My response to Marily Wann's Latest: "You Can Be Fat and Fit!"

[cite for picture above]

Big Deal: You Can Be Fat and Fit

I am going to start this with the caveat that there can be people of large sizes and large proportions who certainly can be in great shape, aerobically and otherwise. The large sized weight lifter that made it to the Olympics is probably in better shape then most large people. There are football players, wrestlers and others who play sports at heavier and larger sizes. There are many midsized people who do enjoy sports, dancing and active living. All the best to them. Stay as active as you can and enjoy life as much as you can no matter your size. A lot of people MY size are totally bedbound, the housebound doctors have told me, so I even say by the grace of God go I. So enjoy but now I must address yet another article that just adds to the pile of confusion out there. Are there Healthy smaller fat people? Sure. Are the scientists finding proof, that one doesn't have to be a skinny-minny to be "healthy" and when it comes to some problems like pneumonia that it actually may be a detriment...Sure.

But newsflash....this is up to a certain point. In most cases dependent on height, up to the mid-200s line.

Over 300lbs for most people, the breathing is affected, movement is affected and more. I mean how far does the delusion have to go and the active denials? Sad to say this one even made it to mainstream media on CNN

Marilyn Wann states in the article...

"Another recent study found people who were "metabolically healthy" and overweight or obese had no higher death risk than metabolically healthy "normal" weight people."

How many fat people are "metabolically healthy"? That would be an interesting question to ask especially for the supersized given the very idea of metabolism has been set aside by the diet industry. I obviously am NOT metabolically healthy. Though would they say someone at a supersized weight who suffers from eating disorders which has led them to a high weight is? I am a bit confused by that study and doubt it applies to those in the super-sized weight categories.

Wann continues:

"I take an interest in the topic because I'm fat and because I don't have a death wish. I'm also interested because, like so many fat people, I've encountered weight discrimination when I seek routine medical care. I was 26 years old when I was denied the right to purchase health insurance. I had no significant history of illness or injury. I was just fat. That day, I became a fat rights activist."

What is this talk about a "death wish"? I often have pondered what if Wann did get ill? It is strange to me I am still hearing the same lines written in the mid 1990s. Most women her age, she is two years older then me which makes her 46, are starting to face some health problems, that includes THIN women. Most of my friends who have hit the age of 40 or over have dealt with at least ONE health issue that took some degree of comprehensive health care. She seems to have a very strong Baby Boomer ethos rather then that of a Generation Xer with a whole "we are going to live forever" theme to it.

Does illness as a fat person mean having a "death wish" or that you did something wrong? This is the "healthism" stuff I've mentioned in passing.  One ponders this. And who cares if she had some history of injury or illness? Should anyone who hasn't been there think anything less of anyone who has? Should one give out medals to those blessed with good genetics and good fortune in avoiding car accidents, thyroid issues, some arthritis,  a hole in the snow to trip in, or a cup of too hot of coffee spilling on the leg? She is right about weight discrimination in the medical arena, I certainly have explored that issue myself. She is also correct about the non availability of medical equipment but should the response of the fat be an enforced smiles, "we aren't that sick anyhow" response? Or demanding that some changes be made to the above? Yes too much blaming the fat happens and weight loss techniques like WLS that fail and maim and all the biases!  But what if I said to Marilyn Wann, fat is often the RESULT of illness a symptom in itself, that is where size activists who believe the way she does, refuse to get on board. She continues in the article to praise HAES which I of course disagree with. She talks about those living to 65. Long-lived society?, actually the lifespans in America are dropping.

"Here's a finding from the recent research that didn't make the headlines: For people over 65, being fat wasn't associated with increased risk, not even for the fattest old people. When do most people die, in our increasingly long-lived society? Over age 65, perhaps?"

This part of her article really disturbed me though....

"I also learned this week that a highly accurate way to predict a person's risk of dying is to see how easily they can get up from the floor. I'm trying to imagine how different our health care system would be if, instead of focusing on weight and weight loss, caregivers did the sitting-rising test instead."

How many supersized especially extremely super-sized people can get off the floor? I fail this test massively. Why? I fell down twice and know I cannot get off the floor. I was stuck and it was terrifying both times, and in one case, needed three grown men to help get me up to the place where I could finish the job in getting up all the way. Wann seems to have this edge to her articles where someone being sick, is enough to prove them wrong or "bad". That one would be an interesting sociological study and essay. We live in a society now where sick equals someone is "bad", instead of just with the admittance of the natural flow of things on this earth. Why must caregivers do the sitting-rising test? That one confused me. Okay my thin doctor gets down on the ground and gets up? So what? They probably can go camping and other things I miss. What does that prove? Did she think this one through?

With my failures to get off the floor, at least I was saved the medical bills from calling the paramedics to bring me to a standing position. My first fall I wrote about and the second one I had only weeks later, and at that point switched to a walker due to my balance issues. Since this summer there hasn't been any more falls. For years, due to youth, and after my initial weight loss from the massive weight gain, I did practice getting on the floor and then getting up, to make sure I still "could" but I lost the ability with time anyway, and remember in my case, I am not bedbound and tried to stay as active as I could including physical therapy. So what does that test say to fat people but hey you midsized people who can still get down on the floor and play with your puppy or your kids or scrub a spot on the floor are okay and those of you whose weight has become too heavy for you to lift off the floor are not? Is she living in reality here?

Hey I could take some of these edicts from on high if she did admit, "OK I am talking for smaller sized fat people here, I know you supersized or in my case extreme super-sized folks have other concerns" but she does not, she expects the HAES formula to work, and issues a blanket edict of "You Can be Fat and Fit!" Um no..... I am even facing battling a leg infection over the last month, I am not sure what has brought on the reaffirmed battles with leg infections, this time with huge fevers to go along with them, once I hit near 104. Trust me I am sad because I struggled with this for years, having 6-7 of these a year for so long and many times in the hospital, and recently I went almost an entire year without a leg infection in my lymphedema leg and being thrown back into the infection merry-go-round obviously is very frightening to me. I almost have lost my life to this stuff before. What brought it on? I am not sure, and even have the worrying feeling that my intense commitment to a physical therapy and walking program brought these latest infections on despite improved sugars.
Hey I write this blog knowing I live in a society where the prevailing ethos is unless you are healthy and well, [and wealthy in a lot of cases] you aren't worth listening too, but since it's an ethos I reject, I speak out anyway.


Wann continues:

"How much healthier would we be? How much more would we actually enjoy healthy living, free from weight judgment? How much time and money would we save? How much discrimination and human tragedy could we avoid? I'm guessing it'd be tons."

How about just some reality? How about some understanding? How about some size activists admitting that people like me exist? How about telling the truth about weight while at the same time demanding good treatment for fat people and good medical care without shame and hatred even if we are indeed stuck on the floor when we fall down? How about admitting what is going on? 

See:

Health At Every Size? And Healthism in the Size Acceptance Movement"

"Seeing Through the Obesity Lies"

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

Is HAES a WHITE FLAG?

This one I wrote in reaction to this video Regarding HAES and a new HBO documentary Weight of the Nation

Why do fat people today have only 2 choices?



1. Accept their fat, which can be ok at smaller sizes as long as one's weight remains stable, but means a shorter life span for those of us in the huge weights?

or
2. JOIN the harmful DIET INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX and accept all their lies and hatred knowing they are there to profit off you and your long term failures.?

Shouldn't there be a place of reason between fat promotion and delusion and fat discrimination and "be thin" at all costs messages?

I know on this blog I have covered many of the studies behind obesity, the chemical toxins, the scientists asking what is going on and far more. Why are those topics neglected in size acceptance and HAES? Because to deal with asking the question about fatter animals and human babies and food adulteration, PCPs and endocrine disrupters, means that their basic premise which is that obesity is to be advanced and promoted JUST FALLS APART.

Ever have thin friends? I have plenty of them. I also have been every size this world has to offer. People know that going from even 150lbs to 190lbs means there are losses. At 150lbs you may be able to walk acouple miles and not feel detrimental effects, at 190lbs, you are getting a little bit tired. Yes there are other factors, health, stamina, fitness, constitution. Even among the 500lb set that varies, I saw a man around my size able to traverse a large grocery store without a scooter, but then I know many are bedbound, but no one at 500lbs is running a marathon.

People know these truths, this is not to put down fat people or say that they should be discriminated against it is the truth. Between 200lbs and 280lbs, I knew at 200lbs or so I could spend hours at an amusement park and think nothing of it, on my feet for 8 hours a day, at 280lbs, I could walk downtown and back a distance of 3-4 miles but would be tired and wiped out for the day once I got home.When I hit 380lbs, the swelling began, I could barely get through the day. When I hit the 400s, walking for recreation got majorly chipped away and ebbed away. The near 700lb world was a frightening morass of being short of breathe constantly even to get across the room, not even being able to lay down without the breathing feeling compromised and other horrors.

Are those things supposed to be ignored?

Even if they are right about the failures of the industrial diet complex...see  #2

Let's think this out....

Even if there are NO ANSWERS that work for obesity TODAY, at this present moment, doesn't anyone wish for better for future generations? Even if I die young, why don't I want my obese nephews to have a better chance of survival to NOT suffer the way I have? How about my 20 something 350lb plus cousin, who is facing not being able to get a job, do I want him to have a miserable middle age? How about the friends I have lost?

Maybe the HAES and size acceptance people need to educate themselves on some of these side issues too, the human endocrine and metabolic system is getting in trouble in our present world, and it's not PERSONAL RESPONSIBLITY running the show. These issues need to be looked at and addressed.

If the world sees a group of fat people saying, "hey we will just accept being fat, and we don't need any 'help'!", hey that may good for a certain segment of the population who are active and doing well, but for many of us obesity IS an ILLNESS or a SYMPTON OF ONE. It seems to be WHITE FLAG TIME. "Ok, you fat haters win, we don't want a real cure or real help, we will "accept" our fat and go whistle by the graveyard."

Yes the fat haters and discriminators work against fat people, trying to shove everyone into a thin mold, but what about reality? What about that life spans are dropping, diabetes is increasing, and other affects are REAL?

For years I have tried to get certain parties to pay attention to these issues. It is hard when you realize the people meant to stand up for your "fat rights", a lot of them are not willing to face reality. I would be ok, with HAES admitting, "LOOK our SYSTEM has LIMITATIONS." It is good for the midsized fat who have tired of the failed diet treadmill. We realize for those facing severe obesity, that there are serious limitations here." The healthy and wealthy fat, who are able to work, and function do not even live in the same world like someone like myself. Being told, you must accept this, and by the way "do your best" is no longer an answer. People are going to be having shorter lives. That is not be a fat hater or down on fat people, it is a FACT.

I will never understand the rejection of any non harmful FAT CURE.

I feel like they are flying the WHITE FLAG. You only got two options they tell us. Ok, maybe TODAY there is FEW OPTIONS, but what about TOMMOROW?

Someone needs to tell them BOTH THE RED "DIET INDUSTRY" AND BLUE "DENIAL" PILL are POISONOUS.

I know I have many times in a variety of different ways.

I never want anyone to go through what I have. I want a future where there is HONESTY.

How many 500lb people are in HAES? A few exceptionally healthy ones? I dare say the first time, you can't breath or sit by the pool in 90 degrees at one of the conference hotels, that social foray would be over.

To me being as "healthy as possible" means ANSWERS not cop-outs. It's the reason I survived 15 years after being near 700lbs. It is the reason I write this blog. Whatever happens to me, I am glad I spoke out. Fat people deserve better.

I think some of the HAES people mean well but they need to look at the BIG PICTURE.

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

Debate The Weight of the Nation

Well they mean well being against discrimination of fat people, but many here know where I stand regarding weight and health. Most of the women in this video look more midsized at the size where they are still healthy and active. Hey I do not begrudge them that, but there are those who lay outside this system. In other words, I think it probably is best for a young or middle-aged mid-sized woman, to try and follow such advice that HAES provides. Of course I would warn them to watch out for any weight gain, so they do not end up in my category.

What if you aren't healthy?

See:

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

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

Read this article for context:"Goodbye NAAFA: Why I Left the Size Acceptance Movement Behind", this article is kind of a continuation of the points I make there.

One large size acceptance organization is ironically named Health At Every Size or HAES promoted by the Association For Size Diversity and Health and is growing and popularity, getting the word out to professionals and others. Denial of the health problems related to fat really takes hold in a group that purposely turns a blind eye to the sick and fat. Paul Campos who is a spokesman for HAES in his book "The Obesity Myth, somehow manages to exclude super-sized people in general with a main focus on the moderate and mild fat or "The wish I was skinny" crowd. This sentence sums up the weird rabbit hole and ideals of the HAES movement: " A healthy weight is the weight a person maintains while living a healthy life" [p.79] Consider that sentence and the implicit backhanded judgements within it.

Entire chapters are devoted to proving that fat doesn't affect health, and that those who complain of hurting knees and edema,are a bunch of whiners.

Read this one too."The Reason why the disease of obesity doesn't kill those who suffer from it, and why it remains impossible to cure are one in the same because it doesn't exist'" [pg 41]

What!?? Talk about wiping away endless people's experiences.

Can't they admit fat is even a symptom of illness? I suppose not. While some tenets of HAES are good things to follow for health:

•Accepting and respecting the natural diversity of body sizes and shapes.
•Eating in a flexible manner that values pleasure and honors internal cues of hunger, satiety, and appetite.
•Finding the joy in moving one’s body and becoming more physically vital.

I would like to take all these HAES followers and NAAFA fat activists on a visit to a nursing home that specializes in the rehabilitation of obese people who have lost all mobility and suffer an array of health problems and tell me straight to my face after visiting this facility that obesity is never a disease or even the symptom of one.

While exaggerations do exist to sell diet products oppressing hordes of mildly fat people, doctors aren't being "mean" to suggest a correlation between ill health and obesity. Many become fat from a variety of causes, some even mixed and find themselves in the same boat.

Does Health at Every Size apply to 500lbs? 400lbs? Find me even one 350lb person of average height capable of running a marathon. How many 400lbers do you see in the Olympics? Seen any fat basketball players lately? Even the "Refrigerator" of Chicago Bears fame was forced into early retirement from his bulk. While the HAES folks are right to nod to the fact to the genetic undergirdings of obesity, no one tried to tell Robert Wadlow, the world's tallest man, that he was as healthy as everyone else and that just some "positive thinking" would cure his leg problems and other ailments that came from his height.

Many don't know this but there is a dimension of healthism within size acceptance, that is so focused on proving "Nothing is wrong with being fat"! It denies the reality of the majority of people who cross a certain mark. Even by the 200s, the pain began, I sit here, now knowing my stomach is killing my legs,and my time is limited to get this typed out. Part of me screams--"Are these people on drugs? Being fat hurts!"

When I was in size acceptance, this was during the years I was at my peak weights and the pressure to keep quiet about all physical suffering was the unwritten rule. Ironically I went to a NAAFA conference held at the most sprawled out hotel in the world that would have given a thin healthier person exhaustion just to navigate the place [no one thought of the sick there, or assumed all immobile fat people already had the scooter]. It was interesting to note one 600lb lady, playing "my stamina is better then yours" games with me adding to my distress.

I figured out fast during my time in the size acceptance world, that unless I presented myself as perky and healthy, that I wasn't wanted. This was not a world that embraced "thinker" type personalities but extroverts and adherents of delusional false "positive thinking". For a time, I basically said, lets just tell the truth! You think fat people do not know they are sick, or that their weight doesn't cause problems just on the sheer physical level? Why do we have to live in delusion in some sort of over the top people pleasing escapade? This doesn't mean helping the fat bigots out but just standing up with some integrity!

One fat activist got angry with me on a message board and asked me "Would it be so terrible if you let go of that fat negativity? What would happen if you thought about your health problems the same way a thin person thought about theirs?" She went on to tell me that the valuing any weight change was related to keeping fat prejudice in it's place and finished up telling me. "I cannot see anyway to seek 'the fat cure' without investing fat hatred".

The irony of a fully mobile 200 and something lb woman saying this to a woman who [at the time I was somewhere in the high 600s] is immensely absurd. Fat negativity? What is that? Wanting to stay alive? No one would tell someone dying of kidney disease, that we don't wish to seek the kidney cure anymore! The size acceptance world has lost it!

One thing about me, I'm an independent thinker and know when I am being bamboozled. By the way, having discussed these matters for years, most people see size acceptance as trapped in a morass of delusion and that includes many fat people. More damage is done to fat people demanding they must hide the realities of larger bodies, and surely the merely large still can function well, but to deny the super sized of us, a voice or even admitting our truths is a betrayal beyond belief!

What is wrong with not wanting to see friends sick anymore? What is wrong with wanting people not to lose the ability to have functional lives? What is wrong with asking true professionals and researchers for unbiased help?

Size acceptance if it really cared about fat people instead of just being the inverse side of the diet enterprises would have worked on helping there to be rehab centers for the obese [those are so few in number to be laughable] and demanding real research in obesity that isn't biased. They would have allowed super sized people to tell their truths, instead of foisting "think positive" New Age claptrap on them. By the way "intuitive eating" is badly named, intuition is related to what one feels, eat when you are hungry is good advice, but not eat when you feel like it.

Health at EVERY size? I don't think so. How absolutely ABSURD.