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

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.

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

Fat Acceptance in Australia

Some of this video is right about wanting fat people to be happier, but as you know I have posted my reservations about HAES and disagree with many aspects of it. I have read Fat Heffalump's blog before. Yoga is not something I am into.   They are correct about standing against the discrimination and negative "surveillance" of fat people but my beliefs about HAES remain the same.

Fat Logic: "UsefuI Idiots" for the Fat Gulag

Reddit got rid of some of it's worse fat haters subboards, and banned fat-hate.  Perhaps the threat of lawsuits for harassment, insults and worse frightened them off, but one board called Fat Logic still prevails and has not been banned. I support free speech so the issue of them being banned is not my main one but want to examine what purpose boards like this have served.

Fat Logic and boards like it are propaganda boards with many useful idiots for the diet industrial oppressors to keep the truth about obesity oppressed. One main way they operate is basically labeling all fat people as liars and overeating pigs.

Actually one odd thing about these fat-hater boards, is some of what they say about size acceptance is the same as I have said. A few years ago, my own blog was the only place I saw questioning HAES. Some segments of the size acceptance population are ideologues who deny the real health price of obesity and the realities many fat people especially super-sized face. I have warned of the two sides of the coin, how America grows more ill and fat as the diet industrial complex denies the realities of metabolism and extreme factions of size acceptance denies the health-limiting realities of severe obesity. Fat Logic repeats these themes but sadly instead of desiring truth, go with the usual "Diet or Die!" lies and add in a giant dose of fat bigotry to accompany their mental refusals to examine the issue with any actual and real logic.

Years ago when I wrote my anti-HAES article, I had this thought, that there would be a back-lash against the extreme ideologues who ignored the health realities of fat. In some ways, reading these boards, one got the feeling the class and health divides of the obese vs. the naturally thin had only grown like a chasm.

Just like I have warned on this blog against the dance and theatre show of Republican vs. Democrat or Right vs. Left, the Hegelian dialectic for you more informed types, that same dance show continues when it comes to obesity. As I wrote in my 2012 article: "Seeing Through the Obesity Lies", these things have only grown worse, and the fat-hater bigot reddit boards are evidence of this.

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

One thing with obesity, there's too many that have vested interests in keeping the profits flowing in the answers that fail. They want to label all fat people as liars, and this is what the fat logic board does. Like all bigots, they label their chosen category of person as always lying. Being fat alone means you will not be believed on fat logic. They will use names to dehumanize the fat person even further like calling them ham planets. If these people truly cared about health and well-being of individuals, they would take a look around them and ask, "Why are people getting so sick and fat?" instead of running to bigotry and the answers that have failed. It's obvious American people especially those in lower socio-economic groups are growing fatter and more ill. I am old enough to remember when severe obesity was rare. Physiologically, this idea that people "choose" to be severely obese is one of insanity when 40% of the population is fat.

In the fat logic world, eating healthy and "exercising" means you will automatically be a healthy and thin weight.  We are to believe this nonsense that they all eat nothing but a broccoli spear at every meal.  Endocrine diseases and conditions like Lipedema are mostly scoffed at. They demean fat people who have health conditions calling them "Condishuns". There is even one woman who complains of gaining 55lbs really quickly and they mock her. This is how I almost died, not being believed. People die because of "useful idiots" fat bigotry. What is funny is I have lost more then what some of these people weigh, and "kept it" off but allowed no room at the table because I am still very fat.

The bigots actually strengthen the extreme ideologues in segments of the size acceptance community. In fact I have always believed the two have played off one another.  Instead of fat people demanding answers and addressing the toxic American life-style that has been foisted upon then, each side plays off of one another. Their whole board is based upon the theme that fat people are liars, about what they eat, and how they live. A "useful idiot" Fat logician, would never imagine that in the bodily process of lipedema, the more I do, the more I can swell up.

I have been thinking more and more how the propaganda circles and control mechanisms operate in steering thinking about obesity. Fat Logic is a yet another control mechanism board that will make sure no one deals with the issue of obesity in any real way. They will shout for the answers that have failed for 40 years and in this way, they are "useful idiots" for the fat gulag. They care nothing about anyone's health. It's all about labeling and silencing fat people. It's class structures and feigned superiority just for being "thin".

From another blog: "Swept Under the Rug of Size Acceptance"

Here is an article from the FatPinkMonkey blog, "Swept Under The Rug of Size Acceptance". She addresses many of the issues I had previously with HAES, which now I am discussing different issues, per this article. One thing right now I am discussing some of these issues with a leader in HAES who I am having a very good discussion with but it continues my theme, that what applies to more moderately fat and functional people may not apply to the super sized. She does point out something I experienced in size acceptance, the fact that when you get "too big" you are seen as NOT belonging. I heard the but "there is a limit" line too.

Feeding into the isolation I felt in such a large body were the comments of "oh, yeah I like big girls, but there IS a limit", "We don't want to hear about the problems of fat people not being able to wipe their a**" ect. It's actually very common! Fat people hate fatter people. If you have ever seen a fat person and thought to yourself, or actually asked someone else, "I'm not THAT fat, am I?" Then you are guilty of this.

One thing I never have talked about on this blog, is that in the world, the people I fear the most ire and judgement from isn't always the thin but the midsized, who sometimes will run from the super sized and ostracize them, fearing that one day they could be us. She is right there are those fat people who do hate fatter people. This isn't everyone of course, but it is really a problem out there.

I have my own beliefs about weight loss surgery, but totally understand why people make this decision, being super sized is very difficult. You become more immobile, you lose semblance of a normal life, people are going to grab on to any rope that has the possibility to save them.

Article Rerun: Seeing Through The Obesity Lies

I wrote this article "Seeing Through The Obesity Lies" in 2012. Nothing has improved. Society still advances the sickening two step, "diet and exercise and supposedly be thin, and on the other side "fat acceptance" that denies the pain and suffering that goes with fat especially in it's extreme forms. Others have joined Wann since 2012 in advancing the ideological fat acceptance message that denies reality such as Ragen Chastain who matches Wann in being midsized and relatively healthy. This "fat activist" even brags of doing Ironmans. How many severely obese people are lining up for 100 mile bicycle rides paired with 2 miles of swimming? It's not even realistic.

While we are poisoned and fattening up--as I grow older, I can see with my own eyes that more people are growing bigger, the truth is sequestered under the self-responsibility at any cost crowd and the "fat and healthy" HAES and fat acceptance crowd. Only a few researchers are pursuing any truth as most of society remains insane and delusional about fat. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Weight of the Nation Serves Up More Fat Shame"


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

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




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

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

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


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

I always hate language that is manipulative.

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

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




Hmm Marilyn Wann makes a nod to the environment. Know that she is talking about the latest discussion and research related to the Obesogenic "environment". Discussed multiple times on this blog and in those articles about the latest obesity research. Guess that one surprised me.  Well it would seem that the newer research about the toxins in our food and world and how these things have come to work together to upset the metabolic system, that Marilyn Wann would actually be able with some logic to say "I care about fat people and want them the healthiest they can be, and if people are having their metabolisms altered by adulterated food, and toxins in the environment that is something that should be stopped". I guess I am a dreamer aren't I?  These community activist rabble rouster types do seem to lose sight of what should be their focus.

When the initial frenzy of Weight of the Nation has calmed down -- after everyone has enjoyed this round of hating fat people and there's been a healthy boost to budgets, profits, viewership, and ad revenue -- I predict we'll hit the same wall that every dieter encounters: the return to reality.

I suggest that reality is not so bad. To keep a grip, ask yourself:

Would you question the motives behind any other national PR campaign designed "for your own good" by major media, corporations, and the government?

1. I guestion the motives of PR campaigns in general. I know the diet industry wants their profits, but then I question the motives of the OTHER SIDE. Why do some seem so focused on honoring FAT itself so much above the people who are carrying it around? And that is supposed to be  the spokeswomen FOR fat people?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Obesity Lies Are Destroying Fat People

This one may anger some size acceptance supporters. While I am against discrimination against fat people I never have been a "fat celebrator". Something is very wrong with so many of us Americans growing so fat, and I stand by my conjecture that the truth is being ignored. The obesity lies rule.

Just like in politics where's there is only two non-choices between the Democrat and Republican parties which both advance tyranny and corporate rule, in the obesity world, we have the diet queens and kings, [aka Fat Logic crowd]  who will tell us it is all a choice, while some of the other side gives us HAES, and tells us we need to "accept and love" being fat.  All I know is being fat sucks. Saying being fat sucks breaks the size acceptance code. Yeah I know it does but there is a place called reality.

I never liked being fat and hate it. I mean this is not a secret on this blog. This has nothing to do with thinking I am ugly. It has everything to do with the sheer mechanics of it all. For me it is not a choice. It causes me pain. When I "exercise" and I do have a rule to take a walk everyday, it means pain, and going off in autopilot just to keep moving and functioning.  Being fat has cost me a lot! I'm never going to sing the joys of fat along with Marilyn Wann. Socio-economically Marilyn Wann never had to worry about stretching a little disability check either.  I will never forget the conversation I had on her forum years and years ago when I was at my peak weight and dying, and given the "size acceptance lines" instead of any empathy. These midsized women can walk, can function, they do not live in my world. Saying you hate being fat and admitting these feelings is not kosher in some areas of the size acceptance world.

This doesn't mean I bow at the feet of the diet industrial complex. Their answers don't work either. Their adherence to CICO like a religion disgusts me. CICO is an absolute joke to me. Some may say "Oh you are an outliner" with your rare fat disorder, but I think it's failing everyone.  I am tired of being called a liar and given a fantasy that does not work. They have their "false religious doctrines" too. They have failed me and millions of others. Diets are like mystery jokes to me. They do not work. I believe even trying to diet severely worsened my diabetes in 2014. I have shrinked down my food even more to control my diabetes and it's been cut down financially and still "nothing". Exercise while I have to do it, just bring more pain and fluids to take off.  In the case of insulin-dependent diabetes, there is no free eating, no pig out a thons if you don't want to die. I had to up the insulin 5 units to stay in the 110-120s for fasting blood sugars.

                                       Why are so many people getting so fat and sick? And why is it to be "accepted" and not fought with "answers" that work?

Given this painful life that has been ruined by fat or  in my case, a rare fat disorder and I still want to pursue an official Dercums diagnosis [one main expert on Lipedema says if you are advanced enough in stage IV, it means Dercums] I don't have much patience with what I see the "normalization" of fat in American society. Just like in politics we are given too non-choices, submit to the diet industrial dreams that don't work for most fat people, or stay fat and be told we have to like it, and "accept it"--the promotion of fat. The two work along aside one another. Sometimes I ask why aren't more fat people like me demanding answers? We are suffering and dying younger. Tight faced grins loving our fat isn't working and the diets are failing. Why am I so alone in this? Why do so few people ask the same questions? 

I guess this is why even the Lipedema world seems hung up on diets, diets, diets to lose "non-Lipedema" fat and specialized liposuction to suck the fluids and fat off still focusing on the fat and on the other hand preaching size acceptance.  Supposedly all these diets from Paleo to Vegan are supposed to rescue me from the ravages of severe Lipedema. How about I'm tired of being fat and get these fluids off me and get my body burning food and working the right way? They work to cure other diseases why not this "rare fat disorder"? There's more to this then the fat, there's the pain, the fat tumors, the fluids, the hormonal imbalances. Wake up people!

Fat people are sliding through the cracks. Being this old, I know people are getting fatter and sicker all over the place. Why is there this acceptance of people getting more fat and sicker, and this being seen as a 'good thing' on one side, and the other side just wants to tell us, it's all our fault, you're not eating and exercising the exact right way! They say "Make changes, and you will be thin", and it's not working!" So we stay fat and we get sicker and are judged and told we are "failing" and one side hates us and thinks we are fat and "lazy losers" and the other side says "Smile, be happy to be fat!" , "Be Fat and Be Proud!","You are a beautiful goddess!" where we have to wear a smile for the rest of the world. "I'm the brave, happy fat woman! I'm an inspiration". Honestly,  I'm sick of it all!

                                                  Sure shame sucks, but as her body grows larger and larger doesn't she want more answers?

There's times I am so angry, I don't even know how to explain it dealing with this garbage.  I am tired of being told I have "control" over this body or that it was my choice and on the other hand being told to "suck it up", "this is your lot" and "you must accept it" is crap too. I spent 17 years of my life trying to get diagnosed with my Lipedema and I almost died several times of sepsis, basically at one point watching a leg almost rot off and my stomach and yes there was the taint of the sweet smell of gangrene around it all. I spent my 20s and 30s constantly in the hospital being told this was "my fault". I know some people read this blog thinking I am a crazy woman, but why don't I get in line and join size acceptance and "be happy to be fat" or shut up and go on some diet and "lose weight". Well the diets don't work and aren't working and I'm fighting all the time not to gain and to be able to walk at all and I lost 180lbs years ago which kept me alive but am still super-fat and while I will stand against fat discrimination, I wonder where my heroes are. Why am I the only one out there saying FIX THIS!!!!!!!!!!! instead of ACCEPT IT?

Obesity past a certain point causes health problems, and what I am seeing is the two non-answers united together. As sick as I am, I don't mind when people say things like "no body shame", I don't want to be shamed and blamed anymore but something seems weird with Whitney sitting there wearing that shirt. Obviously she has to know being fat is ruining her life as an dancer. In her case she has PCOS, but maybe some demands for better treatment would serve women with PCOS better then doing the "The Don't Shame Me" Size acceptance dance". She is still at a functional weight but very close to a weight where she could easily tip over into disability. As she ages, her body will be in for some hurt. This is not to put her down but it is reality. We need more reality and truth when it comes to obesity. Authoritarian demands that don't work paired with focusing on the "feelings" as people's bodies break down isn't cutting it. Pushing denial as if fat was a comfortable state to be in, especially in higher weights just betrays people like me.

                                        How many healthy 500lb people do you know? This applies to the midsized but not to people like me.

Fat people have dealt with enough of that, but what about the question, "Why are we growing so fat?" "Why are our bodies growing more huge and the proscribed diets and lifestyles failing?"  Why is the automatic answer to the diet industrial failures-- "put up with our breaking down bodies without demanding real answers?"

 I believe we are being fattened up and while some can argue it's by design, where some would shout "Be quiet you tin-hatters!", it can be mere human malfeasance, stupidity, greed and the outcome of the growing toxins of modern day life. All I know is the push to NORMALIZE fat bothers me especially as people grow larger and sicker, it worries me. It's like we are all going to be squashed to death between the fat celebrators and the fat diet industrial myth makers. There's a lot being ignored in our industrial society except by a few researchers. When I found out years ago they fattened up cattle by giving them antibiotics, I thought what about human beings?

                                           Ever notice size 22 is okay but cross the size 26 Rubicon and there's no more clothes to be bought in stores?

So between the "normalization" and "acceptance"."promotion" of fat and the diet lies, I have felt squashed.  HAES to me meant a death sentence and "acceptance" of a body that almost led to my death by my late 20s. The diet industrial complex has failed me too.

Some questions:

1. Do you think people in the 1950s had to starve, diet, and sweat over every lettuce leaf to be a "normal weight?" They just lived and their body worked. As I have written before, take a look at old pictures of crowds, fat people are rare even "average" people are far smaller and more slight. Do you believe the mind control antics now that tell us the thin are all thin because they diet and exercise and never eat anything "bad" and are all thin because they are more moral and "harder-working" people? Remember while there was weight lifting gyms in the 50s, this was prior to the days of Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda and aerobics clubs. The whole world is getting more fat.  Soon almost our entire population will be fat. Almost half now classify as obese:

2. Have you ever wondered why there are so many fat people now where people in the 300s are "normal"? Back in the old days, even 300 used to be rare. You were told you were on death's door. Now 300 is considered a "small-fat". I remember being 230lbs and being treated like I was a giant and now 230 is "near normal" and barely anyone blinks an eye at it.  Have you ever asked yourself why people are growing so huge and what in the hell is wrong? Remember if you are new to this blog, I am a woman that reached near 700lbs and am now around 500. When I go out in public, I see fat people all over the place, there's still plenty of thin ones, but at least half are "fat" fat. This is unprecendented in human history.

3. Did everyone wake up one day and decide to be lazy? People still have to clean their houses, go to work, walk in large stores and walk to do other things. People had cars in the 1950s and some labor saving devices. Some buy the lie that people of our modern era are lazy and don't want to do anything and that is why everyone has grown fatter. Before I had my massive weight gain, I loved to walk for miles. I never was home. I was ACTIVE.  There is less leisure but more people are working. Much of our fattening working class are forced to work on their feet in factories and other manual labor jobs. I got fat even working at a residential counselor job that required hours on my feet, walking around, shopping, cleaning and driving clients around to various appointments and home visits. One thing I have noticed is even the working class people who work on their feet, sweeping the factory floors or cleaning up houses still are fatter then the thinner upper classes.

4. Do you think I have the right to be angry? That I am being lied to? That fat people should demand real answers instead of nothing but lies and fantasy? I'm not losing weight on less food and I'm in pain today from walking a lot the last two days.  What else am I supposed to do?  There's aspects of the fat acceptance movement I agree with, but as people know here I have spoken out against a lot of the false ideology too. Too much of the size acceptance world with it's "healthy" midsized people, lies to me just as much as the diet mongers who tell me if I eat "the right way" that my body will change into a more normal body. Fat people deserve better and I am sick of it.

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"

Seeing Through the Obesity Lies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Weight of the Nation Serves Up More Fat Shame"

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

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




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

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

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

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

I always hate language that is manipulative.

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

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

Hmm Marilyn Wann makes a nod to the environment. Know that she is talking about the latest discussion and research related to the Obesogenic "environment". Discussed multiple times on this blog and in those articles about the latest obesity research. Guess that one surprised me.  Well it would seem that the newer research about the toxins in our food and world and how these things have come to work together to upset the metabolic system, that Marilyn Wann would actually be able with some logic to say "I care about fat people and want them the healthiest they can be, and if people are having their metabolisms altered by adulterated food, and toxins in the environment that is something that should be stopped". I guess I am a dreamer aren't I?  These community activist rabble rouster types do seem to lose sight of what should be their focus.

When the initial frenzy of Weight of the Nation has calmed down -- after everyone has enjoyed this round of hating fat people and there's been a healthy boost to budgets, profits, viewership, and ad revenue -- I predict we'll hit the same wall that every dieter encounters: the return to reality.

I suggest that reality is not so bad. To keep a grip, ask yourself:

Would you question the motives behind any other national PR campaign designed "for your own good" by major media, corporations, and the government?

1. I guestion the motives of PR campaigns in general. I know the diet industry wants their profits, but then I question the motives of the OTHER SIDE. Why do some seem so focused on honoring FAT itself so much above the people who are carrying it around? And that is supposed to be  the spokeswomen FOR fat people?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whitney Thore: Living without Shame

I have written about the odd double messages being given to fat people in our media. One guy mentioned elsewhere that TLC is owned by Comcast which is part of a megacorporation that owns multiple mainstream food corporations. I agree with not being under the lash of shame, but I still stand by my belief that "acceptance" of these broken down and painful bodies is not doing us any favors. Whitney can refuse shame  and that's a good thing, but all we have to do is watch her show is to see that in reality fat is hurting her. She passes out exercising, hurts her back in the shower. Fat people need to make a stand for real treatment that will work or demand that real answers are sought.

One thing I notice is she was in far smaller sizes and more midsized for a very long time. Her history seem to match mine. She even mentions that she stopped having periods after only one or twice at 15. For me, they all disappeared at age 19 and would not returned unless forced by drugs like Provera until I was 47 years old [last year] and going on insulin. That means for almost 30 years my body had no periods on it's own.  Her doctors need to assess her for more severe forms of PCOS, her androgen levels and other health problems. Fat acceptance sometimes if taken to the extreme can damage those with extreme health problems influencing their weight. I used to make people angry in size acceptance telling them I know something is wrong, I have gained so much. There I was refuting the healthy and happy lies shoved down all our throats.

Whitney is a walking contradiction. Her fat is hurting her, she's ill but she still preaches the accept fat message and that bugs me. I agree with no shame or no discrimination but she could be using her fame to demand better answers, to confront CICO, to say LOOK something here more is wrong. Don't go with the shame and lies.  I am noticing now webwide people leave rude remarks on her videos and pictures. They say things like "she's just making excuses" and this one I hate quite a bit: "PCOS doesn't make anyone fat."

 She mentions her insulin resistance. Mine got very very bad. Oddly on insulin, my endless dark patches of dark brown skin have disappeared to go along with the returned periods. The back of my legs were covered in this brown velvet. During the weight gain, it was all over my neck, armpits and knees. It has faded ever since I have been on insulin. Perhaps some should get a clue that some of us are canaries in the coal mine for the endocrine disruptors or that there are extreme rare states of health.

She is fortunate she had the health and money to teach in Korea and go to the Great Wall of China. To me that is evidence she was exercising quite a bit. Travel takes walking. I worked at a camp in 1988. I was midsized and walked around 2-3 miles a day but unlike the other camp counselors, I wasn't firming up from all the exercising or losing weight. The food was gross and even there my intake was massively reduced, but it made no difference. She discusses getting assaulted. This happened to me when I was young too but in America. I had to be tough just to walk around.

She tries to lose weight. That fits my pattern. I fight the same 100lbs over and over. I lost that original 250 which 160 of has always stayed off from the peak weight but it's like running uphill. The crap they promise me that will work never does. My body swells up. I got gung ho, just so you all know, "to lose weight", since I could breathe better on that lung medicine, everytime I left the house, I was like "I gotta take a walk!" and diabetes was forcing very restricted eating and I didn't lose anything! It is enough to bring insanity to a person. And then one gets beaten up at every turn by society. "You're to blame, You're to blame", said over and over.

I have written before unless she has a serious eating disorder, she has something physically wrong even beyond the diagnosed PCOS. PCOS they don't do much for. I got a hormonal drug for PCOS for 15 years that helped take some weight off via lowering the androgens. I was forced off it for a kidney drug I need to stay alive and keep kidney stones away. Most people with PCOS don't even get that degree of treatment. I wish she did not tout the 1 in 10 women crap. I don't believe 10 percent of women have PCOS, and never will I believe that 11 percent of women have Lipedema. When they throw these numbers around they devalue the experience of those of us who suffer intensely from rare severe disorders.

Sadly, she has to get naked, for the photographers. How come they always want fat people naked in art but I digress? There are lower status in society is ever present and shows itself. If someone asked me to get naked for art, I would say I will wear a Victorian without a corset dress for you but naked, hell no.

If you read the comments at the video, her message is failing to get across. They call her fat pig, say she is an eating addict. Fat will never be solved in a stupid society that refuses to see outside of prejudice, but there too HAES and fat "acceptance" won't fix it either.  Whistling by the graveyard as fat comes on us, and literally weighs us down is not doing us favors either. 
God gave me enough self love to fight back. This blog came about from me saying Look I am going to tell my story and I don't care what mainstream society says, but I am going to demand more answers.

 I know even in some in size acceptance see me as a wild haired "crazy" nut, who refuses to buy into the mainstream.  I was silenced in some fat circles. It got serious on facebook groups and more. I rejected the two sides of accepting my "fat" and endless being beaten up by the diet industrial complex. 

Whitney if she wants real help, will have to see "outside the matrix", so to speak but the problem is, this society doesn't want truth about fat. The "acceptance of fat" goes hand in hand with the brainwashing about fat people.  While her message of no shame has no merit, I wish she asked some of the questions I do. Sadly the mainstream media would never allow it.

My articles on Whitney Thore