I've been reading Health at Every Size by Dr. Linda Bacon (what a fantastic name for somebody who has a profession that concerns eating and nutrition), and it's been an interesting eye-opener. It's pretty intriguing finding out about the variety of reasons that exist for people being overweight (more now than ever, allegedly) and the health impacts of that (such as they really are, not as they're said to be by people hoping to sell you a diet or pill or surgery). I'm enjoying it, but my attention to it has been side-tracked somewhat by my going on little holidays and watching Korean dramas and reality shows.
I needed a break from watching shit in Korean (a language that, despite my listening to it pretty much constantly for the past three days, I still do not understand the workings of. I'm going to have to investigate it in more detail, because I'm kind of fascinated now), so I thought I'd do what I've been wanting to do for a while, and alter my purple skinny jeans.
For those not in the know (so, pretty much everyone), these jeans were purchased for 20 quid (a really good price for jeans), and they are purple and skinny. Yay. Unfortunately "skinny" is a difficult term to fulfill for jeans for fatties, because fatties come in different sizes. These jeans I felt did a pretty good job, but they were still baggy down to the knees. I put up with them for a while, all the while thinking that i'll eventually tighten them up and make them the true skinny jeans they should be. And this is the result:
Picture one: one knee bent.
Picture two: other knee bent.
I know. My variety of poses astounds even me sometimes. :P
Basically I took up two inches at the bottom and took in different amounts from the side seam. It took me a few tries to make the bottoms of the legs wide enough for me to be able to fit my foot in, but I think it's all right now. The tightness of these is such that I feel a bit like Taemin from SHINee during the Hello video:
He's second from the left, and it basically looks like he had to be sewn into those trousers. He looks good though, which is kind of weird because the trousers seem to have been matched up with his mother's best going-out knitted jumper. hmm...
Anyway, they're tight, but comfortable. I don't feel constricted or anything. My only concern is that they might be susceptible to falling down. My shape is a bit funny. I carry my weight on my belly, and as a result I have something of an overhang, and since I only wear waist-high trousers the top part (the part I wouldn't have if I were to wear hipsters, or as I like to call them, the most effective method out there for showing your arse crack to the world) has to be comparatively roomy. So I've kind of altered these with that in mind, and they're not a weird shape at the top. I'll only be wearing them with shirts that cover my body to the tops of my legs, that much is certain.
Anyway, on to my other topic. A month ago some Biggest Loser spinoff involving family members came out in Australia. I dislike The Biggest Loser as a concept in itself, since it sounds pretty degrading and the contestants are putting themselves through hell to lose weight that they'll most likely put back on. One thing I will say is that it apparently teaches good eating and exercise habits. I wonder if any fatties already practising good eating and exercise habits ever get on the show... anyway, this bloke in Brisbane decided to write about it, and he says a few things that I thought I'd copy/paste onto here:
They (the writer's children) also thought it was a bit unfair to people who really needed help that most of them would be kicked off the show. “Why can't they just stay on until they're better?”
The post criticises the nature of these sorts of TV shows. It's not really realist TV, there's still directors and crew there, etc. Interestingly enough the writer was quick to say that his children, having him for a father, understand very well about it all being set up for the camera. I'm amused by his indirectly implying that the rest of us are gibbering morons who wouldn't have told our kids the very same thing at some point in time. Anyway, I object to the "really needed help" and the "until they're better" part of this quote, obviously. To imply that obese people are either in desperate need of help or in someway ill discredits both the obese people in question and the people who are sick/in desperate need of help.
as a parent fresh fruit, oatmeal for breakfast, drinking lots of water, and playing sport rather than Nintendo DS, is a hell of a hard sell. The grotesque obesity on display in Biggest Loser makes explaining the benefits of good nutrition and exercise that much easier.
Well, perhaps. I'd argue that it's more likely to make children utterly terrified of becoming fat, which will ultimately lead to incredibly unhealthy weight-loss and dieting practices. The reporter talks about shows like the biggest loser being a great way to get kids to see the supposed dangers of being overweight. He doesn't like these shows, he says, but the way they present their "grotesquely obese" participants is stark, cold, "real", and that will make said kids "careful". I kind of wonder if his opinion would change if any of his kids ended up fat anyway.
Also, for explaining the benefits of good nutrition and exercise... well, no, I don't think these shows would make it easier. Even if good nutrition and exercise were an iron-clad guarantee for thinness, the biggest loser is showing one benefit to looking after yourself, and one benefit only: not being overweight. Bugger all that shit about living longer and feeling healthier and being able to do more physically. Those things are small players compared to the "not being overweight" benefit. "not being overweight" is the only benefit kids need to know about.
There is another element to the movement, however, that's more problematic; a belief that obesity is not so much a health problem as a political or cultural construct. In the face of constant warnings from the medical profession about the dangers of letting ourselves get fat flies an argument that it's really not a big deal.
And to take issue with this argument is to hazard yourself to being described as a douchebag for hating fat people.
I've been seeing this sort of argument everywhere. It seems as though the issue many have with FA is that obesity is a severe health issue, and people actively involved in the FA movement are just as actively ignoring that.
News for you, mate: it's not an issue of us ignoring something. It's an issue of us refusing to acknowledge a lie that has been propegated by a society concerned with image and conformity. It actually kind of boggles my mind how much the world has been influenced by the diet industry. You will scarcely find a person alive that believes there is hardly any direct correlation between fatness and poor health, and that is just astounding. I think that one of the biggest hurdles the FA movement will have to address in the future is this widely-held belief. People seem so unable to, even for a small period of time, enter what is apparantly a bizarre alternative universe that says, well, no, actually, it is your conscious actions that effect your health, not how much extra weight you carry.
As for "taking issue with this argument", which this reporter obviously does, I would personally like to invite him to have a cry. We're hating on people like you because you're refusing to listen to us. That's all.
I will admit though, there are some pretty sensitive people in the FA movement.
The original article is here, and I recommend having a read. Unlike past blogs I've read, I think this chap is pretty clever and his arguments are relatively sound, if based on misguided information. The article is as much on exploitative TV as it is on the FA movement, so there is some worth in the article.
Because I'm the kind of sad masochist that enjoys upsetting herself at 2:30 in the morning, I had a scan down and read some of the comments. It was your usual fat-hating masquerade, but I thought I'd show some anyway. These are commonly-held opinions, people!
I'll say it, Obesity is disgusting, unhealthy and almost without exception the result of someone who did not know when to say no. I am 37 and recently looked over some old primary and high school photos, the fatties where a slim (boom tish) minority, now they are everywhere. Sorry, but there has not been some mysterious illness that has stuck the population in the last 30 years that has lead to the condition, nothing more than idleness and complacency.
Stop whining, eat some vegies, step away from the burger and get some bloody exercise, it is not difficult. When there are millions of people every day not knowing where their next meal is coming from it is revolting and selfish to sit on your fat acre cramming garbage down your neck and moaning about being so fat.
Go on, skip a meal, know what it feels like to be hungry, remember what it feels like to be hungry; it is not something to be feared, once your body looses the ability to gauge hunger and fullness obesity is luring around the corner. Try not eating until you really feel you need to, then have some veggies and wholegrains and lean protein, walk away before you feel like you want to spew, in fact go for a walk!!!!
Looks like SOMEBODY'S on their period and just saw a fat person having lunch.
While it's true we've not been struck dumb by some horrible fat-causing illness in the past 30 years, I think any gibbering moron who's in the 50s can say that the food we eat has changed. There's now much more pre-packaging, more of a reliance on fast food, etc. Are you sure it's not that that's making us fatter?
I like to think that, as you go about your daily life, you're surrounded by fat people jiggling their fat rolls at you, giving you nightmares. That's the only image I really get when you say that fat people are "everywhere". Believe me mate, we're not. If we were than we'd be the norm.
I'm actually really insulted by that second paragraph. How dare you say that we're selfish, or that we in some way don't know about how many millions of people in this world are starving? It is not US in the FA movement that are moaning about being fat. It is fat people who are NOT in the FA movement that are moaning about being fat. The fatties who are on YOUR SIDE. As for it not being that hard to lose weight, I'd like to see you try to do it.
And also, "go on, skip a meal"?! Yeah, like THAT'S good for you.
I realise this guy wasn't worth my time, but the comment is (mostly) kind of amusing, don't you think?
I'm a health worker and several times we've had patients come in who are morbidly obese and yet appear to be in denial of the seriousness of their illness. One gentleman was unable to walk more than a few metres yet he claimed he didn't eat a lot at all (there were no underlying pathologies).
Again with obesity being an illness. C'mon, guys. Placing obesity in the same category as heart disease and cancer is doing an incredible disservice to all parties. Obesity is a state, OK? Just like being black, female, or gay. Of course, homosexuality is considered an illness in some places as well.
Also, how about entertaining the possibility that that one gentleman might be telling the truth?
The fact of the matter from a casual observance at any local shopping centre is that the average aussie is indeed getting bigger. Unfortunately this idea of fat politics that fat people have rights too ignores the looming health sector catastrophe of rising proportions of the general population contracting diabetes, heart disease, and cancers all related to everyone being heavier.
All right, let's consider something else. Recent rises in diabetes, heart disease and cancers? During the last 30 or 40 years, maybe? Is that recent enough for you? All right, well what else, I therefore ask, has risen substantially? If you answered 'medical diagnoses', you're smarter than I thought. Can we therefore not entertain the possibility that the actual cases of these conditions has not risen, but the diagnosed number of cases has? Is that an unrealistic idea?
A thoughtful piece, JB. I just hope that the people who comment will exercise a fraction of the sensitivity you have today.
They haven't so far I'm afraid, buddy. And I dunno about sensitivity. He was eloquent, sure, but there was a fair amount of self-righteousness and cockiness there too.
Well people still continue to smoke despite the fact its lost a fair bit of its cool factor and it still kills more people than anything else going around.
Humans can be incredibly selfish and hide behind "its my right to do what i want" without actually thinking through the consequences.
This one interested me. Yeah about the smoking, but is 'selfish' really the right argument here? Selfishness implies that you're doing something without care for the consequences towards other people. Does smoking, or any other unhealthy behaviour, damage anybody else's health (ignoring all that second-hand smoke stuff)? I'd argue that it is a person's decision to do what they want to themselves, but is it a selfish decision if the decision doesn't impact on you, and everybody else has that same right as well?
Obesity's unhealthy and ugly (unless you're a fat fetishist - look it up) but something uglier is the revulsion most people feel comfortable airing about it.
So somebody's fat. Who gives a damn? By and large, fat people aren't ignorant, and are well aware they're fat. So what purpose does disgust and mockery serve, apart from making fools feel superior?
This incessant need people feel to control others and demand they behave a certain way, makes me far f**kin sicker than some half-tonne hippo gorging themselves to an early grave on extra-cheese pizza.
Ending on this one. OK, "unhealthy" is something society's led you to believe, and "ugly" is your personal opinion. But you know what? To the rest of your comment, I have but one thing to say: Fucking SPOT ON.
So what say the rest of you?
