Corporate Food Masters Busy Trying To Fatten Up The Rest of the World

I guess our American corporate food masters are trying to fatten up the rest of the world. So in Middle Eastern cultures where they have parsley, tomato, onion and cucumber salads and baked chicken and hummus, they want you to wipe that away for an orgy of cream cheese in fried dough hooked onto a pizza filled with more cheese. You got to be kidding me.

A Fat Hating Commercial

I see tons of thin people putting garbage into their carts. Actually I wish I could take pictures but then that would treating people in an undignified matter they have the right to eat what they want, but I hate this commercial because it just helps advance the stereotypes that fat people are fat because they eat nothing but garbage and IT'S ALL THEIR FAULT. I feel frustration at the grocery store for all the non-food I have to dig through to find the real stuff. I agree that one should eat better then the mother and daughter shown in this commercial but did we really need more fat hatred advanced at the same time?

It’s Hard Enough to Be a Fat Kid Without the Government Telling You You’re an Epidemic

STRONG Language warning on this one. I do think there IS an obesity epidemic, so do not agree with the author with everything but I have even asked myself "What is this doing to the fat kids out there?" and of course in 40 years nothing has changed but more of the same shame and blame and NON-ANSWERS.

 "Look. I don't want people to die. I don't want the next generation of kids to have lower life-expectancies than their parents. I want people to be healthy! But first of all, though weight loss can certainly improve some people's health, "fat" does not universally equal "unhealthy." Health itself is a much more effective and specific goal. And campaigns like this—which target fat people instead of the system that makes them fat—do nothing but hurt that supposed cause. An anti-fat-people campaign is still an ANTI-PEOPLE CAMPAIGN. And I'm pretty sure that treating people (fat people are people!) like animals, cartoonish ice cream addicts, and disease vectors is decidedly bad for people's health. The times in my life when I've been healthiest align directly with the times I've been happiest. This is not a loose correlation. 

Here's a thought, America: If you really want people to be healthier (I'm not entirely convinced that you do, but that's another article altogether), why don't we treat the concept of getting healthy the way that getting healthy actually works? There is nothing that anyone is going to do or say that's going to make fat people skinny tomorrow. Sorry. There is no magic commercial that's going to shame people into becoming thin overnight—just like there's no housewife who discovered one weird trick to burning off belly fat. It's just not going to happen. The real problem is much bigger, much harder to solve, and much less fun for people who get off on hating fat people."

This part I definitely agree with. Course I have the belief that people and children ARE getting fatter from the stress, and "unhappiness" in America, so ponder that one a bit.

Hail To Thee Fat Person!

LOL this one is kind of funny, if only we had something like this on TV today...

A Sociological Critique of HAES

a picture I don't agree with, certainly past a certain line:

A Sociological Critique of HAES

Lots of good points in this one.  I have put up what I think of HAES multiple times on this blog

 "Bacon notes that ‘We all have internal systems designed to keep us healthy – and at a healthy weight. Support your body in naturally finding its appropriate weight by honouring its signals of hunger, fullness and appetite’. In a YouTube video she claims that as long as ‘you stop fighting yourself, achieving and maintaining the weight that is right for you is effortless – your body does the job for you’."

This is simply not true. My body doesn't do the job for me, nor does it for many fat people. I read the above and it seems to be a magical mystery land of make-believe. So I am relieved that the author brings up these points with I agree with. I share her same suspicion when it comes to words like "natural, instinctive or internal cues" as well.

" Yet I would argue that there are elements of the HAES discourse that should be held up to critical examination. It is time to challenge its assumptions and to identify the inconsistencies and the brand of rigid thinking that underpin HAES, just as critics have done in relation to scientific anti-obesity discourse. In her writings on HAES, Bacon constantly refers to the body’s natural ‘set-point’ which ensures that too much weight is not gained if one makes sure to follow one’s body’s cues. References to ‘turning over control to your body’ assumes that the body is a natural entity that has its own wisdom independent of where it is sited or what experiences it has gone through. While I agree with and support the major principles of accepting a range of body sizes and shapes and that everyone, regardless of their size and shape should seek a lifestyle that is both pleasurable and healthy, as a sociologist, I tend to approach the words ‘natural’, ‘instinctive’ or ‘internal cues’ with suspicion."

[snip]

The sociologist even notes what I have pointed out about the size acceptance movement too as a whole, where the body is focused as the end all and be all. This goes against the reality that most fat people to survive mentally, emotionally and intellectual often have to concentrate more then an average person on the life of the mind and other things that will bring joy.

 "This discourse reproduces the classic Cartesian duality of the mind/self as separate from the body/flesh and turns it on its head. Instead of the rational mind positioned as superior to the fleshly body, here the body is represented as ‘wise’ and all-knowing, to which the mind/self should relinquish control. Yet as theorists such as Merleau-Ponty have argued, we cannot separate ‘self’ from ‘body’: we always and inevitably experience the world as embodied selves. Take the concept of ‘internal cues’ for example. The HAES literature suggests that such cues are natural, instinctive, biologically determined and therefore appropriate to follow. But if nothing else, the sociology of the body and indeed, the sociology of food and eating (Lupton, 1996) have shown us motivations can never be fully or purely ‘internal’. They are experienced via social and cultural lens, including our own life experiences and our siting within the particular cultural context into which we were born and grew up. "

[snip]

And here she hits some of the nails, right on the head, where hyper-personal responsibility rules and where the demands to love yourself hold a sway that can be shame inducing as well. I've spoken of it as the sort of healthism that tells a fat person especially in my category, to somehow suspend reality when it comes to my own physical problems. She is right if the external remains unchanged, we can hear "love yourself" til the cows come home, and how going back to the previous point is one to do that if everything is based on the body that has betrayed you in the FIRST PLACE? HAES tells us our own bodies will fix "themselves" if we listen, but it's a false construct. 

 "Another important aspect of HAES that requires more critical examination is the concept that we should accept our bodies whatever our size and the assumption that this will lead to better self-esteem, a goal in itself. But such attempts to improve self-esteem from within fail to recognise the continuing fat prejudice and loathing that continues to exist within our society. Bacon argues that HAES will ‘give you the tools … to live in a body you love’ (2010: 5). But this is similar to asserting that prejudice, discrimination and stigma based on such features as a person’s ethnicity or race, or their age, can be dealt with by ‘loving yourself’. Such an approach attempts to change individuals’ behaviours rather than wider societal attitudes, and the problem therefore remains personal (Murray, 2008). Whatever one’s own attitude about one’s body, the external societal meanings will remain unchanged, and prejudice, discrimination and stigmatisation will continue to exist. Fat people themselves, however, hard they try, may struggle to accept their body size in such a punitive social environment. Their inability to ‘love themselves’ may well become yet another source of shame and guilt."

See: Health At Every Size? And Healthism in the Size Acceptance Movement

An Elephant in the Room?

Many of us fat people will relate to this cartoon...it was done by a blogger calling herself "fat chick on stage"

The feelings of insecurity were worse for me when young, I've been superfat so many years. For me, the only option was to adapt. I have my times of feeling like the "giant" among "regular people". One thing pertaining to the blogger, I openly call myself FAT out in public. Once you stop hiding or trying to deny reality life is far easier.

Chapter #2 There's an Elephant in the Room

When Fat Identity Politics Goes TOO Far!

This is Thin Privilege

"This blog showcases examples of thin privilege in order to illustrate fatphobia and fat discrimination."

Does this mean I can start a blog to call out those who are breathing privileged? How about mobility privileged? How about hearing privileged? I demand my rights!

Have these people lost it?

I remember in elementary school reading a story called Harrison Bergeron. This fits it, yes the world has gone this INSANE. In this story those who are too smart have their brains blocked, those who can dance are weighed down, well you get the idea...

"THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General."

I told a friend the other day, that actually all this special groups right stuff when taken to an extreme actually is creating more division between people, we should be seeking integration of different people instead of all being balkanized into our little camps. While we should be able to choose who we assemble with, there is a purpose for basic laws against discrimination out there, such as job and other discrimination against the old, disabled and other races. Those protections make sense. I understand there being groups to help a certain segment of people out, like disability support and even NAAFA itself if they had stuck with the Aid to Fat Americans program. However this goes way beyond a sane point. This is hyper extreme identity politics craziness, you know the kind that assumes one party is the "evil oppressor". When you start focusing on what the other people have and resent them for having it "better" then you and in return start this division nonsense, it is a path to nowhere good.

The global elites and types who wish to have profit and power get more of each when they have every little group of people split into endless fractured pieces. This way instead of asking why some on top out there have escaped with all the booty and why our cities are rotting from the inside out, they can look at the little people fighting among themselves and laugh. Here too conformity in this society has gotten to a crazy point, and why all the focus on dividing people up into a variety of special interest groups? I hope if I ever start talking about "thin privilege" that someone tells me to shove off. Don't these people have any thin friends? Give me a break!

Remember what I wrote about on this blog at various times about the fat letting their supposed "oppressors" define them? Is every thin person an oppressor of the fat? NO WAY! That blog insults all my thin friends, yeah I do have them, I obviously am not hanging out at the NAAFA clubhouse and there are fat friends too.

Yes this is what I am talking about when I am talking about the extreme liberalism of the size acceptance movement as a whole. Odd ways of thinking, being and more where the world view has been skewed in such an extraordinary way. I have realized I do not even think like these folks. It's insanity!

What is thin privilege? THIS is thin privilege.

Thin (and other forms of) privilege is expecting fat people to educate you about why fat discrimination is wrong.

Discrimination and bigotry is feeling justified in your uneducated opinion when fat (and other marginalized) people choose not to educate you about your bigotry.

So when you send asks or submissions to this blog demanding I educate you about why fat people aren’t just terrible lazy broken humans making themselves fat and hence burdens that need to be eliminated in some form or another, and I choose not to educate you, that doesn’t mean that I can’t educate you and you’ve called my bluff (I can, and you haven’t), or that I’m a jerk if I don’t respond to you.

You don’t have any right to expect me to tell you why you shouldn’t hate or think less of fat people—reasons that you’ll ignore anyway, so you can continue to feel good about being privileged, so you can avoid the discomfort that comes with realizing that you have a whole hell of a lot of unearned advantages in your life.

You want to believe you’ve ‘earned’ thinness and thin privilege and fat people have ‘earned’ fatness and fat bigotry, but the truth is: you’re wrong. Factually, and morally, wrong.

Educate yourself. There are plenty of resources out there: Gina Kolata and Paul Campos and Marilyn Wann and Linda Bacon have decent accessible books; there are the archives of the Junkfoodscience blog, which link to a ton of good studies and debunks a ton of bad ones; hell, just search Google Scholar and try to find one study NOT funded by a drug company trying to shill a diet product/procedure that shows dieting works for most people long term (post five years), and that surgical weight loss procedures don’t cause more harm than good.

But no. You don’t carry the burden of proving your bigoted beliefs, because you have them reinforced by junk science articles and news reports almost every day, diet commercials full of “it’s so easy!” before-and-afters (that’s MARKETING, not science!), and not a fat person portrayed in a positive or realistic way pretty much anywhere in TV, film, and books.

Don’t you get it? THAT IS THIN PRIVILEGE.

Hey just so people reading this blog know it, I've been called by a couple of these identity politic types "a bigot"! LOL against fat people. That one is absurd given I am 500lbs but reason doesn't even enter into this stuff. This is what they call everyone who disagrees with them. Such types preach tolerance but really have none of it. How do they expect to win thin people over, if they have made them into the "OTHER"? Why was that even necessary?

The identity politics stuff DOES influence the truth fall between the middle where these folks become the enablers to the diet industrial complex. After all if your main gig is telling people "I'm fat and proud of it", why would you face that obesity may bring some hardships? Here too we see the focus on the BODY, the EXTERNALS of a human being rather then soul and spirit to the point the THIN are now seen as the enemy.

These type of agitators always speak of education, I often think of the communist re-education camps. "We must EDUCATE you!" LOL You'll never see them facing endocrine disruptors or how modern society has changed in some unwholesome ways. Sure they are RIGHT about the lying studies that work on behalf to float the whole false diet boat, but what do they hope to accomplish by naming THIN people as their enemies incarnate?

God help us all!

Looking for Happiness Despite the Weight

I saw this over on Dr. Sharma's website

Are Happy and Fat People Delusional?

"As one would expect, the show prompted a deluge of comments on the CTV website with a wide range of opinions both in support and against the positions that a) it is possible to be fat and healthy, b) anyone who is motivated enough can control their weight, c) fat people who are fine with their size are delusional and a burden on society, d) someone needs to step in and help them see the light for their own good."

Well people know I have issues with the size acceptance crowd that expects one to shove their reality under a carpet but that said, I do think one should seek happiness in this life, and get to the conclusion of trying to solve the problems they can, hand the rest over to God and leave it that. Yes I have struggled with depression and heartache in this life, but one part of recovery, healing etc, is taking a re-look at what is really important and it impacts this issue.

Then there is the diet industrial complex which will beat down a fat person's mind and heart as they do the by the numbers trudge with false hope and false answers. They have brought the world into false views of obesity saying it is a chosen state to be in, which if anyone thought this out they would realize that is totally insane. Why does dieting and depression and feelings of low self esteem go hand in hand? Even being this fat, I do not think life should be a march of nothing but drudge. I know on this particular blog due to the subject matter I am more serious, but in life, why not focus on seeking the happy and good things too?

I had to face facts, that a thin me was never going to happen, and now have tried to balance out the outcomes of knowing this fat problem in my case is not going to be fixable. This doesn't mean give up, I know I must maintain and do what I can, but it also doesn't mean putting life off for some dream day.

I lived longer getting some of the weight off, but cannot drop the food any further to lose safely. Those who have more regular metabolisms who can drop down the calories and see improvement and "change their lifestyles" to increase some exercise and fix the quotient, perhaps have a bit of "control". But there is a point where a person reaches, where they say, "you know, I have done what I can, and well, I have to accept that and the outcomes". In other words "Let the chips fall where they may". Which may be an odd attitude that may anger some people who thinks a 500lb person should starve, beat themselves into the ground etc to be thin, but I am the one living this life and have to see what I can handle.

They offer to many fat people a dream on a platter that for many of us doesn't come true. Sure some changes for some people may help, treatment for any binge eating disorders that may exist, changes to diet, the lifestyle tweaks, but for many who are fat, it just doesn't work. And that is what I will tell the people who tell me I have full control or have chosen this. They come live with me for awhile and see the digestive and allergy pains and the extreme thought that has to come into every meal and then judge for themselves. The problem is for most fat people, they will remain burdened under judgments they do not deserve. This is why I use this blog to get some truth out there to open a few brains, instead of believing everything they hear from the diet industrial complex funded media.

But here I see the two choices that are non-choices, change they see as an automatic choice which eludes upwards of 90% of people and the other choice that fat is automatically healthy, its not. I know health and happiness go hand in hand, and yes it it is easier to be happier while having good health. But what if you are sick or have been chronically ill for over 20 years, a category I now fit in? I had to learn to find happiness outside of the normal range, I still wanted to live my life and do things and find what happiness that laid out there. I had my friends, hobbies and other things I have committed myself too. I have my religious faith too.

I think a lot of fat people aren't happy because

1. They are told to be unhappy and shamed on a consistent basis. There are no role models of fat and happy, especially for supersized women. The "happiness" advertised by size acceptance, where they expect a person to deny their reality especially for us extremely large folks is no answer too. Happiness is to be based on reality, not false cult like smiles to "fit in" or to please your oppressors.

2. They are told to wait for the day they are THIN, which for many of us is a day that never comes or for some who manage the yo-yo dieting thing, comes only in short bursts and is not consistent. Many put off real life for the day when they will be thin. I know I have faced my own mortality so often, it's either now or never.

3. They are told they are in full control of everything. This seriously is an American cultural problem which actually sets people up for false expectations and disappointments instead of forming resiliancy and being happy in the face of severe odds. This too is one reason why we have a society that blames fat people instead of changes to our food, and much more changing the entire environment making for more severe obesity.

4. False consumerist and other standards are unloaded on people as a whole without stop now. Where while people in the old days found many other sources of happiness and social connection outside of bodily norms and "fitting in", now its all about looks and conformity. Where does true happiness lie in a society that only cares more and more about how much you measure up, and not really much else about love, compassion and connections? There isn't much of it left, the numbers the bean counters judge us all by, are a form of control.

Can a fat person be happy? Well many face severe health problems in this life and manage to find sources of meaning in their life. The other day when I was sick, I wanted to get better to do a visit with a close friend of mine, to make cards with another friend, I wanted to go out to the park, hey if you know you are missing out from illness you know you have a life of some sort. I prayed to get better.

The thing that makes people happiest, is letting go of the false standards, and looking towards what really is important. Who are the people demanding everyone be a perfect size? Whose the one setting the standards for the one who diets the best? What will this all mean in 500 years?

I wrote once in a poem in the end "we all end up as skeletons"...think about that for a minute. There are no fat people in the grave.

I was able to find some happiness in life even though I am one of the fattest people on this earth and my body is a source of a lot of suffering, I still look for the good things in life. That said, happiness shouldn't be a litmus test either, if people are unhappy some may have reasons to be so, as well as the problems of clinical depression and more. Those who face unhappiness shouldn't be judged either, yes I am talking to you size acceptance activists! But then understand what this world demands and asks people to do and be, doesn't mean the instant happiness they promise. That is a trap of it's own.

I find promise and hope from God. I reject this world's standards which have trapped so many, and have decided to look for my own answers. I believe it's one reason I am still alive.

Standing Up For One's Beliefs

It isn't always easy. I lost a social website friend the other day, telling them I was against NDAA and deeply concerned about the loss of civil liberties in America. I wrote "I remember the days when people gave a nod to civil liberties and cared about freedom in the USA, now it seems those days are gone." They got angry, and mocked me. I don't make friends pass political litmus tests to be my friends, but notice sometimes, this favor is not always returned.

Read this article to read about some of those growing concerns that others share.   There were people who have spoken out at other times in history who were rejected and "hated" for what they stood for. I would like to think if I had been around in different times in history I would not have been a coward and would have spoken out. It is not always easy to speak out   to even speak out about such things, I am a peaceful person, but definitely the climate is changing out there in a very negative fashion.

One hobby I have is being a newshound and watching some of the changes in this country has not been a pleasant experience. One thing I face in this world is I fit no demographic, the same way my body doesn't fit, it's like what I believe does not either. But part of life is standing up for one's beliefs even if they are NOT POPULAR and you do not fit the "in" group. That definitely has been a theme in my life. Some may see this as a fault, but I am not a person to mindlessly follow the group. Not to toot my horn and become the conformist's "non-conformist", but I realize one part of being outspoken and this can range from trivial matters to big ticket items, is that you can end up standing there kind of on your own at times. It is a price to be paid. 

I know even with weight stuff, I am kind of out on an ice floe with few others, not fitting in the mainstream either.  Sometimes I feel like those who are remain independent thinkers not influenced by a "demographic" block are growing rarer in number. Some idealogues on the left hate me for not supporting Obama and rejecting politically correct speech.  Some idealogues on the right hate me because I am not a 1 percenter who has bought into "trickle down" theories of wealth and takes every word out of the mouth of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh as the gospel truth. It feels this way in the FAT world too. Where do I fit? I know belief wise, I cannot buy into the demanded ideologue of the size acceptance world either, where one must accept their fat or else. Here I have fallen in a strange middle place where the size acceptance world rejects this blog for not being 'fat-accepting' in the way they require, and the diet industrial world just has more shame and pain to offer. My body, my life discounts so many of their theories on both sides, and well, obviously that has been a theme on this blog. I have written about this issue many times. That said, I detest the diet industrial complex and what it has to offer and PROFIT it from.

Maybe it is because my life has been so unusual, the fat weighing me down for so many years, the hitting the brick wall over and over and my life in the balance from the weight. I think even backing AWAY from being 700lbs and a steady fast gain may be the exception to what really happens giving me a different outlook on what it means to be fat and what is happening with obesity in America. I know this blog has what some would term "alternative theories" regarding obesity and not your normal size acceptance conclusions but these are things I have been thinking about and looking at for upwards of over 15 years. I really do believe the truth is falling in the middle between those who say BE FAT and don't worry about the health repercussions or accept them at our behest even if you are in the supersized category and the Diet Industrial Complex offers no workable and only harmful answers as well.

My main point is to stand up and demand the TRUTH. The Truth is what I am interested in. Even when it comes to obesity and everything else.

Sick Again

I had a horrible day the other day, severe digestive troubles. I have read gallstones can come with Chrohns. I never have gallbladder pain, all the pain is in the lower intestines, have had scans which always are negative and the most severe problems are digestive.

I am passing some small yellow balls on occasion. I worry the Bentyl I take to kill pain is giving me floaters in my eyes. I never would survive gallbladder surgery, so this is stressful on endless accounts. Figuring out what to eat is getting harder and harder since so many foods make me sick. Yes, I have seen Gastroenterologists before.  I got a handle on things, but then it all came back. I ate away from home and away from what from what I call my "safe" restaurants the day before I got sick.

I wonder sometimes how on earth I am staying so fat, when food and me haven't been friends in some time. I'm never going to get the dream researcher who shows up to put me in a lab and make sense of this horrible body that makes no sense. The thin people I am around get shocked by the various food groups I can't even touch. I probably ate less then 500 calories yesterday and that food only taken in to keep from passing out from diabetes. I guess though when you feel like floating away and your vision goes wonky it's kind of low.

I threw up for hours, and had the usual thing where my husband begged me to go to the emergency room. It is scary to weigh 500lbs and know they probably would want to do very risky tests and surgeries and you think, "OK, just make it to morning, and you will be normal again!" and it has happened before where you have even got 3-4 weeks of being trouble free. I feel better now though a bit ragged, food is staying down. This attack lasted about 3-4 days in duration with maybe 24 hours of acute vomiting.

Some of the symptons are WEIRD, severe fatigue which also serves as a warning of an attack to come, undigested food, vomiting that comes at the peak of it all and continues for hours even dry heaves, severe lower abdominal pain, the runs, severe gas, two warning days of CHILLS, I get so cold it's not funny, and take my temperature which is always on the low end instead of the fevers most would predict. When I get attacks, I always have warning mouth sores for days even, yes really, and at times my right eye turns red for no reason at all.  I am technically only diagnosed now with severe IBS. Bentyl works to kill the pain and even to hold off the vomiting if I don't throw it up, but if I throw it up, all bets are off and it's hours of suffering.

I feel like I am falling apart. I have been eating healthy. Even the food I ate away from home, was even vegetables and such, and a LEAN pork roast with no fat on it, but who knows, I can't even blame that meal totally as I had warning chills the day before. I laid on my bed in total pain, praying to God to allow me to make it. Well at least now attacks like this are rarer, this was the first time in MONTHS, while before I was having this at least a few times a month.

If anyone has any ideas or has had Chrohn's or gallbladder problems, chime in. I am hoping I can get this stuff under control again. I did it before. I just wonder now how much of it is under my control or not.