat and the resulting ramifications. Americans as a whole are busy putting on their happy face, while this country crumbles down around them and our insane leaders even speak of more wars. Well I refuse. I know I ruffled a lot of feathers out there, talking about things, and often am ignored or outright banned in a lot of the fat venues, but going to use my freedom of speech as long as I can, before Obama manages to sign that right away like he did most of the Constitution with NDAA.

Looking back at my life, I often have wondered why money seems to elude, even pre-disabled days, working so hard at so many jobs, I wondered why my pay was so little. I do not think I wasted money and tried to be frugal but all best efforts end up in a heap of dust. Even when I lived in one huge metro city, I thought back and realized I was paying nearly $500 a month on rent alone, more then 40% of my residential counselor take-home pay. But one thing, being educated, this happened to many others, while our voices have been marginalized by the mainstream media out there, this has been reality for millions.

Many fat people are poor too, there are more fat poor people and our numbers are huge. So whose speaking for the poor people struggling with obesity and trying to maintain a semblance of health in a world that seems intent on marginalizing them into voicelessness? Ever notice most of the ANSWERS out there, take COLD HARD CASH?


At least this person seems to get it: "Obesity is about poverty and cheap food, not a lack of moral fibre"


One thing many fat people not only face is the shame of a fat body that others try to foist upon them, but also the stigma and shame of poverty and we know that fat people especially those dealing with the upper ends of severe obesity face health issues [whether they be the cause or the result] and if still able to work serious job discrimination. Even on size acceptance websites, they talk about weight costing real dollars. Some out there see the correlations, and it goes both ways, if you are fatter, more job discrimination, and also the fact that poverty and obesity go together:

Your income and social status are written all over your body, Adam Drewnowski says.

Drewnowski is an epidemiologist. He directs the Center for Obesity Research at the University of Washington in Seattle, and he lectures frequently. "I can pretty much guess the income of an audience by the number of obese women in the room," he says.

"If one-third of my audience is obese, I don't think, 'Oh, my God, these are people with weak willpower or who made bad choices.' I say, 'These are women who do not make more than $40,000 a year.'"

  Being raised by a upper middle class family with some relatives that just told me what a failure I was in many different ways despite a college degree and nearly another was very painful. While some remained helpful, the unwritten message of condemnation was there. For the ones, who never lived it, you just couldn't bring them to understand. For you see, my being fat was not the only crime against what some of them expected me to be, but also falling down the economic ladder.

 One thing I faced, considering money, even during my art teaching/social work days, and the rest, the jaded eyes looked down at me clucking their tongues, because I was not able to replicate the suburban home with giant flat screen-TVs and new carpeting and cars in the drive-way. Honestly, that type of life is not one I ever wanted. Recently, even one uncle basically called me a "deadbeat" on a social networking website. But dealing with an extreme narcissists, this is not someone you can go to and discuss "hurt feelings", they will cut you off at the pass and tell you to "Relax", and "you are making mountains out of molehills!". They just do not get it, never will get and refuse to get it. Their hyper-Republican politics tell them anyone without a dime, is poor and deserves their poverty, illness or no illness. They have been indoctrinated by Fox news, to believe the "lazy" poor are the reason for the country's problems and not all our jobs sent overseas or the trillions spent on war.

Health problems, job lay-offs, the collapse of the economy are mere window-dressing to listing a person's multiple faults. Horatio Alger, couldn't light a candle to these folks. And to me this is the same thing with the obesity stuff I write about. Obviously bigger trends are making us fatter then the individual's personal choices, and the same goes economically. The powers that be do NOT want you to look at the bigger picture and how many individuals are basically riding waves, not of their own creation. Just like poor people who work hard, live frugally and find themselves left hanging despite doing everything "right", obviously it's happening to the fat too isn't it?

Speaking of the wolf at the door, who has been there too often, acouple weeks ago, my husband told me, his freelance work is being cut by his main freelance employer, and already we were down to the bone. Five years of unemployment or rather underemployment have made things hard for him too. If he was not exceptionally skilled in one area, the streets already would have awaited. It is hard to explain to people how this feels, and while we had some years of working class stability in our earlier married life, how you just want the roller coaster to end. Never take security for granted.

Sometimes I wish I could go to my husband's second to last boss, the one who uprooted my life for "economic reasons" and tell them how that impacted my life, taking me away from a loved community, putting us under so much strain and how because of my husband's age, that left him in the almost 50 age discrimination limbo land, where his years of experience became more of a deficient then a help in the job world. That said, I know others who are worse off, where homelessness and permanently interrupted lives, have demanded 45 year old men living with their mothers, and people who live in RV campers.

When people constantly bend down to rip the carpet out from underneath you, it does something to people who never feel they have anything to depend on, and like the entire social contract is nothing but a joke. This has been my entire life. Even during my periods of stable employment, only one job paid what could be called a living wage.  Knocking on doors for opportunity sometimes things just felt tough. One good job, that is all that is needed. One that lasts. One where they do not have the entire household move and then kick you out three months later. We would already have been homeless or living in a state disability apartment or moving in with others, if we did not keep fighting. But sometimes people running a marathon with the wolf nipping at their heels grow tired.

 Sometimes I feel like my life is a version of ground-hog day where the bad stuff always gets revisited. Right now we busily working to meet another demand/hoop laid on by more economic oppressors, and it's like life has just become a series of making sure to please endless unreachable demands that others set up for us.

Add to that guilt in that I am in no shape to return to work and been disabled so long.  Even writing on this blog, I lay down in between articles and while writing many, the body is unforgiving. The other day when it was 40 degrees but a bit too damp, when I decided to venture out, I walked into the front part of the store, a store I usually can traverse and realized my lungs were not cooperating whatsoever, and stood there in the front, having my husband go to the other part of the stores to get some cheap toilet paper and paper towels. It was actually kind of frightening. Sometimes this can feel like a scary world.

The worse however hasn't been the going without, the frugal life, the planning, the endless emergencies that come from not having funds to back up life, thankfully blessed with generous helpful friends and others, but the stigma and condemnation. That doesn't seem to be getting better even as more people fall into poverty. That part I do not understand. Anyone want to step up and admit they agree with me here?

Weight Loss in The Church: Are The Thin More Holy?

Rick Warren's Diet Plan

Another Weight Loss pastor [picture of his book below]



Fat people can be shamed even in the churches. Life for the superfat person in church can get interesting. I loved my last town's small church because once they defended me. A visiting fat-hating preacher came to one of our revival services. I wasn't there, but one of my church friends told me later what happened, this man decided to make me an example during one of his sermons, and started talking about people with too much gluttony who would end up in "hell" and started insulting and mocking me from the pulpit. He had seen me the day before, during the week long revival services but that day I was not present. His squinty small eyes through their round glasses had given me the once over, with a look of  disgust, but there was no inkling of what would come next. The ironic thing, that was the immediate time, I had just lost down from near 700lbs with at least 160lbs gone down to the 500s.

To protect my feelings, the friend would not tell me EXACTLY what was said but it was long, vicious and attacked me for being very fat.  This friend told me over 10 church members got up and walked out. To me, it was one of those moments of feeling loved and defended by people. They were more of a true family to me in many ways.  For you see these church members knew me as a person, and I had told many in the church about my health problems and severe fast weight gain and they knew what my day to day life was like.

Rick Warren is selling weight loss at his church. I guess that is where the money lies. So sad, that one place fat people should feel safe, and I have no problem with a church advancing healthy eating, or facing one's choices, and my country church even taught me to make bread from scratch, but to go to church and have it be another diet-fest with weight-ins included sounds like a nightmare and just another place where "thin is in". How does it feel for the fat person who may fail to lose weight or enough weight in one of those circles?

Anyone remember the days of  Gwen Shamblin? I took one of those classes at a local church, and remember reading her books, this one as well as "Exodus: Out of Egypt".

Her books had the strange advice, that one could escape dieting and eat whatever they "wanted" [that one with endless caveats] and that one would end up thin. It seemed absurd to the max, as that advice was mixed and blended with advice to imagine maggots and mold growing on your food so you would not eat it. She was drummed out of some church circles more for odd theology. The books allowed nothing for differences in metabolism and seemed to focus on someone getting an eating disorder and aversion towards food to run that show.

One thing I faced being a super-fat person in religious circles, is often fat and spirituality are seen as going hand in hand. In a previous church, I was told if I had enough "faith" I would become thin. Consider the inverse of that.  Does that mean slim and healthy people are all necessarily holier? Doesn't our society ALREADY BELIEVE THAT? 

Hey maybe use these verses at your church's next diet meeting


Pro 13:4 The soul of the sluggard desireth, and [hath] nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.

Pro 15:30 The light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart: [and] a good report maketh the bones fat.

Pro 28:25 He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife: but he that putteth his trust in the LORD shall be made fat.

Also if you are fat and sick, and get close to someone, you have to be careful of those who will turn you into a "project" friend, someone they want to "fix" for whatever reason. Some of these people are well-meaning and loving people but it does not set up a healthy relationship whatsoever. There one must only give something like that to God, and not let someone have that superior position over you.

Let me put it this way, I have learned that lesson quite majorly. This was something I faced in churches, some ladies with something to prove, who would befriend the sick, disabled and severely overweight lady, to look good to others in one case, and maybe with good intentions in the other, but then guess what happens, if you do not lose weight, or not lose enough [only 70lbs over 5 years in my case], or get healthy, and too much time passes. The "friendship" implodes. You were not fixed, healed, etc. Now one thing here, even Paul had an infirmity that he had life long [Gal 4:13], it was not weight I am sure, but while God will heal many things and keep praying and hoping, living in the natural world, some do have life long health problems.

I had one lady tell me, that my weight was an attack on my "testimony" and that people would not trust a word coming from a dysfunctional fat person who couldn't even get things together to lose weight. I've read and gone to the OverEater's Anonymous meetings where fat and spirituality are in one huge ball, and where good spirituality supposedly means automatically a thinner body.

This can do a number on a person's mind. What does it do when your body itself, in some of these circles is seen as an implication against your faith or your relationship with God or level of spiritual maturity? Even in other religions besides Christianity, one can see weight treated the same way. In the New Age, there are so many New Age diet books, and even in other religions where diet and spirituality comingle and health seen as a marker of  "spiritual well-being".

These programs seem to be growing more popular. And one thing, while you get the pile of diet books and rest, I have never been able to AFFORD one of these diets, the recipes with endless vegetables and rest have been so beyond my financial means they are laughable. Even the other day, I gleefully found this dairy free health food recipe website, to realize I would need at least a few hundred for the groceries instead of the actual 80 bucks I had.

Here are more recent examples of the push to sell weight loss in the churches or in a spiritual context:

Considering all this dieting is failing....where are things going to lead to?

When THIN BODY is seen as HOLY above fat bodies. Some of these programs will even lambast the fat at an even deeper level, saying people are fat because of what they lack between the ears, and that it is a failure of their mind, will and having a close enough relationship with God. It's odd some even use things like "affirmations" that used to be only part of the New Age movement.

I doubt God is judging so much based on outward appearances, and God knows what you eat or do not eat. It seems the culture of Hollywood and the superficial has fully entered the churches. Remember this article:
"The Body Isn't Everything"?

With my own spiritual walk, I figure God knows what I face, do and eat and I decided long ago to do the best I could, pray, and let the chips fall where they may. Even the fact I am still alive, is gift from God. Those who hit the 700lb mark usually go over the cliff. The diet and exercise formulas are failing even those who add the spiritual elements to it all. I think God may have something to say to those who profit from greed ruining our food and about an entire modern life style that has become toxic on so many levels, spiritually and physically.

Update 2019: In 2017 I deconverted, I am no longer a Christian. Beware all philosophies or religions that focus on fixing you and telling you that you are never good enough with endless goal posts to jump through.

Are Chemicals Not Calories Making Us Fat?

Frankly I find calories a joke, even when my eating is reduced from illness, little weight is lost. It is like some "magic" trick they want me to pull off, where these invisible "calories" or lack there of, will supposedly CHANGE MY LIFE. By the way, to the people sending me DIET information:. I can't afford your overpriced stuff, 2. None of it works, 3. I am already on a massively restricted diet due to severe allergies that would probably leave puddles of tears on your epilectic machine.

But I am noticing some theories, I spoke of YEARS ago, hitting mainstream science and research, FINALLY, I wrote THIS years ago...


"Poisoned Endocrine Systems: Bloating Bodies

There is a basic increase in endocrine diseases due to environmental poisonings. Higher estrogen in the environment is leading to smaller sperm counts and now one in every seven couples is infertile. This is something never seen before. Hormonal diseases that used to be rare, like PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), hypothyroidism and diabetes are now worsening in number. Scientists alone have identified 51 synthetic chemicals in our environment that disrupt hormones. Some mimic estrogen, which is a hormone that adds weight, especially in women, and others conflict with testosterone and thyroid. Among them include everything from PCBs, Dioxin and Furans, many from heavily-used pesticides on our food supply.

Girls are even entering puberty earlier due to these factors, which is leading to higher body weights at early ages. The obesity epidemic has been blamed on higher rates of weight due to the increased insulin (the cart before the horse syndrome again) and leptin from the fat cells. However, the article "Teens Before Their Time" in Time magazine points out:

"The most prominent effect, reported last spring in the Journal of Pediatrics, was the boys exposed to DDE and girls exposed to PCBs were heavier than their unexposed peers at age 14. The study also noted an intriguing fact: girls with high prenatal PCB exposure tended to hit the first stages of puberty a bit earlier than others."

It is pointed out that the sample may be too small statistically but this
certainly needs more investigation. Other researchers are even pointing to plastics.

now on to the article:

"Are Chemicals, Not Calories Making Us Fat?"

YES, DOUBLE YES!

Eat less, move more. That’s been the prevailing weight-loss strategy for years now, but even obesity experts acknowledge that few people who lose weight manage to keep it off.

Meanwhile, in research labs, frogs, mice and zebra fish exposed to minuscule amounts of estrogen replacement drugs, dioxins, bisphenol A and other chemicals are getting fat – very fat.

The phenomenon is so striking that some scientists believe that common chemicals, dubbed obesogens, are messing with our hormonal systems and the natural balance of “calories in, calories out.”

The obesogen theory goes prime time Thursday on the CBC Television series The Nature of Things. In a phone interview, science journalist and filmmaker Bruce Mohun explains the research behind his new documentary, Programmed to be Fat?

We’ve been bombarded with theories about the obesity epidemic, including the idea that antibiotics have disrupted our gut bacteria and made us fat. Why should we pay attention to this one? 

By the way does anyone know if this article hit American news at all?

NAAFA in 1978

I still think the change in NAAFA's name from National Association to Aid Fat Americans to National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance meant a change that was not good. The focus should have remained on PEOPLE Who happened to be FAT instead of advancing FAT. This video is VERY INTERESTING, ask yourself has anything really changed for fat people?


NAAFA in 1978



I think life has gotten worse for obese people as far as discrimination. Things have regressed even since the 1970s, the only choice is now fat people have far more clothing choices due to market forces. All the problems outlined in this video in 1978, have worsened. There is not more understanding, nor help for fat people. Even the same diets are sold over and over from those days like the Adkins revival 10 years ago.

Since the 1970s, society has become more shallow and appearance oriented. Think about this, it's been 40 years and making fat people thin has not worked. They failed. In 1978, I was a fat ten year old, and remember the shame and blame hoisted on the fat. I think society has grown to be meaner and less polite place and that has meant even more heaped upon the fat.

NAAFA I think meant well at the start and should have stuck with the AID FAT AMERICANS [FOCUS on THE PEOPLE not the FAT]. They all look like sincere, good people.

Be sure to read my other articles concerning NAAFA.

Ted Nugent and Anthony Bourdain: Fat Haters

I am of the opinion you will never see a celebrity that is known or famous question the system, because they are part of the system and that system profits off fat people and the diet industry that hypes extreme personal responsibility as the sole cause of the obesity epidemic instead of our adulterated food and toxic lifestyles imposed from above. So when you see one of these self-avowed celebrity "experts" coming out with their brain-dead politics from either side of the partisan aisle, always question the slop that comes out of their mouths.

Here is the transcript of the video:

Go to the link it gets even worse. Make sure to be careful of your blood pressure. They complain about fat people on airplanes, say fat kids SHOULD be made fun of and say that obesity is a suicide lifestyle freely chosen. That last one alone is beyond offensive and shows their utter loathsome stupidity and their being used as mouthpieces for other interests.  Even Bourdain's nauseating brainwashed politics are enough to make me vomit all over my keyboard along with the hatred of the fat.

Anthony Bourdain is a hypocrite of the highest order, selling his overseas food porn to the American masses. This shows me anyone can insult and judge fat people even past drug addicts. He smokes, drinks like a fish even while "working: on his TV show  and has taken street drugs:

He is also a former user of cocaine, heroin, and LSD. In Kitchen Confidential he writes of his experience in a trendy SoHo restaurant in 1981: "We were high all the time, sneaking off to the walk-in refrigerator at every opportunity to 'conceptualize.' Hardly a decision was made without drugs. Cannabis, methaqualone, cocaine, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms soaked in honey and used to sweeten tea, secobarbital, tuinal, amphetamine, codeine and, increasingly, heroin, which we'd send a Spanish-speaking busboy over to Alphabet City to get."[24] In the same book, Bourdain frankly describes his former addiction, including how he once resorted to selling his record collection on the street in order to raise enough money to purchase drugs.

Ted Nugent who has no room to speak with his involvement in wicked TV shows, and has had multiple children out of wedlock .

We live in a culture where it's no holds barred on fat people. What makes me sick will be those who will listen to these people and learn to hate fat people even more.

"Obesity and The Marshmallow Conspiracy"

Often on this blog, I have put forth my theory that we are being made fat on purpose and for profit. I believe we are becoming fatter from adulterated and chemically laden food and lack of nutrition. Even as I described recently the differences between a normal apple and an organic apple were astonishing to me. I now can eat only the organic. This guy shares his thoughts about our ruined food and why the obesity is out of control. I probably would have chosen a different healthier food they have ruined, since this always has been considered a sweet but read on and you'll see:

"Obesity and The Marshmallow Conspiracy"

"I remember when a marshmallow was a marshmallow, do you? Have you tried to roast a marshmallow lately, good luck? What has happened to the good old marshmallow? The same thing that has happened to most of our food. When we were not paying any attention they took the marshmallow out of marshmallows but kept the price moving gradually upward. What is in the marshmallow today? Artificial color, artificial flavor, corn syrup, dextrose, gelatin (cow hooves), modified corn starch, sugar and tetrasodium pyrophosphate, sounds like a gut bomb to me. It still looks like a marshmallow and they still call it a marshmallow but it is obviously not. This kind of slow changing of ingredients has gone on throughout the food industry; it reminds me of the Trojan horse. The food industry's major concern is shelf life and marketing a lot of their junk to us, not what happens after we eat the stuff. Now suddenly everyone is noticing that gee, we have an obesity epidemic (1/3 of the country obese) and a whole lot of other epidemics. Medical science's weak answer to the obesity epidemic is genetics, so they can research it and make more drugs. But wait a minute, how does the genetics of an entire country change in a matter of years? I am sure that your doctor cares, but does the medical industry care? Why should they care; more sick people means more money into their industry. Many people I have talked to blame the obese person saying "they eat too much and they are lazy". One third of the country and growing, I don't think so.

Through the food industry, our food is subjected to poor farming methods, irradiation, pasteurization, emulsification, over-refining, genetic modification, steriod-ization, antibiotic-ization. Then before it gets to us they add aspartame, MSG, artificial colors, sodium nitrite, hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn syrup, acesulfame K, BHA, BHT, olestra, bromate, sulfites, senomyx, and I could go on and on. Good grief, what do they think we are? You and I know that this is not right. A marshmallow should be a marshmallow, not degrade into something chemically unrecognizable. Food should have food value and nourish us, not turn us into an obese sickly country, you know it, I know it and they should know it.

Not long ago the people of England got upset with the food industry over some GMF ingredients that were being put in their foods. Some of the companies involved were pretty big and used to having their way. Well when they realized that the public was angry, they pulled those foods and ingredients from the shelves in one week flat. Maybe we need to do the same thing here in the United States."

Hunger Pain

All my life, Ive had bad hunger pain, the full blown stomach growling, and pain in your gut that says EMPTY! Yesterday I got so annoyed. I am worried about my diabetes and have eaten too many carbs to keep my digestive system humming because they are more bland so I was trying to eat less yesterday, but it's like the body would NOT leave me alone and I was ready to go scream. The women's magazines will tell you to go drink a glass of water, and that supposedly works. No it does not. I have tried to train myself to ignore hunger pain but always have failed, even if I wait and some of the pain ebbs away, then comes the feelings of fuzziness and "illness". Getting doctors to explain this is hard. I hear "You are diabetic, you have to eat regular!" but come on every 4-5 hours where I feel like I'll be knocked on the floor? Sometimes it comes crawling on only three hours later. Diets are a joke for me even regarding the constant hunger pain, and by the way, I am not describing head hunger or boredom hunger, but in your gut growling stomach hunger.

This morning, I woke up with hunger pain at 5am! [I had an IBS attack the day before so some eating was scaled back, but I had eaten two chicken fajitas, with no cheese of course, made with chicken tenderloins, some tomato, and cooked onions and greenpeppers with avacado on them for dinner. A big enough and filling dinner. I have a rule never to eat at night, for a diabetic, you need those 8-12 hours of the body being free of food, so I ignored it. But as I went back to sleep with my stomach growling, thankfully fatigue winning over hunger, I thought "THIS IS NOT NORMAL!"

See "Fat People Are Hungrier"

The Social Stigma of Being Supersized in One's Family

One thing that can happen to fat people especially in the greater sizes is you can be rejected by relatives. You realize while a few closer inner circle relatives from your immediate family remain in your life, the rest barely want anything to do with you. Even if you went to visit their homes out of state years on end even while being ill, you realize this favor is not returned. They just do not come visit you, and in my case, I ended up moving even farther away. I have reached out to aunts, cousins and others only to have endless closed doors. Even other ones who would be allies on the poverty front, want nothing to do with me, my low status within the family based on weight from the ones who are more upper class, normal and thin. In other words the uncle with his two perfectly thin and popular daughters who refuse to even befriend me on a social website, who just went on a cruise to the Bahamas, isn't wasting much time bothering with the likes of me. Usually he just writes that anyone in need of any 'help' aka disability, unemployment, is a "deadbeat" from his hours of being brainwashed by Fox news.

I find myself sometimes shuddering in fear for what awaits for the cousin who has passed the 400lb mark and my two nephews who are in higher weights. How will they be treated once they cross a certain threshold?

I am not the only supersized person I have heard of this happening to. For many families when a person crosses the "acceptable and employed" line of fat into severe obesity and disability, you will see the subtle rejection, you are "not like them", and while some of the more dutiful relatives may keep you around, it is not the same relationships they have with each other. You know when they keep their party secret to keep you away from it, something has gone wrong. The fat person faces earlier on, You are not what they wanted you to be.

Matters of whose fault it is doesn't matter, the relatives can eat far more then you and pay little price but you are still to blame. Their refrigerators full to the bursting with lavish food, they always eat a full plate with seconds at the shared meals, but they aren't fat! They can know about your endocrine struggles and medical history but it does not matter. Some just judge on what they "see" and nothing else.

Even friends of the family join in the fat beat-down-a-thon, one family friend of 30 years duration, told me, that a female relative had been unable to accept my weight and never would be able to. I had already discerned that, but this was told with the woeful eyes, that didn't even try to hide their lack of sympathy and disgust at me for being overweight.

I recently had one relative even defend my ostracization and you can even reach out to the community and will find even others who say to you... "So some of your family rejects you over your health problems?" as if that is acceptable. They meant well, but when you know how people see you, it can impact a person. What other health problems but fat related stuff is even accepted to reject someone over?

I have heard that message too, it is acceptable because you are so far gone. When you have seen years of the looks of disgust on some faces, for being what you are, it does something to a person that goes beyond words.

I have known other supersized people this has happened to. I am NOT the only one. One friend now deceased, had two upper class parents, leave her living in her car to homelessness in her 20s when she reached 600lbs, because "she had made her own bed of fat", and ended up hospitalized from the rigors of living in her car. I never was treated that badly but what did that do to her self esteem alone?

Another friend even with very well off parents here too, worked herself into the ground, even working while severely ill to keep up with the Joneses and maintain a lower middle class lifestyle then disability would bring. There was too much shame in any illness related to fat. I believed this probably ended her life far sooner then it would have been. Here too the family blamed her, even though she was diagnosed with endocrine disease and had lymphedema that brought on pounds of water weight.

Others while the family may help them, get condemned as "burdens". Obesity unlike other illnesses does not earn any sympathy because unlike cancer, cerebral palsy or the wide array of things that 'can go wrong", you are seen at fault. Unlike the drug addicts, and alcoholics, your illness shows and is visible to others, and in some ways the blame can be worse. The drug addicts and alcoholics are told it is an "illness" and offered endless places to get help, rehab, and more while the fat person is told it is a failure of moral character and why don't you work to lose weight and ever wonder why there are so few rehab centers for fat people?

What gets me is I was looking at some family albums, from the 1980s, in these albums I ranged from 13-16 years old. I was big nearly 6 feet tall, and perhaps around 30-40lbs overweight but more LARGE then FAT, what astounds me at the time is I remember being told how utterly fat I was at that age, even by the extended family, almost like I was huger then even now which is ludicrous. I was actually quite near normal. I remember even visiting one grandmother at the time, who allowed me only one meal a day at her house where I got so hungry, I snuck food out of the fridge.

I was able to escape their condemnation, I often think what would have become of me if I had allowed these relatives to fully define who I was? I turned to God for definition. But that said, I think of other supersized fat people facing the daily grinding down of their self esteems and who they are. You never forget the pain.

What is even sadder for me, the distance, and time of 20 years, and living so far from people and health problems making visiting far harder and impossible in some cases, has chipped even the more positive relationships away I wanted so hard to keep. If no one visits you because you live in a medium sized apt, and "there is nothing for their children to do", as the years go by, and you have no money for bus tickets, or gas or long distance travel, you find yourself becoming strangers. Their time is given to who are more mobile, more active, and easier to see.

I often ask myself how did I end up long distance from everyone? This is part of modern society I hate. There is no "home" to move to, trust me I'd already be there even to try and renew relationships and be around my nieces and nephews and part of their DAILY lives, everyone is so scattered.

Being rejected for being fat by relatives, can be one of life's most painful things. What scares me is I can see how the other ones who are fat face different degrees of rejection by the thinner ones. Sometimes you can even see the immediate changes in treatment when fat people lose some weight for a short time. It is actually astonishing to watch. I do not think this is the way things were meant to be. But look at how the airwaves alone are influencing everyone to view the fat. It can be very hard for a fat person to deal with relatives who do not accept them for the person they are inside.

Anthony Bourdain On Obesity

Anthony Bourdain on Obesity



This guy inhales pork like it's going out of style. I've seen "No Reservations", many times. I often used to watch him inhale plates of fried bits from a variety of overseas street vendors, going on a day long eat-a-thon. This more then often included huge plates of barbecue pork. He should weigh far more then he does. So who is he to talk? Does smoking and drinking raise metabolism? I would think this guy would be smart enough to know about endocrine disrupters and the toxins in our processed food. He wants government control to end obesity.

He says "There is nothing patriotic about diabetes or gout"

So he is on the same level with Ted Nugent? He pushes the class issues under the carpet, what a clueless guy!