Christina Corrigan WAS Betrayed.

See Post Here

Fat Logic, the home of the brain-dead CICO believers, keep screaming "Eat Less/Move More" even when it comes to Christina Corrigan. In their stunted world, there's no such thing as rare diseases that can make people fat. I have seen even the "reality" of Lipedema and Cushings argued over at that place because they are so invested in their world view of shaming and blaming fat people. The idea of any disease swelling up the body, is anathema to a bunch of brainwashed fat bigots. 

I find it funny how they hide all the links to my blog, which I don't seen done when it comes to other things they discuss on there. There is definitely a reason for it.

What is funny, some do admit, I could be right about her having Prader Willi. I also wrote she could have hypothalamic obesity or another disorder.  They ignored that part which doesn't surprise me. So the poster rants and raves about my "ridiculous" comments and then half the commenters admit I could have been right.

Since I wrote that article some years ago, some of my views have changed. I believe the girl should have been hospitalized upon the first 100 to 150lbs. Why wasn't she? Anorexics are. Then the hospital could have figured out what was wrong, and how to deal with it. If the mother was over-feeding her, yes put a stop to it!

I still stand by my belief, that she had something physically wrong that remained undiagnosed and the professionals surrounding this girl absolutely betrayed her. 

Christina Corrigan died in 1997. That was almost the year where I hit my peak weight. It's been almost 20 years, and nothing since has changed. It's the same lies. They can call me crazy all they want but they got nothing!

The Betrayal of Christina Corrigan

Study: Fat Shaming Young Girls Makes Them... Fatter

The stress is probably what helps put the weight on, the girls who are called fat. Also if you are self-conscious and it creates problems with the eating and more. It seems to me all the fat hatred in America is not making anyone thinner just fatter in general. What do they consider "emotional eating"?  The stress by itself can increase weight. Too much focus on food is messing everyone up.

Childhood Obesity Linked to Emotional Issues

Childhood Obesity Linked to Emotional Issues

Depression and stress itself can lead to weight gain, but what about the bullying and the stigma?

I am not sure how they plan to deal with this problem.

The researchers said the findings suggest there are extensive and complex interactions between body composition and emotions during child development.

“The early identification of children at risk of developing these combinations of physical and mental health problems may enable interventions that can help to prevent progression to more serious physical and mental health problems in later life,” said Professor Mark Wahlqvist, the senior author of the study.

I remember all the bullying I got as the fat kid in school, there of course would be physical and emotional problems that would come about from this. One thing that stands out to me is the thinner years vs. the fatter years, I got near normal around 7th grade though I was still Amazonian and life was night and day. Fat children are blamed, but then you think about all the stress and stigma coming at such a young age and what is that going to do to a person?

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.

Bobby Hill on Being Fat

I'd rather a fat kid feel like this, while whatever given whatever sane and reasonable options to remain as healthy he can be, then walking around hating himself like so many fat kids are told to do.
Don't forget a lot of the fat kids, aren't even in the ranks of the very obese when they start getting discriminated against and earn ire from others. It can be a matter of 20-30lbs.

200lb Eight Year Old Taken Away From Parents

"200lb Eight Year Old Placed in Foster Care" 

(AP) CLEVELAND - An 8-year-old elementary school student who weighs more than 200 pounds has been taken from his family and placed into foster care after county social workers said his mother wasn't doing enough to control his weight.

The Plain Dealer newspaper reports that the Cleveland 8-year-old is considered severely obese and at risk for such diseases as diabetes and hypertension.

The case is the first state officials can recall of a child being put in foster care strictly for a weight-related issue.

Lawyers for the mother say the county overreached when authorities took the boy last week. They say the medical problems he is at risk for do not yet pose an imminent danger.

A spokeswoman says the county removed the child because caseworkers saw his mother's inability to reduce his weight as medical neglect.

This bugs me, imagine the fat kid, thinking "I am fat, and it's my fault, I've been taken away from my parents!" Why do these people always act like the weight is under anyone's CONTROL. Maybe this kid needs tested for medical or endocrine problems. Normal eight year olds do not become 200lbs. Even here the social services is based on the false pseudo-science of calories in, fat out, nonsense we are all oppressed by.  There is money changing hands with a lot of these social services agencies. The corruption is rife. How many will now use weight as an excuse to take children away from parents? Why don't they help the family with grocery money, a nutritionist or a gym membership? The children are paying the most for the bad adulterated food with endless sugars and chemicals to ensure that full signals from the brain do not work, and to lead them to full blown insulin resistance.

Michigan to Require BMI reports on Children.

Now this child could be thinking, oh no, now I'll be reported to the government for being fat!
Michigan To Require Body Weight Reports on Kids.

And this as far as I know is a Republican governor who a friend told me is stripping away all the social services in that area, and giving tax breaks to mega-corporations. Interesting what he wants to spend the money on isn't it? This is the first state reported to have an actual registry.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder plans to direct doctors in his state to begin monitoring the body weight of their young patients and provide the data to a new state registry, in one of the most extensive government efforts to address the growing problem of pediatric obesity, the Associated Press has learned.

The move would help track the state's growing obesity problem while opening the way for doctors to be more proactive in offering advice, Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Republican governor will announce the initiative Wednesday as part of his proposal for improving Michigan residents' health.

The body mass index statistics for patients under 18 would be reported to the Michigan Care Improvement Registry but the children's identity would remain anonymous. The state already requires doctors to report how many children are immunized.

Book Teaches Fat Kids, Diets Work...yeah right!

"Book Weighs Heavily On Childhood Obesity"

CONTROVERSIAL new children’s storybook about a girl who transforms her life by going on a diet has been condemned by parents and health experts around the world – before it has even hit the shelves.

The book, Maggie Goes on a Diet, written by US self-publishing children’s author and dad Paul M Kramer, will not be published until October, but Amazon and Barnes and Noble are taking advance orders for the book on their websites.

The hardcover book, which is aimed at six to 12 year olds, tells the story of a 14-year-old girl who goes on a diet and “is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal-sized girl who becomes the school soccer star”.

The book’s overview explains: “Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self-image.”

The front cover shows an overweight girl looking into a mirror and seeing a much slimmer version of herself.

If anything this is setting up this girl for getting fatter. Why not put her in soccer if she likes it, if she can still run and see what happens? Like have FUN? How many of us fat kids, looked in the mirror, like the fat girl with her horned pig tails on the front cover, wishing we would see a skinny body?

I have never seen a super-fat kid turn into a skinny look like other kids. Now there are children who from illness, and other factors just like adults can gain temporary weight. But here we see the carrot of "you can be super-thin too, if you just WORK hard enough" held out to the kiddies and it's a lie. Here's a secret, the skinny kids don't have to WORK at it, they just ARE.

What is scary to me about my childhood, and I was fat as a kid, though supersized obesity came much later, is how ACTIVE I was. I rode my bike EVERYWHERE even 5 miles down the road, this in the era before helicopter parents, this included hours and hours of walking and hanging out, and delivering an hour and half newspaper route, from age 9 on, even on weekends. This included hours spent at pools, doing yard work and more. What about the fat kids who are active? I know there are some kids they definitely need more exercise, don't leave them in the house, only playing video games night and day, but this book bugs me, they hold out a false "dream" that failed for so many of us.

Obesity Linked to Poor School Performance?

Obesity Linked to Poor School Performance.

Maybe there is poor school performance in gym class, but many fat children have high grade point averages and do well in school. In fact since the social end of life sometimes is suppressed, fat kids will focus more on reading, and hobbies. This is silly. I left both high school and college, with a 3.5. I was the only kid in high school who got a 100% on a state wide achievement test earning a certificate and could read by the age of 3 and half and almost got skipped two grades in third grade due to reading ability. My husband was overweight as a kid, not seriously fat but on the overweight edge, and got to the national spelling bee. Why not write "Fat Kids Are Dumb"! I guess someone forgot to tell me I was stupid, at least I had the books and more for my solace. Poor fat kids of today can't win.

Expert: Parents Should Lose Fat Kids

What is this supposed to do?. Here they blame the "victims" and the "parents" again, turning towards false answers again. They won't do anything about confronting the problems with processed food, and things in the environment affecting weight like the bad processed food served in school lunches. Dieting doesn't work, so let's traumatize the kid more, by taking him out of his home, having him shame and blame himself even more for being fat. Oh and how come kids with anorexia aren't told they should be removed too?

Lack of Sleep Makes Kids Fat

I believe it, I know a life of restaurant jobs til midnight and getting up at 6am in the morning for high school didn't do me any favors. Let your kids sleep, don't roust them awake at 8am on Sat mornings for chores, when they are sleep deprived all week.

"More Sleep May Cut Kid's Risk of Obesity"

My Life As a Fat Teen #2

From seventh to tenth grade, I suffered a reverse invisibility. I wasn't deemed fat enough to warrant my previous diet of elementary school torture, but I wanted no one's attention, and did little to attract it and I still remained fat enough to be DIFFERENT from all the ultra-thin lithe girls around me. I rarely spoke and always sat in the back, as long as there wasn't a seating chart to ruin my best intentions.

I felt my residual bottled-up anger would take time do dissipate. Try delivering a speech before a class notorious for making earthquake noises as you'd walk up there: by eight grade, I'd take the F and stay in my seat.

Better yet, try walking onstage to collect an award for tackling the most books in the summer reading program, with the entire school jeering, and laughing at once: what you feel goes beyond all academic study. Like many teens, I was sensitive to the constant scrutiny, especially when I started high school. The halls would close in as I took stock of the jeering faces, pointing fingers, and whispered words. I'd seek refuse in the remote Science Hall bathroom, where I'd be guaranteed an hour of solitude reading a book.

Such disconnection suited me while sitting in the back with my nose in Stephen King's [books I cannot tolerate now] latest novel, having finished all my homework before the day ended. From there, I'd look forward to afternoons of television and never ending household chores from my perfectionist parents. When I turned 16, the endless grind of salad girldom and fast food work which did more to train me to be a future member of the impoverished working class, rather then learning any real job skills, at least gave me a bit of spending money. The music I listened to was rot as well, a headbangers ball, of AC/DC and Def Leppard, that would pave the way for even darker and worse music tastes by college with a little bit of Duran Duran to lighten things up.

Other times, I'd be riding my bike, or reading or collecting stickers which my sister with whom I shared a bedroom. I could handle being an outcast since I had two siblings only a year apart in age each and jobs that filled my time.

By mid-high school, I weighed in the low to mid 200s and stood almost 6 feet tall. Being so large and invisible had a price. I soon learned unlike the small private school where I went to elementary, I no longer even had the couple close friends to pass my time.

For openers we moved from a huge metro city, to a more medium town, where everyone had been born there, and been together in school from kindergarten on. My siblings still hung out with me but their company seemed to come more cheaply and dearly as my new "nerd" status reached greater heights.

One horrible joke in my high school would be the boys comparing girls to dogs as they walked down the hall. I didn't have an ugly face, but was fat enough to earn barks, as I walked to class. It didn't take a rock scientists that especially by the halcyon days of the 1980s, that looks were the female sex's hottest currency: instead of Harriet the Spy Adventures, I'd find myself overtaken by Sweet Valley High nightmares.

In late junior high school I approached one of my other "Fat" classmates only to have her yell: "Get away from me!". Years later, I'd see her red-haired, freckled face in a magazine, talking about those teenage battles with anorexia.

As a first hand witness to her constant teasing, I wasn't surprised but wondered "What was wrong with me"? I couldn't walk into a classroom without someone trying to trip me, or muttering "boom, boom" under their breath. I knew by then, something was very wrong with me, and dieting, exercising since I spent literal hours on my bike, walking, and at the restaurants working on my feet, that nothing was doing anything to touch it.

When my weight went up, my treatment would go down accordingly, as my bowling partner, Stephanie, demonstrated, she'd hang out with me at home but pretend not to know me at school, even though our parents were friends. My sociosexual development slowed to a crawl. I had no interest in makeup or dating and by then had equated all boys with teasing tormentors. Even at 13, I knew things were more dangerous for fat girls who were seen as easy pickings.

I can remember having a full figured friend of my mother at a family pool party, saying "You better lose weight, or you'll never get a boyfriend." The message came at a pool party, where I sat forlorn and vulnerable in my bathing suit, with my mother nodding in agreement, I slunk my 14 year old self into the bathroom where I cried for half an hour and wondered aloud why the boys seemed so interested in having girls be so bony?

Periods of lower weight did not cut me a break in the looks department. When that happened, I no longer was called "earthquake or Big Mama" but they would switch over to "Amazon!". I had far more hair then other girls, was larger, more muscular and had more oily skin. Being taller, more masculinzed and more aggressive, results of the high androgens racing through my body, it would take almost 15 years to find out why my body did not match those of other high school girls when I discovered the realities of severe polycystic ovarian syndrome along with other endocrine problems. Dirty brown spots starting popping up all over my body, my mother would tell me constantly to wash my neck, not realizing this was a sympton of the hormonal chaos taking over my body. Even as a teen, my periods permanently disappeared, and there was no help. By then I had thought "good riddance to bad rubbish", the doctors never did any tests. They'd just send me home and say Diet!

It is strange to look back, and think if only I had known.....

"Michelle Obama's Let's Move Campaign Helps Bullies"

"Michell Obama's Let's Move Campaign Helps Bullies"

I agree with this guy, actually pushing the idea that fat kids never move is insulting, I still have my diary from when I was 10 years old, and I was an overweight kid even if not out and out obese at 10 years of age, and in the diary I talk about riding bicycles to the park [back then acouple of miles] and delivering newspapers by that same bike, playing outside in the snow and I was a very active child but I was still fat.

The man who wrote the article is a self avowed liberal {I don't belong to either side of the left or right divide} but brings up many good points. I watch them spending millions of dollars on more nonsense, knowing the kids won't lose weight, that their parents who are often poorer will be relegated in buying the processed MSG and soy filled garbage now passing for food.

I totally agree with his comment here:

Fat kids have enough problems without government-approved pseudo-scientific garbage about how they could be thin if they just ate their vegetables and played outside more often.

That is one thing I thought of when reading about this program, how it is invested in false myths about the fat, that fat kids are lazy, never move, and never exercise. Don't fat kids get enough abuse?

He talks about how they simply do not know if people are eating more or are less active. To be frank, and I've explored it enough on this blog, the food is DIFFERENT, very different but like feel-good often corporate sponsered gov't programs, Michelle Obama will never address that or other problems leading to obesity.

Elsewhere it is scary how Michelle Obama has blamed the fat kids, using them as a scapegoat even for the bad economy, I guess in her out of touch world, she doesn't realize that obesity and poverty go hand in hand.

She said:

But all of you here know something else, and that is this isn’t a new issue at all. You all know better than anyone that childhood obesity is already affecting your communities. It’s already weighing down your budgets. It’s already hampering economic growth.

I was a fat kid, how on earth did I hamper "economic growth"? I delivered newspapers from the age of 9-12.

What I want to know if all the dieting and exercising is failing for the adults, why do they expect it to work for the kids?

Dieting Mothers Means Fatter Babies?

"Obesity Now Another Thing You Can Blame on Your Mother"

According to a BBC interview with the lead author of the study, Keith Godfrey, a professor at the University of Southampton, the finding accounts for a quarter of the difference "in the fatness of children six to nine years later." The study says the effect was "considerably greater" than that of birth weight and did not depend on how thin or fat the mother was, reports the BBC.

I know all that low carb stuff makes the people fatter too. It doesn't work. One month trying to be totally gluten free, I barely ate any carbs, I had the WORSE blood sugar ever. I don't believe everything they tell you.

Fat Kids More Likely to be Bullied

"Fat Kids More Likely to Be Bullied" Ah tell me about that one. Did someone have to really do a study to figure that one out? I've done blog entries talking about my time in school already. Fortunately my parents didn't punish me if I fought bullies, I dare say my abuse would have been far worse if I couldn't. One thing tell your kid to admit they are fat, say to bullies,"Yeah I'm fat so what?", that can deflate them, but if it gets too bad, teach them to stand up for themselves.

Want to know how many fat kids I saw bullied where even the teachers were okay with it or helped add to the fracas? Quite a few. The article says have fat kids get into extracuricular activities to have them not focus on their weight, but if everyone around them continually focuses on it, how is that going to get better? I found this of interest too:

When we started this study, I really suspected that we might find that the obesity or overweight might not be the driving force," says the lead author of the study, Julie Lumeng, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. "What we found is that it didn't matter. No matter how good your social skills, if you were overweight or obese you were more likely to be bullied."

What is scary is there are far more fat kids, and it hasn't stopped the bullying! Maybe the fat kids should team up.

The Betrayal of Christina Corrigan: Thirteen Years Later

I've had a lot of time to think about this case. The year I went on disability [1997] and other health problems from a massive weight gain, is the year this case broke. Fat girl is is found dead on the floor next to some food containers, covered in waste and her mother is arrested and charged with neglect. In size acceptance news, it is the top story for months. It hits me in the gut, because I weigh about the same that VERY year and knew I was dying, and did not know why. For those who are new to this blog, see this entry.

Christina Corrigan was a young girl of thirteen who weighed 680lbs at the time of her death. Her mother later was arrested and charged with child abuse pending accounts that Christina had been found covered in bed sores and in feces. Marlene her mother was later convicted of misdemeanor child abuse.

Marlene took her daughter to doctor after doctor over 90 times, to deal with her mounting weight. Christina weighed over 200lbs by age 7, she was to gain more then 500lbs the next 6 years. In regards to the trial, one fat activist talked about it on CNN:

HULLINGER: Judy, as you sat and watched this trial, why have you come to the conclusion that obesity is the central issue of this?

FREESPIRIT: Because the mother was not neglectful of this child. The child was definitely fat. She definitely had the bed sores that they claim she had. The problem was that the mother was never able to get any help from the medical establishment.

She took the child to the doctor 90 times between the age of birth and eight. All that she ever got was low calorie diets and told to exercise her. She never got any kind of medical help. After you've gone 90 times to the doctor and gotten no help, why go again?

The problem is that we assume that there was something there for her. There may have been, but she wasn't getting it where she was going, and she was a member of an HMO.

The people that failed Christina was not only her mother but the medical establishment, she had been taken to doctors with no help, and only blame. It is interesting to note that her mother received blame to the criminal end, unlike the sympathy a woman would received for a child disabled by another condition. One thing, the claims about the urine and feces are a joke, everyone who dies, loosens their bowels.

The pure neglect of health problems of the severely obese and the myths that surround them grow worse and worse. No normal 13 year old girl would have been able to eat her way up to this weight. It is interesting to note that this girl up to age 3 was on a medication known for weight gain for the treatment of grand mal seizures that can bring in pituitary involvement. My conjecture today is either this medicine affected Christina's metabolism or Christina had undiagnosed Prader Willi syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects hunger and metabolism and can lead to severe weight gains in children. It is obvious too, that Christina Corrigan lacking mobility and worse, her mother was struggling to care for her.

Cardoza, the lawyer in the case admitted that medical problems not mere overeating probably contributed to Christina's weight. Her former doctor as Cardoza attested on a talk show I watched {Leeza}, said "Lady, there's nothing wrong with your kid, quit feeding her."
Sadly Christina's doctor blamed a genetic predisposition to gain weight, overeating and lack of exercise. He did some basic tests but ended it after that. His prejudices leading to bad science and what happened to this girl: Lowest common denominator medicine with a giant dash of laziness included! Even a sane person would ask..."What could a thirteen year old eat to weight 700lbs, and would a normal thirteen year old even have that type of appetite? The answer to these questions are in the negative, but when it comes to fat people, hatred overrides common sense.

Marlene attested to going to doctor after to doctor until giving up. If she is guilty of anything perhaps that is it, but the doctors are just as guilty then.

What gets me, is if the doctors didn't play the game of moral judgements of refusing to find a cause of obesity based on prejudice and the claims of immoral behavior and gluttony, what is ironic is at least some supersized people if treated with the correct medical insight could avoid the special challenges of being super sized to begin with.

Christina Corrigan for her weight alone was denied access to a normal education. From the facts of the case, one could deduce, that money was tight in the household. Her school which was placed at the top of a hill required students to walk up several flights of stairs, that Christina was incapable of surmounting. [Wonder how many disabled or older folks, can't go up them either?] NO special education or other arrangements were made. She dropped out and had to be home-tutored.

The possibility of Prader-Willi syndrome was immense. I found it odd, how no samples had been saved at her so called autopsy to do a DNA test. In Prader-Willi syndrome there is high tolerance to pain and often times skin-picking which could have accounted for all the bedsores all over Christina. The defense also pursued the avenue of brain damage from her treatment with Phenobarbital.

Only a cursory examination was done at the autopsy of Christina. The coronor looked no further then for outward visual clues denying the opportunity to find out the actual malady that affected Christina. No samples of her tissue were taken.

Christina was treated in life as she had been in death. After failing to find the reason for her extreme weight, her main pediatrician referred her to a nutritionist. Cardoza, the attorney said Dr. Ray should have realized something more needed to be done after she saw Christina's weight ballooning for six years. "My God!", he said outside the courtroom, "If that wasn't a pattern, what is a pattern?"
While her mother perhaps failed her in some ways , many other people were just as culpable, the school in failing to provide an accessible school or classroom, social services for not providing home health care, the nutritionist in not realizing this was a problem that no diet counseling in the world could solve,the doctors in not adequately diagnosing the disorder or providing other case management or help.

Today I ask, has anything changed? Are there going to be new Christina Corrigan's? Will a new young woman watch the weight go up up up, only to be blamed and vilified and not believed? The sad thing I think is probably so.

Update to this article: 2018. I was diagnosed with Lipedema stage IV in 2014, so I was correct that something more was wrong, when I started this blog in searching for what my true medical issues were. I survived the fat bigotry, just barely, Christine did not.

My Life As a Fat Teen #1

Square peg in round hole syndrome all the way! A constant blur of activity and motion characterized my high school years, starting at home-where I spent hours doing yard work, or helping my mother clean the house.

During my first two years of high school, I had gym every day, and also join the golf team as a sophomore. We weren't allowed to use golf carts, so we had to walk the entire course. The next year, I spent hours on my feet as a salad girl [this was when salad bars were in vogue in the 80s], among other jobs.

For all this exercise, I was was still fat. However back then I wasn't falling into the super sized category yet: I ate normal meals and had lots of movement. Magazines like Seventeen reflected a different reality: to have any prayer of getting a boyfriend, I had to be micro-miniature. All their clothes were sizes 3-5, a world that lay beyond me.

Somehow, these girls always had time for a boyfriend between their part-time jobs, perfect grades, flawless makeup, and shopping for an endless array of clothes to show off their lithe figures, with not an ounce of fat.

At school, a few girls were fatter then I, and a few more approached my weight. But the majority were blessed with thighs that magically never touched in the middle, their stomachs flat as a board, and blemish-free; and their necks were sinewy, and showed veins.

I saw the outline of clavicles in their shoulders, and the pelvic bones in their hips. Their bodies were so unlike my own, we might as well have been females of a different species!

In secret, I liked the curves of my own body, particularly my stomach. As an asthma free teenager, I could run around in 20 degree weather without a coat and barely feel it. Nowadays when the temperature dips that low, the heat is on high and I'm buried in blankets. I was stronger back then too: the ill health of college had not yet hit full force, teachers asked me to move heavy objects just like the boys, with whom I'd wrestle with and win at times.

Thinner girls though had a license to be carefree, happy-go lucky and most important vulnerable: I was none of these things. At home, I could relax a bit while hanging out with my siblings, in school, if I showed any weakness, I would have gotten squashed.

I wasn't anybody's girlfriend: people sought my advice with their problems or homework but never offered party invitations. Taking my weight out of the equation wouldn't have mattered: I went to a provincial upper-class high school-think of the one in The Breakfast Club but with the jocks in charge and the art kids pushed to the back of the bus and an even more fascist tinge. Annoying constant pep-rallies and Reaganomic politics provided the icing on the cake.

I was more interested in a good book then going to a basketball game, or buying makeup. Whenever my weight dipped from increased activity, the jokes changed from fat jokes to "Amazon"! [related to my near 6 foot height], "nerd", "bookworm" and ---funnily enough--since I was such a wallflower, "goody two-shoes".

Yet I knew all the popular girls puked to keep their figures trim after eating French Fries and 2 pizza squares [a disgusting lunch from the health angle]. My high school bathroom was a nightmare with it's ever pervasive odor of vomit.

Although seen as serious illnesses in the media, anorexia and bulimia garnered a strange respect at my high school: the biggest pukers always had the best reputations. On TV I watched these type of girls martyr themselves as they replayed stories about cutting celery into bite-sized pieces, fighting with their parents over half a sandwich, and fighting to remain under 90lbs for the big national gymnastics meet.

At least their starving earned merit badges as they mutated their bodies into fur-covered non-menstruating sticks, reminding me of saints I read about in Catholic school, who allegedly lived on on communion wafers and small sips of water.

On top of all that, endless books extolled the sufferings of these poor girls who couldn't eat a carrot stick for dinner to save their life! Somehow I was supposed to shed copious tears over The Best Little Girl in the World as it's heroine did many life-threatening exercises to avoid turning into me. Not to deny the seriousness of these problems, but Betty Bulimic and Annie Anorexic had school therapists, groups and parents to save them from the horrors of puking. No such books or movies existed on fat girls except one fat character in the book by Judy Blume called Blubber.

I continually heard the message of a life deferred, this will happen for you when you are the proper size. Talk about setting up false expectations.

Psychological Tricks to Get Kids to Eat Healthy Food?

Ah that isn't THAT healthy.....

This seems like 2 million dollars of wasted money, why not cook healthy food and provide it, instead of having to fool the kids into choosing the healthier foods? Kids aren't stupid if you hide the chocolate milk behind the white, they are going to dig for it.

These subtle moves can entice kids to make healthier choices in school lunch lines, studies show. Food and restaurant marketers have long used similar tricks. Now the government wants in on the act.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced what it called a major new initiative Tuesday, giving $2 million to food behavior scientists to find ways to use psychology to improve kids' use of the federal school lunch program and fight childhood obesity.

If they are eating nothing but junk at home, what makes anyone think they are going to pick all the fruits and vegetables at school?

Fat Girl Fights Back #2

In fourth grade, I struggled with an elderly "Wicked Witch of the West" style teacher, who refused to give me anything above a "C", years after being a student with mostly A's. My mind held a picture of this woman who wore the same blue dress everyday, and loomed over me, stuffing dirty Kleenex up her sleeves. She had to be over 80 years old and should have been in a nursing home. Years later, I would find my Catholic school's reunion website on Facebook, where her face was pictured right there from 1977, my memories and imagination did not exaggerate the gnarled cruel face and piercing eyes. Her ancient exhaustion with the youthful exuberance of my 4th grade class mixed into a toxic explosive stew.

This is the year, the boys started playing a new game called "Smear the Q*****"--in which they literally chased down their slower, fatter "peers", and beat them up. I'd see Peter--a slower overweight boy, though not as large as me getting beaten up and teased unmercifully. For him and those like him, the playground was a danger zone of daily scrapes, the occasional bloody nose and bruises.

Sometimes our eyes would meet, and we'd both look downward, sharing in the same outcast shame. In Pete's face, I saw how my tormentor's always operated: always in large groups, so someone couldn't fight back effectively.

Not even losing recess for weeks at a time [a punishment usually bestowed by the principal] dented this peculiar sport's popularity. Back then still, girl's were to be left more alone, but I knew about women's lib [thought I didn't understand it all back then] and knew who the next target could be. I carried rocks in my pockets in case someone picked me out for a lark. But frankly unlike the fat boys, for me there were lines of protection, a big brother who was taller and somewhat fat, but not over the line like me, and the children of Vietnamese immigrants who were being sponsored by the church who I had befriended, with a child in just about every grade including kids, a few years older.

Having been shot at in a helicopter to flee Communists, my best female friend of the same age from that family whose house I spent multiple hours at, playing board games and eating their spicy dishes of meat over bowls of rice, didn't put up with any nonsense, so she taught me to stand up for myself. By 4th grade, I knew to cower before a bully only encouraged them.

Without these personal bodyguards, I think my time on the playground probably would have grown worse then Pete's given enough time. Kids who are fatter, learn the hard way, they have to come up with some different tools to make it.

Fat Girl Fights Back #1: My Life as Fat Child

I've experienced all demarcations of fatness, ranging from near-normalcy [infancy to age 5, a brief period from ages 12-14] to the mid-sized Kathy Bates/Delta Burke arena [my teenage years to age 26] and circus lady fat status [detailed here after my 400lb weight gain]. During childhood I had more normal and fat years, but mid-elementary school definitely was fat.

All my life I've heard weight loss was the ticket out of the name-calling of childhood, and the object poverty of adulthood. Endless telegrams came from well-meaning relatives, "You need to lose weight!" and those messages began very early. Did they all think it was a secret, I just hadn't realized I was fat, or that I needed a daily reminder, even after my big swollen feet hit the floor?

My mother showed her first signs of frustration with me at age five, I stood at least 5-6 inches taller then all the other kindergartners and I was far fatter too. I realized this fact during ballet class with my younger sister. Vague memories of the dance steps linger, but my first feelings of discomfort being larger came on early, as I watch my fellow ballerinas come off as cute little graceful pixies, and in comparison to them, I moved as a lumbering ox!

Childhood is a lesson in life for what awaits a fat person--squeezing into small desks, getting ridiculed in gym class--only to be told they've heaped such ill treatment on themselves for being lazy and fat. Growing up this way consigned me to a queasy, self conscious vulnerability--with an eternal bulls eye drawn on my back. Eight is too early an age for the desire to sink into a deep abyss, knowing there was no protection offered from all the endless razzing at my small Catholic school.

The teasing I faced ranged from standard-issue insults ["Fatty, Fatty", Two by Four"] to more creative nicknames like "Earthquake Woman," with related sound affects. My equally inspired un-Christian response [Leave me alone, you *$$(@*#!] was always good for a lengthy afternoon in Sister Mary Helen's office, who'd lecture me about my poor peer relations. While I got good grades [at least from teachers who based the grades on actual test scores] telling on my classmates only made things worse. So many teachers found me whiny, claiming I was overreacting to all the jibes, not realizing my brother who was a year older was serving as my body guard on the playground things were that bad. They would repeat the world's biggest lie over and over: "If you don't pay attention to it, then they will just stop!" Another grown up reaction was, "Well lose weight then they won't make fun of you!"

However the best pain-blocking, nail sitting yogi, couldn't have ignored the pig noises or comments about my ordinary lunch which always consisted of a bologna and lettuce sandwich, a handful of chips and always three cookies in plastic zip-lock bags.

In third grade, I found myself giving back what I had gotten for far too long. It happened right before lunch. When three girls taunted me, "Fatty, Fatty can't get through the bathroom door!" With Holly Hobbie braids flying, I smacked my first tormentor in the jaw and followed with another swing at her brother. All my teachers admonishments weren't cutting it anymore; I was seeing through a red haze of endless insults, taunts and snickers.

I clawed, pinched and screamed at eight of my classmates and then I dashed to the cloakroom at the back of the classroom where every body's book bags and coats hung, I started taking lunches out of book bags, and stomping on them: if I could not eat, neither would they!

While everyone hung back, surprised and horrified, I rampaged over their Ho-Hos, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches--followed by avalanches of Twinkies and apples that went rolling out of the cloakroom. I'd nearly vanquished about half of the lunches when our nun principal, came running into the room. I would spend the afternoon in her office, until my mother came to get me.

Instead of addressing my daily doses of torment, my memories are vague as to whether any suspensions or expulsions were discussed, the teachers had written me off as the trouble-maker, instead of facing facts about the daily abuse I put up with or or punishing my bullies. At least when I went home, my parents understood what triggered the retaliation against the never ending teasing and being made fun of.

To be continued.....